Deceptions: A Collection (14 page)

“Don’t you think maybe we can worry about Nicole and everybody else
later
?” He pressed his lips to her shoulder. “Right now I want to talk about you. You’re right, I don’t fully realize just what I did. But I do know one thing—I did this because I knew it was the only way I could have what I really wanted. I broke things off with you because I didn’t think I would ever have that. And as I was, I guess I was right. This sounds crazy, but while you were talking with that guy, I started seeing things—images in my head—I saw me, like this, I knew this was how I had to be if I wanted to be with you. And I wanted that more than anything for the past two years. I just didn’t think I’d ever have it—
that
was why I ended things.”

He tugged on her shoulders, forcing her to turn around. “I leaped before I looked. There is no doubt about that. Am I going to regret it? It’s possible. But the only way that will happen is if I did it for the wrong reason—I did it for you, because I think you feel the same way about me that I feel about you. I love you. I’ve been in love with you almost from the time I met you. I just didn’t think you were right for me, because of all your secrets.” He grimaced and reached up, probing his mouth. “I wasn’t prepared for this kind of secret, though. It wasn’t you that needed to make some changes. It was me. And I’ve done that. So... am I right or am I wrong? Did I do it for the wrong reas—”

The rest of the sentence never made it out of his mouth. Dakota lunged for him.

He caught her in his arms.

“You idiot…” She muttered against his mouth. “You stupid idiot. Yes, damn it. I love you.”

He groaned and trailed a hand down her back, toying with the hem of her dress. “Good.” His other hand, he wrapped around her waist, locking her body against his.

She rocked against him, pressing closer, but it still wasn’t close enough. Questions, demands, everything else faded from her mind. The two of them had plenty of time to talk, to figure the rest of things out. Right now, a bigger need dominated her mind.

“You know what, sugar? It’s been like…three months since I’ve seen you naked.” She caught his lower lip between her teeth and tugged. “That’s way too long.”

“Is it?” He caught the hem of her short black dress and pulled—too hard.

Dakota heard fabric tear and she might have been irritated, but the befuddled look at his face distracted her. “You’ll have to get used to it…you’re stronger than you were.” Shrugging out of the remains of the dress, she dealt with her bra and panties, lifting a brow at him. “I like my pretty stuff in one piece.”

He was still staring at the ruins of her dress. With a look at his hands, he shook his head. “I didn’t…I mean…”

“Shhh.” Catching his hands, she brought them to her breasts. “That’s some of the stuff we need to talk about. But later. Touch me. I won’t break or tear, I promise.”

“But…”

“Touch me.” She moved closer, crowding closer and going to work on his jeans. “Just touch me…please. Damn it, I thought I wouldn’t have this again, be with you again.”

She could feel the burn of his hunger, too, a purely physical hunger now. But he was worried…
that
she could scent, wrapping in the air around them. Staring at him from under her lashes, she smiled. “Drew…you should know…I play dirty.”

For a vampire, lust and the desire for blood often went hand in hand. Her fangs had been threatening to emerge; now she let them. As she rose on her toes to kiss him, she bit her own lip just before she pressed her mouth to his.

He stiffened, went to jerk away. Chuckling, she clutched him tight. “Baby…you can’t hurt me this way.”

“Dakota…”

“You won’t hurt me.”

He shuddered. Then, with force that would have bruised her had she been human, he hauled her against him. There was barely enough room between them for her to push his jeans out of the way. She managed though. He sucked on her lip and the sensation was so damn erotic, it drove her
insane
…

Tearing her mouth away, she gasped, “Bed.”

“Fuck the bed,” he growled. He lifted her up.

And then, without waiting another second, he pushed inside.

Oh…hell…

Groaning out his name, Dakota gripped his shoulders, sinking her nails into his shoulders. Her head fell back and dimly, she found herself thinking, it was damn good thing she didn’t
have
to breathe…because she couldn’t.

Strong hands gripped her hips, dragged her up. “Look at me.”

Forcing her eyes open, she stared at him, into those beautiful eyes that had haunted her dreams for the past two years. Curling arm around his neck, she pressed her brow to his. “I love you.”

“Yeah?” A slow, heated smile curved his lips. “I love you, too…”

His hands curled into her ass as he turned and took a few steps, until she had the wall at her back. “I’m not going to break a wall, am I?”

Dakota laughed. “If you do, you won’t be the first…” She gripped his hips with her knees. “Now stop talking. Make love to me already.”

“Bossy…bossy…” His eyes glowed as he pulled back.

Then he surged back against her, deep, hard. She cried out, arched her back. He did it a second time, a third, as he worked a hand between them and stroked his thumb over the hard knot of her clit. Hot, liquid delight burst through her. Her heart ached for him and the pleasure, even as it tore into her, it remade her.

“Mine…” he muttered against her neck. “Finally mine.”

“Always. I always was, sugar.” Arching her neck to the side, she pressed him closer…she needed…

As he sank his teeth into her neck, they both exploded.

