Her eyes were huge in her face, and even in the dark room they were shadowed. The stench of fear and pain stil clung to her skin, which might have been why she’d buried her nose in his scent instead. Or maybe she just craved it, as he craved hers. He could struggle with that craving, even hate himself for it, but he’d learned that ignoring it was too dangerous, leaving him too off-balance and unstable to control himself as he needed to.

He was a creature of instinct and she cal ed to that primal part of him in a way he couldn’t afford to ignore or marginalize.

“We’re already late getting back,” she said, attempting to turn away as if to reach for her clothes.

He caught her with a gentle but firm grip on her elbow. The feel of her skin against his fingertips was like satin, and a powerful jolt shot through him. “Come here.”

“Elijah—”

Tugging her closer, he gripped her nape and pul ed her face into the crook of his neck, where he knew his scent would be concentrated. She inhaled sharply, then sighed. A heartbeat later she was nuzzling her face into his skin, her lips feathering over his rapidly elevating pulse. He wondered if she knew how much pleasure her gesture gave a lycan, then decided she didn’t, which was for the best. She didn’t need to have any more ammunition to use against him.

Closing his eyes, he absorbed the feeling of her lushness pressed against him and the blessed lack of tension between them. Her height was just right and her curves molded into his harder frame as if they were two halves of a whole. A perfect fit…with the absolute wrong woman. “What do you dream about, Vashti?”

She stiffened and tried to pul away, but he’d anticipated that and held tight.

“Let me go,” she said crossly.

“Not gonna happen.”

“I could make you.”

His hand fisted in her hair, pul ing her head back to look into his eyes. “You can ask me nicely and I’l think about it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Wel , that’s not a very nice way to ask, but okay.”

A laugh escaped her and was quickly stifled, but it was breathtaking while it lasted. Deep and husky, it was rusty, but as ful -bodied as she was.

He scooped her up and set one knee on the mattress, then the other, until he reached the center, where he laid her out. Joining her, he stretched out along his side and propped his head in his hand. He laid the other on her taut, smooth stomach with his fingers splayed, holding her down without pressure while also anchoring her for his questions.

“Who hurt you, Vashti?”

She shook her head. “It’s none of your business.”

“Sure it is. I can’t kil them if I don’t know who they are.”

“It’s not your problem.”

“The hel it isn’t.”

“We screwed around once. Don’t make anything out of it.”

“Actual y”—he grinned—“it was more like a dozen screws. Give or take a few.”

“Leave it alone, puppy.”

“Can’t do that.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Shit. You’re a fuckin’ Boy Scout, aren’t you? Saving the world one problem at a time.”

“I’m helping you find the ones who kil ed your mate, but you won’t trust me with those who hurt you? Do I get to you in some way, Vash?” he goaded. “Do I make you feel vulnerable?”

“You flatter yourself.”

“So put me in my place.”

Vash took a deep breath, her muscular abdomen lifting into his palm. “Syre took care of it.”

“Took care of what?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Elijah. It’s done and over with. Ancient history.”

“You’re gonna tel me.” He lifted his hand to her mouth, running his thumb across her bottom lip. He slid it inside when she started to protest.

“Maybe not today, but soon.”

He groaned when she sucked on his finger, her bottom teeth scoring over the pad. His cock lengthened and thickened, remembering what it felt like to have her mouth on him. She’d taken from him by force what he would’ve given her wil ingly, but the pleasure had been there nevertheless, his hunger for her so sharp he’d wanted her however he could have her. But what he real y needed was to be gentle with her and she needed that tenderness, even though she fought so damned hard against it. Fought enough for both of them.

He parted her lips with a gentle downward press of his thumb and bent his head to lick teasingly inside, barely enough for her to feel him. As badly as he’d wanted to devour her in the parking lot the night before, he wanted something softer and sweeter now.

Her hand wrapped around his wrist. “We don’t have time for this. We’ve got a lot to get done.”

