by Sylvia Day
His rumbling growl was stronger than before, giving her wild hope.
“Vash—” Salem set his hand on her shoulder.
Elijah lifted his head and bared his teeth, snarling.
Salem yanked his hand back. “Crazy assed dog.”
“Salem will have to take care of me if you can’t do it,” Vash goaded, fighting off another spurt of panic. “Raze, too. Maybe even that pretty pincushion I almost sucked on last night—”
Fire lit Elijah’s eyes. He began to shimmer, like heat waves rising from sun-scorched asphalt. For a breathless moment he hovered in that in-between state, flickering between human and lupine form. Then, with a rattling exhale, he settled before her as a nude, severely wounded man.
“Get the car,” she ordered over her shoulder, pulling Elijah close to cradle his head in her lap.
Salem left so fast, he caused a draft. Around her, the wraith bodies began to gurgle and shake. She watched, horrified, as they disintegrated into puddles of a thick tarlike substance. “Eww.”
“Hey. I’m not…as bad off as I look,” Elijah whispered, his eyes still closed.
“Of course not.” But the blood that wasn’t his was now clearly demarked by its obsidian coloring, leaving far too much crimson on his ravaged skin. It ran in thin rivulets over her lap and eroded canyons in the black ooze. “You damned heroic idiot. Stop protecting me. I can take care of myself.”
“And let you have all the fun?”
Pain twisted in her chest. Lifting her wrist to her mouth, Vash pierced the vein with her fangs and pressed the gushing wound to his mouth. He gagged, then struggled weakly, but she held fast, pinching his nose so that he was forced to swallow. One gulp. Two. Three. His protests gained strength and she ceased, licking her wound closed.
“Turn me into a vampire,” he said hoarsely, “and you’ll be the first I suck dry.”
“You’d have to take me down first.” She brushed his sweat and blood-soaked hair away from his forehead. His heart beat too strongly to slip into the Change, but if she’d waited another few minutes…? She pushed the thought away.
“This babying you’re doing…as good as a verbal admission that you like me.”
“Ha!” Her eyes stung, but she told herself that was from the blood spatter on her face. She couldn’t stop touching him, running her fingertips over his face and stroking through his hair to his scalp. “You pulled this little stunt just to play on my sympathy.”
“Not my fault you’d look hot in one of those naughty nurse’s outfits.” His chest lifted and fell with a sharp breath.
Their banter was breaking her heart, knowing how much the effort was costing him. But she didn’t relent. As bad as it sucked, his pain was keeping his heartbeat elevated, which was helping to pump her healing blood through his veins. It was nowhere near as powerful as a seraph’s pure blood, but it would nevertheless speed his healing.
“Who knew I was so damn popular?” he groused. “Must be you, sweetheart. You want a piece of me…now they all do.”
The one wraith with some active brain cells had baited Elijah. She’d bet her ass on it. He’d goaded the chase that led to this ambush and then provoked Elijah by attacking the woman covered in his scent.
Higher brain function is subverted by pure instinct, Grace had said.
“I wasn’t imagining it, was I?” she asked, noting that the brainy wraith’s puddle had some shape to it, unlike the others. As if he was deteriorating more slowly. “He did talk, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. Fucker.”
“I was told their brains are mush. Lights not on and no one home.”
“Your friend…Nikki…she talked.”
Vash stiffened. “What did she say?”
“Nothing worth remembering, but it was English.”
“Oh.” She jerked in surprise when her cell phone rang.
“Your tit’s ringing.”
Pulling her phone out, she saw Syre’s name on the caller ID. She activated video. “Syre.”
His handsome visage appeared, scowling. Then he paled. “My god…what’s happened to you? Where are you? That lycan is dead, Vashti. I’ll shred him.”
“Take a number,” Elijah muttered.
Realizing how she must look with blood all over her, she spoke quickly. “We ran into some wraith action in Vegas and it got messy, but I’m fine.”
