Darkest Temptation

by Sharie Kohler

  “You’re infected.”

  “No—”

  “You’re ruined.”

  Her voice fell harder, her denial hotter. “No! I’m not. I’m a person! Not a monster.”

  “Not anymore.” He pulled back the hammer, the grinding click twisting her stomach, and she realized all the shouting, all the no’s in the world, would not stop him. He meant to kill her. To end her life here on the cold ground of autumn, miles from Los Angeles, miles from her mother. She closed her eyes in a long, agonized blink.

  “Please. My name is Lily.” The words rose from deep within her. She was a person. With a name. Not some monster in need of killing. Not like the thing that had bitten her. He had to see that.

  Gradually the pressure beneath her chin eased. The gun moved away. His weight lifted as well. Before she had time to orient herself, she was pulled to her feet.

  “Come,” he commanded, moving ahead of her. Leaving her.

  For a moment, she stood alone, surrounded by trees and quiet night. Moonlight infiltrated the thick canopy of branches as she watched his lithe movements carry him forward, confident and fully expecting her to follow.

  And for whatever reason, she did. Nothing had changed. Her mission was the same. She didn’t believe his vague I’m something else. Right. He was the key to her survival. Killing him meant life. That had to be true. She wasn’t giving up.

  * * *

  Lily.

  A flower. Sweet and pure. He dragged a hand over his head to the back of his neck. Even better. Now she had a name. Now he would think of her as Lily. Lily with the great hair. With breasts that wouldn’t quit. With the fascinating scent that affected him on a primal level. Oh… and a fresh lycan bite on her arm that marked her as property of some pack out there. Lily, who would turn in the next month and no longer be so sweet, so innocent, so pure. So just take her. What does it matter? Satisfy your lusts and then destroy her.

  Lily. The name cracked his resolve. She was too vulnerable, too… human. A girl. A woman.

  Even if she wasn’t anymore.

  Except for the bite on her arm, everything about her still screamed “human.” Vulnerable mortality. All that he had ever wished to be.

  He couldn’t recall the last time he’d shared an honest moment with a mortal. His mother’s family had raised him, reviling him as a child, then, later, as he grew into a man, fearing him.

  He had never justified their fears. Never harmed a human who hadn’t tried to kill him first. He’d never wished to dominate and enslave man—as Ivo did. Luc believed humans to be generally good. Even the hard-core agents for NODEAL and its European counterpart, EFLA.

  He’d witnessed war and atrocities in his lifetimes, but he’d also seen goodness and honesty and dignity within mankind. And that was what he saw in her. Goodness. Honesty. Dignity. He couldn’t destroy that. Lily—his first brush with humanity in countless years. And he couldn’t make himself destroy that—her. At least not yet. On the next moonrise, he would. When there would be no mistaking what she was. When all the humanity had faded from her DNA.

  He could feel her stare drilling into his back as she followed him, could feel her uncertainty, her confusion. Because he’d denied being her alpha. Because he hadn’t killed her. A delay only, he assured himself. A way for him to do what needed to be done and not suffer guilt for the rest of his too-long life.

  He strode inside his house, waiting for her in the mosaic tiled foyer, pausing near the stairs, one hand clutching the iron railing until he felt her arrival. Once her soft steps cleared the threshold, he pushed on, not daring to look over his shoulder and see the temptation he heard with every step… or smelled with every breath. He didn’t need to. He had seen her perfectly in the dark, his vision homing in on a face alluring in its sweetness. Round and apple-cheeked. Fresh. She would look young at forty. Not that she would ever see forty. She was lost. He would do well to remember that unless he wished to join her in the afterlife.

  Blinking hard, he shoved back the stinging thought. He might struggle now with what needed to be done. But not later. Later he would perform his duty and not blink an eye.

  Maybe he needed to venture into the city and find a woman for the night. Occasionally he succumbed and did such a thing, although he hated the risk, never fully trusting himself.

  He walked down a corridor of bare walls, the soles of his boots sinking into the plush runner. He’d bought the house fifteen years ago, already furnished and decorated for some Hollywood big shot who had run out of funds before closing.

