Dark Cravings (21 page)

“It is me who should be on my knees in front of you. Let me
worship you, give you pleasure. Make you
my
queen.”

He spread my legs, drew his mouth from my tummy to my thigh.
Heat spread through me as he darted his tongue out and licked the sensitive
skin there. I braced one hand on the shower door and used the other to push the
dripping strands of hair out of Micah’s face. I watched as he closed his mouth
over my clit.

He moved lower, teased my lips before dipping inside and
pressing deep. I cried out in ecstasy. He sucked and licked and brought me just
to the point of climax. Using two fingers, he pressed inside my clenching
pussy, knowing what I needed. The digits curved along the inner wall until he
hit my G-spot. I gasped at the instant, divine pressure. Back and forth, he
stroked me. His mouth closed over my clit, sucking.

I threw my head back, let my hips writhe and buck against
his mouth and fingers. Energy built. Multiplied. The air was heavy around us,
almost too thick to breathe. Micah panted against me, pumped his fingers just a
little faster.

“Micah!” I screamed.

Tension, pleasure and electricity exploded. Instead of
letting the energy between us scatter, I grasped on to it with my heightened
senses. Micah’s breath caught. The muscles deep inside my sex tightened, held
his fingers deep as I rode the dual sensations of my orgasm and the combined
energy filling me.

The pleasure was almost too much.

“Again,” he gasped.

The tenderness, for the moment, was gone. Micah attacked my
sex, sank a third finger inside me. He stretched me wide, thrust again and
again. The angle of his head shifted and I looked down to find him watching me.
Our gazes met and each hard stab of his tongue against the swollen nub of my
clit sent me spiraling right back to the top.

Lightning struck inside me, hard and fast and hot. The
climax stole through me, left me empty and boneless. Micah cut off the water
and, without bothering with towels, scooped me into his arms and carried me to
the bed.

The mattress dipped beneath our combined weight and I felt
only the briefest of chills before Micah closed the gap between our bodies. I
spread my legs, welcomed the press of his pelvis against mine.

“God, do you have any idea how sexy you are?” Micah asked.

The combined heat of his skin and the energy flowing between
us made the water lingering on our bodies steam and billow into the air. Micah
rubbed my leg from the calf up to my thigh. Never breaking eye contact, he
spread me wide and in one slow thrust, he pressed his cock into the slick
opening of my sex.

I sucked in a breath at the deep penetration. This was so
unlike any time we had been together. I’d expected him to throw me on the bed,
to flip me over and plunge into me with ruthless abandon. This was so much
better.

When he was in to the hilt, Micah paused. His cock twitched.

“I’m never going to let you go. You’re mine.”

Micah dropped his forehead against mine and brought our bodies
together in a slow, powerful rhythm. I cried out. I clutched his shoulders and
arched my back. Micah’s mouth found mine in a heated kiss.

His thrusts came harder, quicker, and I knew he was close.
When his body started to tremble and his skin pebbled, I knew it would be over.
I never wanted him to stop, I never wanted this exquisite pleasure to end.
Hooking a leg around his hip, I rolled until Micah’s back was on the mattress.

I rose above him and let the damp strands of my hair tickle
the hands he brought up to hold my face.

“I’ve always been yours,” I whispered.

I sank down and took his cock into me. His eyes darkened
with the presence of his demon half. He moved his hands from my cheeks to my
breasts. I threw my head back and rocked my hips. My internal muscles convulsed
and I watched Micah fight the urge to throw me back and consume me.

Instead he wrapped his arms around my back and sat up with
me in his lap.

“I love you,” he gasped as he thrust up into my body.

There was no hesitation. “I love you too.”

I pressed my other hand to the bed behind me and gasped when
he shoved even deeper inside me. I watched Micah drive his cock into me. Micah
cupped my breast, bent and drew my nipple into his mouth. The rough scrape of
his teeth sent me spiraling into another orgasm.

Beneath me, Micah bucked his hips. His hand replaced his
mouth on my breast and our eyes met. Held. Micah’s mouth parted, his breath
stuttered.

His cock pulsed and I felt him, the hot wash of his seed
inside me. Mid-climax, Micah pushed his tongue into my mouth and poured
everything he had into me. I took it all and gave him all of me in the process.
My body trembled and we fell back onto the bed. Micah never lost contact, never
stopped the insistent pounding.

My nails scored his back and the spicy scent of his blood
brought out my fangs. Despite the teeth, he gave me a deep, long kiss. The
muscles in his ass flexed with each thrust.

