Haunted by Your Touch (27 page)

Hungry for more, she inhaled, a gaspy sound on the charged air. Then, with a blink, the light vanished from his stare. Without another word, he turned and left. She chafed her hands over her arms, willing the goose bumps from her flesh, willing her heart to still its impossibly fast tempo. Looking around, the room suddenly felt bigger and emptier without him in it. She felt alone, but
she was accustomed to that. No reason her heart should ache with an expectation for more.

Basic survival at month’s end. She craved nothing more.

But she did. She hungered for more. For life.

For him
.

Silence hummed around her as she stepped into the darkened hall and strode toward the winding stairs. Her feet landed unerringly on each step. She moved with ease, as if it were not dark at all. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom, seeing everything as if midday light poured through the house’s many windows. A symptom of her newly altered state, she knew. Even her hunger did not belong to her but to her newly altered self.
Lily, the lycan
.

She’d eaten alone hours ago. No sight of Luc other than his knock at her door and terse words informing her that dinner was downstairs. Alone in her room, little else had occupied her save thoughts of the future… and Luc. Luc and the future. Neither of which meshed together… but for some wild reason she could not separate the two.

In the foyer, she paused, turning away from the hall leading into the kitchen. Moonlight spilled a wide, irregular circle on the tiled floor. She moved, gazing through the front door’s stained glass to the outside world. Turning the lock, she opened the door and stepped outside. The night throbbed all around her. Alive. Pulsing.

She listened, hearing everything in the silence. The wind. The rustle of branches. The scurrying of a small animal nearby. The pulse of the city a half-hour drive from here matched the quick thud of her heart. Closing her eyes, she let herself feel, absorb her new world. Lifting her face skyward, she could see the waning moon even with her eyes closed. Could see it. Sense it. Feel it. Linked, bound to it, she took another step, reveling in the lush, vital world throbbing around her.

Then there was the faintest shift. On the air. In the quickening of her blood. A scent that had not been there before. She whipped around with the speed of a hurricane, the tiny hairs on her arms prickling, telling her she was no longer alone.

One moment nothing was there. Only the whispering night. The next, he was there, unfurling before her like a great wall.

He grabbed her. The biting pressure on her
arm made her cry out. “I told you that you could not escape me,” he growled.

“I wasn’t—”

“Did you think I wouldn’t know?” His eyes glowed, twin torches in the moon-soaked night. “Wouldn’t
feel
it the moment you stepped foot from your room?”

Anger swept over her. She wrenched her arm free and growled into his darkly furious face, “I told you I would stay—”

“I don’t put a great deal of faith in the word of a woman. Or a lycan.” He uttered both
woman
and
lycan
as if they were the foulest epithets.

“What’s wrong? Some girl do you wrong?” A muscle in his jaw ticced fiercely, and she knew she’d hit a nerve—the truth. “I’m not her,” she hissed, absurdly jealous over any woman who had possessed enough influence in his life to affect him. Unlike
her
. Someone he merely babysat, waiting to see whether he needed to destroy her before the next moonrise.

A long moment passed before he gave a slow nod. “Maybe not, but you can’t be trusted any more than I could trust her.”

“Yeah? Trust this!” Unaccountably angry, she kicked him hard in the shin and tried to break
free. To run, as he’d accused her of doing. Maybe it was his comparing her to another woman, maybe it was the entire hopeless situation.

Or maybe it was just that she was falling for someone she could never have… .

He grabbed her again and shook her. “And why should I trust you? She was a dovenatu and
she
couldn’t resist the darkness. You’re a lycan. How can you fight it?”

“I’m
not
her. I’m Lily. And I wasn’t running away. You don’t know me at all. I’ll face this thing. I wouldn’t risk hurting anyone. I would die before I did that.”

Their gazes locked, clung. Impossible words filled her heart. A ragged breath lifted her chest, and, unbelievably, she spoke the words her heart battled to deny. “I want to stay here.” It was true. She didn’t feel that burning need to escape him anymore.

His glittery eyes devoured her. For a moment she feared he would shake her again. Or strike her. That muscle in his jaw ticced wildly. The savage beat of his heart bled into her from where his hands gripped her. She waited, braced and ready.

With a groan, he pulled her into his arms,
crushing her in a hug so tight that she feared he might break one of her ribs.

Then they were kissing, dropping to their knees on the ground in a feverish tangle of limbs and hot, melding mouths. Their clothes fell away. Removed or ripped.

He came over her, seized her hips and entered her, driving hard, deep, pushing her into the unforgiving ground. She wrapped her legs around him, indifferent to the dirt and twigs scraping her back as she met his body’s every thrust. Branches swayed above them… the silent moon watching through the latticework of leaves.

He cupped her face, snaring her gaze in the glittering gold of his eyes as they moved fiercely together for several moments. Groaning, he shuddered above her. She arched off the ground, crying out and meeting him in his climax.

He collapsed over her, the heavy weight of him thrilling, intoxicating. The sound of their gasping breaths clogged the air. His lips moved against her shoulder, his voice rumbling through her as he spoke. “I won’t let it claim you.”

