Kiss of a Dark Moon (20 page)

His hand splayed over her hip, large and possessive, a veritable paw anchoring her to him.

She wet her lips, searching for her voice. “Tomorrow,” she began, relieved that her voice did not quake as her insides did. “I'm going.” Damned if she wasn't. She was no man's prisoner.

“You can try,” he said against her neck, his voice mild, unbothered, the moist fan of his breath making her belly flutter.

“I will…” her voice tore, twisting into a sharp gasp as his teeth bit down on her earlobe. Desire, hot and savage, spiked through her, melting her bones and burning her blood as she fought to finish her sentence. “I thought we were going to sleep.”

“We will,” he breathed in a voice warm as the sun, thick with need. He raised his head to look at her. His hair fell forward. Light and shadow flickered over his features, casting his face into sharp lines and hollows.

Her hand wobbled on the air before pushing the hair back from his face. His eyes gleamed down at her, those twin lights returning to the dark fathomless pools, pulling her in, swallowing her whole. She moistened her lips, needing to speak, to say what burned on her mind, even as
he
burned through her blood and body. “You know you're everything I despise.”

He tensed and took his time responding. For a moment, she thought he would not answer at all. “I know. But I can change your mind. I can earn your trust.”

“And if you don't? You'll hold me captive for how long? Forever?”

Shadow fell over his face, but he didn't answer.

A secret part of her wished he could change her mind. That she could just accept all he had done to her. Forgive. Accept him. Accept herself as she now was.

Turning his head, he pressed a moist kiss into her palm. “I'll prove to you that you can still be everything you ever wanted…and more.” His eyes met hers over her palm.

His hand traced the line of her collarbone, the brush of his fingertips chasing away her thoughts. That hand lowered, trailing a fiery path between her breasts.

“Trust me,” his low voice reassured her, a caress in itself. A slow lick of heat curled in her belly at his words, a serpent's coaxing plea.

She arched beneath his hand, thrusting her breast into his ready palm. Her hand circled his neck, dragging his mouth down to hers. She didn't have to trust him for this.

K
it woke slowly, her body leaden, muscles warm and liquid, sated. Opening her eyes, she found herself staring directly into Rafe's dark gaze. He was dressed, standing over her.

Instantly, she remembered last night, seeing those eyes as she had in the darkness, flames flickering in the dark depths at the height of his rage. And passion.

“Good morning.” His voice rumbled through her, swirling in a vortex of heat in her belly, threatening to pull her under as it had last night. Fire scorched her face.

She could only respond with a fierce nod. She was the very thing she loathed. The very thing that had stolen her parents, robbed her of the life she was meant to have, a life that might have given her a sense of wholeness, completion, filling the void that ached dully inside her now.

“I was just about to step out.”

“Out?” she replied, still feeling rather lethargic, groggy. “Why? Where?”

“I was going to get supplies to last us while we're here.”

He made it sound as though they were staying a while. She shook her head. That couldn't happen.

“No. I can't stay here. I'm leaving. Remember?”

His eyes glinted with challenge. “And I said you're not. Remember?”

Scooting up in the bed, she moved to tighten the sheet about her…and found one of her hands trapped, pinned to the bed frame. She tried to pull free. The steel cuffs simply rattled. Useless. “What the hell is
this
?”

Rafe looked down at her, his face impassive as stone.

She jerked at her wrist. “You bastard. You can't keep me chained to this bed. Is this what you meant about gaining my trust?”

His lean chest rippled in a dance of sinew and muscle beneath his black shirt. “You have much to learn before I set you loose on the world. Staying put is a good idea right now. You have a lot to understand—”

“Why? So I can stay here and be your fuck buddy some more?”

“I didn't hear any complaints last night.”

“Like I had a choice.”

His jaw tensed. “I didn't force you.”

“No? You turned me into you. An animal. A creature driven by her instinct.”

Something bright and dangerous flickered in his gaze. “You wanted me before all this. Need I remind you?”

