Kiss of a Dark Moon (18 page)

She swallowed against the awful thickness in his throat. “All lycans are. Whatever your differences, you're not human. You lack control, a conscience. You're like them—”

“I'm not. If I were like them, you'd be dead.” His stare burned through her. “Worse than dead.”

She shivered. He spoke the truth.

She shook her head, unable to accept that he could be trusted. Not if he possessed even a scrap of lycan blood. The proclivity to kill was there. One bad day, and he could succumb to it.

“I'll allow there would clearly be differences in a hybrid species,” she said. “Perhaps you're not as blood-driven, but—”

“Let's just agree you don't know anything about me.” The words sprang from his lips. A look came over his face then. So harsh and severe, a frisson of alarm skittered down her spine. “Not a damn thing. And you don't know anything about yourself, for that matter.”

Her brow tightened. “What do you mean?”

“Here's a reality check for you, Kit.” His hand moved suddenly to grip her face, long fingers sliding around to cup the nape of her neck. His thumb pressed into the soft flesh of her cheek. “You like me a hell of a lot more than you're willing to admit.” His gaze roved over her face, lingering on her mouth. “You even want me again, no matter what you think I am.”

She tried to shake her head in denial, but he held her face in place, fingers tightening at her neck.

“And…” His dark gaze, the flame dancing in the center, lifted to her eyes. “You're not simply a Marshan anymore.”

She blinked. As far as she was concerned there was nothing simple about being a Marshan.

“You're so much more,” he whispered.

More?

“You're me.”

“What?”

“Like me,” he amended. “A dovenatu. I turned you. After you were shot. It was the only way I could save you.” The pressure of his hand on her face increased as his eyes drilled into hers.

“No. You only said I was a Marshan, a potential carrier…” she accused.
Pleaded
. “How can I be a dovenatu? How could you turn me?”

“You remember what happened in that parking lot. You
know
. You were shot. Dying.” His lips compressed into a grim line. “I saved you the only way I could. I don't regret it.”

“No?” She winced at the sharpness of her voice. “Well, I do!” He had turned her into the very thing she most hated in the world. The thing she had watched, helplessly, her mother become. Bile rose high in her throat. “You know about my parents. And you turned me. Just like some fiend out there infected my mother. You should have let me die.”

Emotion flickered in his eyes, then vanished, his gaze returning to steadfast, obscure blackness. “I couldn't.”

She surged against him, wrenching her face free from his hand. “Don't touch me!”

The warmth that had been simmering through her burst free in a rupture of hot fury, burning her veins. Her heart hammered at a frantic tempo, the air rushing out of her mouth in spurts. Dipping her head, she moaned low in her throat, still trying to shove him off her.

He grasped her by the shoulders, trying to pull her up, to face him.

A scratchy, tingling sensation that bordered on pain overwhelmed her body. Powerless to resist, she threw back her head and arched her spine, moaning louder. Clutching her cheeks, she felt her bones altering, ever so slightly stretching, pulling…

She struggled to hold on to herself, to what she knew, but it grew increasingly harder as her body twisted inside itself.

“Kit, no!” Rafe shouted, wrapping both arms around her and hauling her against him. “Calm yourself.”

She couldn't. Couldn't control her raging emotions.

The face of every lycan she had killed, the sight of her father's mutilated body, slain by her mother, flashed through her mind in a searing blaze. He had done this to her. Turned her into one of them. A red haze of fury filled her vision.

The sound of his voice came to her from a great distance, as if he called to her from the bottom of a well.

“Kit! Kit! No! Relax. Don't shift!”

H
e had no choice.

The only way Rafe could hope to restrain her, to keep her from hurting herself or him, was to let himself go, to surrender to that which he always kept in careful check. The beast he controlled with a firm hand and released from its cage only rarely, when absolutely necessary. As a last resort.

So, with Kit struggling like a wild animal in his arms, nearly breaking free of him with her newfound strength, he shifted.

Kit froze at the sight of him, screaming.

Her own face mirrored his, distorting before his very eyes. The sharpened features, the white-gold light dancing at the centers of her pale green eyes. Although she didn't know it. Relief washed through him that she could not see herself.

“Kit,” he growled, the thick sound of his voice telling him what he already knew. He was in full form. His voice purred from deep within his chest. “Take a deep breath. Calm down, and you'll shift back to normal.”

