King of Darkness (20 page)

Finally he said, “I didn’t say that you—” He broke off and his irritation was clear. His jaw was set. He stood, looming large as if to intimidate Alexia with his gargantuan size. She was forced to crane her neck to see his face now, and she couldn’t say she appreciated that, either. How was it that only minutes earlier she had been ready to get naked for him? “Look, think what you want, but this is for everybody’s safety. I’ll tell Isabel you’re feeling better.”

It was gonna take more than that to intimidate her, and she was used to going through life with a stiff neck. “So… I’m near Washington, and I got here from Florida how? How long was I out?”

“Not long. A few hours.” He shrugged. “Tyra brought you here. By teleport.”

“Tele… port…” Sure, that would have been her first guess. “How—”

“She disappears and reappears someplace else.
Star
Trek
style. Sometimes she can take stuff with her. Like small human females.” The smile was back. God, he was hot with that smile. Shit.
Shit! Stop that!

“Oy.” Her head flopped back against the bevy of pillows behind her. In the past hour she’d woken up, drunk blood, then been told she couldn’t go home again, and she was lusting after a giant killer vampire. Oh, and she’d been brought to a huge mansion in Virginia by way of freaking teleport.

Happened every day.

“So… if I can’t go home, what am I going to do?”

“Just hang tight. We’ll figure it all out. For now, you’re our guest here.” He turned to go.

Guest.
“That’s reassuring.”

He seemed to ponder something for a moment, then nodded curtly. The room temperature seemed to have dropped by about twenty degrees. Alexia propped her elbows on her still-bent knees, rubbing her eyes good and hard as she did so. It was all too fucking much. “Great, and…” She trailed off as her eyes opened again.

She hadn’t heard the door, but he was already gone.

“Thad.” The movement of Isabel’s lips against his and the vibrations as she murmured his name only spurred him to kiss her harder. Hands down, these were the most amazing lips he had kissed. Ever. “Thad!”

Her hand pushed insistently against his pecs. “Hmm?” He kept kissing. Couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop massaging her arms and shoulders as he went. Or trailing his fingers along her spine. He would almost swear the taste of his blood lingered in her mouth, and damned if that wasn’t kind of sexy in a weird, kinky sort of way.

“Thad, stop. Please.” She wedged her arms between his, breaking their embrace. “We need to talk.” Those were words to pound a spike of cold, splintering fear into the center of any male’s chest, even on a good day.

Thad growled as he stepped back—but only a scant few inches. He could still smell the clean, damp scent of Isabel’s hair when he dipped his head to her ear.

“I’ve been doing a whole lot of talking,” he whispered. “You’re the one who’s not saying much.”

The need to touch her bordered on compulsive. Painful, almost. He leaned his weight against the table and crossed his arms over his chest, locking them firmly to protect against the urge to reach for a silky strand of hair or to brush against her cheek. How could she deny the connection between them? They had shared something special when they’d made love. Something meaningful. Rage mixed with agony mixed with confusion, and his face hurt from the effort of keeping it from contorting so the emotions were obvious.

“So go ahead, Isabel. Talk.”

The strong breath she blew out ruffled her hair a bit. Long fingers rubbed at her tired eyes. He could hazard a guess as to what she was working up to, and he didn’t want to hear it.

“Thad, I can’t do this.” She gestured back and forth between them. “Whatever it is that’s going on here.”

There it was. His insides boiled. He couldn’t bite back what flew from his mouth next. His fangs crowded the inside of his mouth, and he just had to open the damn thing.

“And what exactly is going on here, Isabel? I’m still trying to figure that one out myself.” His fists clenched and released. “Aside from you running hot and cold on me.”

Isabel’s raised her hands in front of her chest, palms forward. It was hard to tell whether it was a gesture of surrender or if she was warding off an attack.

“Look, I’m sorry. I really am. But to be honest with you, things are getting way too weird for me here. In the last few days I’ve had my life turned upside-down. My best friend has been attacked by something I’ve only heard about in stories, and I somehow get hurtled through space by your sister. Then we
fuck
and suddenly I’ve got a power? How do you expect me to handle all of that? I’d be a candidate for the loony bin if I wasn’t freaking out right now.”

What the—“Wait.” He straightened. “You have a power?”

She nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. “I froze a glass of water into ice. Your sister said it probably happened after we fed from each other or after we were intimate, or maybe both. And probably that’s why I’ve been so cold.”

“You talked to Tyra about this?” Yuck. He and Tyra had always been close, but discussing their sex lives was something Thad would have never done with Ty, not even under duress. As far as he was concerned, his sister didn’t have sex at all, and the whole business about her and Siddoh was just rumor and conjecture.

“She stopped by my room. Brought me some clothes. She seems nice.”

“Yeah, Tyra’s awesome.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway. You want to tell me what? That even though the whole thing about you and me being destined for each other seems to be totally on par here, you’re going to chicken out and bail on me?”

“Not exactly. I just… well, you don’t need me anymore, right? We had sex, and you have a power now so you can do the whole, uh, kingship thing. If you’ve got your power, there isn’t really any reason that I need to stay, right?”

Thad glanced around the kitchen as if someone else were present to see his expression of abject incredulity.

“You can’t go home, Isabel. Too dangerous. And besides, what of your power?” Thad stepped closer again. No way was he going to let her bail this easily. He
did
need her, for fuck’s sake, even if she didn’t want to see it that way. And he wanted her. From the beginning, he had been drawn to her with a passion that defied all logic.

She shrugged away, clearly looking uncomfortable. “I don’t know. I’m sure I’ll get a handle on it somehow. Your sister could help me, or maybe Lucas.”

