A Hunger Like No Other

4

The vampire stood scarcely balanced on the balcony railing, her hair and gown whipping in the wind. He swallowed hard. "Come down from there." Why had his chest tightened with such alarm?

She whirled to face him—somehow keeping her balance. She looked hurt, her luminous eyes filled with pain. He resisted the recognition taking hold in his disordered mind.

She whispered, "Why are you doing this to me?"

Because I've wanted what's mine. Because I need you and I hate you. "Come down now," he ordered.

She shook her head slowly.

"You canna die from this. From sun, or losing your head, but no' from a fall." He made his tone casual, though he was uncertain. They were how many floors up? If she was weak…"And I'll easily follow you down to bring you back here."

She glanced over her shoulder down at the street. "No, I might die in my condition."

For some reason he believed her, and his alarm spiked. "Your condition? Because of the sun? Damn you, tell me!"

She turned toward the street and put one foot off the railing.

"Wait!" He tensed to spring for her, not understanding how she could possibly still be balanced. Won't bend. She's broken. "I will no' do that again. No' until you want me to." The wind was picking up, plastering the silk to her body. "When you woke…that was meant to give, no' to take."

She put the foot back and faced him. "And when I refused your gift?" she cried. "What was that?"

If she died…The fear for her brought him his first true clarity since before the fire. Twelve hundred years he'd waited. For…her.

For whatever reason, the world had given a vampire to him, and he'd pushed her to this? Destroy what you've been given. He was devastated by what she was—but he didn't want her dead. Or ruined.

It enraged him even to contemplate the hell he'd just been through, much less to talk about it, but he had to try anything. Have to get rid of this feeling—this dread. "Understand that I've been…locked away for one hundred and fifty years. Without comfort, without a woman. I'd only just escaped a week before I found you and I have no'…acclimated well."

"Why do you act as if you know me?"

"I've been disoriented. Confused. I know we've never met."

"Who are you?"

Just minutes before, he'd been about to claim her—without even telling her his name. "I am Lachlain, head of the Lykae clan."

He could hear her heart speed up with fear. "Y-you're a werewolf? You must let me go."

She looked otherworldly, with her hair streaming about and her skin so pale. She was not of his kind, and he had no idea how to be with her. "I will. After the next full moon. I vow it."

"I want to go now."

"I need you…to get to my home," he said, adding lie to truth. "And I will no' hurt you again." Possibly another lie.

She laughed bitterly. "You were going to force me just then, and I almost died this morning. Of sun." She whispered the word. "Do you know what that's like? The pain?"

He had a bloody good idea.

Her expression suddenly grew horrified, as if she was recalling a nightmare. "I haven't felt the sun on my skin"—she swayed on the rail—"since I was three years old."

Inching closer, mouth gone dry, he said, "I doona ken how to care for you, but you will tell me. And this will no' happen again."

"I don't want your attentions. You…you frighten me."

Of course he frightened her—his rages left even him shaken. "I understand. Now, come down. I know you doona want to die."

She glanced over her shoulder at the waxing moon rising, giving him her flawless profile. A gust pushed her hair across her neck. In all his years, he'd never seen such a preternatural scene as her pale skin against her blood-red gown with the moon glowing behind her.

She didn't answer, only exhaled wearily, swaying.

"Look at me." She didn't—she glanced down. "Look at me!"

She seemed to wake up, her brows drawing together, her eyes bleak. "I just want to go home," she said in a small voice.

"You will. I vow you'll go home." To your new home. "Just help me get to mine."

"If I help you, you swear you'll release me?"

Never. "Aye."

"You won't hurt me?"

"No, I will no' hurt you."

"Can you make that promise? You can't seem to…control yourself."

"Every hour I gain control." Because of her? "And know that I doona want to hurt you." That, at least, was now true. He thought.

"You won't do those…th-things to me again?"

"I will no' unless you want me to." He held out his hand to her. "Do we have an agreement?"

She didn't take it, but after several agonizing moments, she did come down with a bizarre movement. She stepped down as if she were strolling and had stepped from a curb without breaking stride.

