Bane's Choice

by Alyssa Day

  Suddenly unsure, she turned her head away from the longing stamped plain on his beautiful face.

  “Tell me about that,” she said breathlessly, pointing at a random knife on a rack nearby.

  “I—what?” he said, rasping out the words. “You want to know about daggers?”

  “I want to know about your world, which seems to contain more knives than a chef’s kitchen.” And she needed to catch her breath, but she didn’t tell him that. “So, tell me.”

  He said nothing for a moment or two, breathing hard, and then he held out his hand, and the knife soared through the air and the hilt smacked into his palm.

  “Fine. Ask me. I’ll trade each answer for a kiss.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth. “I’m—I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”

  He smiled, his eyes glowing blue fire. “I didn’t say the kisses would all be on your mouth.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bane heard Ryan’s heart speed up and tried not to let his triumph show on his face. He wanted her. Quite possibly more than he’d ever desired anything or anyone before.

  But he needed her to accept him. To welcome him.

  To invite him into her world.

  Into her life.

  Into her body.

  He had to fight to keep his fangs from descending, just thinking of how it would be to ease her down beneath him, naked and willing and oh, so wet for him.

  “I’m not sure that’s fair,” she said, swallowing hard. “I don’t, ah, have that many questions.”

  “Well, then you’ll be safe, won’t you?” He leaned closer and inhaled her scent, which was a mistake. She smelled like summer and sunshine. She smelled like she belonged to him—like she was already his.

  Persuasion, after all, was nine-tenths of seduction.

  Her breath stuttered, and she turned her face to the side, leaving him to contemplate taking her earlobe between his teeth and nibbling on it, just until…

  “Okay. Tell me about that one. What is it?”

  Words, again, damn it. Too many words.

  “Bane?” She pointed at the knife in his hand. “That one?”

  He ground his teeth but then remembered the bargain. A question for a kiss.

  “Should I answer you first or claim a kiss and then answer?”

  She blushed, a fascinating dusky pink dusting her cheeks. “Answer first, I think.”

  Answers, not kisses. He took a step back, away from her heat and light and warmth. A step back toward the cold darkness of his life.

  “Ask me anything.”

  He wanted her to ask him to rip her clothes off, so they could discover what passion between them could be. But he wanted her to feel safe with him even more than he wanted to satisfy his own desires.

  Before he could take another step—either forward or back—she reached out and grabbed his shirt, and he froze.

  “No,” she whispered. “I want—I wish—answer me first, and then you can kiss me.”

  His gaze slowly, oh so slowly, traveled down to where she had a grip on his shirt, and it felt as though her fingers branded him through the fabric.

  “Question,” he growled, his mind empty. His body on fire from her touch.

  What would it be if she were ever to touch his naked skin?

  He might spontaneously burst into flame.

  “The—the dagger,” she said, more confidently now. “Tell me about that dagger, and then…then you can kiss me.”

  “The dagger.” He cleared his throat and tried to focus on the knife instead of on the pulse in her throat. “Yes. That’s a Bowie knife, actually, not a dagger. Jim Bowie invented it. It has a particularly long and powerful blade with this reverse-edge curve.” He offered it to her. “Would you like to hold it?”

  She shook her head. “Not particularly. It looks very sharp.”

  “It is. Sharp,” he repeated, too entranced by the curve of her cheek to make any sense at all. By all the curves of her lovely body. The curve of her breasts beneath his shirt. The curve of her hips in his trousers.

  His necktie was the only thing holding those trousers up—the only thing hiding her creamy skin from him…

  He raised the knife slowly toward her chest, and she gasped.

  “Bane?”

  “One kiss for one question,” he told her, carefully touching the tip of the blade to the placket of the shirt. “I didn’t say where.”

  A twist of his wrist and the button popped off the shirt and fell to the floor, and the gentle pressure of her breasts strained against the opening. He gazed down at the hollow between the curves and forgot how to breathe.

  “I—I did agree,” she whispered, and when he looked into her eyes, they were fever-bright.

  “So you did,” he said, dropping the knife to the floor, and then he said nothing else, because his mouth was busy.

  He pressed his lips to the swell of one breast and was rewarded by the way her body trembled beneath him. When she tightened the hand holding his shirt and then clutched his shoulder with her other hand, he gathered her into his arms.

  “I don’t understand this,” she murmured when he finally, regretfully, raised his head, since he’d only bargained for one kiss per question. “How is my entire body on fire like this, just from a kiss? I don’t even particularly like sex.”

  Bane smiled. “You don’t like sex? Your body is so responsive that you were clearly made for sex.”

  She blushed again but then frowned. “Don’t…you don’t have to do that. The false flattery thing. I know it’s what men do when they want sex—”

  “I give a compliment when it’s true and only then, believe me.” He traced the curve of her shoulder with one finger, delighting in her shiver. “Ask me another.”

  “What?”

  “Another question. Ask me another, so I can kiss you again.”