“I know you find it hard to believe, but I don't want you, or anything
from
you now! Including lessons on being a lycan.” Perhaps, for a moment, she had softened toward him last night. Considered dropping her guard, letting him in. But he dared handcuff her like some sort of hostage? As if
she
couldn't be trusted? He was the one who had lied to her from the start!

“You can't bury your head in the sand and pretend—”

“I'm not. I'm perfectly in tune with reality, and I'll figure all this out. On my own, Without you.” She glared at him. “Last night was a mistake I won't repeat again.”

In a move so fast she hardly saw it coming, he grabbed her, lifting her off the bed as far as the handcuffs would allow, flexing his hands over her shoulders. “You need me.”

Her heart leapt at his words, betraying her. Just as her body betrayed her last night. Her gaze clung to him, careful to keep her eyes from straying south, from rousing her hunger and succumbing to the madness of the night before all over again. “No.”

Need
. She had always wanted someone, needed someone. An aching hollowness had always been with her. More pronounced now that Gideon had found someone, and needed her less than ever. But Rafe was
not
what she had in mind. Nor was this heart-leaping thrill for him. He was not safe. Not the man she had been looking for.
Not human at all
.

But then, neither was she.

She squirmed free and fell back down on the bed, having nowhere else to go. “You want me to trust you?” she ground out, tugging on her wrists. The handcuffs held fast to the brass bed frame. “Let me go.”

A long moment passed before he asked, “If I did, where would you go? To your brother?”

She couldn't go to Gideon. She
wouldn't
go to him. Not as she was. Not until she figured a way to reverse what Rafe had done to her. There had to be a way. Her brother had saved Claire. Done the impossible. The very thing she had told him couldn't be done. He had proved her wrong. And she would prove Rafe wrong, too.

“Home,” she finally answered.

“You cannot return home. You won't survive.”

“I'm tougher than I look. And thanks to you, I'm now harder to kill.”

“Harder. But not impossible.” He splayed his hands wide before him. “Kit, you have much to learn. Let me teach you—”

“You've done enough. Thanks.”

His jaw knotted. He spun around and snatched his jacket from the table, adjusting his holster around his middle with rough, angry movements. “You can't change this. You need to accept. Adapt.”

As she stared at the unforgiving lines of his face, the dark eyes that drew her in, her resolve hardened. She refused to believe him. Refused to believe that she was stuck this way.

One face appeared in her mind.
Darius
. Even if he did not know she and Gideon were of the Marshan line, he must know about the prophecy. She may not have trusted him before, but what choice did she have now? Perhaps his antidote research might help her.

She glared at him. “You can't keep me chained to this bed forever.”

“Not forever. Just until you see reason.”

“You mean until I see things your way,” she snapped.

He scowled. “No one ever gave me as much trouble as you. Any of the others would be safely secured in their new life by now, and I would be on my way. You're one uncooperative pain in my ass.”

“You can still be on your way.” She jiggled her hand. “Unlock these and go on.”

“For now I'm going to keep you alive. Even if you're too stubborn to realize that's what I'm doing.” He pulled the door open.

“Bastard,” she hissed. He'd lied to her. Taken everything from her. Her choice, her life. Now he dared take her freedom?

“Letting you go would be tantamount to killing you. Not to mention others. You can't handle—”

“Save it,” she bit out, fighting the swelling heat of her anger. All her life she had heard men tell her she couldn't
handle it
. Her brother. Cooper. NODEAL. “How long do you plan keeping me prisoner?”

He lifted one broad shoulder in a shrug. “I don't know.”

“Not good enough. How. Long.”

“Until I'm satisfied. I can't set you free right now, not knowing…” His voice faded.

“Not knowing whether I'll give in and become a bloodthirsty killer.” Her voice dripped acrimony. “Yet you claim we're so different—not like lycans.”

His mouth pressed into a grim line. “My brother and I never slipped. We mastered the beast within us. In time, with my help, you will, too.”

“Slipped?”
He made it sound so mild. One
slip
and she became a slave to the hunger. Soulless. Like Darius. Never free. “How is this right? First, you turn me, now you imprison me. What's next?”

He looked her steadily in the eyes. “Acceptance. I hope.”