He gave her shoulders a shake. "Doona ever do that again." He had an odd urge to squeeze the vampire to his chest, and set her away.

She looked down. "I won't. Unless it's a better alternative."

He glowered at that. "Do we have an agreement?"

When she nodded, he wondered if it was only the position he'd forced upon her that had made her agree, or was it more? He'd thought he might have seen compassion in her eyes for just a brief moment when he'd admitted his imprisonment.

"Then we leave tonight for Scotland."

Her lips parted. "I can't go to Scotland! I was going to direct you. Or at least, MapQuest was," she added in a mumble. "How would you plan to get there without burning me alive?" She was clearly panicked. "I-I can't travel easily. No commercial planes. No trains. The sun…"

"I've secured a car. We'll drive there." He was pleased by how casual he sounded, since a week ago he hadn't known what a bloody car was. "And stop well before sunrise each day. A man downstairs mapped it out for me."

"You know how to drive? You acted as though you'd never even seen a car—"

"No, I doona know how to drive, but I'm guessing you do."

"I've only driven short jaunts from home."

"Ever been to the Highlands?"

"Uh, no—"

"Ever want to?"

"Who doesn't—?"

"Then, vampire, you'll be going with me."

Emma lifted an unsteady hand to her hair and pulled a hank in front of her face. She stared in horror.

Streaked. By the sun.

He'd left her to shower and dress, and alone in the bathroom, she gaped at the vivid evidence of how close she'd come to dying. Dropping her hair, she slid off her nightgown and twisted in the mirror to assess her skin.

It was unharmed now, pale and healed—unlike the last time. She glanced at the back of her hand, growing nauseated. Thank Freya, the memory of her burn was mercifully hazy as usual.

Though she couldn't recollect specifics, she'd learned her lesson well, avoiding the sun for nearly sixty-seven years, yet near dawn she'd passed out before she could either escape this Lachlain or beg him to shut the curtains.

Shivering, Emma turned on the shower and stepped in, avoiding the broken marble. She still sensed his presence from the night before. She could almost feel his hands skimming over her wet skin, his finger pressing full inside her, his powerful body shuddering and tensing as she'd stroked him.

When she turned in the shower, the water sprayed her sensitive breasts, making her nipples hard—In a flash, the memory of waking under his mouth hit her.

She'd struck out at him with such violence because she'd been confused and frightened. Yet she'd also been nearer to orgasm than she had in her entire life. She was a weak woman, because for the briefest second the temptation to lie there docile and let her knees fall open to accept his fierce kiss had been nearly overwhelming. Even now she found herself wet.

For him. She was bewildered by her response. She wondered how she would react to him if he wasn't debating killing her.

At least now she knew why he was so savage. Besides clearly having issues, he was a Lykae, considered a ruthless menace by even the lowliest in the Lore. She recalled what her aunts had taught her about them.

Each Lykae housed a wolflike "beast" inside, like a possession. This rendered them immortal and made them crave and appreciate the elementals: food, touch, sex. But, as she'd seen tonight and the night before, it also could make a Lykae unable to control its ferocity, a ferocity their kind willingly unleashed during sex, reveling in scratching, biting, and marking flesh in a frenzy. Which had always sounded hellish to Emma—a being cursed with fragility and a deep-seated fear of pain.

How such a handsome façade could mask an ungovernable animal was beyond her understanding. He was a beast in the form of a fantasy. His body, except for the incongruous leg injury, was nothing short of…divine. His hair was thick and straight, a rich, dark brown that she imagined would look golden in the sun. She'd noted that sometime today he'd had it trimmed, and his face was now cleanly shaved to reveal his perfect features. On the surface divine, beneath…a beast.

How could she be drawn to a being that she needed to be running from?

Her arousal was involuntary, shaming in a way, and she was glad when the weight of her exhaustion stifled it. She was flagging by the minute, and the idea of driving to Scotland enervated her even more.

