It was incredible, his heat, and strength, and maleness, the way he took his time exploring her mouth while every nerve and cell in her body was screaming for him. For more. His body was pressed so close against hers she couldn’t help but notice the new straining hardness that sprang up between his legs as they kissed; it twitched against her belly when she twisted her fingers into his hair and rubbed her breasts against his chest, suddenly more desperately hungry than she’d ever been in her life.
He dropped a hand from her face and cupped it around her bottom, squeezing and pulling her harder against him. A little animal mewl escaped her, and she squirmed against him, greedy, quickly losing all sense of restraint. And oh, God, the way he tasted—it was addictive. Like sunshine, clean air, and cool water, there was an earthy, elemental taste to his mouth that was at once savory and sweet and completely delicious, and she felt as if she’d been drugged. As if someone had injected a mind-numbing chemical straight into her veins that set her body aflame and squelched the little voice of reason in her head that should have been screaming Slow down!
She didn’t want to slow down. She wanted to drown in him. She wanted to forget the past and all her terrible memories. With his lips on hers and his body against hers and his delicious taste on her tongue, she was forgetting. If he asked her at this moment if he could take her against the brick wall, she would have said an unequivocal yes.
Beneath her expensive, elaborate panties, she was soaking wet.
The kiss went on and on, deep, electric, and fevered, until Christian pulled back and panted a quietly strained, “Fuck.”
Ember moaned at the loss of his mouth. She felt hot, so hot and strangely uninhibited she had a wild notion to tear off all her clothes. She didn’t know what was happening to her, and honestly, she didn’t care.
“Don’t stop, Christian. Please don’t stop,” she whispered, her own breathing as irregular as his. Her hands on the back of his neck trembled.
“You want more of me?” he whispered back, his fingers tightening in her hair.
“Yes. Please. More.” It came out in three separate panted breaths as she strained against him, rising up on her toes when he wouldn’t lean in far enough for their lips to touch again.
“How much more, September? Tell me exactly how much you want.”
He held her back with that hand in her hair, still holding her tight against him with the other hand around her bottom, his gaze fierce on her face, almost ferocious. She shivered, alight with desire and a dark, burning need.
“I want all of you,” she whispered, staring straight into his eyes. His lids closed for a moment, he inhaled a ragged breath, then he opened his eyes and lowered his head to hers.
Just as his mouth was about to touch hers, he stiffened and let out a sharp, preternatural hiss. A deep, low, animalistic growl rumbled through his chest and lifted all the hair on the back of her neck and arms. He turned his head and stared down the alley.
Shocked out of her haze of lust by the unnatural sound, Ember followed his gaze.
Three men stood at the far end of the alley. Their bodies were facing away but their heads were turned in Ember and Christian’s direction, frozen mid-step as if they’d been walking past on the street beyond and had been arrested by the sight or sound of something. All three of them were tall and dark-haired, vaguely familiar looking, handsome in a predatory sort of way, all eyes and appetite. Pedestrians flowed by on the sidewalk unheeded, as the men stared down the alley with expressions ranging from hostile to flat-out murderous.
That frightening, sinister growl rose in Christian’s chest again, but this time it was louder, closer to a snarl. His lips peeled back over his teeth. His body went completely rigid.
“Christian?” Ember said it very quietly, now frozen in fright.
“Get back to the car, September,” he answered without looking away from the men. “Go find Corbin and tell him to take you straight home. Now.”
Very slowly, he stepped away, pushing her behind him with one arm so he was between her and the men at the end of the alley. As Ember peeked around Christian’s shoulder, the men turned, in unison, to face them. They took a step into the alley, very slowly, then another, and Christian’s hands curled to fists.
Ember whispered, “Christian, who are those—”
“Get back to the car! Now!”
He’d whipped his head around and snarled it out before she could finish her question. But it wasn’t his snarl that had her shrinking back in terror. It wasn’t because his voice had turned different, deeper and whiskey rough. It wasn’t even the look of cold, monstrous violence on his face.
It was his eyes. They’d changed. Something about the pupils.
She realized the change just as Christian turned away and pushed her back, growling another warning to go find Corbin. She stumbled back one step, then two, then finally turned and fled the alley in a flat-out run. Ember didn’t even bother to look behind her when the growling turned to a horrifying, unearthly roar of pure, animalistic rage that echoed off the stone walls, reverberating into silence.
She couldn’t look back because all she could see as she ran was Christian’s brilliant green eyes, the rounded dark pupils in the center that had elongated and narrowed to slits.
The three men at the other end of the alley—who weren’t really men at all—began advancing with the slow, measured gait of experienced predators honed in on their prey.
Christian stood his ground as they came, that low growl that had so frightened Ember still rumbling through his chest, the electric charge that gathered just before the Shift surging up to sting his skin.
He crouched to a defensive stance, ready to spring. One of the men held up a hand bringing the other two up short with the motion. They stopped, staring at Christian in silence, until the one with his hand up said something to the other two, in a language that sounded like Latin.
Christian knew they were trying to determine if he were friend or foe. He decided to give them an unmistakable hint.