“Hope.” The word rang hollowly, dead inside her. “Well, you know what I hope? I hope that when I close my eyes, you'll disappear. That I'll open my eyes and discover this is a bad dream.”

A muscle ticked along his jaw, but he said nothing. Just stared at her with such damnable calm. As if ice water flowed through his veins. Rage thrummed through her, hotter than fire, almost too much to bear. Damn him, this is what he meant, why he claimed he had to keep her with him. Raw emotion threatened to consume her, rule her—and he knew it.

Breathing in through her nostrils, she drew air deeply into her lungs. She would show him she possessed control. She didn't need him. She would escape. Put her newfound powers to good use and break free.

She would get the better of him, go to Darius, and everything would work out.
Darius
. The thought of him made her mouth twist. Ironically, she had more in common with a full-breed lycan than with Rafe. Like her, Darius wanted to change his fate.

And yet the truth was there, staring her in the face. Even if she ran from Rafe, she could not run from
it,
from herself.

She was a dovenatu. Like him.

S
he hated him. And he couldn't blame her.

He had lied to her.
Turned
her. Then taken advantage of her newfound susceptibility and slept with her. Again.

He walked the length of the cabin's wooden porch, his feet thudding over the planking. The sun sank below the trees, beams spilling through branches to gild the lake in yellow, gold, and red. A boat's engine purred in the distance.

The smell of food cooking wafted to his nose from the neighboring cabins. He inhaled deeply the mingling aromas: Steak. Fish. Some kind of dessert. Pecan pie.

He was acutely aware of her movements in the cabin behind him, the muted hum of the television. The rise and fall of her every breath. As with his brother, he felt bound to her. Linked in a way that was metaphysical.

He had freed her upon returning to the cabin with groceries. After unloading enough food to last the week into the small refrigerator, he stood in the kitchenette for an awkward moment, suffering her glare, before striding outside, eager to escape the accusation in those green eyes.

She schemed for a way to escape him. He would have to be on guard. She was now a greater match for him.

He simply couldn't let her go. She was a threat to anyone who crossed her path. He couldn't set her loose on mankind until he was certain she could control herself.

Liar
. A small voice whipped across his mind.
You don't want to let her go. You want her for yourself. You wanted her from the start and now you have her. It doesn't matter one damn bit if she wants you back.

“No,” he muttered to himself. He wasn't that big a bastard. That selfish. He hadn't put her in the path of those agents. He hadn't shot her. He had just tried to save her when they did.

He prowled the porch, stopping when another scent struck him, sending the hairs on the back of his neck into stiff salute.

It was always this way. He felt them before he saw them.

Quick as a flash, he sprang from the porch and vaulted himself atop the cabin. Crouching low, he waited, watching, barely breathing, still as stone in the fading twilight. He brushed the sun-warmed roof in lazy swinging strokes, so at odds with the tension coursing through him, the spine-tight readiness coiling through him. He waited. Watched. Half-tuned to Kit below him in the cabin, he turned his head slowly, surveying the cabins in the distance, the surrounding woods, the wind-rippled waters of the lake beyond.

He sat atop his perch, undetected, focused on cooling his body's heat level, making himself undetectable, blending into the approaching night.

Somehow they had tracked them. Again. Too coincidental. He had rid Kit of her belongings. Were they tracking her through him? How? Had his cover been blown? Was Laurent on to him?

Pushing the concerns away for later reflection, he narrowed his gaze on the ground below.

They approached from all sides. Four of them. Two moved in fast and hard, coming directly for the front of the cabin. Anger threatened to swamp him at the thought of the bastards getting their hands on Kit.

Squatting on his heels, he rotated, observing the remaining two moving in behind the cabin, winding through the trees like stalking beasts. They could wait. He would save them for last—after he dispensed with the two barreling for the front of the cabin.

He dropped down directly before the first lycan advancing up the porch steps, landing lightly on the balls of his feet. He slid the serrated knife from inside his jacket. In a crosswise swipe, he cut the lycan's throat, simultaneously pulling his revolver out with his free hand.