“Tell me where you are and I’ll be there in less than thirty minutes. I’ve got a helicopter on standby now.”
“Where are you?”
“McCarran. I just landed.”
“Thank god.” She exhaled in relief. “Wait there. I’ll send Salem to you with Elijah and you can take them to the warehouse. He needs medical treatment and we’re set up for it there.”
Syre’s gaze narrowed. “The Alpha?”
“Yes.”
“Where will you be?”
Vash didn’t say her intentions aloud, unwilling to jinx her plans. “I’ve got something to take care of.”
“Me,” Elijah said, his eyes open and staring into hers.
Yes, she thought. You.
CHAPTER 9
Lindsay woke when the steady hum of the car’s engine and air-conditioning ceased. Lifting her head from the seat back, she blinked at Adrian, who sat behind the wheel. “I fell asleep.”
“You did,” he agreed, his blue eyes warm and soft. He reached for her hand and linked their fingers together.
“I’m sorry.” She straightened and looked around, noting that they were in the driveway of a two-story peach stucco home in a quiet residential neighborhood. In lieu of grass, white gravel covered the yard, which wasn’t unusual in Las Vegas. “Oh man…and you drove because you wanted to talk.”
Needing to utilize every minute of his endless time, Adrian was usually chauffeured from one place to another, allowing him to work even when he was on the road. In addition to his duties as leader of the Sentinels, he owned Mitchell Aeronautics, effectively giving him two full-time endeavors to manage. It was fortunate that he didn’t require sleep, or he’d never get anything finished.
She shoved her free hand through her short blond curls and looked at her lover contritely. Sentinels had astonishingly acute hearing. There was no privacy to be found at Angels’ Point. Every word and sound could be picked up by any Sentinel within a mile radius. When Adrian wished to speak to her privately, he took her away, flying her to remote hills surrounding the Point so that eavesdropping would be impossible. He’d suggested they make the five-hour drive to Vegas alone, shunning both a driver and the use of any of his many privately owned aircraft so they could chat at length as they so rarely had the opportunity to do.
He hummed softly and reached out to stroke a fingertip down the side of her face. “Watching you sleep was a joy as well, neshama.”
My soul. The endearment still astonished and awed her. How could she be the soul of this man…this angel? Her eyes swept over his beloved features, his dark and seductive beauty tightening her chest. His inky black hair framed a face so savagely masculine just looking at him turned her on. Winged brows and thick lashes framed eyes of a preternatural cerulean—the pristine blue found at the heart of a flame.
Too often she forgot what he was, a powerful winged being not of this world. When her hands and mouth stroked over his impossibly perfect body, worshipping warm olive skin stretched taut over rippling muscles, his abandoned and feverish response made him all too human. His voice when he spoke to her privately, in the flesh and in her mind. The way he touched her…nuzzled against her…wrapped himself around her when they took to their bed…He was simply a man to her. Earthy, sultry, and achingly fervent.
Adrian, my love, she thought, guilt and sorrow tainting the edges of her happiness. He was the greatest gift she’d ever received in her life, her solace and dearest pleasure. And she returned that joy by being a tragedy in his life, a weakness and a sin she feared he would one day pay too steep a price for.
“Stop it.” It was the nature of
what he was that his voice could be so mesmerizingly resonant while also sharp and furious.
Embarrassed that he’d heard her maudlin internal pity party, Lindsay tried to tug her hand out of his and break the connection. He held fast, his seductively curved mouth thinned into a determined line. “Perhaps I should demonstrate how much solace and pleasure you give me in return. Maybe the memory has faded in the hours since you last wrang me dry. If so, I’ll need to work harder to leave a more indelible recollection.”
A shiver moved through her and her eyes slid helplessly to the thick vein pumping strong and steady along his throat. She licked her lips, her own blood hot and thick with wanting him. She’d fed from his wrist just before she slept, but her hunger was acute, both for his blood and his rockin’ body.