Fuck…

“I bit you.”

His head was still reeling. Shuddering, he lifted his head and stared at Dakota’s neck. Then he gaped at he realized the holes were closing. “I…fuck. I bit you. And you’re healing.”

“You bit me…and I loved it. Now take me to bed,” she said, her low, raspy voice smug and pleased. “And maybe this time, I’ll bite you. Later on, we can have that talk…”

“But…”

She pressed a finger to his lips. “Later. We have plenty of time to talk, sugar. We need a night just for us…”

Dazed, stunned, he looked back at her neck. Then into her eyes. She was smiling. Didn’t look worried at all. Shit. She was right.

“Yeah.” Dipping his head, he whispered against her mouth, “You know what…yeah.”

Hunters Declan & Tori

Hunters Eli & Sarel

Hunters Byron & Kit

Hunters Jonathan & Lori

Hunters Rafe & Sheila

Hunter’s Mercy

Hunter’s Pride

The Huntress

Malachi

Hunting the Hunter

Hunter’s Salvation

Hunters Heart and Soul

Hunter’s Need

Hunter’s Fall

Hunter’s Rise

The Boxed Set Books 1-5

Read more about the
Hunters
…

Book 1 of The Colbana Files

Urban Fantasy

By

J.C. Daniels

aka

Shiloh Walker

aneira [a-nir-a] derived from
Antianeirai
, found in the
Illiad
, warrior women, meaning ‘those who war like men’. Also known as Amazons.

My sword arm is mighty.

I will not falter.

I will not fail.

My aim is true.

My heart is strong.

I’m the descendant of some legendary badasses and I’ll damn well make myself wake up
—

“You are so lovely…”

The silken voice whispered to me in the depth of my dreams, wrapping around me and pulling me under. It was a seductive thing, full of promise. Full of warmth and wonder and lies.

Jude. The bastard had never been able to keep to himself.

It had been six years since I’d met him and in those six years, he’d done his damnedest to infiltrate my life. I’d trusted him, sort of. Once. But in the years since I’d made his acquaintance, I’d learned to place my trust elsewhere…and keep my distance.

So far, we were at a stalemate, but when it came to dreams, he usually had the upper hand. I’d always had surreal, vivid dreams anyway, and here, he reigned supreme.

Lost in the dark, velvety grasp of sleep, I wasn’t able to do much more than grumble and groan when he first appeared. It always took me a few minutes to get my bearings when he shoved his way into my dreams. Jude, the bastard, took great advantage of it.

He stretched out beside me on the bed and I could even feel it giving way under his weight, under that long, lean, powerful body. His hand rested on my belly and I could feel the way my muscles reacted, the way I reacted.

“Are you going to come to me, little aneira?” he whispered, dipping his head and nuzzling my neck.

I found my voice at the brush of his teeth on my neck.

Figures it would take that.

Yeah, having a vampire pressing his teeth to your throat, even in dreams, is enough to get the adrenaline going.

Full-fledged vampires aren’t the hot and sexy things of books. They are deadly. Cold. Soulless, powerful and yes, they can be sexy as hell—Jude is proof of that, but I suspected it might be safer to share my bed with a pit viper.

Summoning that image to mind gave me the strength I needed to move.

My sword arm is mighty.

I will not falter…

Rolling out of bed and away from him, I grabbed the T-shirt from the foot of the bed and jerked it on. “Jude, seriously. How often are you going to do this?” I asked.

“You had to get dressed, didn’t you?”

I shot him a dirty look and immediately wished I hadn’t. Moonlight gilded him with its pale light, turning his blond hair to silver, casting that carved face into angelic lines as his eyes glowed.

They were green. When he was angry, they glowed red with blood hunger, but right now, they were alight with an emerald luminescence that raked over my skin like a caress.

It had been too long since I’d gotten laid. The last boyfriend I’d had ended up leaving town after he’d been offered a very lucrative job. He was around off and on now, but it was more off than on and we’d drifted apart. Still, there were times when I missed him. A lot. And not just because of the sex.

But if I’d gotten laid anytime in the past couple of years, Jude wouldn’t seem so damned appealing right now. That look in his eyes was enough to drive me mad, but I wasn’t going to let him get to me.

Not any more than I already had.

“What do you want, Jude?”

He laughed. It stroked over my skin, begged me to laugh with him. Nope. Not doing that. Definitely not. “You know what I want, little warrior. When are you going to stop avoiding me? I haven’t seen you in months. You’re not taking my calls and you won’t take the work I send your way…foolish, that. Your silly little business is hurting for work and we both know it.”

Silly.

Running my tongue along my teeth, I returned to my bed.

I could let the anger I felt at the insult get to me. Or I could use it.

I’d rather use it.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Jude’s eyes widen as I drew closer. His hand snaked toward me as I reached out with my own.

But I wasn’t reaching for him.

I was reaching for the sword I kept under my pillow.

No, I couldn’t wield it in dreams…but I could use the strength I found in it.

