“Stay here,” Nathan said shortly. “I’ll go out front, check things out.”
“Right,” she answered as he turned and slid down the hallway, headed for the front of the house. “You do that.”
As soon as he was gone, she turned and bolted for the kitchen and the back door. Guilt curled up inside her at sending Nathan out on a wild-goose chase, but she fought it down. She was doing what she had to do. Besides, the SEAL would probably enjoy himself out prowling through the dark. Now, if she could just make it to the garage while he was at the front of the castle, she knew she could make her escape before he had a chance to stop her.
She shivered in the cold night air, but ignored the chill in her blood as she slipped from shadow to shadow, headed for the huge garage. Her steps sounded overly loud in her own ears and she prayed that Guardians or whatever they were, didn’t have superhuman hearing along with everything else Kieran had talked about.
Reaching the small door to one side of the massive stone building, Julie grabbed the brass knob and whispered a prayer that it wasn’t locked. It turned under her hand and she began to hope that things would go her way. Slipping inside, she walked through into the main garage and as she did, lights flickered on. Motion sensors?
A line of cars of every kind stretched out in front of her. Luxury sedans, sports cars, even a huge all-terrain vehicle that any military guy would have sold his soul for. There were even a couple of world class motorcycles in the far bay, but she paid them no attention. Rushing to the first car in the lineup, a small, black two-seater sports car that, hopefully, had a lot of muscle under its hood, she grabbed the door handle, whispered a quick, prayer and…opened it. As she’d hoped, the keys were in the ignition and there were two buttons on the dash. She vaguely remembered Kieran hitting one of them as they drove up the mountain, so that was the gate remote. As for the other, it had to be for the garage. She’d only have a minute or two once she fired up the engine. Dead Nathan would be hot on her heels and she had to be ready to go as soon as the door opened. Taking a breath, Julie swallowed hard, locked the doors and hit the garage door opener. Firing up the engine, she waited only long enough for the wide, steel door to open high enough to allow the car to pass under it before she stepped on the gas.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Nathan sprinting across the yard toward her, but she was already rolling toward the first gate. She hit the button, the metal gates yawned open and she was through them, hurtling down the mountainside into the darkness.
She was free.
For the moment.
Kieran’s head lifted and his eyes flashed with fury. Every sense he possessed hummed in alarm.
Julie had escaped. Damn the woman. He focused his mind to hers, willing himself into her thoughts and he felt her satisfaction at having outwitted Nathan—who would answer to Kieran for failing in his duty. Go back, he ordered, forcing her to meet his mind as she tasted freedom. She’d left the castle. Left his protection.
And even while rage bubbled and frothed inside him, he felt almost a flash of pride. She’d gotten past Nathan—no small feat in itself—and had actually stolen one of Kieran’s cars. She was far more resourceful than he’d imagined.
Julie ignored his mental summons, and his anger blistered inside him like a raging fire. Seeing through her eyes, watching the images of her surroundings fly past her as she pushed the car to its limits, he saw exactly where she was. She was already down the mountain, heading for the freeway.
How had she escaped Nathan?
Why would she want to escape?
He’d thought they’d reached an understanding on the roof. Thought she’d believed him when he told her about the dangers surrounding her. Woman, he whispered into her mind, you try my patience. He thought he felt her laugh wildly, but then she was gone as if in her own turmoil and emotional state, she’d found a way to block him.
“Damn it,” he muttered, as he started down the dirt and brush covered hill. He should have mated with her. Should have forged the link that was already building between them into something more solid. It was his own fault. He’d hesitated about using her. Because somewhere inside him, he was concerned that there was more to what he was feeling for Julie than he wanted to admit. She haunted him. Her voice. Her eyes. Her mind.
He dipped into her thoughts and felt what it was to be alive. To know love, joy, pain. The tumult of her mind, the richness of her soul was irresistible to a man who’d lived centuries with nothing but his own emptiness for company.
Moonlight poked through the layer of clouds and shadows slanted in long, wavering shapes on the ground in front of him. As if from a great distance, the tickle of some other mind brushed against his and Kieran slid to a stop, sending pebbles and dirt cascading down the hill in front of him.
The demon.
Its thoughts were hardly more than a whisper, but they were there. Excitement. Pleasure. Glory. They all rolled through Kieran like an oil spill sliding across the surface of the ocean.
He scented the air in response, though every cell in his body told him the demon was far away now. There was no hint of it now. No wash of color, no electrical charge in the air. But the demon had made its point. As Kieran’s strength grew, so did the demon’s. The longer it survived in this dimension, the stronger it would get.
Gritting his teeth against the anger roaring through him, Kieran started down the hill again, determined to reach Julie quickly. He stalked through the shadows, becoming a part of the night that surrounded him. At the foot of the hill, he turned sharply and loped up the road to where he’d left his car.
The scent hit him first.
Fresh blood.
Drawing his sword, he approached the car as no more than the hint of movement. But there was no need for obfuscation. No need to be silent. To creep up on his prey.
The prey had been here and gone.
