Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (53 page)

He gathered her to him, the bare skin at her waist like satin under his hands.

“Not okay,” he murmured against her neck. “Not by a long shot. But ask me again in few hours.”

***

Emerson arched her back in Thane’s arms, eyes wide with surprise as he grazed his teeth along her collarbone. She hadn’t thought this through. Maybe she should’ve asked a few questions. Because the man’s hands
scorched
where they roamed—rounding over her hips, under the waistband of her borrowed sweatpants, and over her ass—but the burn didn’t hurt so much as it made her nerves crackle with feeling. He was a match; she was flint. And between them both…fire.

Her vision shifted and went strange, color so bright and vivid that she had to close her eyes for a moment. The world washed dark red, but it didn’t matter. The craving that rose so fierce and fast within her intensified
all
her senses so that she ignored Thane’s attempts to release her bra. If she didn’t breathe him in
right now
, she thought she might die. She brushed her cheek along his chest to take his rich, dark, smoky scent inside her lungs.

She knew she was not being sexy or cool, but how could she play cool if she was so damn hot?

And she had to taste him… But he was wrestling with her pants, so she contented herself by moving her open mouth across his pecs, her tongue and teeth rasping across the tight skin under a smattering of chest hair.

Not enough. Not nearly enough
.

She had to go
lower
, and was just sinking when he moved, stroking a hand deep into her hair and pinning her against him.

“Little dragon,” he said. “You’d feel better if we worked
together
.”

A sob of frustration broke from her throat. “I thought I knew how to do this,” she said. But all the feelings were too strong, the drives overwhelming. She had to get his pants off. Now. But he was holding her too tightly to get at what she wanted.

“I think I’m dying,” she told him. This ache would kill her.

He chuckled. “No, you’re merely awakening. And I’m going to show you how to fly.”

Merely?
She wasn’t
merely
anything. She’d known the Bloodkin were dangerous, and Thane was the deadliest of all. She was about to be ruined, utterly and completely ruined, and yet, all she could say was, “Yes, please.”

He tilted her face up to him, and she opened her eyes to find his indigo gaze upon her. He fit his mouth to hers in a rough slide and lock, and then took her deep into black velvet ecstasy. She tasted him, relishing him like the darkest of chocolate—yes,
this
was what she’d wanted, all her senses engaged at once—and knew that she could survive on kisses alone, and ever be satisfied.

His previous efforts proved genius when he lifted her against him and she discovered that they both were naked. Her legs straddled his waist, breasts heavy with sensation, her core flush with his belly.

He laid her down on the bed he’d occupied during the four days of his recovery. His weight slid up her body, and the friction of contact rippled like flame across her skin. Fire didn’t hurt. Fire loved her. And she loved fire. It’s what she was made of. She knew that now.

With the realization, strength and power flowed through her, a strange tingling in her bones. She was brand-new and ancient, desire and rage, woman and dragon—all simultaneously.

“Ember,” Thane said, forcing her to meet his eyes by touching her chin with his hand. “This is
not
the time for shifting.”

“But I want
everything
,” she said, yet didn’t recognize her near-feral voice. She trapped one of his legs with hers, knotting them together. His erection was a large firebrand on the inside of her thigh.

“And so you will, my lady.” He nuzzled her neck, a gesture more primal than human, before letting go of her chin to stroke and cup her breast, his thumb massaging her nipple. “Just hold on. Hold on to me.”

The longing was excruciating, even cruel, but when Thane pushed inside her, filling her so completely, the blood in her veins turned to molten gold, melting her worries away with each beat of her heart. His possession set off a chain reaction through her system, each cell flaring with sensation, the heat of magic a transformative force that might not have turned her into a dragon, but nevertheless, changed her forever.

She curled around him as he moved, his rhythm slow like the tempo of an ocean, but just as absolute and unrelenting. She sensed her climax coming when it was still a long way off, so that by the time the wave reached her, she crested so high and so long that she indeed felt like she was flying.