Micah made love to me, over and over. I don’t think we ever
really stopped. The hours ticked by and somewhere deep inside my bones, I felt
the sun rising. When we finally fell into an exhausted sleep, there was not an
inch on my body Micah hadn’t reclaimed as his. His and his demon’s.

Just as I was enjoying the abyss of sleep, the persistent
ringing of a phone woke me. Over and over, the shrill tone rang out. I lifted
up, struggling under the weight of Micah’s body, to watch his pants buzz on the
floor with each chirp.

“Let it go to voicemail,” Micah said in a drowsy murmur.

As soon as the ringing stopped, it began again. I groaned.
When he rolled off me, I stretched, felt each sore, stiff muscle.

“God, my muscles hurt,” I said.

Micah grinned. “I don’t know why, I did all the work.”

“Hardly!” I sat up, drew the sheets against my breasts and
admired his backside as he bent to fish his phone from his pocket.

“Hello?” Micah answered. He turned to me.

I watched the full smile he’d started to give me fall. “What
happened?” Micah croaked. There was a long pause. “I’m ten minutes away. I’ll
be there sooner if I can manage it.”

The call disconnected.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

The phone in his hand fell to the floor. He didn’t answer me
right away. Instead he got up, pulled on a pair of jeans and an old, faded tee
shirt. After a moment he turned to me. His eyes were glassy, with a touch of
panic and fear.

“That was Roy.” He smoothed a hand through his hair. “Elijah
and Hannah were attacked. Eli might not make it.”

“And Hannah?” My voice cracked.

“She’s missing.”

Eli might not make it.

Hannah, missing.

I could barely think through the mounting panic.

The two people Micah and I cared most about in this world
were, at best, in grave danger. At worst? I couldn’t even consider that
scenario.
Keep those you love close.
We sure had done a shit job of
that, hadn’t we? Eli and Hannah shouldn’t have been left alone. I should have
kept Hannah at my side until the living nightmare my life had become was over.

I fucked up and now my family, Micah’s family, was paying
the price.

My voice trembled. “How did it happen?”

I was out of bed and rummaging through the wrinkled clothes
in my duffel bag. Like Micah, I pulled out the first articles of clothing I
touched. Micah was across the room, shoving sockless feet into his sopping
boots.

“They were attacked by a pack of some kind of large, beastly
dogs when Eli picked Hannah up from the college. Roy wasn’t making sense and I
don’t know the specifics. Eli is being rushed into emergency surgery—there’s a
lot of internal damage.”

“How exactly is Hannah missing?” I didn’t even want to ask.
If she had been there, watching Eli get torn to pieces by rabid dogs… “Maybe
she got freaked by the violence and ran.”

Micah shook his head. The helplessness in his eyes cut
through me.

“She was there when the ambulances showed up. An eyewitness
reported someone matching her description getting pulled into a dark sedan. She
started screaming and kicking, but in the commotion, the car got away.”

My fault. I shoved my feet into my own soggy boots.

Micah stopped and turned so abruptly I ran into his chest.
He caught my elbows and looked down at me. “Where are you going?”

Captain Obvious. “To the university. Maybe if I can catch
her scent I can track her.”

A pained look crossed his face. He reached up to gently
stroke my cheek. The simple touch did nothing to calm the darkness beginning to
spiral out of control.

Kill. Protect. Annihilate.

“You can’t go outside. It’s still daylight.”

Well. Fuck.

I backed up a step, another. Each step shook off a new piece
of my heart. I was useless. “Right.”

The backs of my knees hit the bed and I sank down with my
hands in my lap. I looked up at Micah. “Go. Eli needs you. When the sun goes
down, I’ll start my search.”

Slaughter. Defend. Obliterate.

“I’m going to call Dante and have him meet you here. He’s a
hell of a tracker.” He paused with his hand on the door, like he wanted to say
something. Our gazes met, but he didn’t speak, not out loud.

I love you.

I love you too.

I wouldn’t cry. Instead I nodded and gave him a small, brave
smile in return. “Eli will be okay. If not, he knows you’ll kick his ass.”

“If it was werewolves and he survives…” Micah trailed off.

I finished the thought,
Eli might become a shape shifter
.
“One step at a time. He’ll pull through. Call me when you have news, okay?”

The door slammed shut behind him a second later. The heavy
tread of Micah’s boots hitting the floor echoed all the way down the hallway. I
knew the second he left the building because the pressure gathering in my head
spiked. Instincts demanded I follow my mate, self-preservation told me to stay
away from the deadly sun.

With nothing to do but pace, I set about wearing a hole in
the carpet. Each step made me feel worse. My head throbbed. My skin felt too
tight. Any moment, I expected the flesh to start peeling away. I had a
flashback of the werewolf in the woods last night. Would that happen to Eli?