As she slumped against the shower wall, she wondered how Annika was holding up right now. Probably shrieking with worry and fury, ensuring that their hometown of New Orleans got flailed with lightning and that every car alarm in three parishes went off.

Emma also wondered if she really would've jumped. Yes, she thought with a start—if this Lachlain had been the same insane, howling animal of before, if his eyes hadn't slowly warmed to golden, she would've taken her chances.

And she wondered how he'd hurt his leg and where he'd been "locked away" for so long and by whom—

Immediately she shook her head as if to dislodge the questions.

She didn't want to know. Didn't need to know.

Annika had once told her that vampires were cold and dispassionate, able to use their powerful logic as no other in the Lore because they could disregard any detail outside of their goal as incidental.

Emma had a job to do. Period. And when she completed it, she would be awarded her freedom. She just had to keep her eye on the ball. Never played baseball, freak. Oh, yeah.

Didn't matter. Finish the task—get to go on as usual.

As she lathered and rinsed her hair, she mused over her typical week prior to the misbegotten trip. Monday through Friday she did research for her coven and trained before watching a late movie with the more night-owlish of her aunts. Friday and Saturday the witches came over with their Xbox and blenders full of pastel drinks. Sunday night she rode horses with the good demons who often loitered around the manor. If she could tweak just a couple of little aspects about her existence, life could be damn near perfect.

She frowned at her thoughts. As a natural-born vampire, she couldn't lie to others. If an untruth arose in her thoughts and the impulse to use it fired in her mind, she would become violently ill. No, Emma couldn't lie to others, but she'd always had a talent for lying to herself. A couple of little tweaks? In truth, there was a yawning loneliness in her life—and a fear about her nature that rode her constantly…

As far as she knew, she was like no one else in existence—she truly belonged nowhere—and though her Valkyrie aunts loved her, she felt loneliness as sharply as a blade driven into her heart every day.

She'd figured if she could determine how her parents had lived together and had been able to have her, then maybe she could find others like herself. Perhaps then she could finally feel a connection to something else. And if she could discover more about her vampire half, she might allay her fear that one day she would become like them.

No one should have to worry each day that she might turn into a killer…

If she'd assumed he would give her privacy because he'd learned a lesson, she'd have been wrong. He walked right in and opened the shower stall door. She jumped, startled, fumbling not to drop the conditioner bottle before catching it on the pad of her forefinger.

She saw his fists clench and open, and that finger went limp. The bottle thudded.

One hit…The image of the shredded bedside table flashed in her mind, then the memory of the car he'd batted like a crumpled piece of paper. Chunks of marble that hadn't been pulverized still littered the shower floor. Fool. She'd been a fool to think he wouldn't hurt her. Of all the things she should fear, she feared pain the most. And now a Lykae clenched his fists in anger. At her.

She turned into the corner, giving him her side to try to shield her nudity. And because if he hit, she could sink down and draw her knees to her chest. But with some foreign curse, he stalked off.

After showering, she returned to the bedroom to find almost all of her belongings gone. Had he taken them to the car he'd secured? If so, ten euros said that he'd tossed her laptop under everything else. She supposed it didn't matter anyway, since she'd uncovered nothing about her parents to go into said computer. Just because she could navigate Tulane's research library did not mean she could crack the Lore in a foreign country—oh, and in the hours between sundown and sunup.

She'd accomplished nothing on this trip. But for her abduction, of course.

Why should she even be surprised?

She exhaled wearily and trudged to the items he had left her—one outfit laid out on the bed. Of course he'd chosen the tiniest, most sheer lingerie she'd brought with her. The thought of him handling her underclothes, deliberately choosing them for her, made her blush for the thousandth time since she'd met him. She must have wasted a gallon of blood blushing because of him.

He'd also picked out long pants and a turtleneck and a sweater and a jacket. Did he want her to be buried in clothes?

At that moment, he appeared again. She leapt backward, clearing the length of the mattress to stand at the headboard. Even with her keen hearing, she hadn't heard a hint of his approach.