“Sex,” she breathed, overwhelmed by her sudden need for it. For him. The rapidly heating interior of the car only increased her desire. The continuing evolution of her Change made her a tactile creature, one who responded swiftly, and often unexpectedly, to external stimuli. Once she matured past the fledgling stage, she’d be impervious to such things as external temperature, but for now everything seemed capable of setting her off.
“Love,” he corrected, cupping her cheek with his free hand and leaning toward her. “Expressed physically.”
“Repeatedly.”
“Oh, yes,” he purred, sliding his mouth softly across hers. “You’re teaching me every day, in so many ways, how to love. I thought I knew, but I was wrong.”
She fought off a twinge of jealousy over Shadoe, the naphil daughter of Syre whom Adrian had loved for ages. Over many reincarnations. The last one being Lindsay herself. And yet faced with the culmination of his endless quest to possess Shadoe, he’d chosen her—Lindsay—instead. She wondered if she would ever truly understand why.
His lips moved against hers. “Because you showed me what love truly is just by giving yours so selflessly. I wasn’t made for love. It wasn’t weaved into the fabric of my being. I didn’t know what it was, what I was looking for, what I needed. I had no point of reference, no examples, nothing. Until you.”
Adrian took her mouth in a lush, deep kiss, his tongue stroking along hers, the leisurely rhythm and his total control a blatantly erotic promise of things to come.
She moaned, the sound both a plea and a surrender.
Lifting his head, Adrian watched her with heavy-lidded eyes, his thumb brushing over her swollen mouth and peeping fangs. “Shadoe possessed me. I was consumed by her hunger and her conviction that I was meant to be hers. I was a void, neshama. An emotionless being. When you bring something into nothing, it’s impossible to know if it’s good or bad for you. You know only that losing what you have would leave you with nothing again. She brought me emotional pain and physical pleasure, and I clung to those things even as I wanted nothing so much as to go back and make a different choice.”
“Don’t say any more.” The torment in his voice made her heartsick.
“But you, Lindsay my love, delight me. You fill the hole in me I didn’t know was there. The pleasure of your touch is the sweetest agony, because it’s never enough. I’ll never have enough. As many times as I have you, I always want more. What I feel for you consumes me. I couldn’t live without it. Couldn’t live without you.”
Lindsay pressed her forehead to his. “I’m learning, too. Slower than you, but I’m getting there.”
“She made me a man,” Adrian whispered, his tongue tracing the curve of her bottom lip. “You’ve made me human.”
She cried at that, tears slipping free. That’s what she feared most—that she’d irrevocably damaged something irreplaceable.
You make me stronger than I’ve ever been. She broke me down; you built me up. Why don’t you know this, neshama? Tell me how to show you.
“You do. Beautifully. It’s the Change, Adrian. It’s like premenstrual syndrome times a thousand. I’m having mood swings. Cravings. My sex drive is out of control. God, how do you put up with me?”
“With pleasure.” His clever fingertips stroked a circular pattern over the tender flesh behind her ear. “I wouldn’t change a thing about you.”
She met his fierce gaze and held it. “I love you.”
“I know.” Adrian’s smile was so potently sexual and warmly tender that she grew slick between the thighs.
“And I want you again. Now.”
“Always. I’m yours.” He glanced at the dashboard clock. “We have just enough time before the others catch up with us.”
They’d taken off an hour and a half before the two lycans who would be accompanying them, so they’d be assured of privacy. Then she’d messed it all up by falling asleep only a couple of hours into the drive.
Her nose wrinkled. “How are you going to get anything done once I get to the point where I don’t need sleep anymore? I can’t keep my hands off you.”
He exited the car and rounded the hood to her door before she could blink. His laughter sifted through her mind as he extended his hand to assist her out. “What we’ll do with each other during sleepless nights isn’t a concern I’m ever going to have.”
Looking at the lovely but average house in front of her, she asked, “What is this place?”
“Helena’s home.”
Lindsay’s hand tightened on his. She knew how it tormented him that he’d lost one of his closest and most treasured Sentinels.
