She swayed forward, their gazes locked. “I’m sure you could. I’m just not sure if it’s wise.”
His fangs lengthened, his cock already hard, but he forced himself to slowly straighten. This wasn’t the place to do what he wanted to do. Not when someone might stroll through the door at any moment.
Besides, he hadn’t sought her out with the intention of seducing her. Not that he would protest if they happened to end the night with her wrapped in his arms. But first, he intended to be fully honest with her.
She had a right to know why he was there.
“Can we go someplace private?”
Tilting back her head, she studied him with an anxious gaze. “Now?”
“I have a confession to make.”
Without warning, she surged to her feet, the chair scraping against the tiles. “Are you mated?”
He gave a sharp shake of his head, caught off guard by the question. Most demons could sense mated pairs. A good thing. It saved a hell of a lot of bloodshed.
“No, of course not,” he assured her. “This is about my master.”
“Oh.” She released a shaky breath, nodding toward a narrow door on the far side of the room. “Follow me.”
Chiron nodded, just a step behind her as she led him out of the kitchen and up a narrow flight of stone stairs. He was once again struck by the age of the place. It weighed down on him like a physical cloak. Not threatening, but boundless. Like the endless waves of an ocean.
In silence, they headed into Lilah’s private quarters, in the wing opposite his own room. There was a large sitting room with the sort of shabby furniture chosen for comfort, not fashion, and a window that overlooked the back garden. There was also a large stone fireplace that was currently empty. Thank the goddess. Vampires and fires didn’t mix.
Closing the door behind him, Chiron turned his back on the opening on the other side of the room. A quick glimpse was enough for him to catch sight of a wide bed that was covered with a handmade quilt. A silent invitation his body was eager to accept.
His gaze instead roamed over the walls of the sitting room. They were covered from floor to ceiling with the same frescoes he’d noticed in the hallways of the hotel. He leaned forward, reaching out to touch a vibrant orchid that looked real. On one leaf, a small fairy was sprinkling dew that appeared to glisten in the moonlight.
“Exquisite,” he murmured. “Did you paint these?”
Lilah moved to stand next to him. “No, it was Inga.”
“Inga?”
Chiron’s mouth fell open. Stupid, really. He’d known trolls who could eat babies and yet sing with the voice of an angel. Or goblins who lived in a hole in the ground but could carve a chunk of marble into a masterpiece. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that an ogress could create masterpieces on the wall of an isolated hotel.
“She’s really very talented,” Lilah gently chided.
She was. No arguing with that. Against his will, he found his opinion of the prickly female softening. No one could be all bad and create such beauty.
“This place is just one surprise after another,” he said.
“It’s my turn to ask if it’s a good or bad thing.”
He straightened, turning to face her before she could pull away. They were close enough that he could watch her eyes dilate with instant awareness.
“Nothing will ever be the same,” he told her in husky tones.
Her lips parted, her breath releasing on a soft sigh. Then, with an obvious effort, she was stepping back.
“You mentioned your master?”
Chiron clenched his hands at his sides. It was that or reach out to haul Lilah against his aching body.
“I told you that I was here to look for him,” he said.
“You’re not?”
“It’s a little more complicated.”
She studied him with an expression that was more stoic than surprised. “I suspected it was.”
Chiron grimaced. Obviously, his hidden agenda hadn’t been so hidden. Was it because he’d had an instant connection to this female? He hated to think he was losing his ability to deceive and manipulate others.
That would just be sad.
“What I told you about my past is all true. I was rescued by Tarak and he was a devoted disciple of the previous Anasso.”
She tilted her head to the side. “But?”
“But he didn’t go into hiding after he denounced the king,” he revealed. “He was taken captive.”
Her eyes widened. There were few creatures daring enough to try to hold a vampire prisoner.
“How?”
Chiron shrugged. “I can only assume he was lured into a trap by the Anasso.”
“Your own king took him captive?”
Chiron gave a sharp nod, the ancient anger still burning deep in his gut. “After realizing Tarak was missing, I went directly to the Anasso. The older male claimed my master had threatened to battle him for the crown and he’d been forced to banish him, but I knew he was lying.”
Chiron shuddered. It made his skin crawl to recall his brief glimpse into the vampire’s decaying thoughts. It’d been like being dipped in acid. The dark, ruthless hunger was all-consuming.
“What did you do?”
“I tried to rescue him,” he said, his voice rough with regret. “I even went on my knees and begged for his release.”
Her expression softened with sympathy. “What did the Anasso do?”
Chiron felt his stomach twist as the memory of his final meeting with the Anasso crashed through him. The large male had arrived without warning at Chiron’s lair, along with several of his guards. Looking back, Chiron recalled that Styx hadn’t been with him. Which was odd. At that time, the Anasso rarely left his private castle, and when he did, it was never without Styx at his side.
But that night he’d stormed into Chiron’s lair, warning him that he was being exiled, along with every other vampire who’d called Tarak master.
