Harlequin Nocturne March 2014 Bundle: ShadowmasterRunning with Wolves

by Susan Krinard

  * * *

  That was the moment Phoenix knew.

  “Many names,” Sammael had said. He wasn’t merely a link in a chain, passing on information, protecting his fellow spies. This Opir knew what Erebus had planned for the mayor.

  He knew because he was the assassin.

  She sat down hard on the chair. “What was your real name?” she asked. “When you were human?”

  “Charles. Charles Cruise.”

  “And now?”

  He smiled, as if he found something secretly amusing in the midst of so much horror. “In ancient Chinese mythology,” he said, “the Phoenix was the feminine symbol used to represent beauty and good luck. She was yin to the yang of the dragon, the symbol of power and good fortune.”

  “Good fortune?” she said, gasping out a laugh. “But you’re not here to bring good fortune to the Enclave, are you...Drakon?”

  “Ironic, isn’t it? The two together symbolized a fruitful marriage.”

  He wasn’t even trying to pretend. He must always have suspected that Aegis knew the name of the potential assassin, though obviously he’d been right in believing they knew little more than that. He also knew that she’d lost control of her very real attraction to him—a Nightsider, no matter what his appearance.

  And she was certain that, deep in his converted heart, he didn’t want to go through with his mission.

  Maybe it was only wishful thinking of the worst kind. But whatever she might feel for him—or he for her, if any Opir could really feel anything of affection or love—wouldn’t matter at all if she lost this chance he’d given her. If she ignored the sacrifice he was willing to make.

  “Fruitful?” she said, unable to conceal the agonizing turmoil of her emotions. “There’s no hope of that now.” She moved just out of his reach, breathing fast. “I’m sure you’ve guessed by now that I was sent to track down the assassin we knew was stalking the city.”

  “And you, only half-dhampir, were supposed to catch him?”

  “No. I was supposed to return once I had a solid idea of how we might find him or her. Once I realized you were Opir, I knew you had to be connected somehow. I chose to remain, hoping to learn more.”

  “To prove yourself?” he asked. “To show you’re as good as any of the true dhampires?”

  He knew her. How well he knew her.

  “What about you?” she said. “What are you, Drakon? You’ve never behaved like a Nightsider who only cares about humans as slaves and sources of food. You—”

  “I am one of them,” he said flatly.

  “Against your will. Like all the other deportees, you started as a serf in the Citadel—”

  “And was Claimed by an Opir who treated his human slaves with decency. Who believed they were more than animals. I wasn’t well educated before I went to Erebus. By the time I became his vassal, I knew more about both human and Opir history than most humans learn in their entire lives.”

  “But you’re not a vassal now,” she said.

  “I’m a Freeblood,” he said, “able to make my own choices.”

  She was quiet a moment, thinking things through. “I understand your desire to get revenge on Patterson,” she said. “But what about Shepherd? Drakon, I want to understand.”

  “What does it matter?”

  “It matters to me.”

  He sighed. “I told you the Bloodlord who Claimed me in Erebus became my mentor,” he said. “But he was more like a father to me. Julius believed, as I did, that there must be a way to communicate with the Enclave—not via diplomats or small acts of aggression, but through the agents who actually patrol the Zone. Agents of Aegis and the Council, meeting in peace.”

  “He sounds like a...good man,” Phoenix said softly.

  Drakon seemed not to hear her. “Many Opiri in the Citadel had begun to question the Expansionists who wanted a new war, but some of these dissenters recognized the possible benefits of tearing down the old and rebuilding, even if it might lead to a smaller war.”

  A smaller war, Phoenix thought with a shudder. “Political expediency,” she said, “meant to stop something even worse.”

  “As in the Enclave.” He clenched his teeth. “My Sire sent me out to warn Enclave agents. But Julius learned that the Expansionists on the Council had acted alone and had sent their own operatives to kill any Opiri in the Zone who were not explicitly authorized to be there. He risked his own life to warn me. But Aegis captured him, tortured him and left him for dead. I found him and held him while he died of his wounds and exposure to the sun. There was hardly anything left of him but charred skin and bone.”

  “My God,” Phoenix whispered. “I can’t believe that any agent—”

  “Can’t you?” He sat up, jaw set against the pain. “I was taught, like all humans, that Opiri are unfailingly evil. Even dhampires, who work for the Enclave, aren’t completely trusted here because of their Nightsider blood. There are agents who are more than happy to torment an Opir prisoner, even if it isn’t officially condoned.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Phoenix said, turning cold. “I’ve known a lot of agents. Good agents. Good people. What you’re saying—”

  “I saw what they did with my own eyes.”

  “And my father was killed by one of yours!”

  “Did they torture him first?”

  Phoenix drew her legs up to her chest and hugged them tightly. “They must have wanted information from Julius, even if...if they—”

  “I never found out,” Drakon said coldly. “Julius was unable to speak at the end. But afterward, I tracked the Enclave agents. I learned who was responsible.”

  “Aaron Shepherd,” she whispered.

  “He was on the committee setting and overseeing Aegis policy at the time. I learned from one of the agents I questioned that he had authorized more stringent methods against enemy operatives in the Zone because of certain intelligence he had received about the Citadel’s plans.”