Stretched across the hood of Kieran’s car was what had once been a tall, pretty, redheaded woman. Naked, her body had been sliced open, her organs piled neatly on the dirt before his car. Her wide, surprised eyes stared up at the black sky as if she were wondering how she’d come to meet this end.
Kieran knew.
Just as he knew that if he didn’t find the demon, more women would be gutted and left as monuments to its deviance.
“Forgive me,” he murmured as he lifted the woman from his car and gently laid her out on the cold, hard asphalt. He didn’t want to leave her here, alone, for the coyotes to find, but he had no choice. He had to get to Julie.
The Santa Monica Pier was crowded, as always.
Neon lights clashed brightly, sending out waves of color to flash over the faces of the people moving up and down the length of the pier. Music spilled from one of the restaurants, mimes in white face paint annoyed the pedestrians and though the carousel was quiet in the night, lights blazed from the Ferris wheel and laughter floated on the ocean-scented wind.
Arcade games whirled, beeped and clanged as people tossed coins, shot at ducks and slapped pinball machines. Teenagers cruised the boardwalk looking for trouble and the fishermen staggered along the railings ignored it all and concentrated on their catch.
A strange place to come when she needed to be alone, Julie knew. But she’d found the pier not long after moving to L.A. and somehow, the carnival atmosphere, the anonymous crowds of people, all came together to provide a sort of white noise. She could be alone with her thoughts while surrounded with the life of the city and somehow she didn’t feel as solitary.
The scents of steaming hot dogs, cinnamon flavored Churros and the cloying sweetness of cotton candy mingled in the air and she breathed deep. This at least was normal. This she could understand. It was the rest of her life that was out of control. L.A.P.D. had a station right in the middle of the pier and knowing that made Julie feel a little better about being here in spite of Kieran’s warnings. She was perfectly safe. Here in this mass of people, she was only one more face in the crowd. That wasn’t what he t
hought, of course. She knew he was furious, but damn it, so was she.
He’d been using her.
Despite what she felt when they were together, despite the heat in his touch and the surge of desire and need she felt coming from him…he was only using her.
And with that ugly thought uppermost in her mind, she took the steps, walked down to the sand and followed the sound of the waves to the very edge of the ocean. Lacy ruffles of water raced to shore, then slid back silently into the black. The tide was out and the wet sand glistened in the moonlight.
Above her, the pier rocked with noise and people. Here on the beach, there were only one or two people walking along the shore. And not too far away, two people cuddled together as they watched the water. A quick sigh of envy washed through Julie as she turned her gaze back to the expanse of black water shimmering under a partially hidden moon. Since Evan, Julie had promised herself to guard her heart. To not let anyone too close. Yet somehow, in spite of everything…the danger, the fear, the worry, the impossible truth of Kieran’s existence, she had let him get close.
Too much had happened too quickly.
She needed to be able to breathe. To let her mind roam without fear of Kieran picking up on every one of her thoughts. Jamming her hands into her jeans pockets, she kicked at the wet sand, sending a huge clump into the receding water.
She’d felt his anger as she left the castle. Felt his mind enter hers as she drove onto the freeway for the short ride to the beach and she hadn’t been able to stop it. Just as she’d guessed, he’d known exactly where she was. But since then, she’d felt nothing. So maybe she was safe here. Maybe he’d lost her trail or whatever.
But even as she thought it, something changed. She felt the shift in the atmosphere as clearly as if someone had tapped her on the shoulder. Kieran? She glanced around, her gaze sweeping the nearly empty beach—
yet she saw nothing that hadn’t been there a moment ago. There was no tall, furious man in a long black coat stalking toward her. She hunched her shoulders anyway, as though in defense against whomever—or whatever—was watching her.
“Woman, you test my patience.”
Julie jolted and spun around, staring directly into Kieran’s pale blue, furious gaze.
Relief battled with fear and finally won out. Obviously the presence she’d felt watching her had been him. Reaching out, she planted both hands on his broad chest and gave him a hard shove that didn’t rock him a single inch.
“You scared me half to death. How did you sneak up on me like that, anyway?”
“That is not the question. The question,” he ground out, “is why would you leave my home when I told you to stay?”
“Because I don’t take orders?” she offered.
“You’re a fool,” he said tightly and his mouth flattened into a firm line of disapproval.
“And you’re a liar,” she countered, backing away from him, sliding in the wet sand. Stabbing one finger in the air, she continued, “You didn’t take me to your place to protect me. You wanted to use me. You’re no better than my ex-husband. You only want me there because you need me to get stronger.”
“You believe me. Everything I’ve told you.”
“Oh, you betcha,” she said, sliding her hands back into her pockets and fisting them helplessly. “I believe you’re just what you say you are. I believe Nathan is as dead as you and I believe that letting you anywhere near me in the first place was possibly the biggest mistake of my life. But thankfully,” she added as she started past him, suddenly determined to get away, “that’s a mistake I can correct.”
He grabbed her arm, spun her around and yanked her close. “You will not leave.”
“You can’t stop me.”
His features looked tight, his eyes were narrowed and his jaw was like iron. “Do not doubt it for an instant.”