Cupping her cheek, he took her mouth in a deep, wet kiss. He kept the pace slow when she tried to speed it up, resisting giving her the swift plunges of his tongue that she begged for with her plaintive whimpers and heated enthusiasm. Instead he stroked and he licked. His lips moved softly against hers.

She gasped, slinging one long, lean leg over his hip. “Stop playing with me.”

Elijah rol ed over her and pinned her down. Linking their fingers, he restrained her hands on either side of her head. “We need to play, Vashti. I need to. After this last week…the last fucking month, real y.”

She stared up at him, looking younger and more fragile than he’d ever seen her. She was ageless, a fal en angel who’d existed for mil ennia.

She’d kil ed countless beings, some viciously, as she had Micah, and she would kil countless more. And yet she was soft and lax in his arms, warm and open, exposed for a moment due to a nightmare she’d avoided facing for decades. He wondered if he would ever have her like this again or if she would always be as she’d been last night, brutal y determined to objectify him.

And he wondered why he gave a shit either way when he was going to kil her.

“You like me,” he murmured, sliding his tongue along her bottom lip, which was plump and swol en from his kisses.

“I want you. There’s a difference.”

“I like you.”

Vash turned her head away from his mouth. “Don’t.”

“Trust me, I wish I didn’t.” He settled comfortably in the cradle of her thighs. “You shouldn’t be afraid of liking me. I won’t use it against you, except when I need my cock in you. You’l like that, too, once I show you how it’s real y going to be between us, without al the bul shit you pul ed last night.”

He nuzzled his nose between her breasts, breathing in her luscious scent now mingled with his own. “There’s no chance that us liking each other wil change our agreement. You like that about me, too—that I keep my word.”

Her hands lifted to his waist and he hummed his approval. He was a lycan; he liked to be touched. Petted.

“You’re trying to piss me off,” she said, before sinking a fang through his earlobe.

The sweet nip of pain swel ed his dick to the point of aching. Provoked, he rocked his hips against hers, nudging against her cleft. “Why would I do that?”

“You k-know why.” Her slender arms wrapped around him. “I know why.”

Because a pissed-off Vashti he could deal with. It was the newly discovered, tormented one that shredded him. She was so strong and fearless.

To see such a magnificent woman reduced to cowering fear offended him deeply, made him want to rip something—or someone—apart.

Her fingers walked down his spine, eliciting a soft growl of pleasure. “Thank you for irritating me.”

“Actions speak louder than words. Touch me, Vashti.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.” The way he needed her to but wouldn’t explain, not after the rough night they’d had. He could want her and like her, but needing her was too much. Didn’t make any damn sense. But then he wasn’t at his best now. In some ways, perhaps, the violent upheaval in his life had left him as raw as she was.

She moaned when he plumped her tit in his hand, then hissed as his mouth surrounded her and his tongue flicked lightly over her hardening nipple.

He also liked to lick.

“Mmm…” She arched her spine, pushing her lushness into his working lips. “You’re a breast man.”

He was a Vash man, but kept that to himself. Instead he wal owed in her, breathing in the cherry-sweet scent of her that drove him out of his mind.

She responded by pushing her fingers into his hair and kneading his scalp, holding him close. His eyes closed on a groan. A shudder racked his frame.

“Can you be so easy to pleasure, lycan?” she asked softly.

“Why don’t you try and see what happens?”

CHAPTER 8

“Father.”

Syre glanced over at his son standing in the doorway and took one last, deep drink from the wrist at his mouth. He licked the wound closed and lifted his head, looking into the dazed blue eyes of the sexy brunette who’d been feeding him. “Get some orange juice, Kel y, and go lie down for an hour or two.”

She blinked, coming to a ful er awareness. Her mouth curved as she focused on him, completely unaware that she’d just donated a pint of blood to his diet. “Come with me.”

