“Then you saved my life.”
She allowed herself a small smile. “Maybe.”
He squinted harder. “Is that duct tape stuck to my urn?”
Ashe looked a bit sheepish. “I caught it before it smashed, but I think the blast cracked it a bit. I didn’t want your soul leaking out. Tape was the only thing I could find fast enough to do any good.”
Reynard began to chuckle. “Witches, werewolves, vampires, and a castle full of guardsmen on hand, not to mention police, firefighters, paramedics, and the media—and the only thing that could save my soul was a roll of duct tape.”
The chuckle turned into a guffaw.
Ashe looked down at him with a mixture of shock—she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him really laugh—and pique. “I was doing the best I could. It was all chaos and demon bits!”
He touched her cheek, his fingers threading through her hair. Reynard was giving her that smoking look again, the one that made it feel as if her insides were turning to chocolate syrup. He cupped her head, pulling her mouth down to his. The kiss was urgent and vulnerable, as if he were making up for the centuries of emotion that he’d missed.
When they broke apart, he still held her, his breath warm against her ear.
“How did Prince Miru-kai get your life out of the urn and back into you?” she asked. “You were gone for three whole days before they put you back in your chamber.”
“I’m not sure. I was unconscious.”
“I waited for you here as much as I could.”
He kissed Ashe again, and she completely lost verbal skills.
“Three days,” he murmured. “Three whole days. I only have another forty years or so. I don’t have time to waste.”
“Forty years is a long time.”
“I’ve been alive for nearly three hundred, and I’m not sure I’ve made good use of my time. I have some catching up to do.”
There was real regret in his words. He sat up, the sheet pooling around his hips. Swallowing hard, Ashe rested her hands on his shoulders. There was a lot of naked Reynard right there in front of her. “I’ll do what I can to help.”
He suddenly laughed, his gray eyes alight with humor.
She unbuckled her holster, setting it on the chair beside the bed. Reynard’s laugh faded. One by one, she shed her knives, the stakes, the second handgun at the small of her back. She made a show of it, taking her time. By the time she got to the wrist sheaths, he looked deadly serious.
“Do you want to help me with the rest?” she asked.
He slid out of the bed and knelt at her feet, the motion graceful and fluid. And without a sheet.
Oh, Goddess. He was clearly feeling hunky-dory.
“Allow me.” He lifted her foot in his hands and drew off her right boot, then her left. The stone floor was cold through her socks, worse than an unheated basement, but all she let herself notice was him. It wasn’t difficult. His full lips curved in that bad-boy smile.
She reached down and picked up one of the stakes she’d dropped, running the tip along her thigh as she straightened. “Want to play hunter and vampire?”
Reynard quirked his eyebrow. “Madam, I came equipped with my own stake.”
“Whoa! Points to the old guy.”
He sprang up, snatching Ashe off her feet in the same motion, proving that he’d lost none of his amazing strength. “You consider me old?”
Ashe yipped with horror. “You toss me over your shoulder and I’ll stake your butt, mister!”
With a grunt, Reynard dumped her onto the bed, making the springs squeak. He was breathing hard, but not from exertion.
She grabbed his arms and pulled him down, devouring his mouth. He tasted spicy, like sin melting on her tongue.
Her clothes were off in moments. Their lips met again, starved by the few seconds it took to undress her. Ashe could feel the magic of the fey still clinging to him as they bonded skin to skin. It was far subtler than a witch’s power, as gossamer silk was to heavy wool. It hung like smoke around them, filling her senses with the impossible: rainbows that shone only at night, music that fell like a shower of daydreams.
As Reynard ran his hands over her, she saw a stately home dusted with snow. His old house, back in the day? The scene shivered to a storm of color as the needs of her body pushed away the thrall of magic. The house was gone, and he was touching her, testing her wetness as she clenched around his probing fingers. Salty skin, the musk of man surrounded her. Ashe arched into him, letting pleasure ride her to the first crest of release.
