Darkest Temptation (8 page)

The lycan at the natatorium’s main doors edged closer to the hunter, and instantly she knew he was her alpha. He patted Curtis on the shoulder, as if he were an overexcited pup. “You did well. And you shall receive all you deserve.”

Before Lily could blink, he took Curtis’s head between his hands and turned it with a violent
snap. Lily screamed. Curtis crumpled. Her stomach pitched and rolled at the ease with which he’d been murdered.

“Lily.” The pack leader spoke her name again, his silver eyes intent on her. “You belong with us. Not this half-breed dog.” He beckoned her with a flick of a knife he pulled from inside his jacket. “Come.”

Here he was.
The key to her freedom
.

The same realization must have occurred to Luc. He faced her. “I hate that you have to see this. Me. But if I don’t—” He stopped, dropping his hands from her. “Look out for yourself. Run if you get the chance. Use your speed.”

She cocked her head, noticing that his voice had changed, altered as it sometimes did when they made love… as though he was on the verge of turning into that thing which he loathed, which he’d spent lifetimes resisting. But he would surrender to it now. For her.

She nodded once in agreement.

Then the Luc she knew was gone. Transformed in a fraction of a second. His face and body shifted, twisted into something horrible in its beauty. Almost feline, with its sleek lines and rippling sinew and muscle. Not swallowed in fur,
like the lycans that had attacked Lily and Maureen that first night.

He did this for her. Embraced his beast. All so she could be free. Free of this curse. Free of him.
Free of him?
The thought swiped a bleeding gouge in her heart. She would never be free of him. She never wanted to be.

Her chest ached, and she wondered if anyone had ever cared enough to risk himself for her before. Aside from her mother, who could no longer even remember her, had anyone ever cared for her that much?

Then he was gone, a blur, a flash from her side. He had almost reached the alpha when the two other lycans intercepted him in a smack of bone and muscle. Animal versus animal. Evil versus good.

They fought like beasts. And they were. Bones that would later heal smacked and crunched together. She moved from where she stood, pressing herself to the wall, watching with suspended breath as the two lycans managed to gain the upper hand on Luc.

Wet and snarling, they pinned him to the ground, a grip on each arm.

Then she saw it. Curtis’s gun, the weapon innocuous in a shallow puddle of pool water. Silver
bullets. A lycan’s only fatal weakness. She reached for it, tucking it behind her back as she watched the alpha approach Luc.
Her
alpha.

“A legendary dovenatu, eh?” His glittering silver stare raked Luc. “Disappointing. I thought you would be so much…
more
.” Snapping his fingers, he motioned to his two comrades. “Finish him.”

“No!” Lily surged forward, her palm flexing around the gun’s grip behind her back. Her only chance. Luc’s only chance.

“Ah, little one.” The lycan responsible for what she was—the curse she bore—bestowed a beatific smile on her. “I almost forgot about you.” That pewter gaze slid over her curves, and suddenly she wished she were wearing anything but a bikini. His smile slipped, the whiteness of his teeth barely visible as his lips moved. “All heart and sweetness. We’ll rid you of that. Come here.”

She angled her head, for a moment lost in the mesmerizing pull of those pewter eyes.

“No! Leave her alone!” Luc fought harder. He flung one of his captors over his head into the pool with a splash. With a two-footed kick to the chest, he sent the second lycan flying. He hopped
to his feet with the agility of a cat just as a lycan sprang from the pool in a spray of water.

Snapping from her momentary stupor, Lily whipped the gun from behind her and surged forward, her heart a wild, desperate thump in her chest. Squeezing the trigger, she fired at the soaking-wet lycan charging Luc, sending him into the pool again.

The other lycan roared and came at her. Lily jerked back a step, slipping on the wet floor and firing one shot to the ceiling. Luc caught the silver-eyed devil before he fell on her. They crashed to the ground near her, biting and clawing at one another in a wild thrash of limbs.

Lily sat up, trying to focus her aim on the lycan. Luc hurled him off with a vicious kick. Those eerie eyes met hers the precise moment she fired.

“Lily,” Luc roared a warning in his thick, guttural voice.

She looked up, finding her alpha practically on top of her.