She shook her head, her hair tossing wildly about her head. She surged against him again, sending them both crashing to the floor. “Kit, stop it!” Grabbing a fistful of her hair, he forced her to still, holding her gaze as they strained against each other, chest to chest.

He remembered the pain of his first shift, his confusion, his bewilderment at the changes overcoming him. The absolute terror. But his mother had been there, talking him through it, her voice a lifeline, a soothing balm. He would be the same for Kit—if she let him.

He loosened his grip on her head, threading his fingers through her silken mop. Gently, he lowered his face, pressing his forehead against her sweat-dampened skin, making a shushing sound. She continued to struggle against him, and he swung a leg over her, stilling her against the carpet.

“Easy. Easy there,” he murmured as though coaxing a wild animal, wincing when she pulled her head back and brought it crashing into his.

Spots filled his vision. Swallowing a curse at the pain, he massaged the back of her head, holding her in place, and ground out, “Let me help you.”

She made a whimpering sound and gradually ceased her struggles. His hand descended to her back, his palm rubbing a circle over the thin cotton T-shirt. He could feel each and every tiny bump of her spine beneath his hand—the sensation erotic, tantalizing. The tension ebbed from her. Her body relaxed in his arms, turning from the angry, smoldering heat of moments before to a different kind of heat. Like the warm welcome of a flickering fire on a cold night, she lured him.

“Good,” he breathed, his lips almost brushing her mouth as he spoke.

The sweetness of her breath escaped her lips and he sipped at it, drinking it inside him. She trembled in his arms. Unable to stop himself, he feathered a kiss over her quivering lips. She jerked as though stung. Hunger twisted inside him, and he followed her mouth, claiming her lips, pulling her flush against him.

She sighed, parting her lips wider for his questing tongue. Animal hunger erupted in him at the sound, at the sugary taste of her—the very hunger he'd spent a lifetime holding carefully in check. He may have not lived life as a monk, but he was careful never to get carried away with a woman. Never until recently. Until Kit.

And Kit wasn't mortal anymore…

A dangerous thought in itself. If he allowed himself to think along those lines, she would be on her back and he would be parting her thighs before he could stop himself.

With a groan, he broke the kiss and pulled back to look at her, relieved to see she was Kit again. Well, almost. The wild anger may have fled, but in its place something else simmered. Her green eyes glowed brightly; her mouth was parted, lips glistening invitingly.

He slid his leg off her and put more space between them. She didn't want this. Not anymore. And he couldn't stomach her hating him anymore than she already did. He wouldn't take advantage of her. Not when she wasn't fully herself. Hell, but then she never would be. Not entirely. Not like before.

His hands flexed at his sides, but he willed himself to remain normal.
Human
. Tension thrummed through his muscles. Instinct swamped him, demanding he take her, make her his. She was part of him now. The same. A dovenatu.

She thought him a monster. He knew it. Had seen it in her eyes, heard it in her voice. Damned if that didn't wound him. Damned if the dark side of him didn't want to spread her legs beneath him and hear her cry out for him—a monster—as he took her fast and hard.

Desire coursed his blood…and anger: anger at himself for being drawn to her when he had no right.

“Rafe,” she sighed, her wide eyes fixed on him.

The sound of his name on her lips sent a lick of heat twisting through his gut. He couldn't resist. Not her. Not when he remembered how good it had been between them the last time.

She scooted near, closing the space between them, fed, he knew, by the hunger he had awakened in her. He knew what she wanted. The beast in her had been roused and demanded satisfaction. She didn't have the strength or experience yet to deny herself this.

Neither did he.

Rolling her onto her back, he hovered over her. He stared down at her, her hair a puddle of sun-kissed gold around her face. His mouth went dry. Dark need burned a fierce path to his belly. Only the thin barrier of her T-shirt hid her nudity. Only that thin shield barred him from total access to the body that had haunted his dreams for nights.

A soft sound escaped her lips. Her green eyes appeared a bit unfocused, dazed. Calling himself a bastard that he would do this to her, fresh after her Initiation, he grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and pulled it up over her head in one quick motion.

His breath escaped in a hiss as he devoured the sight of her small, pert breasts, the dusky nipples, the gentle slope of her belly. It was too much. The sight finished him, made him tremble like a new foal.