The electric charge surged to a crackling, snapping peak, and Christian Shifted to panther.
It was the same every time; the flood of feral power, the ache of sudden release. There was fleeting pain as his muscles and tendons and bones transformed—fleeting but terrible—and the sound of his bespoke suit being shredded into ragged pieces was minor compared to the sound of his bones grinding into other, stronger shapes, his skin and muscles ripping apart along ragged seams. The process took all of a few seconds, and when it was done, he was standing on four massive paws instead of two feet, his muzzle curled back over sharp canines, his long, powerful tail snaking back and forth behind him like a whip, his clothes littering the street around him like confetti.
Judging by the shocked expression on the men’s faces, Christian had the satisfying realization they’d been expecting anything but that.
He knew he was huge in his animal form, much larger than the big cats he’d seen on those wildlife shows, even larger than many of his kin. Pitch black and heavily muscled, he stood shoulder-high to a human man. If he reared up on his hind legs, he’d tower over any human, big as a bear. All his senses, so sharp even in human form, were exponentially stronger, and he could smell, hear, and even taste the world around him, in all its myriad richness and life.
This was who he really was. This was his heritage, and his Gift. His human disguise was just that, a disguise, but in his natural form Christian had so many advantages over a human it was practically laughable.
For instance…speed.
In one lightning-fast motion, he sprang forward and bounded down the dark alley, a roar of pure rage ripping from his throat. Kill kill kill kill kill kill! It was all he could think or feel, bloodlust bright as sunlight surging through his veins.
The three men/not-men reacted instantaneously. One of them turned and fled, one of them Shifted to panther, and the third—unfortunately—pulled out a gun.
The first shot missed him completely, ric
ocheting off the brick wall behind his head with a shrill, echoing twang. Behind the man who’d fired, the crowd of people strolling by on the sidewalk broke apart screaming and began to stampede in all directions like a herd of frightened deer. At the same time, the other panther leapt forward with outstretched claws and snapping jaws, snarling as viciously as Christian. Then everything happened at once.
He and the other animal collided in mid-leap, their bodies slamming together with such force it sounded like a small explosion. There was howling, hissing, and the twisting huge bodies, the sharp scrape of claws across his muzzle. They landed on the ground and began fighting in earnest, rolling over and over, slamming against the side of a Dumpster with a hollow boom, both of them aiming for a killing strike to the throat. Christian’s teeth fastened around his opponent’s neck before he could twist away, and he heard a shrill scream as his fangs sank deep into his carotid artery.
He bit down hard and twisted his head sideways, ripping out a huge chunk of furred flesh. Blood spurted, wet and hot and copper-tangy, all over his face and into his mouth.
Then another shot rang out in the alley and Christian realized he’d been hit as agony flared up his spine. In the right rear leg, which buckled beneath him.
His first thought was entirely irrational. It was only a name.
Ember.
It gave him enough strength to turn on the gunman and propel himself forward on his one good leg. He hit his target with both paws spread open over his chest and the gun went flying from his hands. Eight pinpoints of blood flowered out beneath the man’s white shirt where Christian’s claws had pierced his skin. Then more blood spurted out in a high, arcing spray when Christian leaned in, crushed the sternum between his jaws and tore the man’s heart, still beating, right out of his chest.
He gurgled and twitched, clutching his chest as if he could fill the bloody hole with his hands. Then he sagged to his knees, listed sideways, and silently slumped to the pavement. His head hit the ground with a flat smack. He jerked once, then fell still. Blood began to pool in a swiftly widening, erratic circle around his body.
Christian looked up just in time to see three blue and white police cruisers screech to a stop at the end of the street, lights flashing. He released the heart—dripping blood and steaming in the night air—from his jaws, turned, and limped away.
As instructed, Ember ran straight to find Corbin, pushing through the crowd that at first was strolling casually, then, when two shots rang out in the night, screaming and fleeing in panic.
She was fleeing in panic, too.
It can’t be it can’t be it can’t be! Over and over in her mind it repeated like a record stuck in a groove.
There were images flashing behind her eyes, voices spinning in her head, things she’d seen on the news and heard on the radio—the few times she’d allowed herself to listen to the radio, which was rarely, as it was too painful to hear music—and a terrible picture was coming together in her mind. A picture of chaos.
A picture of carnage.
She concentrated on pushing it back for the moment, because if she allowed it to break free and flood her with the full horror of it, all the details that were lurking just there behind her wide-open eyes, she wasn’t sure if she could put one foot in front of the other, not even to run for her life.
If I told you it was a matter of life or death, would you believe me?
Was it?
Yes.
In light of what she’d just seen, the strange transformation in Christian, his eyes and voice and posture, the vicious, animal hiss resounding in his chest, the conversation took on an entirely new meaning.
She found the Audi idling at the curb two blocks away, Corbin’s face white and strained through the windshield as he watched people flood the streets, running, stumbling, shouting. She slammed into the side of the car, clawed at the driver’s door handle. She tore it open.
“Christian!” Ember panted it, bent over, staring at a horrified Corbin. “He’s—three men—the alley two blocks over—”
She pointed, then froze in horror. Then she turned and ran away, as fast and as far as she could.