Then she was back in the vision, riding a horse at breakneck speed through a field, the sunset glittering on rain caught in the grass. “Memories. I’m seeing your memories.”
“It’s my life coming back to me, one moment at a time.”
Then they were lost in the heat, finding sweet release. Mouths met again, nurturing, nourishing. She slid down, the length of her body stroking his as they curled beneath the covers of his narrow bed. His hand found her hair, fingers weaving through it. Ashe pressed next to him, glad of his warmth in the cool room.
She turned his hand in hers, feeling the weight of it, the calluses where he held his sword. His fingers were long, but the tips were blunt and his palm square.
“What do you see in the lines of my hand, Madam Gypsy?” he asked. His voice was deep and intimate in the tiny room.
“If I’d looked at your hands first, I might have understood you better.”
He folded his other arm behind his head so that he could see her better. Amusement played around his lips. “How is that?”
“You work hard.”
“I always have.”
“Really?”
“You thought I didn’t?”
“I wouldn’t have assumed . . .”
The lines around his eyes crinkled. “I had my fun, but I was a second son, love. I had to make my way in the world. Either that, or marry an heiress.”
Ashe laughed. “Well, we still have a few of those around.”
“I never could bring myself to wed for money. Now, for that motorcycle of yours, I might make an exception.”
His hand explored beneath the covers, stroking her waist and hip in a long, possessive sweep. “I seem to be recovering my strength.”
“You’re just thinking about my bike.”
“No.” He quirked an eyebrow. “I’m wondering how a man courts a woman in these times. Are there still balls?”
“Nightclubs and coffee shops. A lot less formal.”
“What do you like to do?” His smile was wicked, bad boy present and accounted for. “You have such a poor opinion of my aristocratic kind that I ought to show you how a gentleman born can make a woman happy.”
Ashe felt herself smiling in response. She’d all but forgotten this back-and-forth with a man. “Skiing. Mountain climbing. Horseback riding.”
“Riding?”
“I like a good stallion,” she said. “A good, frisky one.”
“Really?”
She moved under the bedsheet. He drew his breath in suddenly, touching her face, sliding his hand down over her breast. Angling over her, he left a long, lingering kiss on her lips. “You’re so beautiful. If a trifle impatient.”
She felt the softness of his hair, the harsh brush of his stubble. The contrast of textures was exciting. Then his mouth was on her breasts, her stomach, then nipping the soft flesh of her thighs. He was just this side of masterful. That was what she needed. She didn’t feel like proving herself tonight. For once, she wanted someone to simply want her—nothing complicated, no thinking required.
His mouth was on her, tasting her, sending a sweet-and-sour need through her belly. She felt her heels dig into the sheets as the tension grew, desire sharp as the finest steel. Cursing under her breath, she felt the waves of sensation pounding through her as he brought her to the edge of oblivion, then backed away, then brought her there again, only to steal her finish once more. She flung her head back, arching her neck, eyes
squeezed shut in delicious frustration.
“Goddess, I’m not immortal; let me go before I break!”
“Are you asking nicely?” he teased, closing his lips around the peak of her breast at the same time his fingers slipped inside her.
And that did it. With a wild gasp, she opened her eyes, the pool of lamplight by the bedside dissolving into a golden aura as tears of release spilled down her cheeks. She came under his hand long and hard.
She was still burning with pleasure when he slipped his hard length inside, easing in with a few leisurely strokes. His chest muscles did an interesting dance as he shifted his weight onto his arms, doing a slow, slow push-up to bring his lips down to hers. Ashe could see a vein in his arm pulse as he hovered there, intimately inside her, yet holding himself apart. Her nipples just brushed his skin, trembling against him as she breathed. She began to pant, her inner muscles spasming, clenching around him.
He groaned, giving in to the urge to thrust. She felt the slide through her whole body, a friction that overflowed her senses. She rose to meet it, slick with anticipation. His next thrust was harder, barely banked power.
“Again,” she breathed, reaching up to grab the bars of the headboard. “You don’t need to hold back.”