  Phoenix was nearly beyond shock. “I can understand...why he might authorize more stringent methods in the Zone, where agents’ lives are at stake,” she said, her voice shaking. “But to approve...to approve of torture, and murder—”

  She’d still been in love with Aaron when he was on the committee, Phoenix thought, feeling the bile rise in her throat as she remembered how happy she’d been then, thinking—hoping—the two of them might marry one day.

  “I didn’t know,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “For the death of a Bloodlord, one of the detested enemy, who hasn’t been human for thousands of years?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He was good to you.”

  “Better than any human I’d ever known except my real parents and my...my own family.”

  “And so Shepherd has to die. And you’ll make Patterson suffer. Was that part of your mission?”

  “Vengeance is an emotion Opiri share with humans,” he said. “They trusted me all the more because of my personal motives.”

  “Is that why they chose you?”

  He met her gaze, his own almost blank. “I’m an expert marksman. The best there is.”

  “You learned that in Erebus?”

  He didn’t answer. Phoenix’s mind cleared, and her thoughts began to race.

  “What if Shepherd could be brought down another way?” she asked.

  “Would you let him be brought down, Phoenix?”

  No, she thought. Not even for you. Not even knowing what he’s done. “I know you plan to try for the mayor during that week I’m supposed to buy from the Enforcers,” she said. “But you’re not a killer, Drakon, no matter what I thought at first. You’d never have let me get near enough to touch you if you were. I’d be dead.” She unfolded her body and rose again. “You can still ruin Patterson. And then you can d
isappear, until the government is convinced the danger is over.”

  He sighed and closed his eyes. “Let’s stop playing games, Phoenix,” he said. “I had a choice, and I made it.”

  She moved closer, drawn by the torment in his voice. “You don’t believe your revenge is more important than the thousands of lives that will be destroyed after Shepherd is dead. If the Opiri succeed in infiltrating the Enclave, every man, woman and child here will lose their freedom.”

  “The freedom your citizens have now, constantly risking deportation for the slightest infraction?”

  “As you were,” she said, staring at him with all the contempt she could muster. “But I think I understand now. It’s not just Shepherd or Patterson or what they did to people you loved. You do think the Enclave deserves to fall.”

  “Maybe all of it does,” he said, the grief and anger naked on his burned face. “The Enclave, the Citadel. Maybe none of it should survive.”

  She clenched her fists. “You’re wrong, Drakon.”

  “There is only one sure solution to your problem. See that I die, or become a real traitor to your people.”

  “No,” she said, unable to comprehend what was happening to her. To them. “You said you once believed, like Julius, that we might find a new way of peace.”

  “I once believed it,” he said. “But if it happens at all, it will only be after cleansing by fire and rebirth from the ashes.” His eyes grew moist, and somehow she knew he was remembering those he had loved and lost. “Sacrifices must be made.”

  “And yours will be the most noble of all. Because you can’t face the thing that’s tearing you apart inside. You don’t have the courage to stop what you know is wrong. You’re giving in to what you hate, and you want me to save you.”

  “It will tear you apart if you don’t stop it.”

  “Do you hate me so much?”

  “I only wish I did.”

  Chapter 14

  Phoenix’s heart jumped in her chest. She hadn’t imagined what she’d heard in Drakon’s voice. Or what it meant.

  It wasn’t only lust, after all, though there was no way to be sure how far his feelings for her extended. And she still didn’t understand how she could care so deeply for a creature who could destroy everything she believed in.

  What do you believe in, Phoenix? she asked herself. Do you even know anymore?

  “Drakon—” she began.

  But sometime during her pause, Drakon had fallen unconscious. Or asleep...she couldn’t tell which. She climbed onto the other side of the bed and stretched out beside him. Very, very gently she touched his neck, feeling for his pulse. It was a great irony that, unlike the monsters of legend, Opir “vampires” had nearly all the same biological functions as human beings.

  And Drakon’s seemed fine. His heart beat steadily, and his breathing was normal. He only needed time to let his body take care of itself.

  Until then, he was helpless. He’d let himself go. Had she wanted to, she could kill him in his sleep.

  She didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep herself until she felt Drakon’s chest move under her cheek. Somehow she’d come to rest on one of the burned parts of his body, but she knew at once it was healed by the texture, the firm, warm skin supporting her head.

  Before she could pull back, she felt Drakon’s hand in her hair, gently twisting the strands around his fingers.

  “You slept,” he said.

  The sound of his voice was slightly drowsy, and yet there was an edge to it. A hungry edge. And her throat was very close to his mouth.

  “Why didn’t you kill me?” he asked, his chest rising with a deep, slow breath.

  “I don’t know,” she said, making no further attempt to move away. Her thoughts had suddenly fallen into new and disturbing channels. What if she willingly shared her blood with him?

  He’d as good as admitted that his feelings for her went beyond what he’d willingly admit. Even if addiction—and all it implied—was virtually impossible, might his taking her blood create a bond between them that would tip him over to her side?

  There was always a chance. But she was afraid. Afraid she was making another terrible mistake.