His words jerked her back to reality. By
it
he meant the beast, the surrender of her soul. Moisture burned her eyes. She dragged fingers
through his hair, stopping at the short ends, clutching them tightly, never wanting to let go. “It might not.” Her voice faded on the words—words she could not completely believe. Her life hinged on the slim hope of a
might
.

“I can protect you. Like I talked about in the car. I can keep you safe as long as you’re with me—”

She shook her head, knowing what he was offering yet unable to accept. “I won’t stay this way.” Something so dangerous. An evil creature driven to feed on humans. Like the monster who had devoured Maureen. She had not put her life on hold, caring for her mother for seven years, to lose herself to such a fate. She refused to live that way. She stared hard at Luc, an ache building in her chest at the sight of his too-handsome face. Not even for him. “I won’t put such a burden on you.”

He stared down at her, his golden eyes intense beneath dark brows. “Let me decide what’s a burden.”

A grim, vague smile curled her lips. “We’ll see.”

But she already knew she would not make him spend generations as her keeper. She liked him too much to do that. She winced.
Like
. A pathetic
word to describe her feelings for him. But her mind shied away from anything else. She did not believe in love at first sight. Love took time to grow, to build. Whatever she felt for him… it was something else. Lust. And she would not give up her mortality for it. She could never stay like this. Somehow she would end the curse. Or die.

Hoping to distract him, she ran a hand down the bristly side of his face. “Let’s just make this time we have count.” The sound of her voice startled her—all warm female enticement.

The hard glint returned to his eyes. “Oh, we’ll have more than this month.” His mouth claimed hers again. “We’re just starting,” he murmured against her lips.

She kissed him back, struggling to ignore the doubt she felt in the hot press of his lips. Like her, he wasn’t convinced either.

For all the bad that went with being a lycan, Lily could not help appreciating the advantages. Endless hours of sexual gratification. Eating whatever she wanted without weight gain. The heightened senses that made her savor life—
living
—as she never had before. And Luc. They never would have met otherwise.

But through it all, an uneasiness pervaded. The knowledge that it couldn’t last. That something approached, encroaching like a foul wind with increasing speed.

She swam beside Luc in his indoor pool, imagining that if mermaids had existed, this must have been what they felt. Gliding so effortlessly beneath the water. After nearly a full minute, she emerged, breaking the water’s surface… only to get sprayed in the face.

With a squeal, she splashed Luc back. Growling, he grabbed her around the waist and dragged them in a dizzying little circle. Laughing, she dropped her head back, enjoying the cool water swirling through her hair, gliding against her scalp… and Luc’s hot tongue laving her throat. This, she could learn to love.

You already do
.

If Curtis didn’t come through, at least she would have had this. More than anything she’d ever had before.

Suddenly, Luc released her.

“What?” she gasped, treading water.

He waved a hand to silence her, scanning the natatorium with a sweep of his gold-brown eyes. As she watched him, the tiny lights at the centers ignited and grew. And she knew. The beast hadn’t surfaced in him out of desire. Something else had called it forth.

Chill bumps broke out over her flesh. Evil had arrived. She smelled it like a poison on the air.

“Get out of the pool,” he murmured softly.

Lily swam to the edge, Luc close behind her. With a single deft move, he hopped from the water and pulled her up beside him just as a voice rolled over the air.

“Well, you certainly took my instructions to heart.”

Lily’s head snapped in the direction of the familiar voice. Curtis. He emerged through the archway leading to the spa, his rat face smug. Even less comforting was the gun he clasped in his hand.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded.

“Fucking him.”

Luc’s hand on her arm tightened, and he shoved her behind him.

“He’s not my alpha,” she bit out, trying to step around Luc. “You wanted me to kill him for nothing.”

“Not for nothing. He’s just as bad—a dovenatu.” Curtis’s eyes glittered with malice. “No one wants his kind around. Not humans. Not even lycans.” The hunter’s gaze narrowed on Luc. “You don’t have anyone, do you, half-breed? Not a pack. No one. Why not just die?”

“I gave you a chance to save your life,” Luc replied in an oddly even voice. “Either you give over her alpha, or you’re dead.”

“Oh, I can do better than that.” Curtis paused for dramatic effect. In that time, Lily stopped breathing altogether, the tiny hairs on her arms prickling. “I can introduce you to him. Now.”

They emerged then. Two stepped beside Curtis. Another entered through the main doors. She knew them instantly. Knew them. Recognized them as one species knows another. They were
her
. Lycans.

The creatures beside Curtis smiled, looking with avid interest at what could be seen of her wedged behind Luc.

“Lily, isn’t it?” one asked, his voice sliding through her like a serpent. “Welcome to the family.”

“No,” she breathed, digging her fingers into the tight muscled flesh of Luc’s shoulder.

“You’re a dead man,” Luc swore.

“What?” Curtis grinned. “You wanted me to find her alpha. I did. I brought him to you.” He nodded. “He’s promised to turn me now. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. To be strong. Invincible. To live forever.”

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.