by Larissa Ione
“What’s the matter? Did I hurt you?” He reached for her, but she rolled off the futon and landed awkwardly on her feet.
Her hair was as wild as the feral look in her eyes as she stood there, panting and staring at him as if he were a grizzly bear and not the male who had saved her life and would soon be her mate.
“Dammit, say something.” He stood, and his sudden movement sent her scooting sideways toward the bed, as far away from him as she could get. Her limp made him curse inwardly. He had hurt her. He was such an asshole. “You’re still in pain. With the feeding, I figured your wound would have been mostly healed by now.”
“It’s not the wound.” She swallowed hard, and he abruptly got a very bad feeling. “It’s me.”
The bad feeling widened into a cold, dark, gaping cavern, and his temper, fueled by unquenched lust, jumped in to fill the void. “Explain!” he barked. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” She made a harsh sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “It’s the same thing that’s always been wrong. I’m not Rasha. I’m Aylin.” She jabbed her finger into her sternum. “You’ve been making out with the wrong twin.”
AYLIN COULDN’T REMEMBER the last time she’d been so humiliated. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so stupid.
She’d always prided herself on the fact that out of everyone in the clan, she was the most educated. Most of the other clan members, even those who had been born human, were too old to have benefited from modern education. But even those few who had gotten a decent education didn’t have a chance to keep their minds sharp. Her father didn’t permit anything but the most basic literature to be brought into the clan.
Aylin alone had been allowed to have books, and that was only because her father couldn’t read English beyond an elementary-school level and wanted Aylin to be useful. But when she’d started questioning his decisions, the clan’s dependence on the Raven way of life, and the world around them, he’d suddenly forbidden her to read.
Rasha had smuggled books to her every time she went to a human settlement. It had always been worth the beatings when she got caught with a book, whether it was a dime-store Western or a college text about physics. Aylin might not have been able to understand everything between the covers of the technical books, but she read every word. Ultimately, just flipping through them gave her pleasure.
So no, she’d never considered herself to be stupid.
Until now.
She’d just been so happy to find a male who wasn’t completely repulsed by her. She’d been so thrilled, in fact, that she was prepared to take things as far as Roger would go. Especially because if she lost her virginity, there was a chance—a slight one, but a chance nonetheless—that her mating with the chief from NightShade would be called off.
“Aylin?” Roger stared at her, obviously horrified. “You’re Aylin?”
Then his horror and surprise veered sharply to anger, and in a move so fast she could barely track it, let alone prepare for it, he had her by the throat and backed against the wall.
“What game is this? A ShadowSpawn plot to derail the mating? Or is this some twisted twin prank?” He squeezed so hard she coughed, and then he let up, allowing her a huge gulp of sweet, fresh air. “Answer me.”
“How dare you,” she ground out. “How dare you accuse me of being deceptive. I thought you knew who I was. But you . . .” She sneered. “You believed I was Rasha. So what game are you playing? Either you’re disloyal to your clan and are willing to bed the female who is going to be Hunter’s mate, or Hunter wanted you to screw her so he could call off the mating and save face. So which is it, Roger? Were you risking death by betraying your leader with his future mate, or are you following the orders of a coward with no honor?”
“Coward? No honor?” He released her and stepped back, his expression a deadly mask of cold rage. “Maybe there’s another explanation.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the fact that I thought you were Rasha . . . and I’m Hunter.”
Oh.
Oh, shit.
“But I heard . . .” She trailed off, her argument unformed and unimportant at this point.
She’d just done something she’d never done before, and she’d done it with the one male on the planet she shouldn’t have done it with. The male who would, in a few short weeks, belong to her sister.
It didn’t matter that it was to be a mating of convenience and that Rasha didn’t even like Hunter. Hell, Aylin had overheard Rasha and their father planning for the future of MoonBound after Hunter’s death—and it hadn’t sounded like they were thinking far into the future.
No, none of that mattered. Rasha might not even care about the fact that Aylin damn near screwed her mate-to-be, but their father . . . if he ever found out, he’d kill her. Literally. Without Rasha around to moderate his punishments, he could very well end her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know. I thought your name was Roger.”
He scowled, and it wasn’t fair that he was handsome doing even that. “Why the hell would you think that?”
He made it sound like she’d pulled the name out of thin air. “I heard Riker call you Roger,” she said, a little irritably.
“Not Roger. Roger. As in, affirmative.” Hunter dragged his hand over his face. “He was giving me a positive response to my order.”
Well, sure, it all made sense now. Now that they were away from her human captors and she was no longer afraid for her life.
Hunter shifted his stance, and Aylin made the mistake of dropping her gaze. It was impossible to miss the impressive bulge behind the fly of his jeans. Part of her wanted to groan with embarrassment. But a larger part of her wanted to puff up with pride for being the one to put it there.
“Why did you tell that human scumbag that your name was Rasha?”
Ah, so that was why he’d thought she was her twin. “I hoped that if he thought I was valuable enough, he’d let my sister go to arrange a ransom payment.”
“And then your father would come and rescue you.”