“I was put on a ship and told never to return,” he told Lilah. “Thankfully, I was able to smuggle Ulric aboard before we were being shoved out to sea.”
She looked confused. “What’s an Ulric?”
Chiron smiled. “A pureblooded Were who happens to be my most trusted friend.”
She nodded, not questioning his rare friendship with a Were. Perhaps because that was the least weird part of his story.
A scary realization.
“No one believed you when you told them the king had imprisoned Tarak?”
“No, not even Styx, who was his top lieutenant back then,” he said. “The bastard swore Tarak had been a traitor, that he was forced to leave the clan. He even accused me of lying to cause chaos among the vampires.”
“Styx.” She repeated the name, as if trying to place it. Then she blinked in surprise. “The new Anasso?”
“Yes.”
“He lied to you?”
“That’s what I believed for centuries.”
“And now?”
“I’m beginning to accept he was as blind to the faults of his master as Tarak had been,” he conceded. “When he came to my casino in Vegas, he brought a scroll he’d found hidden among the previous Anasso’s belongings.”
“What kind of scroll?”
“A map.” He grimaced. “Of sorts.”
“Oh.” She lifted her brows. “Did it reveal the location where they’re keeping your master?”
Chiron shook his head. If only it could have been that simple: Get a map. Locate Tarak. Free him.
“Not exactly,” he drawled. “It had a spell used to hide the key that will unlock his prison.”
She looked baffled by his explanation. Hell, he was baffled.
Which was why he hated magic. And witches.
“There’s a key?” she demanded.
“I’m hoping so.”
Her confusion only deepened. “Then why are you here?”
He studied her pale face. Her bewilderment seemed utterly sincere.
And he was an expert at reading people. Or at least, he’d always thought he was. That was what made him so successful at running a casino.
Surely she would have given some clue she was aware of the key?
“This is where the scroll led us,” he told her, continuing to regard her with an intense scrutiny.
“Here?”
“According to Levet.” He didn’t bother to hide his opinion of his traveling companion. “He’s the one who’s following the spell. I have no ability to sense magic.”
Her lips suddenly twitched. “That at least explains why you’re with a gargoyle.”
“It certainly wasn’t by choice,” he dryly admitted.
“Is that where he is now?” she asked. “Getting the key?”
Chiron frowned, abruptly glad Ulric was looking for the absent gargoyle. If he hadn’t been so distracted by Lilah, he would have been concerned by Levet’s absence long before now.
“I haven’t seen him for hours,” he reminded her. “I truly don’t know what he’s doing.”
“I don’t understand. If you know where the key is, why not get it and leave?”
“That was the plan, but Levet claims the magic of this place is muting his powers.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve heard that a lot,” she said. “For some demons, the magic seems to intensify their abilities; for others, it dampens them.” She shrugged. “There’s no rhyme or reason to it.”
Chiron thought about Ulric and the restless glow of his wolf in his eyes. Obviously, his friend was on the intensified side of the magical spectrum, while Levet was on the opposite end.
“He’s supposed to be finding a way to locate it, but who knows what the hell he’s doing?” he said, giving a shake of his head. “Probably stealing someone’s priceless cognac.”
Thankfully, she turned the conversation away from the gargoyle and his aggravating habits.
“What’s the key look like?”
Chiron shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“But you think it’s here?”
“This is where the spell brought us.”
She paused, as if considering the possibility of having a mystical key lying around the hotel.
“I haven’t seen it,” she said.
“It might be hidden behind an illusion.”
“That’s true. This place is filled with them,” she agreed, reaching out to grasp his arm. “I can help you search.”
Chiron kept his gaze focused on her lovely face, but his body was acutely aware of the feel of her fingers lingering on his arm. Her touch seared through the thin material of his shirt, her scent teasing at his nose.
His heroic attempt to concentrate on Tarak and the need to locate the key was swiftly crumbling. Who could blame him? He was alone with the female who’d stirred his lust to a fever pitch. The fact that he hadn’t already scooped her off her feet and headed toward the nearby bed was nothing less than a miracle.
“You have an idea of where it might be?” he asked, his tone distracted.
“No, but Inga would,” she said, her cheeks darkening with a fascinating blush. Could she sense his escalating hunger? “She has explored every inch of this hotel and even the swamps. Plus, she has an ability to see through illusions.”
Chiron grimaced. He didn’t want to think about the ogress. Not now. Talk about a buzzkill. “I knew I needed to find time to question the female.”
She licked her lips. A conscious provocation? Probably not. She was too innocent to realize the impact the swipe of her tongue would have on his body.
As if to prove his point, she stepped back in a flustered movement.
“Do you want to go now?” she asked, her voice breathless. “She should be in the kitchen.”
He gave a slow shake of his head, his gaze resting on her damp lips that glistened in the moonlight.
“I should, but no. I don’t want to go.” He stepped forward, brushing his fingers down the side of her throat. “I want to stay here.”
She trembled beneath his touch, her breath leaving her lips on a shaky sigh.
“What about your master?”