Silver eyes dilated wide in shock and pain. The lycan's words gurgled free. Choking on blood, he clutched feverishly at the gushing opening in his throat. The wound, lethal to mortal man, would not kill the bastard. In minutes, it would stop bleeding and seal itself, his DNA doing its job and regenerating. It only hurt like hell. And slowed him down.

The second lycan charged up the wooden steps, releasing a bellow of rage as he flew past his comrade. Rafe tightened his finger and squeezed off a round. The shot zipped through the air with a muted hiss. A dark hole appeared squarely in the lycan's forehead, followed by a thick trickle of crimson. The creature dropped, eyes staring vacantly ahead, the silver instantly fading, reverting to a very mortal, lifeless shade of blue.

The lycan with the cut throat staggered down the porch, trying to flee until he recovered from his temporary wound. Rafe aimed at his back and fired, watching grimly as the lycan dropped to the dirt.

The door behind him flung open. Kit stood there, wide eyes taking in the scene, mouth parted with un-spoken words. Her gaze flew to Rafe. She gasped. “Your face!”

“Inside,” he barked.

He didn't need a mirror to see what she saw: the beginning of him shifting.

He spun back around, senses sharpening, burning along his nerve endings. Branches snapped and leaves crumbled beneath the feet of the two remaining lycans, soft, undetectable to the human ear but as loud as a car horn to his.

“Stay in the cabin,” he growled over his shoulder.

“What—”

“Now!”

He broke into a run and circled the cabin, disappearing into the trees. He paused, nostrils flaring, sensing an approaching lycan, feeling the race of the other's heart, the fall of his uneven breathing on the humid air.

With a single jump, Rafe swung himself up into a tree the moment before the lycan became visible, moving stealthily through the press of cedar.

He waited until his prey was directly below him before dropping, blood pounding through him like the beating of drums. Landing directly behind the creature, he grabbed a fistful of greasy hair and pulled back the lycan's head, firing the gun into his temple.

The body fell lifelessly at his feet. Rafe stepped over it and moved on, taking a position behind an oak large enough to conceal him. He listened, detecting the movements of the coming lycan.

This one moved cautiously, each step measured.

Rafe flexed his hand around his gun's grip, waiting. Sweat trailed down his spine. He held his breath.

Suddenly the steps halted. Too suddenly. He'd been detected.

Stepping out into the open, he found nothing but wind and trees before him. He rotated on the balls of his feet, gun at the ready, scanning the area, seeing nothing.

Scalp tight and tingling, he continued to turn in a full circle—until he came face to face with a smug-looking bastard with flashing silver eyes.

Before he could fire, the guy was on him. The gun flew from his hand. They crashed to the ground. Burning curses flew as they rolled in a violent collision of arms and legs. Bone crunched bone. Fingers clawed, scratched. Teeth snapped, bit with animal fury.

A growl rose from deep in his throat, and the beast within him sprang free. He felt his skin tighten, his bones stretch. His strength increased, power swelling in a liquid-hot surge.

Rafe jammed his feet to the lycan's chest and shoved him off, sending him flying several feet. He landed in a cloud of dirt.

In a flash, Rafe was on his feet again, gun back in his hand. He aimed.

“What the hell are you?” the creature demanded in a harsh snarl, chest rising and falling with heavy breath.

Gasping, with a hot rush of adrenaline, he bit out, the sound of his voice thick and distorted, “If you think really hard, I'll bet you can figure it.”

Shock flickered across the lycan's face the instant before Rafe squeezed the trigger and the silver bullet rushed across air to penetrate his chest.

Sliding his gun back in its holster, he headed back to the cabin, leaving the body behind, ready to reassure Kit.

In the distance, an engine gunned to life, stopping him in his tracks.

Son of a bitch
.

Fury rippled over him. While he was getting his ass kicked, Kit was bailing on him.

The beast burned hotter, hungrier, furious.

He didn't care that she had told him she would try to escape. He knew only anger. And betrayal. And possessiveness.

A fire-hot determination to keep her with him—and punish her for daring to leave him—crashed over him.