Every five minutes I called Roy, with the same result.
Voicemail. Why wasn’t he picking up? Why had he called Micah and not me? I was
going insane! In between bouts of throwing the phone on the bed, throwing it on
the floor and once, against the wall, I raided a weapons chest in the closet.
While most of Micah’s supplies consisted of guns and ammo, I found a stake and
a set of wrist sheaths with Silverstone blades.

And I paced some more.

Murder. Guard. Destroy.

On my hundredth rotation of the living-room-slash-bedroom, the
heavy thud, thud, thud of footsteps stopped me in my tracks. Dante. I ripped
the door open and looked up at the golden halo of curls surrounding his square
face.

“Darlin’,” he said in his deeply husky voice.

I’m not a hugger. When Dante wrapped his big strong hands
around my arms and pulled me into a hug, I resisted. He had none of it. The
tight black shirt he wore outlined every muscle, but until I was smashed tight
against all of them, I hadn’t realized just how hard they were. His entire body
was steel.

“Is there any news on Eli?” Since my face was still pressed
against his chest, my voice was muffled.

Dante set me aside and shook his head the same way a
full-grown lion would shake out its mane of hair.

“Micah was just leaving here when he called. He said I
needed to come here, help you find your sister. Castro is already asking
around, but so far he hasn’t gotten much. The normal person’s late afternoon is
the underworld’s dawn.”

Late afternoon. This was my life now, trapped in the
underworld’s dawn. I had never hated the sun as much as I did right then.

Trapped as I was, what else could I do? I’d been so
desperate I had even tried to use my mental link with Julian. For my efforts, I
had gotten a big, fat black hole of nothing. I was either being ignored or my
sire was in some hidey-hole, recovering. Perhaps the queen had nothing to do
with this. Maybe Julian was punishing me.

Dante looked around the apartment, shoved his hands in his
military-green pants. His nose twitched and his gaze lingered on the rumpled
sheets of the bed.

“So,” he said.

“So,” I replied.

Awkward.

Dante was too big a man to be standing in this small a room.
Waves of energy surrounded him and I was reminded of the werewolf.
Oh Eli.

“Were you born a shape shifter?” I asked.

His golden eyes glittered and not in a good way. “No.”

Before I could ask, he lifted his shirt and turned so I
could see his back. Five fat, puffy pink lines traversed his muscular back,
from shoulder to hip.

“Castro found me in the woods after the attack. Saved my
life, he did. I’ve been with him ever since.” Dante dropped his shirt and spun
to face me. His gaze was serious and void of any playful teasing. “If Eli comes
out of this…”

I held up my hand. “When, not if, Eli comes out of this.
Micah couldn’t take it if he didn’t.”

Dante gave a sad nod.

“Let’s put those animal instincts of yours to good use and
find my sister.” I walked over to the duffel bag and then tossed it at him.

He caught the bag, looked at it. “What is this?” he asked.

“Her scent. She packed the bag for me. I can smell her all
over it. Figured you’d want a place to start.”

“Good thinking.”

“Yeah, well, for the last hour and a half that’s all I’ve
been doing.”

Dante gathered the duffel bag in his hands. The item looked
like a clutch purse in his meaty paws. He brought it to his nose, inhaled.
After a minute, he nodded. “Got the scent, but the sun isn’t all the way down
yet. We should wait fifteen more minutes.”

I couldn’t wait. I was dressed, armored and ready to go.

“Listen. I can’t stay in this apartment one second longer.
By the time we get downstairs, it should be fine. I just won’t look into the
light.”

“Should be? I don’t think so.” Dante put both hands in the
air. “Micah would never forgive me if I let you get hurt. He loves you, has for
a while, but has been too thick-headed to admit it.”

“Micah isn’t the one in charge.”

Pushing Dante away from the door was akin to pushing a
boulder. I huffed and I puffed and I got nowhere.

“I can take care of myself, Dante,” I gritted. “Now move
your ass.”

He moved his ass when he damn well felt like it. By the time
we reached the main floor, the horizon was awash in a crimson glow and the sun
was nowhere in sight. Still, I had to squint, and there was the slightest
lethargy weighing down my limbs. The discomfort was a small price to pay for
finally being out of the house. In the time it took to walk to his shiny silver
truck two blocks away, the red streaking lines in the sky had melted into a
purple twilight. We drove to Hannah’s school in absolute silence. The only
sound was the smooth, even thrum of tires speeding along the highway.

When we pulled in front of the college and got out of the
truck, my stomach churned. Eli’s blood was a fresh wash of honey in the air.
Pure, undiluted. Rich. In that instant, I also knew something else: Eli was
purely human.