He let his mouth trail over her neck, down between her breasts, and then the rhythm took them both—slowly at first, Reynard lingering over the motion, then more and yet more greedily, driving into her without mercy. She came first, the sound of his name on her lips bringing him to climax in a shuddering rush.
Afterward, they lay entwined, reluctant to separate. Finally, sweat drying in the chill air, Ashe began to shiver. Reynard made the first move, retrieving the covers to pull over them. Ashe curled into his chest, basking in the lassitude after lovemaking.
It had been perfect. Epic.
There was no reason for this to ever end. She had him. Life was good.
“My love,” Reynard said, running one finger down her cheek.
“What?” Ashe curled deeper into his side.
“You have very, very cold feet.”
She swatted him with her pillow.
Turn the page for an excerpt from Sharon Ashwood’s next Dark Forgotten novel, ICED Coming soon from Signet Eclipse
Talia might be dead, but she still had a bad case of the creeps.
The scent of blood swamped her brain, swallowing sight and sound. She hesitated where she stood, her vampire senses screaming that something was wrong. That much blood was far too much of a good thing. The elevator doors whooshed shut behind her, stirring a gust of recycled air. Stirring up that maddening, tantalizing, revolting smell.
Talia blinked the hallway back into focus. This was her floor of the condo building, and home and Michelle were at the end of the hall. She fished her door keys out of her purse and started walking, the glossy pink bag from Howard’s banging against her leg as she walked.
Now her stomach hurt and her jaws ached to bite, but more from panic than hunger. That much blood meant someone was hurt. There were a lot of elderly people in the building. Many lived alone. One of them might have slipped and fallen, or maybe cut themselves in the kitchen. Or maybe someone had broken in. . . .
Talia quickened her stride, following the scent. She pulled her phone out of her shoulder bag, the rhinestones on its bright blue case winking in the dim overhead light. She flipped it open, ready to dial Emergency as soon as she figured out who was in trouble. She was no superhero, but she could force open a door and control her hunger long enough for basic first aid. If there were bad guys, oh, well. She’d had a light dinner.
She passed units 1508, 1510, and 1512, her high-heeled ankle boots silent on the soft green carpet. She paused at each door—1514, 1516—listening for clues. A television muttered here and there. No sounds of a predator attacking its prey.
Unit 1520, 1522. The smell was coming from 1524, at the end of the hall. Oh. Oh!
Unit 1524 was her place. Michelle!
She grasped the cool metal of the door handle and turned it. It was unlocked. The door swung open, and the smell of death rushed into the hall like surf, drowning Talia all over again.
Instinct froze her where she stood, listening. There was no heartbeat, but that didn’t mean much. Lots of things, herself included, didn’t have a pulse. Reaching out her left hand, she pushed the door all the way open. The entry looked straight through to the living room, where a big picture window let in the glow of city lights. It was plenty of light for a vampire to see by.
“Michelle?” she said softly. There’s no one here. She must have left.
Talia couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe anything else. She set down her purse and shopping bag and slid her phone into her pocket. Get a grip. But her hands shook so hard, she had to make fists to stop them.
She left the door open behind her as she tiptoed inside. She’d lived there for two months, but suddenly the place felt alien. Lamps, tables, the so- ugly-it-was-cute pink china poodle with the bobble head . . . They might as well have been rock formations on another planet. Nothing felt right.
Her boot bumped against something. Talia sprang backward, her dead heart giving a thump of fright. She stared, organizing the shape into meaning. A suitcase. One of those with the pull-out handle and wheels. Big and bright red.
It was Michelle’s.
“Michelle?” Talia meant to shout this time, but it came out a whisper. “What the hell, girl?”
She groped on the wall for the light switch, suddenly needing the comfort of brightness. The twin lamps that framed the couch bloomed with warm light.
Oh, God.