When she could see again, she realized the gift he’d given her. Strain etched across his brow, his skin just slightly darker than his human self. He moved with greater force—a second swell of feeling filling her—and he growled as he found his release. She clutched him to her as they shuddered, drawing him as deep as she could. And when he collapsed on top of her, she contented herself by licking a drip of sweat that was winding down his neck.

She waited—generously, she thought—until he got his first full breath before saying, “I think we have to do it again.”

“Yes, love,” he said, his voice warm with humor. “That was just to take the edge off. We’ll be at this awhile.”

***

“You don’t need to do that,” Thane said, exasperated. “I can hire someone to come.” She was
his lady
; she didn’t need to be doing common chores.

“Oh yes, I do. Bryan’s going to be back any minute.” Ember shoved the sheets in the small upright washing machine, dropped a blue cube inside, slammed the lid, and gave a dial a twist. “And open the window, please.”

Thane had readily agreed to the shower sex. He’d loved how the water evaporated from their bodies into hissing steam as they’d coupled, but part of him wanted the wolf to know what had transpired while he’d been gone so that there could be no confusion—ever—about what Ember was to Bryan and what she was to Thane.

He needed to talk to her about their new situation, but she threw a pair of the wolf’s athletic pants at his head. Thane’s own clothes had been too ruined from the vampire attack to be salvageable.

“Put those on,” she said.

He needed to tell her that she belonged to him, and he needed her to acknowledge it absolutely by accepting his ring on her finger, and soon. She was the woman he wanted. They could get to know each other’s nuances better in time. Courtship was highly overrated.

But he kept silent because that was exactly what had happened with him and Carreen and their arranged marriage. Ember was a modern woman who had professed often, and with feeling, how she wanted her independence from the Bloodkin. Words of possession might make her run away from him. Matthew had warned that it would.

Thane needed a strategy.

“Pants,” she said, smiling too-sweetly, as if to make him hurry. “You put your feet down each leg and pull them up.”

Just for that, he balled the pants, threw them to the side, and advanced on her. She wore only a towel, her hair a mess of wet waves. She smelled too sweet again. A little sweat would make everything better.

“No, no, no,” she said, laughing as she backed away. “There’s no time for that, and you know it.”

He grinned. “Dragons have all the time they want.”

“Not now they don’t. You’ve got problems, buddy. Serious problems.”

“And isn’t it wonderful that I have a solution, as well.” He was getting hard again. It was good to be alive, and even better to be in her company. His dragon had ceased fighting him, content again after so long. He felt light, strong, and so pleased with himself.

“Well, you can just put your
solution
away,” she said, trapping herself in the small galley that served as a kitchen. Her skin was rosy and golden, and nothing was prettier on her than the happy smile beneath her dragon-green eyes. If he was very careful, he might just get her to reassess her opinions of the Bloodkin, living like one, living
with
one.

He lunged for her, but she squealed and scrambled up on the counter, dodging around him. He snagged her towel as it flapped behind her, so he achieved half his goal anyway. Now to catch her…

But she’d paused, looking out the window. She crossed her arms over her lovely breasts and frowned deeply at the street below, her body going still with tension.

Damn. What now?
Those wolves were such a nuisance.

He joined her and surveyed the area, the pavement glowing slightly yellow in the early morning sunlight. A car passed, but the pack was gone. And so, apparently, was the last of the morning’s interlude with Ember.

“Call Bryan,” he said, deciding once and for all that he needed a phone of his own. He was ready to concede that battle to Matthew.

It’d been a half hour since Bryan’s last call, the one that had driven Ember out of Thane’s arms and into a cleaning frenzy. Bryan should be back, and in another hour at most, Matthew and the Herrera people would arrive, too.

“Do you think they went out to get pancakes?” she asked, punching at the face of her mobile angrily.

No, he did not. The Alpha had surely found a way to trap or intercept their renegade pack member.

“He’s not picking up,” she said.

Thane kissed her temple. “We’ll find him. The Wolfkin scent is very…distinctive. We’ll have no trouble tracking them.”

She didn’t laugh, as he’d hoped, but turned away to return the pile of clothes she’d dug out of one of Bryan’s drawers. “Do you have good lawyers?”