Because at her words, Corbin’s eyes began to change just as Christian’s had.
Caesar Cardinalis was a man used to getting his own way.
The son of a king, he was now a king himself, his brilliant, devious father having been killed by one of his own personal guard more than three years ago. Caesar had often fantasized about killing his father—patricide had marred the perfection of his lineage on more than one occasion—but lacked the necessary courage to complete the task, not understanding while the old bastard was alive that he was, in fact, risking nothing at all.
Because Caesar was Gifted with something the Ikati had never seen, in all their glorious history: immortality.
Oh, they had the Gift of transformation—human to panther, panther to Vapor, some of them could even walk through solid walls—and they had other Gifts, too, powerful Gifts particular to each, like Suggestion and Invisibility and Foresight. Nature having the sense of humor she does, Caesar had none of those Gifts, so common to his people. He couldn’t even Shift to panther, their most elemental form, and so was considered by most—okay, all—of his kin a dedecus.
Disgrace.
He used to be considered a disgrace, that is. It wasn’t until he was betrayed by one of his closest council, just as his father had been, until he’d been killed and instantly resurrected, that he realized the full truth of what he’d been given. Then his star had risen like a sign in the East.
For those who have no fear of death, life becomes an extraordinary banquet.
Since he and his small cadre of trusted associates had arrived in Barcelona months ago, Caesar had used the beautiful city the way a child uses a playground. Nothing was off-limits, nothing was left untried or untasted, especially the voluptuous, sloe-eyed Flamenco dancers he so loved.
They screamed so enchantingly.
He was enjoying the shrill, choking screams of one of the lovely dancers—stripped bare, chained to the wall, bloody, bruised, and fabulous—just as Nico burst into the room.
“Sire! We’re under attack! They know we’re here! You’re in grave danger!”
Caesar turned away from the girl and gave the panting, sweating Nico a sour once-over. He lowered the cat-o’-nine-tails to his side and sighed. The man was always so dramatic.
“My dear Nico,” he drawled, “I’m incredibly busy at the moment, as you can surely see.” He gestured to the girl, now moaning and begging in broken Spanish for God to save her. A busty, voluptuous brunette, she writhed against the wall. The iron shackles around her wrists clanged so loudly that the Bach concerto playing softly in the background was momentarily drowned out. “Whatever this danger is, I’m sure it can wait until I’m finished.”
Because in reality, there was no danger to him. What should he be afraid of? A bullet? A knife? An army of a thousand screaming warriors? No, none of that would make any difference at all. Caesar would go on forever just as he was now, shot or stabbed or attacked by a mob, or torn limb from limb in the streets.
He’d tested it himself. He really couldn’t die. Or if he could, he’d failed to find the way.
“But—but sire, we were attacked in the street—there was a stranger—he Shifted—”
“Shifted?”
This got Caesar’s attention. The intelligence fed to him by his spies indicated the strict, archaic Law the five Ikati colonies hidden around the world operated under was still very much in effect. Especially now. Even though the Queen who led them had allowed them more freedoms of late—including women on their formerly all-male Assemblies, allowing all of them to choose their own mates—the rules that had kept them secret from humanity for thousands of years still stood, iron-clad and unbendable.
For the rest of them, that is. Not for Caesar’s little band of rebels. And not for the fed up, disgruntled deserters from the other colonies who were flooding to
him day after day after day.
“Tell me what happened,” he commanded, turning to Nico, abandoning for a moment the girl shackled to the wall.
Nico—tall and well-formed like all the Ikati, black-eyed like only the Ikati of the Roman colony were—ran a hand through his thick, disheveled dark hair. He huffed out a long, low breath. “Gian and Armond and I were in Gràcia—near the bordello you like—when we felt him, right there on the street. He’s amazingly powerful. I don’t think I’ve felt a male so powerful since your father…”
Nico trailed off, realizing his mistake when he caught sight of Caesar’s thinned lips, his narrowed eyes. He had the good sense to blanch. “Forgive me, sire—I—I meant no disrespect.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Caesar purred in a menacing tone. “You would never be so stupid, now would you, Nico?”
Nico went a shade paler than before. “No, sire,” he whispered, frozen still.
Momentarily mollified by this show of deference and fear, Caesar waved a hand, indicating Nico should continue with his story.
Nico took a shaky breath and continued. “We knew he wasn’t a deserter from the other colonies right away because he was aggressive immediately. He Shifted and attacked practically before we could react and charged us. Gian Shifted, too, and Armond pulled out his gun. After that…” He trailed off again, an expression of shame creeping over his face.
“What?” Caesar prompted, stepping closer. “After that, what happened?
Nico’s gaze dropped to the floor. “After that I don’t know what happened because I…I ran away.”
Caesar tilted back his head and laughed out loud. It bounced off the cold stone walls of the bunker with an eerie, sinister echo. Upon hearing it, the girl in chains began to sob.
“You ran away?” he repeated incredulously, though without anger. Caesar understood the instinct for self-preservation all too well; he’d been running away from things all his life. Well, before he knew he was immortal, that is.
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