  She trailed him silently, the sweet fragrance of her blood wrapping seductive tendrils around him. He passed through the kitchen, striding past top-grade utilitarian appliances, the gleaming steel of the oversized refrigerator revealing a blurred reflection of himself. The sharp blade of a nose. The harsh set of his dark brows over primal eyes. The black, close-cropped hair. Once, before his fourteenth winter, his eyes had been a light hazel, dark moss when he’d laughed. Or so he’d been told. Scarce laughter had filled his childhood. He and Ivo had had only each other. Born two days apart, they’d been more brothers than cousins. Cursed before they’d even left the womb.

  Shoving thoughts of Ivo away, he descended to the cellar. Her steps echoed behind him. Standing in the center of the icy-cool room, he pulled the chain of the single bulb dangling near his head and faced her. The bulb danced wildly, sending light around the room like some kind of dizzying strobe.

  She was tall. Her body full, like women used to be, when a little meat on your bones had meant wealth, prestige, status. A time he remembered. Ripe breasts pressed against the silky fabric of her top, the nipples prodded to attention. He could make out the tiny bumps dotting her areolas. His cock grew hard as he stared. Her eyes stared back at him. She had yet to survey the room… her prison for the next month.

  Her dark eyes feasted on him in the sudden light, pupils dilating as they crawled over his face, seeing him for the first time, missing nothing. He felt the rise in her body temperature, noted the slight increase of blood flow in the heart that already thundered in her chest. He saw. He felt. He heard. He knew. One lift of his finger and he could have her. Could spend himself inside her until his animal passions subsided. The thought of sinking between those ripe thighs tormented him.

  Quickly, desperate to flee, he lifted his arm and pointed to the wall, where chains hung, dark as slate, against the gray concrete. A mattress sat on the floor below the chains. They were there for him, although he’d never used them before. Never had the beast risen inside him to the point that he’d needed to restrain himself. He simply needed to be prepared. Needed precautions in place. If that day ever came.

  “There,” he growled.

  Her eyes widened and she shook her head, the brown waves tossing. “You cannot mean—” Her mouth trembled, those plump lips so appealing, so tempting…

  “Get on the mattress.” Urgency sped through his veins, mingling with the pump of hot sexual need. He had to get out of here. Away from her. It had been too long. “Get on the mattress. Now.”

  Chapter Three

  Heart beating like a drum against her too-tight chest, Lily bolted past him. Only he was too strong. Too fast. Not a lycan, my ass!

  He lifted her off her feet, one steel-muscled arm wrapped around her waist. She kicked, landing several solid blows, but it did no good. He didn’t slow, didn’t even grunt from the sharp dig of her boot heels. He was too tall, too big… too male. She was not a small woman, but his body swallowed hers.

  He was something all right. Something inhuman. Something Curtis hadn’t gotten around to explaining, but she would bet this guy was still the key. The key to her survival. If she could just manage to kill him. To get the knife from her boot…

  He stopped beside the mattress, the soles of his shoes making a rough slide on the concrete.

  She twisted in his arms, her hand snatching a fistful of his short hair and pulling with enough force to rip out the roots. Still, he did not r
eact, did not even appear to feel pain.

  A sob scalded at the back of her throat. Struggling was useless. Lily girl, you’re in trouble.

  She fell limp, breathing heavily within the hard clasp of his arms, her mind working feverishly, trying to figure a way out of this nightmare.

  “Are you done?” he growled against her ear, his lips soft. Soft, as they shouldn’t have felt. For a man. For him. For whatever he was.

  Then she remembered. Curtis’s ugly voice floated inside her head. “Fuck him if you have to, just kill the bastard.”

  Could she do it? Her gaze scanned his face, the glowing eyes, the square jaw, the wide mouth with its top lip sharply defined over a fuller bottom one. “Attractive” didn’t accurately describe him. He was beautiful.