The familiar guilt twisted his gut, but this time it was overwhelmed by his urgent need to sate his hunger for this female.
“I will free him. I swore an oath the day he was captured,” he rasped, speaking more to himself than Lilah. “But now there’s something more important.”
She regarded him with wide, dazed eyes. “What?”
“You.”
Chapter 12
Lilah reminded herself to breathe. Air in. Air out.
It was a lot harder than it should have been, and it was all due to the male who was stroking his fingers up and down the curve of her throat.
She’d been a fool to bring him to her private rooms. She might be young, but she wasn’t stupid. She was acutely aware that the passion that smoldered between them needed only a spark to ignite into a raging inferno. And what could be more certain to create a spark than being completely alone in a place where they were guaranteed privacy?
No doubt a part of her had been well aware of what she was doing. That secret part that had taken one glance at Chiron and decided she was going to be his lover. Regardless of the cost.
Now she gave a rueful shake of her head. “You’re supposed to be a guest,” she tried to remind herself. “Here today, gone tomorrow.”
He stepped even closer, his icy power wrapping around her. Oddly, it didn’t scare her. It should, of course. He could destroy her with pathetic ease. Instead, it sent jolts of excitement through her.
“We’re way beyond that,” he assured her, his soft voice brushing over her raw nerves and sending a shiver down her spine.
“Are we?”
“I can only speak for myself.” His thumb stroked across the pulse at the base of her throat. “But the thought of walking away and never seeing you again is unbearable.”
Her heart fluttered, her mouth suddenly dry. Air in. Air out. Air in. Air out.
“You have your businesses to run,” she said, as if he’d somehow forgotten his resorts spread around the world.
Or, more likely, she was reminding herself of all the reasons this male couldn’t possibly settle for a mongrel demon like her.
His head lowered until they were nose to nose. “I do. And I’m eager to have you as my partner.”
“A partner.” The word trembled in the air between them.
His eyes darkened, his power brushing a delicious chill over her skin.
“I’ve been alone a long time,” he told her, his voice edged with an ancient pain. “I didn’t even realize how alone until I looked into your eyes and felt the emptiness inside me.”
His words touched her deepest vulnerability. She understood loneliness. And the aching need to fill the void in the center of her soul.
“You won’t be alone once Tarak returns,” she forced herself to remind him.
“He’s my leader, not my partner.” He held her gaze, his power continuing to swirl through the air. “He owns my loyalty, not my heart.”
“Your heart?”
He reached to wrap his fingers around her wrist, lifting her hand to press it to the center of his chest.
“It doesn’t beat, but it’s in there,” he assured her in a husky voice.
She shivered. His body was as hard and cold as a marble statue beneath her palm, but that wasn’t what was sending quivers of pleasure through her.
At least, not entirely.
Instead, it was the sensation that she was sharing Chiron’s emotions. As if they were tangled with her own in a way that was inexorably binding them together.
Tenderness. Lust. And a vast need that was too large to be named.
“I feel it,” she breathed. “I don’t know how or why, but I feel it.”
His other hand moved to touch the sensitive skin between her breasts.
“Just as I feel yours.”
Her mouth went dry, the awareness that had been lurking in th
e depths of her subconscious mind rising to the surface.
“Is this…” Her words trailed away.
“What?” Chiron demanded.
“Is this a mating?” she asked before she could lose her courage.
His brooding gaze swept over her face. “I believe it is.”
She licked her dry lips. “So we’ll be bound together for an eternity?”
“Yes.”
Pure joy curled through the pit of her stomach. The thought of being forever bound to this male wasn’t frightening, it was exhilarating. But still, she found herself hesitating.
Chiron was clearly caught up in the passion that sizzled between them. Had he truly considered what it would mean to be mated to her?
“We don’t even know what I am,” she reminded him.
“I don’t care.”
“But—”
Her words were cut short as he lowered his head and kissed her with a need that scorched an erotic path of pleasure from her mouth to the tips of her toes.
“Do you want this, Lilah?” he asked against her lips.
Did she? Hell yeah. With every fiber of her being. And yet a tiny seed of unease continued to plague her.
“I’m a little scared,” she whispered.
He slowly lifted his head, his eyes glowing with an ebony heat that was at complete odds with the frost that was beginning to crawl over the walls.
“I’m a lot scared, but I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.” His voice was rough with an unmistakable sincerity. “You belong to me.”
His fingers traced the vee of her robe, his cool touch sending jolts of anticipation through her body.
The sound of her jagged breath echoed softly through the room, a vivid reminder of another difference between her and Chiron. Not that his lack of breathing bothered her. Honestly, his otherness added fuel to her excitement.
As if she needed any fuel. Already, she was shivering, her palms sweating. She felt like her entire body was on fire.
“You have that backward,” she said, her voice husky. “You belong to me.”
“Hell yeah, I do,” he growled.
Lilah shivered as his fingers traced the soft mound of her breast.
“Does that mean no other females?” The question left her lips before she even realized the worry had been gnawing in the back of her mind.
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