“We’re staying here? Maybe the Mondego would be better?” she suggested, thinking of the glamorous hotel and casino owned by Raguel Gadara, a man known worldwide as a real estate and entertainment mogul. In celestial circles, he was known to be one of the seven earthbound archangels, his territory encompassing all of North America. Falling two spheres and several rungs lower in the angelic hierarchy than Adrian, Gadara was ambitious in both halves of his life.
“After the stunt he pulled last time? No.” While his voice didn’t rise, the adamancy in it was unmistakable. “Raguel’s more trouble than he’s worth. I just want his blood.”
A chill rolled down Lindsay’s spine. The way Adrian spoke sounded figurative as well as literal, which would be bad news for Gadara. She wondered if Adrian’s enmity had anything—or everything—to do with Gadara helping her flee Adrian and her forbidden feelings for him so many weeks ago.
“Raguel makes enough trouble for himself on his own,” Adrian answered. Linking their fingers, he led her to the front door.
The strengthening of his grip on her hand wasn’t an indication of disquiet, but she knew visiting this place must be hard. Helena had been special to him. She’d been a Sentinel Adrian considered pure of purpose and unshakable in her faith. She had been his proof that the Sentinels weren’t destined to fail their mission as a rule, that his transgressions with Shadoe and herself were unique failures of his.
But Helena had fallen in love with her lycan guard and she’d given up her life trying to be with him, shattering that tender hope.
Adrian unlocked the door and they stepped inside. As he typed the access code into the beeping security system keypad, she frowned. “Is someone staying here?”
His gaze raked the room. “Good question. Nice and cool in here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, my thought exactly—why is the air-conditioning on?”
Skirting him, Lindsay moved deeper into the living room. A glass walkway bisected the vaulted ceiling, connecting rooms over the garage with a room over the kitchen. Square windows near the ceiling allowed light to flood the space, creating an open and airy feel in the small, welcoming home.
Her nose twitched and she caught his wrist, pushing her thoughts at him. Doesn’t smell musty, like you’d expect a closed-up house would. The plants are looking healthy, too.
Sleek tendrils of smoke unfurled from his back, taking on the shape and substance of wings. Gorgeous, bloodstained wings. They were soft to the touch, but deadly, capable of slicing through anything with the precision of the finest sword. If she was ever inclined to forget how dangerous
he truly was, those wings would remind her—she’d watched him deflect bullets with them. He was a being created for war, an enforcer of such power he wielded the fist of God.
I’ll take the upstairs, he said. Please be careful.
Not for the first time, Lindsay wondered if he knew how much his trust in her ability to defend herself meant. He was a possessive man and one who was ferociously concerned for her well-being, yet he knew that to hold her back or smother her would only lead to resentment and unhappiness. She wasn’t equal to him and never would be, but she couldn’t hide behind his wings and still look at herself in the mirror. As disparate as their skills and natural weapons were, they had to face their battles side by side or there would be no hope for them as a couple. Adrian understood and made concessions for that tenuous balance between them, even though she knew it cost him dearly to do so.
Concentrating hard, she got her fangs and claws to extend. She was still getting used to what she was—a monster; one of the bloodsucking creatures she’d trained herself to kill in vengeance for her mother’s murder. Making peace with her new identity was difficult at the best of times, but there were occasions—such as this one—when she appreciated the benefits.
Adrian moved quickly and silently, one moment at her side, the next on the glass walkway above her. If transients had holed up in the house, they were about to receive the fright of their lives. Perhaps that would teach them not to squat in someone else’s abode.
Lindsay entered the combination family room/kitchen through an open archway. The space was small but cozy. A dinette filled the alcove in front of a backyard window and a couch faced a flat-screen TV hung over a small gas fireplace. A homey fragrance hung in the air, soothing her enough that her claws retreated without her volition. She was trying to process her lack of control over her body when a photo of Adrian and Helena on the mantel caught her eye, momentarily distracting her. It was a costly lapse.