  Closing her eyes to the dark temptation, she thought of her mother… of the last seven years they had endured together. According to Dr. Grazier, the end loomed close. Lily hadn’t given up on her dreams in order to care for her mother just so she could end up chained to some monster’s wall. She’d be there with her at the end. One way or another. She would do whatever it took to survive.

  “Are you done?” he repeated.

  “Yes.” She hardly recognized the breathy gasp of her voice. “I’m done.”

  She hadn’t even started.

  * * *

  Slowly, he released her, relishing the slide of her body against his. Satisfied she wouldn’t run again, he pointed fiercely at the mattress and chains.

  Defiance still gleamed in her eyes. And then there were those ripe, trembling lips… hell, there was a reason he avoided the world. He didn’t need this. Didn’t need some newly turned lycan showing up on his doorstep to torment him.

  His eyes fixed on her mouth again and he cursed, dragging a hand through his short-cropped hair. He needed her out of his sight. And quickly. Before he surrendered and acted out his every primal instinct on her.

  Gritting his teeth, he ground out. “Get on the mattress and put the manacles on.”

  Her chin came up. “Make me.”

  Dark fire sparked inside him at her words. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with, little girl.” He stepped forward, schooling his face into an unforgiving mask. Hard. Inflexible. No way would he let her know how much she tempted him or how difficult it would be to destroy her. But he would. He wasn’t a killer by choice. Not like Ivo. But when necessary, he got the job done.

  His hands closed around her arms, and he felt the heat of her flesh, the rush of her blood beneath the fabric of her jacket, beneath her soft skin.

  Something flickered in her gaze. Something dark. Unreadable.

  She glanced down at the mattress beside them. Moistening her lips, she faced him again, those liquid brown eyes with their fast-fading humanity twisting his insides into knots. “It looks soft enough,” she purred.

  Even as he held her, she leaned forward, straining, pressing herself against him like a cat in heat, itching to crawl into him. And, God, he wanted her to. It took every ounce of will he possessed to hold her away.

  “What are you doing?” he growled, fingers flexing on her.

  “Trying to get to know you.”

  Yeah. Right. It might be a full moon. And he might be a slave to his impulses. But he wasn’t stupid. He didn’t buy for a second that she wanted to go at it with him. She’d come here for one reason and that was to kill him. “So you can get close enough to kill me?”

  “You took my gun,” she reminded with a coy arch of her brow.

  “And that should make me trust you?”

  Her lips curled in the barest hint of a smile. “Don’t you want to be friends?” She strained harder against his hands, and his gaze dipped. Her jacket parted wide. His focus fell on the breasts being hugged by her silk blouse. His mouth alternately dried and watered at the hard nipples pushing against the sheer fabric, prodding points he ached to palm.

  Fire scored him. His gaze shot to her face. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”

  Her smile deepened, a single dimple appearing in her right cheek. “I like games.” Her voice teased, brushed him like the stroke of a feather.

  “You want to fuck me?” he drawled, desperately needing the harshness of the question… hoping it would scare some sense into her. And jog reality back into him. The reality of what she was. What he was. And why they couldn’t do this.

  Her wantonness was the beast asserting itself. It had to be. Either that or she was into one-night stands with supernatural creatures she had determined to kill. “Is that it?”

  She shrugged and glanced down at the mattress. “Doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.”

  And it didn’t. At least not with his blood a burning rush in his veins and his logic fading fast. Shit.

  “You want to go at it? Right here? With me?” he bit out, his voice thickening to an animal growl that sent a bolt of alarm through him. Careful. Steady. “Some guy you came here to kill?”

  “I don’t want to kill you. Not anymore.” Her voice purred on the air, stroking a fiery trail through him. He let it burn its path, weave a spell of seduction.

  She had a great mouth. Wide with the corners permanently angled upward, the top lip nearly as full as the bottom. Those lips moved slowly now, hugging every word as she spoke, her words a slow, sexual drip. “Just… a… kiss?” she coaxed.

  Cursing, he hauled her fully into his arms, claiming her lips as she had taunted him to do.

  It had been too long. Too long since a woman had melted against him, too long since he’d risked intimacy. Too long since Danae. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been kissing a lycan. Newly turned or not. Damned or not. Either way, she was as good as dead.