He greedily drank in the sight of her, bringing one hand to her breast. She followed his gaze.

A growl sounded from deep within his chest, and something hot and animal erupted low in his gut. His gaze ran the full length of her body, roaming over the sleek lines and gentle curves.

He laced his fingers with hers and pinned her hands above her head, watching the rise and fall of her breasts.

She rotated her hips and opened her legs, cradling him between her thighs. Such a primal invitation enflamed his desire to have her, to give up the fight and fall—to descend into the very depths of the abyss he had spent a lifetime fighting.

There was no fighting it, no strength left in him to resist.

“I won't be gentle.” He couldn't be.

Releasing her hands, he grasped the smooth and supple outside swell of one hip. His breath hitched, catching in his throat as he slid his hand around, cupping the taut fullness of one cheek.

Her gasp reached his ears, different than any sound he'd ever heard, ripped from some place deep in her throat where animal pleasure hid. “Good.”

His fingers flexed, digging into the roundness of her ass, forcing her closer, rubbing her wet heat against him. He pressed his full length against her, moaning at her softness, her silken limbs, her warm body.

Her wide eyes locked with his, the green of them glowing like precious gemstones in the firelight.

Dipping his head, he scoured her neck with his teeth. She groaned, and he bit down, reveling in the savage shudder that tore through her and reverberated through him.

Closing his eyes, he trailed the backs of his finger along the sleek flesh of her back, over each tiny bump of her spine. He wanted to skim his mouth over each and every one.

His hands continued their exploration, roaming every inch of her. The delicate shape of each rib. The soft curve of her belly that quivered under his fingertips. His hands grazed the underside of each breast, testing their slight weight. He brushed open palms over her hard nipples. Her breathing grew harsh, arousing him nearly as much as the silky feel of her.

Past stopping, he closed a hand over each breast, gripping the firm, petite mounds, squeezing, kneading, rolling the distended peaks.

The beat of her heart vibrated against the palm of his hand in sync with his own, and he lowered his head to kiss where her heart beat, worshipping the life forever bound to his own. The life that he had come so close to losing.

She would have no gentleness. She tugged on his hair. Her desperate keening filled the air, sharp and animal-like, knifing through him, making him burn, banishing the sane, mortal side of him that whispered for him to stop, to love her with slow, easy thoroughness.

Her hands grabbed his forearms, her nails cutting his flesh in a pain that bordered on pleasure.

“Rafe,” she whimpered, begging, pleading.

A strangled laugh rose up in his throat. He was powerless to resist. Releasing her breasts, he delved one hand between her thighs, brushing feather-soft curls damp with need. He tested her readiness, stroking the folds of her sex, already slick for him.

Her fingers dug like talons into his arms, and she leaned forward, resting her damp forehead against his chest as he worked his fingers feverishly along those folds, back and forth, back and forth, each time brushing closer and closer to that tiny nub. Finally, he landed there, rubbing his fingers over the pearl in fast, little circles. Her body tensed, and she released a loud, shuddering cry.

He drank in her rapturous expression, branding that look in his mind, knowing he would never forget it. Then, as the waves of her climax were still rushing over her, he parted her legs and put his mouth to that exquisite pleasure point and sucked, tasting her desire.

Arching her back, she came up off the carpet, releasing a cry. His eyes devoured the breasts quivering above him, shuddering golden orbs, as another climax tore through her.

She collapsed back on the carpet, her body panting and humming from her release. He never took his eyes off her as he stood to tear off his clothes, his movements eager and clumsy as a boy.

Her eyes lifted to his, the clouded green searching, questioning.

He shook his head, one boot hitting the floor, then the next. His pants followed, then his shirt.

Naked, he stood over her. Her eyes flitted over him, surveyed the broad width of his chest, nostrils flaring wide at the evidence of his lust, smelling his hunger, just as he smelled hers. A heady steam on the air.

He held her gaze, waiting for her to object, wondering if he could stop himself if she did, praying that he did not have to find out.

He was past reasoning, past caring about all the reasons they couldn't do this.

He would have her again. Like this. He'd finally descended into the abyss, to the darkness his mother had always warned against.

Kit was right about him.
You lack control, a conscience.

But not even that could stop him now or make him regret what he was about to do.