“I’ll run again—the first chance I get.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Damn it, Kieran, I won’t be what you want,” she cried, her voice lost in the pulse of the sea. “I want my life back. I want to forget any of this happened. I want—”
“Me,” he finished for her and took her mouth in a kiss that seared every nerve ending in her body in one hot flash of fire.
God help her, he was right. She did want him. Had from that first moment when he’d surprised her in her kitchen. Seemed like weeks ago, so much had happened since that night and yet, through it all, he had been there. Constantly. In her mind. In her soul. She felt his presence more deeply than anything she’d ever known before.
Maybe she hadn’t been fighting him so much as she’d been fighting her own reaction to him. And if that was the case, then she was through doing battle.
Her tongue joined his, resistance forgotten in the rush of heat and sensation pouring through her. His hands swept under her shirt, covering her bare breasts, pulling at her hard nipples until she felt an orgasm building instantly inside her.
She groaned, leaned into him, pulled her hands from her pockets and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Yield to me.
And you to me, she said, whispering into his mind as he had to hers. Destiny, he murmured, the one word echoing over and over again in her mind, coating her thoughts, dissolving any reservations, clouding all but her need.
A surge of energy rippled around them like an electrical arc. Julie pulled her mouth free of his and looked around them as the air hummed and the world beyond the two of them blurred. “What was that?”
“We are hidden,” he whispered, pulling her close to lay his mouth against the curve of her neck. “No one can see us.” Lips, teeth and tongue worked her flesh until she shivered with an unbelievable want that built to a crescendo of sensation within her.
Her skin flashed, her insides burned.
His hands took her, lifting her sweater up and over her head, tossing it to the sand. And in the bubble of air surrounding them, she felt no cold. No chill of the night. All she could feel was Kieran.
“I must have you,” he whispered. “I have tried to keep myself from you, but the need is too great. The hunger too fierce.”
“I want you, too.” She caught his face in her hands and looked hard at him.
“I didn’t want to. You should know that.”
He leaned in and nibbled at her bottom lip.
She sucked in air hungrily, greedily. “But you touch something in me, Kieran. Something I didn’t know I even had. And even though this is probably a huge mistake, all I want is you. Now,” she muttered, sliding her hands under his coat, pushing it off his shoulders. Then her fingers moved to the buttons of his black silk shirt and impatient, she ripped the fabric, scattering the shiny black buttons onto the sand.
Everything she’d been feeling, everything she’d been trying to tell herself about staying away, keeping her distance, fell to the side. At that moment, all she could think of was Kieran. His touch. His taste. The feel of his hands and mouth on her skin.
She didn’t care if it was destined.
Didn’t care if being with him would only pull her deeper into a darkness she didn’t totally understand. She knew that if she didn’t have him in the next few minutes, feel his body pumping into hers, she would wither and die from the lack of him.
Moonlight played on his skin, making it gleam like old bronze. His eyes flashed and the color deepened from the pale blue she knew so well to a burnished shade of silver that seemed to slice at her insides. He went to one knee, took her nipples into his mouth, one after the other and she swayed into him, arching her body, offering more of herself up to him. His tongue and teeth nibbled and licked at her and when he suckled, it felt as though he were drinking deep of her soul, pulling it out of her to rest inside him.
And she wanted more.
People drifted past them, taking the boardwalk steps, walking to the ocean, strolling across the sand and Julie and Kieran might as well have been on another planet. They were hidden in plain sight and the thought of making lo
ve in public was so erotic, Julie moaned and held Kieran’s head to her breast more tightly.
His hands were busy, unbuttoning her jeans, pulling them down and off, tossing her shoes to one side, then sliding back up the length of her legs, his fingers scraped along her skin. Every nerve in her body was alive. Everything inside her jumped eagerly, awaiting his next touch. And when he moved to slide his fingers into her slick, wet heat, she opened her legs for him, welcoming the fire.
He shifted to cover the bud of her desire with his lips and while he teased that small hard core of her with his tongue, he pushed his fingers in and out of her depths, stroking, beguiling, demanding. The sounds of the boardwalk rumbled in the distance, discordant music, laughter, the jangle of bells. But here, beneath the pier, there was only Kieran. She threw her head back and shouted his name as the first orgasm crashed over her with the force of a tidal wave, rocking the ground beneath her feet and the very foundations of everything she’d ever believed in.
And before the first tremors were finished, Kieran bent to spread his coat over the sand, then laid her down atop it, pulled off the rest of his clothes and levered himself above her. The head of his shaft paused at her opening and he looked down at her, as if waiting for her to give him leave to enter.
Julie lifted her hips in open invitation, then stretched out, encircling his neck with her arms, pulling his head to hers for a kiss she wanted more than another breath.
He groaned and took what she offered. His tongue tangled with hers, his breath entered her lungs as his body entered her depths. He filled her with his thick, hard body and she opened wider, accommodating him even as her hips rocked rhythmically in an ancient dance of need and desire. He plunged into her again and again, as his mouth fed on hers. Their bodies moved together in the moonlight, and there was a music to their mating.
A hum of acceptance.
Destiny.
Julie’s soul ached and her body ripened under his invasion. She tightened, expectation sliding through her as he pushed her higher and higher, every stroke a caress, every caress a promise of more.
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