“I have the best lawyers.” He retrieved the athletic pants and chose a T-shirt from the pile. “Why?”

“If they hurt my brother,” she said, shoving her legs into her skirt and zipping it up, “I’m going to commit murder.”

She was a dragon all right, through and through.

“I’ll bribe the judge and get you off,” he said gamely, though he would never allow any of those wolves near her. He reached for his shoes—one was crusty with blood, a testament to how much he’d lost during the encounter with the vampire.

They were out the door in short order.

Indeed, a pack of wild dogs was
not
hard to follow. Their scent was earthy, their sweat slightly sharper to the nose than that of humans, and many had not showered for the long days of their watch beneath Bryan’s apartment.

Thane set off down the street that led toward the sun. He could almost
see
their scent in the air. Even Ember made the first turn without waiting for his signal, and from there, he let her lead. A garbage truck momentarily confused her and she stalled in the center of an intersection, but then she pointed down State Street, and he nodded.

He heard the growls long before she looked over at him, worry rounding her eyes. But it was the note of blood in the air that really concerned him. Ember took off her heels—the only footwear she had with her—and in her bare feet ran toward the sound of violence.

They caught up with them in a parking lot near Mission Creek, next to an unfinished construction site, rebar sticking up out of concrete columns like lightning rods.

The Wolfkin pack—some thirty males and females, several in wolf form—had made a circle around two shirtless fighters at its center. Ray and Bryan stalked each other, dust and sweat creating patches of brown grit on their skin. One of the wolves in the outer circle had pissed nearby, the acidic smell mixing with the back-alley funk. The Wolfkin’s heartbeats drummed rapidly, all out of sync, creating a cacophony of savagery.

Bryan was bleeding from his side, and a dimpled welt on his skin said his lower ribs were likely broken.

Ember started to rush forward, but Thane held her back. “Let him fight.”

“He’s hurt!” she said, struggling futilely in his hold.

Yes, Bryan was hurt. Badly. Thane didn’t like how he was favoring his injured side.

Ray took advantage, taunting Bryan with his jaw out and his hands down. “You’re weak. Always been weak. Always will be weak.”

“It’s the Wolfkin way,” Thane said low in her ear. “This is an Alpha fight. Whoever wins controls the pack.”

Which was why dragons thought it was much better to choose leaders in Assembly. And not so long ago, he would’ve agreed with them. But Godric was one of the Triad and he’d shed so much blood that now Thane considered that the Wolfkin way might be better. A single fight to the death and the matter was decided.

“But I just got him back,” Ember said, her voice loaded with anxiety.

Bryan circled Ray to the left, and Ray tracked him, feinting while looking for the best angle to jab at Bryan’s injury.

“Give your wolf a chance,” Thane said. “He’s clever. Biding his time. I think he can win.”

“He doesn’t even want to be Alpha,” she told him. “He wants to go lone wolf.”

“Maybe becoming Alpha is the only way he can.”

Bryan had finally had enough of Ray’s taunts, and with surprising speed, he lunged at him, trying to pin him against a low concrete wall. But Ray was ready, and he managed to get ahold of Bryan’s neck…momentarily. In one smooth motion, Bryan swept Ray’s leg out from under him and brought his weight down, flipping Ray over and slamming him to the ground. Ray recovered quickly, but when he rolled and stood up, Bryan caught him with a swift, hard kick to the face.

Ray limply fell back in the dust as Bryan collapsed onto his knees, one arm awkwardly winged at his side. Blood frothed at his mouth. He was the victor, but also easy pickings for the next wolf who dreamed of being Alpha. Which looked like all of them.

“Can I go help now?” Ember asked Thane.

He nodded. “Now would be good.”

She ran to the circle, battering a male out of her way, who growled viciously at her. Thane stalked calmly behind her. His dragon was showing in his eyes, in the hulking of his shoulders, and the itch of his thickening claws. He lashed out at the growling Wolfkin—
no one threatened Ember
—and the dog yelped.

Bryan’s head was in her lap, his body broken, something crushed in his spine, as well. He trembled, but gritted his teeth against the pain.