The hilt settled in my hand, like an extension of my arm. Just touching it made me feel like I’d…come home.

Touching a sword. Yes. I’m more than a little messed up.

Smiling at him, I said, “I’m waking up now.”

My sword arm is mighty.

I will not falter.

I will not fail.

My aim is true.

My heart is strong.

The mantra of the aneira—the people I’d descended from. My mother had been full-blooded. My father had been human. Still, that had been drilled into my head and I’d shouted it out on the practice fields of Aneris Hall, the hell where I’d lived for the first fifteen years of my life.

The entire thing would take several minutes to recite, but the first few lines were enough to get me through the worst things. Sometimes, I had to say it several times a day.

My name is Kit Colbana.

In a world filled with shapeshifters, vampires and witches who can turn your insides into your outsides, I’m next to nothing; a peon.

I’ve got a knack for killing and tracking things down. I’m a talented thief, although I try to avoid that line of work, if I can. Luck tends to swing in my favor, although sometimes it’s in a very odd manner.  I can land on my feet when I ought to be landing in a grave or worse. And I have the ability to fade out…I can go invisible. A handy skill for an assassin, I guess.

But that’s it. That’s pretty much all I can do.

The magic in my blood is weak. I’m a half-breed, and while that term might bother some people, it’s just a fact of life.

My human father? I don’t know anything about him, other than he was human. I don’t know why my mom decided to shack up with him, and I don’t know why he was never in our lives.

He’s just a non-entity.

My mother was aneira…think of Amazons, and imagine something more. Something magical. We were once a well-known race, assassins sent out to do the jobs no other could. Sometimes we were thieves, sent out to track down priceless treasures. We’d even been bounty hunters, if legend tells it right.

A proud, noble race.

Now we’re not much more than a memory and only a few hundred of us remain. My mother had died when I was young, leaving me in the care of my not-so-loving family.

The aneira didn’t smile on the half-bloods and I was worse than most, because I was half human. They’d rather kill me than care for me. Sometimes, I think the only reason they didn’t is because they figured they’d have more fun tormenting me for years. If they killed me, it would be over too soon.

So they kept me, raised me. And they made sure I never forgot that although I had aneira blood, I wasn’t one of them. I was just a mongrel. A useless waste.

My mother’s fucked-up mistake…that’s what they liked to tell me.

That was the heritage they decided to share with me. Her mistake.

But I had a few scattered memories of her…I could remember her singing. The faint echo of her voice.

Maybe I was her mistake, but I shared her heritage. I had the memory of her singing to me.

And her sword.

Alone in my gym, I practiced. Strike. Block. Downward cut.

I practiced alone. But in my mind, I saw Jude. The bastard.

Sneaking into my dreams again.

Bleed him out. If I did anything at close range, that was what I’d have to do. Nick the arteries. I was fast. He’d be faster. But vampires needed blood just as much as we did. If I injured him enough, maybe I could slow him enough to really hurt him.

It was a fun fantasy, anyway.

Not that I’d really have a chance.

Six years ago, I’d made the mistake of calling him when I tried to help a friend. I hadn’t known him, he hadn’t really known me, but he’d offered help just the same.

The daughter of a friend had gotten mixed up with a bad group. The worst kind—wererats. A werecreature, in and of itself, wasn’t a bad thing, but the rats in East Orlando had been notoriously bad. Criminally bad, even. I found out a few weeks after my little adventure the rats had been slated for extermination by the council, anyway.

And said friend’s daughter had gotten involved with one of them. She was sick, diagnosed with leukemia, and she’d gotten in her head that the bite would cure her. In all likelihood, it would just hasten her death. A were’s bite is a hard, brutal thing and less than twenty percent survive it, anyway. If you’re not healthy, you don’t stand a chance. She hadn’t been healthy.

If living was her only goal, she’d have been better off going to the vampires. Not that they were likely to have touched a sick, underage girl. Vamps were careful about that, for the most part.

In the end, it hadn’t mattered. She died less than a year after I brought her back to her mom.

She died hating me, too.

It was a weight I’d carry the rest of my life.

But I couldn’t let the rats keep her. They wouldn’t have saved her life and they wouldn’t have been kind about how they tried to mark her, either.

Too bad she had been too young to understand that.

Sometimes I felt like it was all for nothing.

All for nothing, and I still had an albatross by the name of Jude around my neck.

Bleed him. Dozens of nicks across that very fine body, preferably when he hadn’t fed for a while. That would be best. And then—

I whirled, bringing my sword across right where the level of his neck would be if he had actually been standing in the room with me.

Vamps couldn’t die of blood loss. It would slow him. Weaken him. But it wouldn’t kill him. The older ones could even handle a bit of sun. But if I took his damned head, he was dead.

And if he didn’t quit trying to snake his way into my business, into my dreams, into my life, I just might try.

Although he was right about one thing. I really, really did need to get some business, and soon. I’d rather start flipping burgers, though, or hacking trees down with my sword than accept a job from him.

Anything would be better than taking work from Jude Whittier.