“Exactly.” Although, to be honest, she wasn’t sure Kars would have done that. If he had, it wouldn’t be to rescue his precious daughter. It would be for the opportunity to butcher humans and to punish the people who took something of his. Even if that something was Aylin.
“Is that why you were traveling with Rasha? To act as a decoy?”
Yes. But she wasn’t going to tell him that. Who wanted to admit to being disposable? “I’m attending her until your official mating ceremony.”
“Fuck.” Hunter swiped the open bottle of whiskey from the table where he’d left it. He drained fully a quarter of the deep amber liquid before finally lowering it from those full, sensual lips. He held it out to her. “Want some?”
With the electric effects of his blood coursing through her system, she didn’t need the alcohol. But she snatched the bottle anyway and took a sip.
Big mistake.
She might as well have been swallowing kerosene. She coughed and wheezed, her eyes watering madly.
“Not used to drinking, huh?” He took the bottle from her.
“What was your first clue?” she rasped. “The choking or the crying?”
He laughed, a deep, masculine sound that vibrated the air and her blood. “The whiskey face. Best one ever.”
“I’m not used to whiskey,” she said. “At ShadowSpawn, everyone drinks hollywine.” Everyone but her, anyway. She had so little control over her life as it was; she didn’t need to give up more by drowning her senses in alcohol.
Hunter’s laugh died away. “Hollywine?” He shook his head. “That shit is bad news.”
Yes, it was. Made from holly berries that were toxic to humans, hollywine hit vampires fast and hard, and while it had the effect of delivering a massive
dose of euphoria and enhancing sexual appetites and performance, it made some vampires rage out. She was pretty sure the liquor was also responsible for making a few of their clan members insane.
“So MoonBound doesn’t make it?”
“Hell, no.” He swigged from the bottle, and she wondered if he realized the irony of scorning one type of alcohol while scarfing another. “You need to stay away from it.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “And there we go again with you ordering me around.”
His gaze dropped and flicked back up to her eyes, but she could have sworn he’d been looking at her breasts. And dammit, the very thought made them ache all over again. “Nothing’s changed,” he said gruffly. “You might not be Rasha, but I’m still responsible for you while you’re a guest of my clan.”
“Yes, well, since you already said your clan doesn’t serve hollywine, it’s pointless to order me not to drink it, isn’t it?” She cocked an eyebrow. “Unless you think your order will stand after I leave. Which is pretty arrogant.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, and she wondered if she’d just pushed him too far. “I don’t care what you do after you leave. But while you’re with my clan, you do as we do.”
She sank down onto the futon again, hoping to ease the throbbing in her leg. “And what is it that you do?”
One shoulder rolled in an easy shrug. “We hunt, feed, train, play . . . we do what everyone does.”
“Play” was what ShadowSpawn members did with their food. “I don’t like to play.”
Hunter frowned, the dim light putting deep shadows in the hard-cut planes of his face. “How can you not like to play?”
She shrugged. “I just don’t.” Best not to explain that she didn’t like to see anyone or anything suffer. Not even humans. Too many years of being at the mercy of others had given her too much insight into how terrifying it was. She was a terrible vampire.
“Then you’re doing it wrong.” He pivoted around and opened a cabinet that held a small television and something called a Nintendo 5th Dimension. He tossed her a controller thingie. “Let’s kick some classic Super Mario ass.”
Video games? That was what he meant by playing? She couldn’t help but laugh.
Oh, Rasha, you are really going to hate this male.
And didn’t it figure that Aylin really liked him?
MYNE STRODE THROUGH the candlelit cavern with purpose, thinking that the only way there could be more tension in the cave was if they were sharing it with a bear. And actually, Myne would rather deal with a bear than with the ShadowSpawn wench.
Riker and Katina had laid out supplies from one of several stashes hidden throughout the system of tunnels that MoonBound had long ago appropriated for use during emergencies, and while a blizzard counted as a crisis of sorts, Myne figured it was nothing compared with the chaos that Hunter’s mating with Rasha would bring. Myne wasn’t sure if his ability to sense impending doom was a gift, a curse, or just his imagination, but he was sure that the pressure in his chest was a warning. Of what, he had no idea.
She was crouched down in the dirt at the rear of the cavern, pawing through a backpack. As always, the sight of her kicked off a Pavlovian response, and his mouth watered. He hated that about himself, that his body could betray him so blatantly.
“Hello, Rasha.”
Standing, she smiled. At least, he was going to call the slight baring of her teeth a smile. “I was wondering when you’d acknowledge my presence.”
“Had to happen eventually.”
“And best not in front of Hunter, right?” She brought her hand up to her throat, where she trailed her finger along the pulsing vein in her neck. “How are you feeling, by the way? Coming up on month four without a moon feeding, aren’t you?” She flicked a fingernail against her throat, and a drop of blood welled on her lightly tanned skin. “Moon-blood deprivation is setting in, isn’t it? I’ll bet you get cramps at night and your vision is starting to blur. You feel like your body is caving in on itself.”
Spot-on. And holy shit, he wanted to lick that drop.
“Are you afraid yet? Afraid you’ll be so crazed on the night of the full moon that you’ll attack any female you see?”