“Lucas.”

“Our friend back in Orlando. He came into his power a long time ago, and he seems to have a pretty good handle on—”

“Wait a minute, you mean hair guy? The wino vampire who was feeling up Alexia for lollipops? You expect him to help you master your power?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Listen, most of us are not soldiers or royalty. Some of us just want to be left alone.”

“Is that what you want? To be left alone?” His jaw and neck were strung tight. The discomfort started to creep down his back. Why was she fighting this so hard?

“What the hell are you mad at me for?” Now she was the one leaning in, exasperation all over her face. “We had a good time together, and you got your power. You can’t possibly think I’m supposed to be your queen. I wouldn’t know what to do. I’m a professional party-girl, for crying out loud. Besides, how can you honestly think I can stand up as a figurehead for a race that rejected my family?”

Thad grabbed Isabel’s wrist and pulled her against him. Maybe a little harder than intended, but he was too far into pissed-off for apologies. “Boo-fucking-hoo, honey. You can’t base your entire outlook on the fact that your parents felt rejected by society.”

“I don’t even know how to live among our kind, Thad. I’ve never done it.”

“So you’re not even willing to try?”

Air rushed out of Isabel. Her entire body seemed to droop. “This is going nowhere, so can we just drop it? It’s just too overwhelming.” She yanked her arm backward. “And you’re hurting my wrist.”

“Fine,” he growled. “But this is not over.”

Not by a fucking long shot.

“Why do you even care about this? You got your power.” Vexation was edging into her voice.
Join
the
club, babe
.

“Gah!” His hand slammed down on the table, rattling the cup and plate left from her meal hard enough that they both paused for a beat to see if the heavy tumbler would fall over. “You keep saying that. Is that really all you think I care about? You think I was just using you to come into my power?”

She blinked. “Well, actually, no. At first I thought you were just using me for sex.”
Jeez
. “Which I didn’t mind because you know full well that you’re an extremely desirable male. The power thing freaked me out, though. I won’t lie. I mean, come on, Thad. Even if I thought the prophecy was true, there was no telling it would happen like
that
.”

“And the part about being my queen?” Thad’s voice got soft. Too soft. He hadn’t wanted to ask it again, because the tone and the question itself held more vulnerability than he cared to show. He didn’t expect a different answer. He just hoped.

“Thad, I’m no kind of royalty. You deserve someone much better. Someone upper class who comes from an old family, who knows the ways and traditions better than I do. Someone good for your image. I can see that you have a steep learning curve ahead of you, but I don’t doubt for a second that you’ll handle it just fine without me dragging you down.”

Dragging him down? Good for his image?

Oh, for Pete’s sake!

“Isabel, I care for you. I don’t give a shit about my image. Nor should you. I can see us having a future together, don’t you get that? I don’t want someone else.”

“Thad, we barely know each other.”

He grasped her hair in his fist, pulled gently to the side, and leaned down to nuzzle her neck. Ah, she was so soft and smooth. “I know all I need to, Isabel. We already have amazing chemistry, and you’ve helped me gain my power. That means you’re destined to be my mate. The rest…”

He kissed her jaw, then her neck. He wanted to go further but her sweatshirt was in the way. He settled for moving one hand between her shoulder blades and pressing forward so that her breasts heaved against him as she breathed. He lifted his chin to kiss her lips again. “The rest we’ll figure out as we go,” he murmured.

“Thad,” she gasped, “I’ve never been in a long-term relationship. I’ve never had any kind of responsibility. I’ve never so much as returned a library book on time. You want a mate? A queen? You need to find someone who’s worthy of you. Of what you’re asking. I’m not that girl.”

He stepped back and stroked her cheek gently. “You can,” he growled. “And you will.” His gaze lingered on hers, and he knew his desire was projecting loud and clear from every pore on his body. The thickness of his arousal was apparent even behind his heavy jeans, and she was taking it all in with wide eyes.

He took another step back. She wanted to pull away? Two could play at that game. “Get comfortable, Isabel. You’re gonna be here awhile.” Without waiting for a response he turned and headed out the door.

***

Freaking males with their macho bullshit.

Isabel stared down Thad’s retreating form until he rounded the corner. She seethed from anger and cold and from anger at being cold and a ton of other confusing emotions. This experience was messing with her head. Not to mention, she did
not
take kindly to being told what to do or how to feel.

Couldn’t he see how scary this was for her?

She took a deep breath. The thing was… the thing that she could only admit to herself was that when Thad was around, there was more to it than just the fact that he chased away the cold. He was right. They connected. That seemed like such a positive thing, but the ramifications and the baggage that came along with that admission were far too much to handle.

Another full-body shiver hit, causing her teeth to clatter loudly. What she needed was a way to gain some perspective. No easy task since being in this place meant being surrounded by everything that was Thad.

What she needed was reality television.

Lexi had gotten her into it, starting with all those awful dating shows and eventually things like
Hoarders
and
Project
Runway
. Whenever she felt overwhelmed, an episode or two of
Survivor
never failed to remind her that life could be much, much worse. Heaven knew she wouldn’t last two minutes on a sun-drenched desert island with nothing but a chicken and a loincloth.

Hard to say if the sun or the boredom would kill her first.

Isabel headed out through the kitchen doorway in search of a room with a television. The sound of angry muttering caught her attention. She looked up from the repetitive pattern of the floor runner to see Lee farther down the hall, hustling away from Lexi’s room and around the corner. She was struck by how gracefully he moved, for such a large male. Years of being a fighter, probably. Lexi always did go for the bad boys.