He raised his eyebrows at the quick movement. "That frightened of me?"

She clutched her towel. I'm that frightened of my own shadow, much less an overgrown Lykae! But his voice hadn't been cruel, and she gathered the courage to study him from beneath her lashes. His eyes were that warm golden color and he was wearing new clothes. He looked like a mid-thirties millionaire. Or more aptly, a physique-model playing one.

The bastard was a remarkably handsome man. And he obviously knew it, which nettled. "You've attacked me twice. You've given me no reason not to be frightened."

He was getting irritated again. "That was before I gave you my word that I would no' hurt you." Then, seeming to get his temper under control, he said, "Everything is ready. I have a rented car waiting and I've settled the bill for this room."

She could just imagine that bill. Even though he'd annihilated the antique bedside table in this room, it wouldn't add up to the cost of her stay. "But I've been here for weeks. I can pay for my own—"

"You did pay. Now, come down from the bed."

When he held out his hand to her, she crossed to the opposite side and stepped down, feeling dizzy and fearing the worst—the utter abuse of her credit card. "And I suppose I paid for your new clothes?" she dared to ask with the bed between them. Emma knew fine things—all Valkyrie did—since they'd inherited Freya's acquisitiveness—and the cut of his clothes reeked of money.

He wore a dark leather car coat that was hand-stitched and flat-front trousers, camel in color and lean in fit. Under the opened jacket, a black thin cashmere shirt molded to him like a second skin. Between the edges of his coat, she could see the rigid outlines of his chest. His clothing said, I'm rich, and I might be a little dangerous.

Women would adore him.

"Aye. The man downstairs has many resources and our card has no limits." His tone dared her to say something.

Our card? Her Centurion AmEx with instructions that some purchases might seem off and that the owner would be traveling, so do not hinder in any way. A safeguard had now turned into a financial weapon in his hands.

Like all in the coven, she had a yearly allowance for clothes and entertainment and it was very generous, but she'd been saving up, thinking of buying something major that would be all her own—an antique or her own horse or anything that she wouldn't have to share with her aunts. No longer.

Among her other trials with him, the Lykae appeared determined to break her bank.

"You didn't leave me any way to cover my ears," she said, glancing down, avoiding his eyes as usual.

Her comment made him scowl again at her clothing. She wanted to hide something he found attractive, and yet her garments were so revealing to others? Her black trews scarcely came up over her hipbones and hugged the curves of her arse. Her red shirt, though high-collared, had strange, asymmetrical seams that drew the eye to the swell of her breasts. When she moved, flashes of her flat midriff came into view. He'd chosen those clothes to cover her—not advertise her. He'd buy her new ones at the first opportunity, spending lavishly of the vampire's money. He intended to find out how much he could possibly spend.

"I just need a scarf or a way to fasten my braids. Or people will see them—"

"You'll leave your hair down."

"B-but the humans—"

"Will no' dare do anything when I am there." When he found himself crossing to her, she took several steps back. Terrified of him.

Lachlain had little memory of the field and even the rest of the night before was hazy, but he knew he'd been…less than gentle. Then tonight he'd leapt onto her, pinning her to the bed about to shove into her, even while knowing he would hurt her. He'd seen her in the shower warily noting his clenched fists. She was right—she had no reason not to.

On the balcony, he'd discovered pain within her. That's what she had in her eyes. He had it, too, and he was too damaged to help her. Too full of hate to want to help her.

"Then can I at least call my family?" she asked. "Like you promised?"

He frowned. He'd said "contact her family," as in a letter. He'd seen the man downstairs use the telephone. On the television, he'd seen it as well. He'd never thought she could have called another country. "Be quick about it. We have to make good time tonight."

"Why? Are we going very far?" Her voice grew panicked. "Because you said an hour before sunrise—"

"Are you nervous about this?"

"Of course I am!"

"Doona be. I will protect you," he said simply, annoyed that she relaxed not a whit. "Make your call." He turned the corner into their room's foyer, strode down the hall to the door, opened and closed it.

But he never left.