She swung the gun up, pressing it into his head. He pulled up hard, hands splayed in front of him.

“Easy,” he murmured, inching back a step,
easing away from the barrel. His steel-eyed gaze locked with hers and she felt that pull again.

“Shoot him!” Luc shouted.

Shoot him
.

Her finger tightened around the trigger. Just the slightest pressure more and it would be over. She would be herself again. Human.

Alone.

The alpha inched back another step. And another.

“Shoot him, Lily! End it now!”

End it.
End them
.

“Save yourself. Break the curse.”

His words settled in the pit of her stomach like rocks. In that moment, with her finger tightening on the trigger, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. It just felt…
wrong
.

Luc snatched the gun from her limp fingers. Her alpha was almost to the doors, his back the perfect target. Luc surged forward, arm outstretched, taking aim.

“No!” She charged Luc, jerking on his arm. A shot fired into the wall.

Like a flash of smoke, the lycan disappeared through the double doors.

“What the hell are you doing?” Luc started to
go after him, but she jumped on his back, arms tight around his shoulders.

“Luc—let him go!”

Luc peeled her off him. He faced her, his fierce face snarling into hers. “What are you doing? You let him get away—”

“I know!” she shouted, tears choking her throat. “Did you mean it? God, please tell me you meant it!”

He grabbed her face with both hands. In a blink, his face transformed into Luc again.
Her
Luc. “What are you talking about?” His thumb roved over her cheeks, rubbing salty tears into her overheated skin.

“You said you would keep me with you. Forever. Did you mean it?”

A long, endless moment passed, the only sound her ragged breaths.

Then Luc dragged her into his arms. Forehead pressed to hers, he pulled them both to their knees. “Lily, Lily, Lily…”

She sighed his name.

He pulled back and gave her a small shake, his face tight with a desperation that she felt reverberate deep inside herself. “Don’t you understand what you’ve done?”

She nodded. “Yes.” Swallowing past a throat tight with emotion, she answered thickly, “I chose you. An eternity with you.”

He stared at her for a hopelessly long moment, and she wondered if he had changed his mind. If he didn’t want her… the responsibility, the burden. Maybe she wasn’t worth it to him.

“Say something.” Anything.
Just not that
.

“Lily.” He hauled her into his arms, squeezing her breathless. “I do want you—I
love
you. I only hope you don’t regret—”

She pulled back to rain kisses on his face. “Never. What I’m getting more than makes up for what I’ll lose. Believe that. Don’t worry about me regretting this. Instead, think about how we’re going to spend the rest of our lives.”

He muttered against her lips. “I’ve already got a couple of ideas.”

Soft rain pelted the bungalow’s window as Lily traced mesmerizing circles over Luc’s ridged belly. “Hmm. What now?”

They’d cleared Luc’s house of his valuables and left, checking into the Beverly Hills Hotel. Luc didn’t want to hang around waiting for more lycans to show up.

“We’ll stay here for a while. For your mother.”

She sat abruptly, staring down into his shadowed face. When she had asked the question, she had been thinking more along the lines of room service… but his answer could not have elated her more. “Really?”

“It’s important for you to be with her.” He pushed a thick lock of hair behind her ear. “We’ll stay. Through the end.”

Lowering her head, she kissed him slowly, tenderly,
loving him even more in that moment. With their identities now exposed to the world of lycans, she had expected him to insist on their immediate relocation. Staying here for her mother, for her… It was more than she had ever hoped. Breaking their kiss, she murmured, “And after that? Then what?”

“Well.” A deep breath escaped him. “I want—no, I need to go home.”

“Home? Where’s that?”

“Ankara.”

“Where’s that?

“Turkey.”

She’d always wanted to see the world. Only her mother’s illness had cut short that dream, but there was something in the way he spoke, in the tension of his body beneath her, that made her think a friendly jaunt down memory lane was not what he had in mind. “Why do you want to go back there?”

“I have a cousin there who needs killing. I should have done it a long time ago.”

Lily stared down at him with wide eyes. She’d almost lost him. And herself. She did not relish risking life and limb again. Not so soon at least. She shook her head fiercely. “No.” Then again, louder. “No.”