“I’l join you,” he promised, looking forward to it. Kel y was hot to get fucked, having come into Raceport for the express purpose of indulging in as much booze and sex as she could get her hands on. He’d careful y cultivated Raceport to become a premier destination for bikers and their babes, needing the adventurous transients to fuel the proliferation of cabals and covens in the area. The abundance of sexual partners was a side benefit he hadn’t considered in advance, but was certainly appreciative of now.

Sex was one of the few activities in his life that made him feel…human. For a little while.

Pouting, she pushed to her feet and tossed her long hair over her shoulder. Her midriff was bared by her cropped tank and her legs were exposed by super-short cutoff jeans. Her slender arms were covered in sleeves of tattoos, and her navel was pierced with a tiny silver ring. Syre enjoyed the view despite its inability to truly inspire him. He preferred a different sort of female, mature and discerning, but he’d long ago realized what a mistake he was in those women’s lives. He could give nothing but physical pleasure, which eventual y turned into emotional pain. So he’d learned to ignore what suited him best in favor of partnering with women whom he best suited, even though that was very rarely one and the same.

“The sooner you leave, Kel y,” Torque said drily, “the sooner he’l join you.”

She turned, realizing they weren’t alone in his suite after al . For a moment, she looked irritated; then her gaze swept over Torque, warming with interest.

The resemblance between him and Torque was so slight as to be almost nonexistent. Like his twin, Shadoe, Torque had taken after their mother in his facial features. He was shorter than Syre by half a foot, lean in the waist and hips but thick with muscle in the thighs, arms, and chest. His brutal y short hair was spiked in opposing directions, the thick Asian locks dyed a shocking green at the tips. It was a style that suited both his sloe eyes and his sharp-edged lifestyle. Torque managed a chain of clubs that offered haven to fledgling minions while also catering to the hungers of elder vampires.

Licking her lips, Kel y offered, “Why don’t you join us, too?”

Torque’s face stayed hard, his heart too freshly shattered by the loss of his mate, Nikki, to even think about sex. “Sorry. Sharing pussy with Syre is a bit too incestuous for my tastes.”

“Incestuous?” She frowned and glanced at Syre, who appeared to be about ten years older than Torque’s mid-twenties appearance. “No way are you related.”

Syre caught her gaze and murmured, “Go.”

The compulsion settled into her mind and she nodded, exiting the room with a dreamy smile.

“They never believe me,” Torque said, coming deeper into the room and dropping into a black leather wingback.

“How are you?”

“You keep asking me that.”

“You keep being evasive.” He knew his son’s pain, had experienced it himself when he’d lost his mate so very, very long ago. And Torque was a naphil, one of the nephalim children he and the other Fal en had created with their mortal mates before their fal . The nephalim were halflings, part angel and part mortal. Unlike the Fal en or minions, they had souls. They felt joy and pain more deeply; Syre’s lingering grief was a shadow of what his beloved son felt.

“I’m terrible,” Torque said bluntly. “The Alpha told Vashti the truth: there was anticoagulant in the blood we found at the site of Nikki’s abduction, which makes it possible he was set up to take the blame. I’m back at square one looking for whoever took her from me.”

“We’l find them,” Syre promised, vengeance hot and fierce in his veins. It was the overriding emotion in his life of late, as his careful y constructed world crumbled around him.

“Don’t count on it. The cabal in Anaheim has been slaughtered. Every single member.”

Syre hissed out his breath. “An angel somewhere is covering his or her tracks. Whose side are they are on? They steal Lindsay from Adrian and deliver her into my hands, then vanquish the vampires who saw to her delivery.”

“Who the fuck knows?” Torque’s booted foot rapped out a frustrated staccato on the hardwood floor. “Even if it is an angel, there’s no guarantee it was a Sentinel. It could be a winged class of demon who took her from Angels’ Point, for al we know.”

“Who else would have access to stored lycan blood but a Sentinel?” Adrian’s cryogenic storage facilities were wel guarded by Sentinels. Not even the lycans themselves had access to their own samples.

“You’re assuming there’s only one individual responsible for both Nikki and Lindsay’s abductions.”