  “How long have you gone without blood?” she asked, closing her eyes.

  His breath gusted against her hair. “Too long,” he said. “Maybe all you have to do is wait me out.”

  “Take mine,” she whispered.

  She could feel his stare burning the top of her head. “What?” he asked.

  “You heard me,” she said, swallowing.

  He pushed her away. She rolled onto her side, her own pulse beating so fast that she was sure he must hear it.

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said.

  “Yes, I do.” She met his troubled, hungry gaze. “We have opposing goals, Drakon. We’ll always be enemies. But there is something between us, and for some crazy reason I want to have at least one good memory, no matter what happens.”

  He sat up, the sheets she’d tucked up around his chin falling to his waist. “A good memory?” he said hoarsely. “I could convert you into my vassal.”

  “No. The part of me that’s dhampir is one of the forty percent who can’t be converted.”

  “And because you’re part dhampir,” he said, his expression stony, “you think you can bind me in some way, force me to—”

  “No,” she said, touching his healed hand. “I know you’ve been attracted to my blood from the beginning, but you can’t become addicted to the blood of someone like me.”

  “And yet you seem so eager to help me, when you should want just the opposite.”

  She sat up, ready to get off the bed. “I offered,” she said. “Don’t forget that, when we’re—”

  Drakon grabbed her wrist and pulled her back across the bed. “I’m willing to take the risk,” he said softly.

  Phoenix looked up from her prone position, feeling more vulnerable than she had since she’d first met him. “Something else might happen, Drakon,” she said. “Something even you don’t expect.”

  In answer, he pulled her onto his lap. She could feel his cock pushing the sheet into a peak just under her thighs, and in spite of herself she moved until it was between them.

  “Watch yourself, Phoenix,” he said, “unless you’re prepared to give me more than blood.”

  She half-turned and kissed the side of his mouth. “I said I wanted something to remember,” she said. “Can you give me that, Drakon?”

  He rolled over on top of her, his lean and graceful body uncovered, holding himself above her with his muscular arms. She thought he would begin by biting her, but instead he kissed her, very gently, as if they had all the time in the world. She pushed her fingers through his hair and returned the kiss with greater urgency, but he pulled back.

  “Easy,” he said with a warmth that made her catch her breath. “I will survive a few more minutes.” He turned slightly away and touched his mouth. When he turned back again, his incisors were clearly visible, no longer covered by the caps that had disguised them. He resumed his former position, and kissed Phoenix again. She sensed the slight change in the feel of his mouth on hers, though his biting teeth never so much as grazed her lips. His tongue slipped inside her mouth, and she opened to accept him.

  The kiss was lingering, deep, incredibly arousing. But it didn’t give her what she wanted most. She was almost ready to beg him when his tongue made a trail down over her collarbone, above her breasts and suddenly found her nipple. He teased the erect tip with a curl of his tongue, bringing it to almost painful attention. She pulled his head down and his mouth closed over her, taking in as much of her breast as he could. Gradually, he withdrew and began to explore the underside of her breast and below.

  It was a slow, fascinating, wonderf
ul thing, how he kissed his way down to the hollow of her ribs and lower to her belly. The way he seemed to remove her pants without her feeling it. The way his tongue was suddenly in just the place she wanted it to be, doing just the things she had imagined.

  But so much better. He parted her thighs gently, and his lips settled on the soft curls between them, already damp with arousal. His tongue slid down into the indentation beneath, darted inside, touched her in a place that sent a powerful shock through her entire body.

  He didn’t linger there, though the torment was exquisite. He began to explore, licking slowly, as if he were savoring a particularly delicious treat. He ran his tongue along every fold, every valley, sometimes skating over the surface, sometimes pushing deep. Phoenix dug her fingers into the sheets and moaned as he slowly circled her entrance and probed inside, making her shudder and gasp. Then, as his tongue darted in and out, he began to rub her clitoris with his thumb.

  Bucking helplessly, Phoenix felt herself begin to come. But he withdrew just in time, letting her body relax for a few moments, before returning to her breasts. He slid one, two, three fingers inside her and moved them in rhythm with his eager suckling.

  Again she came to the edge, and again he stopped. But this time what she felt between her legs was very hard and large and as hungry to enter her as she was to have Drakon inside her. She wrapped her legs around his hips, and he entered her slowly, an inch at a time, though she could hardly wait to be filled to the brim.

  She moaned in relief as he thrust deep, pushing her into the mattress, letting her feel his hardness stretch her before withdrawing and thrusting again. Each movement was deliberate, not desperate, as if he meant to torture her. And each time she gasped as if he were doing it for the first time.

  “More,” she whispered. And he obliged. He began to move faster, thrusting harder, rocking her, claiming her, kissing her and pushing his tongue between her lips. She was open to him in every way, and still it wasn’t enough. She wanted him so deep inside her that he could never leave again.

  But that was not to be. He slowed for a minute, taking his time again, and then suddenly was thrusting almost violently, forcing her to cry out not in pain but in ecstasy. She came with a great shudder that sent spikes of pleasure through every nerve, from head to toe, and a few seconds later he came, as well, driving a last time, his chest heaving, his breath coming fast.