“He has to be stopped, Lily. You gave me back my life today. Showed me that there are things worth living for. Risks worth taking.” His thumb grazed her cheek. “How can I go merrily about life knowing such a threat lurks out there, working its evil? For you… for us, I can’t do that.”

Looking deeply into his intent gaze for several moments, she nodded. He was right, of course. She was not the only one who needed Luc. The world needed him, too.
And the world needed her
. She was a part of this now. She would help.

Swallowing down the tightness in her throat, she gave a single hard nod. She would go anywhere with this man… this dovenatu. She’d already determined that with her decision to remain a lycan. “Let’s do it, then.”

He scowled. “There’s no ‘us’ in this. I won’t risk you. You’ll be somewhere else. I haven’t decided where yet, only that it will be someplace safe. I’ll find a way to make sure you’re protected during each moonrise—”

Her chin lifted. “You’re not leaving me. You signed on for eternity, and that’s what you’re getting. If there are bad guys out there to vanquish, we’re going to do it together.”

He opened his mouth, clearly prepared to
argue more, then stopped. Closing his mouth, he smiled crookedly. He brushed the hair back from her neck. “I guess I need to get used to this
us
thing.”

“Yeah, you better.”

“And a bossy woman.”

“That, too.”

“And trusting that you can handle all this.” He waved a broad hand, his expression sobering. “My world isn’t all roses and champagne, Lily.”

“It’s my world now, too. And the one I want.”

He released a heavy sigh and she tensed, prepared for more arguing, anything to convince him that they needed to be together, no matter what. And then his next words penetrated.

“Very well. Guess I should legitimize this and marry you. It does sound as though you’re committed to the thick and thin part already…”

Her heart squeezed. Despite his teasing tone, he stared at her starkly, his heart in his eyes. Beneath her palm, his chest did not even lift with breath. He held himself tense, waiting.

“Luc.” At his growing smile, she cried his name louder. “Luc!” Tossing her arms around his neck, she launched herself against him, sending him back into the bed.

He breathed then, his hard chest expanding as his arms wrapped around her.

And she breathed, too, the air releasing from someplace deep inside of her. Her first breath of life with him. She closed her eyes tightly. The first of many breaths.

Click through for a sneak peek of the next seductive book by Sharie Kohler

Soul So Wicked

Available January 2013 from Pocket Books

She wasn’t what he’d expected.

Up close, he was caught even more off guard at the sight of her. Not that he expected her to look like a two-thousand-year-old hag. He didn’t look anywhere near his thousand-odd years.

He inhaled thinly through his nose. Her beauty didn’t faze him, though. He knew what she was. All she had done. If not for her, he would have lived and died a peaceful existence long ago, his soul intact. And countless lives spared at his hands.

“What do I want?” he repeated. “What I want is
you
dead.” He raked her with a scathing glare. “Your corpse at my feet. Only that will satisfy me.”

She didn’t so much as flinch.

He continued, “But I’ve been told you can’t die.”

“You’re not totally ignorant, then?” She cocked her head as though in approval. Her glossy dark hair swayed, as smooth as glass around her. “Yes. My death would be a bad idea,” she agreed.

He bristled at her condescension. “Unleashing an evil worse than you isn’t what I’m after.”

She arched an elegant eyebrow. “If you know killing me would release the demon, then why are you here?”

“Because you’re the key,” he bit out.

She looked bewildered. Again, not the reaction he was expecting from evil incarnate.

Where was the rage? The cruelty?

She shook her head. “The key to what?”

“You started all this.” He motioned to himself, and then stilled when he saw that his hand shook ever so slightly. “You have to be able to end it.”

Understanding filled her whiskey goldeyes . . . and something else, something he couldn’t identify. “You think I can help you?” She considered him slowly, crossing her slim arms in front of her. “What is it you want exactly, lycan?”

The word grated on his nerves—probably because she was to blame for it. That she would sneer the word at him when
she
was the one who had created all lycans . . .

Hostility pumped through his veins. He closed and opened his hands at his sides, fighting the urge to lash out at her for everything she was—everything she had done. Everything she had made him do.