  She touched her tongue to his, and the kiss turned raw, blistering. Their teeth clanked and he tasted a hint of blood, Still, he kissed her. And still, she kissed back just as hungrily. Giving. Taking. Her fingers curled, digging into his shoulders, pulling him down on the mattress. Over her.

  He fell between her thighs. Her skirt pooled around her hips. He pulled back and ripped her scrap of small black panties in one feral swipe.

  His mouth devoured her lips again. She gasped into his mouth as he rubbed between her legs, playing with her satiny flesh, spreading her moistness. She lifted one boot-clad leg and hooked it around his waist. He slid a hand along the warm flesh of her thigh, squeezing, kneading, caressing his way to the smoothness of her ass.

  He wedged himself deeper between her legs, regretting the barrier of his clothing as he pushed himself against her sex, the moist heat there too much. He moved to free himself—only to freeze at the sudden sharp tip of a blade to his back.

  He blinked down at the woman beneath him, all hint of seduction gone from her eyes. Hard resolve glittered in its place.

  “This is your game, then.”

  She smiled those full lips, bruised from his kisses, a brutal curve. “I told you I like games.”

  “A knife won’t kill me,” he announced in a voice surprisingly calm given the aching burn to possess her singeing his veins.

  The point of the blade dug hard into his back, grinding into his spine. Her face inched closer as she hissed, “No? How about a blade dipped in silver chloride?”

  He tensed, wary. “That might slow me down a bit.” Silver wasn’t the deadly allergen to him that it was to lycans. But it definitely took him some time to recover from it.

  “Liar!” Desperation tightened her voice. “It will kill you.”

  “I already told you I’m not what you think.”

  A flicker of apprehension crossed her face before the cold resolve returned, slipping back into place. “No? If you’re not a lycan, then what the hell are you? You’re not human.”

  “I’m a hybrid. A dovenatu.”

  “Dovenatu?”

  “Loosely translated to mean ‘double birth.’ The easiest way to explain it—I’m a half-breed lycan. I can shift at will, not just at moonrise. And silver can’t kill me.”

  While she di
gested this, he twisted around to grab the knife. The move sent the blade into his back. Not too deep, but just the same, he hissed. Her eyes flared in horror. Clearly a woman unaccustomed to administering pain.

  He slammed her arms down on either side of her, flattening his body over hers. Her blade fell softly to the mattress.

  “You cut me,” he growled, relishing the mash of her breasts against his chest.

  She glanced left and right to where he pinned her wrists.

  “What’s wrong?” he mocked.

  She snapped her gaze back to him, and the raw fury there flayed him. Moisture shone in the brown depths.

  “Don’t you dare cry on me.”

  “I don’t cry,” she denied hotly.

  Before he caved and lost all his good sense, he tightened his grip on one of her wrists. Doing his damnedest to ignore the delicate sensation of her bones, he clamped one manacle around her. She didn’t protest. Simply stared at him with her wide doe-brown eyes, something else creeping in, edging out the fury. Understanding. Acceptance. Defeat.

  “I’m really going to turn into one of those monsters,” she whispered.

  He sighed and dropped her bound wrist. The manacle scraped the wall, echoing somewhere deep inside him, where he’d thought feelings, emotions, forever buried. “Yes.”

  “Killing you won’t change that. Won’t save me.”

  “No. It won’t.”

  Lily nodded, dark shiny waves of hair rolling against her shoulders. “I just wanted a night out. Some fun for a change—” She shook her head, stopping hard, whatever else she would have said lost.

  She met his gaze, no self-pity visible. Most women in her position would have been full of tears and self-pity at this moment. Hell, most men. That she didn’t succumb to weakness only made her more attractive—harder to resist. Easy to admire. To want.

  “Do whatever you have to. Just don’t let me become one of them.” She offered up her other hand.

  He circled the slight wrist with iron, feeling like a bastard. Whoever she was, whatever had happened to her tonight, she didn’t deserve this. She’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.