Unlike his older brother.

Dante walked ahead of me, his boots leaving imprints in the
soft grass. I tried to pick out Hannah’s scent, but the smell of Eli’s blood
was too strong. Letting Dante do his thing, I moved around to the side lawn
that ran between the sprawling multistory building and the adjacent domed
gymnasium. Someone had hosed down most of the blood, but I still found drops of
it here and there.

A phone started to shrill and the sound made me jump. I hadn’t
realized I’d crouched and was actually rubbing a blood-smeared blade of grass
between my fingers.

“Yeah, boss?” Dante answered.

I shoved my hands into my pockets and jogged to Dante. Every
time he nodded his head, I watched his hair bounce. The way the moon reflected
off the honey-blond strands was mesmerizing.

“I know where that is,” Dante was saying. “I can’t get
anything at the school except wolf. Definitely a shifter, although it isn’t
your run-of-the-mill werewolf. The scent is darker, more savage. We’ll go check
out your lead. A long shot is better than no shot.”

His phone snapped shut.

“You have something?”

“Castro put out a few feelers and a couple of things came
crawling in. Some low-level demons were bragging about this job they scored for
the queen. They were hired to take some blonde to an abandoned hospital up in
the country for some fun. Castro thinks it may be your sister.”

Vomiting was a very real possibility. “What kind of fun?”

“Let’s go,” was all he said.

The farther out of town we got, the thicker the trees became
on the side of the narrowing road. Night had fully fallen and the white,
bare-limbed trees reminded me of skeletons. I couldn’t think about what was
happening to Hannah. There was no doubt in my mind that this was the place and
she was the blonde.

When my phone rang, I picked it up on the first ring.

“Micah?” I answered.

“Yeah.” He sounded so tired.

“How’s he doing?”

I heard his sigh over the phone. Dante glanced from the
road, to me, then back.

“He made it through the first surgery to repair his vital
organs. They just started the second set of surgeries. There is a lot of
internal damage and they aren’t sure how much his body can handle. They won’t
let me see him.”

“He is going to be fine.” There was no other outcome. “We
hunters never quit.”

We both knew the lies for what they were. Eli, even if he
did survive, was never going to be “fine” and hunters didn’t quit, they died.

“Castro called, said he might have a lead on Hannah.” Micah
changed the topic.

“Yeah, we’re on it.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“I don’t have a very good feeling about this,” Micah finally
said.

Neither did I. “We’ve got a plan.”

“You and your plans. That’s what I’m worried about. Listen,
don’t go in there without me. I’m going to head over and meet up with you and Dante.”

“Stay with Eli, he needs you.”

“Well, maybe I need you. I’m not doing anything here but
scaring the nurses. They say he’ll be in surgery for the next several hours. I
can’t just sit here and wait.”

“If I get there and Hannah is inside, I’m going in. If they
are…” I couldn’t say it, couldn’t think it. “If she’s being…” My eyes grew hot.
If she is being raped, tortured.

“Don’t,” Micah warned.

I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me. “I’ll see you in
a bit.”

It wasn’t until I got off the phone that I had the thought
that this might be the last time I’d ever talk to him. I wanted to tell him how
much he had changed my life. I was about to call him back when the one-lane
dirt road emptied into a clearing.

The cracked cement sign was missing two corners, but the
faded engraved letters read,
Greystone Psychiatric Hospital
. The truck
pulled to a stop in front of the sprawling structure. The first four levels
were layered in a combination of dull white and gray bricks. Ugly cement slabs
constructed the fifth level.

Ivy, turned brown in death, trailed up the building and
invaded the broken, barred windows. In some places, the unhinged windowpanes
hung at odd angles, anchored only by the vines. To both sides of the main
four-columned entrance were other, smaller doorways. Overgrown with plants that
appeared to be growing from the inside out, the concrete steps and rusted metal
railings led to dented doors.

I got out of the truck and pressed the back of my hand to my
nose. The humid weather brought out the stench of rot and decay. With my other
hand, I swatted away the flies and mosquitoes buzzing around my face. No doubt
they were here to gorge themselves on rancid flesh and rotting vegetation.

I looked over at Dante as he pulled a backpack from the bed
of the truck and slung it over his shoulder.

“She’s here,” he said. “I can smell her.”

Fear churned my stomach. The stench of age-old torture radiated
from the building and lingered in the air. A leaf skittered across the ground
and it sounded like nails clawing concrete. We bypassed the front entrance and
made our way to the side of the building. The gravel crunched below our
footsteps.