  “Tell me about being a vampire. How does it work? Are you all magic? And you can disappear, like you did in the hospital. How did you do that? Did you wake up with magic powers? Will Hunter Evans be able to do all those things?” She paused to draw breath, and he held up a hand.

  “I think that was more like five or six questions.” He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and leaned forward to whisper into it. “So I’ll answer them one at a time.”

  He ran his hands down her arms, watching her reaction. Barely suppressing a shout of triumph when her eyelids fluttered shut at his touch. “Yes, all vampires have magic, as far as I know. Or we are magic. Either way, the vampires that I know all gained certain powers when we Turned. None of them are exactly the same, either, and I don’t know how or why that is the case.”

  He leaned forward again, closed his eyes, and inhaled. Reveled in her scent. Her warmth.

  “But I—”

  “No. My turn.” He put his mouth on the curve of her neck, just over her pulse, and touched his tongue to her skin. When her heart rate sped up, he found himself fighting to keep from plunging his teeth into her vein.

  He yanked his head away from her neck, panting. Shocked at his loss of the control it had taken him three centuries to develop.

  Then taken her three minutes to demolish.

  He put his hands on the table on either side of her hips and touched his forehead to hers. “I don’t know what Hunter will be able to do. As you’ve seen, his Turn isn’t progressing in the same way that I’ve seen before. I don’t know why, before you ask.”

  “What about the others? What can they do?”

  Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright, and her hair mussed. She looked like she’d just been thoroughly bedded, and he wanted nothing more than to make perception into reality.

  But not here.

  Not on an old wooden table in a room designed for weapons of war. It would not be war they waged between them, when he t
ook this woman into his bed.

  No, it would be something far older and more passionate than mere war.

  “Bane?”

  “No,” he said abruptly. “I won’t tell you secrets that aren’t mine to tell. But now you answer me: in your home, you told me to take off my clothes. Is that offer still open?”

  She blinked and glanced around. “I—here? I mean—”

  “No. Not here. It would be the matter of a minute to take you back to my bed,” he rasped out, skin and flesh and nerve endings all aching at the idea that she might say yes.

  Unexpectedly—although what about this woman was ever expected?—she laughed. “I’m not the kind of person that this happens to. I’m old Reliable Ryan. Men as beautiful as you are never take notice of someone like me.”

  “You find me beautiful.” He wondered if a face could crack from smiling so hard. “Clearly, you’re a very perceptive and intelligent human.”

  She actually growled with frustration, and he wanted to roll around in the sound.

  “Bane! You know you’re beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful in my life. It’s ridiculously unfair, and either you’re a genetic miracle or it’s something about being a vampire.”

  His smile faded. “So, I’m only beautiful to you because I’m not human?”

  “You’re more human than any man I’ve ever known,” she said softly. “You protect your family. You help sick children. You save the life of a man who was burned nearly to death. Don’t hide behind this pretense of being a monster.”

  The words cut into him like a double-edged blade. Was her good opinion won so easily? Was she a fool that she couldn’t see who he really was?

  Worse, was the addition of touch and sensuality actually accomplishing the compulsion she’d resisted before? Maybe he should test that.

  “Put your hands on your head,” he commanded her, putting a strong push behind the words.

  “Put your hands on your own head,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I thought we were past this.”

  Not compulsion, then. She actually found him to be human-like. Human enough to allow him to touch her.

  To kiss her.

  “Stay.” He stepped back a pace and took a deep breath, needing a clear head. “Stay and study me. Tell me what you discover. Let’s discover if science can analyze magic, if maybe my blood can help you learn how to cure disease.”

  “You’d trust me? With your secrets?”

  “You could never share what you learn. Never tell the scientific community or anyone else. Could you be content with that?”

  “Keep your secrets, or you’d have to kill me?” The light in her eyes dimmed. “We’re back to that?”

  “If I can’t trust you, I’d have to do worse than kill you,” he told her, forcing the words from his throat.

  “Worse?” She paled, and her hand crept to her throat. “What’s worse?”

  “I’d Turn you. If you were one of us, you’d never tell our secrets.”

  “No! I can’t… No. Promise me that you won’t do that.” She shook with tension or fear at the mere idea, making him realize that she must believe him a monster, to be so afraid to become what he was.

  Which, of course, he should have expected, so he had no idea why his stomach suddenly felt hollow. But she deserved an answer, so he considered the question and then gave her the truth, when he so easily could have lied. “Yes. I promise you that I won’t Turn you, so long as you don’t disclose our secrets. Will you agree to work with me, and me alone, on those terms?”

  She stared into his eyes for so long he was sure the answer would be no, but then she nodded. “Yes. I’ll work with you, and I promise never to tell anyone about vampires.”

  She held out her hand, and bemused, he shook it.

  “So professional, Doctor.”

  “Yes. So. I think we should get back.” She bit her lip. “I need to go get some things from my place—some clothes—and some things from the hospital, so I can get started. I want to analyze your blood, first, and—”

  “Would you like to see my club?”