Her stomach heaved. Now she could see all that red, red blood. Scarlet sprayed in arcs across the wall, splattering the furniture like a painter gone all Jackson Pollock on the decor. Talia shuddered as the carpet squished with wetness.
The smell could have gagged a werewolf.
She dimly realized one of the bookshelves was knocked over. There had been a fight.
“Michelle?” Her voice sounded tiny, childlike. Talia took one more step, and that gave her a full view of the living room. Oh, God!
Suddenly standing was hard. She grabbed the wall before she could fall down.
Her cousin, tall and trim in her navy blue cruise-hostess uniform, lay on her side between the couch and the coffee table. Drops of drying blood made her skin look luminously pale. Beneath the tangle of dark hair, Talia’s gaze sought the features she knew as well as her own: high forehead, freckled nose, the mouth that turned up at one corner, always ready to smile. Born a year apart, they’d always looked more like twins than plain old cousins.
They still looked almost identical, except Michelle’s head was a yard away from the rest of her body.
Talia’s eyes drifted shut as the room closed in, darkness spiraling down to a pinpoint.
Beheaded.
Talia’s grip on the wall failed, and she started to sink to the floor. The wet, red floor. Sudden nausea wrenched her. She scrambled to the kitchen, retching into the sink. She’d fed earlier, but not much. Nothing came up but a thin trickle of fluid.
Beheaded.
She heaved again, the strength of her vampire body making it painful. Talia leaned over the stainless-steel sink, shaking. The image of her cousin’s body burned in her mind’s eye. Whoever had done it had meant to kill her. Taking the head was the usual way to execute vampires—a lot more certain than a wooden stake.
She died because of me. They thought she was me. Talia’s breath caught, and caught again, air dragging through her lungs in tiny gasps that finally dissolved into sobs. She pushed away from the sink, grabbing a paper towel to mop her eyes. There was no time to fall apart.
But she did. She pressed the wadded towel to her mouth, stifling her moans. The tears were turning to a burning ache that ran down her throat, through her body, and out the soles of her feet.
This was no good. She had to get out of there.
Before whoever murdered Michelle came back
.
Before someone called the cops and they blamed her, because she was the monster found next to the body.
Talia braced herself against the counter and stared into the sink until her eyes blurred and she squeezed them shut. This was the moment when the movie hero swore revenge, made a plan, and went after the bad guy.
All she felt was gut-wrenching grief.
A rustling sound came from the hallway, as if something had brushed against the shopping bag she’d abandoned by the door.
Talia spun around, terror rippling over her skin. So much for her earlier quip of bad guys, oh, well. Macabre images flashed one after another through her mind. Sheer willpower pinned her to the floor, making her think before she bolted straight into danger.
Normally, she would worry about hiding her scent from another predator, but the place stank so badly, that wasn’t an issue. Plus, whoever had killed Michelle had to be human. Nothing else would have confused one of its own with a vampire.
Slowly, she peered around the edge of the kitchen doorway. A figure hulked in the threshold to the condo, backlit by the lights from the hall.
Oh, God! It’s—he’s—coming this way.
Talia shrank back into the galley kitchen, squeezing into the corner between the refrigerator and the wall. She shrank down, making herself small, bending her head forward to hide her pale skin with the dark fall of her hair. There was no need for her to breathe, as the absolute stillness of the dead would in this case work to her advantage.
Except terror made her want to run so badly her muscles cramped.
The fridge hummed, the hard surface vibrating against her arm. Trapped! Through the curtain of her hair, she could see the stranger’s wide shoulders blocking the hallway between her and the door. Her heart gave a single painful beat, jolted back to life by the adrenaline rushing into her blood.
Tears of outrage stung Talia’s eyes. She was frightened, absolutely, but she was also furious. Someone had killed Michelle, and now they’d come back. Realize you screwed up? she thought bitterly. Figure out this is human blood all over your hands?
It galled her to be so helpless. Talia had weapons, but they were stuffed in the top of the hallway closet, gathering dust. She’d thought she’d never have to use them again. Prayed for it.
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