As a matter of fact, yes, he was.
“You know why I called things off, don’t you?” she asked.
“I’m guessing it’s because you found out you were going to be mating Hunter?” At her nod, he hooked his thumbs into his jeans pockets. “I’m going to tell him about us.”
She snorted. “Tell him what? That for years, every couple of months, we meet secretly on the night of the full moon? That you have . . . special needs that only I can fulfill?”
“That pretty much covers it.”
Ice glazed over her eyes. “I don’t think so.”
“I didn’t tell you to get your blessing,” he said. “I told you because I at least owe you a heads-up.”
She flipped her long blond hair over her shoulder with a brisk shove. “You owe me more than that.”
“The hell I do,” he growled. “You got as much out of our arrangement as I did.”
“Yes, but I wanted what you gave me. You needed what I gave you.”
So utterly expected of her to point that out. “And that’s why I’m letting you know what I’m telling Hunter. I’ve done that. So have a nice life. I’m sure you two will be very miserable together.” Deservedly so.
He started to turn, but Rasha sank her nails into his forearm and yanked him around with a hiss. “You will not tell him about us, or I’ll tell everyone in your clan about your time as a slave for the humans.”
“Nice try.” He jerked out of her grip, leaving deep gouges in his skin from her sharp-ass nails. “But you don’t know a damned thing.” Turning his back on her, he started toward the front of the cave.
“Mr. Pritchard.”
Myne froze. A hot load of adrenaline dumped into his veins, even as a chill swept over him. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
He pivoted around slowly, afraid that if he moved too fast, he wouldn’t be able to stop until Rasha was dead. “How do you know about Mr. . . . him?” The human who had given Myne his name.
You’re mine, you fucking cur. That’s your name from now on. Myne.
Rasha’s gaze was unflinching, brimming with the kind of confidence that came from knowing you’d won. “When I learned I was mating with Hunter, I made it my mission to find out everything I could about everyone in his inner circle.”
“If that were true,” he gritted out, “you’d know I’m not in his inner circle.”
She gestured toward the front of the cave, where Aiden and Takis were laughing about something. “I know they’re lovers, but Aiden sometimes wets his wick with a female. Tsk-tsk. Poor Takis.” She pointed to Katina. “And I know she was kidnapped as a human child and raised by wealthy people who paid a lot of money for her. When she saw her face on a billboard, she ran away, but before she could go to the police, she was turned into a vampire.” Rasha smiled. “Shall I tell you what I know about what they did to you inside that Daedalus lab? How they experimented on you? Removed one of your kidneys while you were still awake? Defanged you? Subjected you to humiliating research? Forced you to fuck—”
“Enough!” he barked. Everyone in the cave turned to stare. Lowering his voice, he ground out, “I get it. I won’t say anything to Hunter. But don’t you ever bring that shit up again, and if you use your ill-gotten information against anyone in the clan, I’ll break your legs and leave you on Daedalus’s doorstep so you can get some firsthand experience with what you think you know about me.” He jabbed his finger into her breastbone. “Stay the fuck away from me.”
The cavern felt suddenly devoid of oxygen. He practically ran out of the cave, and when he hit the outside ledge, he inhaled huge gulps of frosty air as snow an
d wind battered his face. He scooted to the side, where a crevice and an overhang sheltered a cove large enough for five. But he was alone, thank the spirits. Putting his back to the rock, he closed his eyes and concentrated on keeping his shit together.
Not a day went by without him thinking about his time as a human slave, but usually, it was in conjunction with memories of his brother. They’d both been captured and sent to Daedalus for the three T’s, “testing, taming, and training,” as Daedalus staff called it. Myne preferred the more accurate “tattoo, torment, and torture.”
Myne and his brother, Cloud Walker, aka Subject 212NP, eventually escaped, but Cloud had been recaptured, and Myne had been wounded badly enough that he would have died if not for Riker.
So yeah, Myne’s time in captivity was always with him, but Rasha had dug up shit he’d thought he’d buried a long time ago.
Footsteps put him on alert, but he relaxed when Riker ducked into the little cove with him. “Hey.”
Myne acknowledged him with a nod. “You want to know what happened with Rasha.”
“I’m guessing she didn’t like the idea of you telling Hunter about your full-moon meetings?” Riker was the only person besides Rasha and Myne who knew, and that was only because he’d caught them.
“I’m not telling him. She isn’t, either. So as long as you keep your mouth shut, we’ll be fine.”
Riker’s eyes flashed. “As long as you never feed from her again, your secret is safe with me. But why the change of heart?”
“Blackmail,” he growled. “She knows shit she shouldn’t know. About my time in captivity. My kidney. My . . . fuck it. She just knows shit, okay?”
Rike’s eyebrows climbed. “Your kidney?”
“Don’t ask. But, buddy, watch your back, because she claims to have dirt on everyone.”
“Know your enemy,” Rike murmured. “She’s a bitch, but she’s not stupid. What can we do about your moon feedings now?”
We? An uneasy sensation wound its way through Myne at the way Rike had worded his question. The male was a friend, the best Myne had ever had, and the clan had become the best thing ever to happen to him.