  “I—what?”

  He could tell by the faraway expression in her eyes that she’d been miles away, making lists in her fascinating, scientific mind.

  “My club? We’re downstairs from it now. I can show you around, if you like.”

  “Sure. But, isn’t it daylight now?” She bit her lip again, and a swelling of warmth spread through his chest when he realized why she’d asked.

  She was worried.

  For him.

  “Yes. Dawn broke twenty minutes ago. We—vampires—can always feel when the sun rises and sets. But there are no windows in the club, and the door opens into an entry with another door. It’s quite safe, but thank you.” He smiled at her. “It has been a long damn time since anyone other than my family has worried about me.”

  “Maybe it’s time that changed,” she said softly, returning his smile, and he could have sworn he heard the sound of the concrete blocks he’d built into a wall around his heart start to crack.

  “Maybe it is,” he murmured. “Shall we go up?”

  “After you,” she said brightly.

  He pretended not to notice when she slipped the Bowie knife into her pants pocket. If a blade helped her feel safer in the midst of monsters…

  The most human man she’d ever met.

  He could work with that.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ryan waited until Bane’s back was turned before sneaking the knife into her pocket. She had to stab hard to make a hole in the bottom of the pocket, so the full length of the blade would fit in, and then walk very carefully so she didn’t slice her leg open. The only kind of blades she was used to were scalpels, and she didn’t carry those around in her pocket.

  He’d agreed. Only for the children, but still, he’d said yes to letting her study his blood, and she wanted so very badly to do it. To study him. To see how the secrets of his blood might be able to help cure incurable diseases. To learn about magic, after a life spent with no magic at all.

  It was as if all her secret dreams of adventure were coming true—dreams of meeting a man who could fulfill the darkest fantasies she held deep in a hidden corner of her heart.

  Of her soul.

  And now here he was. In the flesh, so to speak. Magical and miraculous. So beautiful that, scientifically, he almost couldn’t be real. And yet, somehow, he was. He not only existed, but he wanted her. She’d felt the evidence of it pressing up against her core when he stood between her legs. He’d kissed her like a man who truly wanted her—touched her with reverence and longing.

  She knew this was true, because she’d had experience with the opposite. With perfunctory kisses. With touch fueled more by alcohol than desire.

  No, Bane wanted Ryan for herself—not just because she happened to be available, like a few of the less-than-memorable experiences she’d had after nights out. And—even more miraculously—he made her want him as well.

  The entire situation was impossible, and yet she was damn well going to talk herself into trying to believe it. At least for a little while, she could be the type of woman who went on wild adventures. Who rescued the prince from his tower. Who made friends with the dragon and rode off into the sunset. Maybe not to live happily ever after—but to live happily and magically for just a little while?

  What wouldn’t she give for that?

  She would leave Reliable Ryan behind and become wildly, fearlessly unreliable in all the best ways.

  By the time she came to this terrifying and tantalizing conclusion, Bane had led her up to the top of the staircase and into a freezing-cold space that looked like the NASA control room.

  She’d never seen so many computers in one place in her life. “What could you possibly need all this for?”

  “M
ore questions?” Bane’s smile was downright wicked.

  She blushed, in spite of herself, because she knew exactly what he was thinking. More questions meant more kisses, and not necessarily on her mouth. That led her to thinking about some places that she’d very much like to feel his kisses, and then she had to clench her thighs together against the answering heat.

  “Coming?” Bane stood at the door waiting for her. She almost could’ve sworn his gaze flickered to the pocket where she carried the knife, but that must just have been her nerves. After all, he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head, so how could he know?

  Unless x-ray vision was another power?

  All of a sudden, she felt the headache rushing back. She’d barely touched her food before Edge had come crashing in, she hadn’t slept, and all that wine was still working its way through her body. Not to mention the adrenaline that had been coursing through her at each new revelation. What she needed was oxygen, headache medicine, and about a gallon of water. Plus more coffee.

  Lots more coffee.

  Stat.

  But Bane was still waiting, now with a hand held out to her, so she took a deep breath and smiled.

  At the door, he suddenly paused. “I forgot to grab a carving knife I was sharpening for Mrs. C. Wait here.”

  Ryan sighed, watching him go.

  Wait. Sit. Stay.

  Roll over, human.

  The man needed to learn a few things about this particular human, and she needed to stand up for herself before she actually rolled over for every barked order he issued.

  She pushed open the door and walked into the room beyond.

  As if on cue, most of the people in the room, which consisted of two kinds: 1) scary men wearing Vampire Motorcycle Club vests and 2) scary women wearing Vampire Motorcycle Club vests, turned to look at her with varying degrees of surprise. Most of them looked like people she wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.

  As opposed to the vampire you’re hanging out with now.

  One of the biggest guys, who had a full beard, long hair in braids, and a scar bisecting the dark skin of his right cheek, swaggered up to her and looked her up and down.