Touch of Temptation (15 page)

T
HE GUY HAD BLOWN
her freaking mind.

A cheesy way to describe what had happened between them, but the best Chloe could come up with while her head was still reeling. She’d thought she had a good idea of what truly incredible sex would be like, but she hadn’t had a clue. It was so much richer and deeper. Rougher and hotter and rawer than she’d ever imagined, the pleasure so intense it felt like something burning and bright searing its way through your body, melting you down from the inside out. She loved how Kellan had felt inside her. Loved his rough breath in her ear. Those gritty animal sounds that he made at the back of his throat, and the rich, intoxicating taste of his blood slipping across her tongue.
So hot. So good.

She’d never felt so charged and full of life, but now that the feeding was over, it was clear to Chloe that the power thrumming through her system had come at a price. Barefoot, bare-chested and battered from his fights, Kellan Scott looked like the perfect example of sex-on-legs bad-boy style, but she could see that the poison inside his body was taking its toll. Deep grooves bracketed his beautiful mouth, while grim shadows darkened his eyes…a visceral pain etched into the rugged lines of his expression. Either the fighting or the sex had caused the poison’s effect to become more severe, and
she felt a sharp stab of guilt that she’d found so much pleasure in an act that might well have weakened him.

Taking her hand, he dragged her back into the library, a delicious ache still pulsing between her legs that would have made her smile, if she wasn’t so worried about his health. As Kellan snatched up the backpack that held the archives, he told her they would be meeting up with his friends in the woods outside the compound, then pulled her with him into the hallway. They hadn’t gone more than twenty yards when two Casus stepped around the corner, still in human form, but with their claws and fangs fully released.

“Chloe, get back!” Kellan roared, releasing his own claws as he blocked the attacking Casus. He took down one of the monsters, but a third Casus came at his back, and she felt a low growl vibrate in her throat, the primal power of the Merrick surging through her veins. Moving in what seemed like a strange, slow-motion kind of blur, Chloe wrenched one of the heavy iron sconces from the wall and hammered it into the Casus’s skull, knocking it unconscious.

She was still holding the heavy iron sconce in one hand, standing over the monster’s fallen body, when Kellan finished off the other one and turned back to her. She didn’t know how he would react, but she wasn’t expecting the slow, sexy smile that curved his mouth, his deep voice husky with pride as he said, “There’s my girl. You’re a first-class little badass now, aren’t you, honey?”

She laughed, tossing the sconce aside, and they quickly took off down the hall again, passageways turning and twisting until she had no idea what direction they were heading, though Kellan seemed confident they
were going the right way. After a few minutes, they entered a part of the compound that seemed even older than the rest, with weathered wooden beams running down the center of a narrow corridor, holding up what appeared to be a wattle-and-daub ceiling. The corridor shook from time to time as explosions continued to rock the fortress, though she and Kellan were too far away from the main part of the compound now to hear any gunfire. Eyeing the uneven ceiling and beams warily, Chloe wasn’t paying much attention to the rooms they passed, until something strange caught her eye as they ran past an open set of double doors. “Wait,” she called out, tugging on Kellan’s hand. “I just saw something.”

“Honey, we don’t—” The gruff words trailed away when she tugged him in front of the doorway and he caught sight of the candlelit altar that climbed up the far side of the room. “What the hell?”

“What do you think it is?” she whispered, her skin crawling as she looked over the strange structure that appeared to be made of some kind of dark metal, intricate designs etched into every inch of its glittering surface.

“Those markings look similar to the ones on the Dark Markers,” he said in a low voice.

Chills swept over the back of her neck. “That’s creepy.”

His gaze fell on the bowl that sat on the floor at the base of the altar amid a cluster of thick candles, what appeared to be bloody entrails hanging over the bowl’s wide rim. “Looks like they’ve been making blood sacrifices. I guess Gideon wasn’t lying when he told Kier that the Markers were mixed up in some evil shit.”

“What do you mean?”

He quickly explained, telling her how the Watchmen
had recently learned, thanks to a vampire named Gideon Granger, that after the original Consortium had imprisoned the Casus within Meridian, the leaders, desperate for a way to destroy the immortal monsters, had actually gone into hell in order to find the materials they’d needed to fashion the powerful crosses. The Deschanel believed there was duality in all things—aspects of both good and bad, the light
and
the darkness—and they viewed the Markers as a perfect example of that conviction. Though it was an eerie concept, Chloe figured it made sense when you thought about it, considering the Dark Markers could protect life…as well as take it away.

“Kellan,” she murmured, tightening her grip on his hand. “If the markings on the altar are the same as the ones on the crosses, then this altar must have something to do with the Casus. It might even be the way Westmore communicates with Calder in Meridian. Like some kind of paranormal telephone.”

“Could be,” he grunted, tension vibrating through the hard lines of his body. “Come on. I want you the hell away from that thing.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” Chloe let him pull her along as he started back down the corridor, and was still thinking about what he’d told her about the Markers, when Kellan’s guttural curse made her jump, and the next thing she knew, he was tossing the backpack onto the floor and shoving her behind his back. His shoulders and arms bunched with rock-hard muscle as he released his claws once again, a low snarl rumbling in the back of his throat.

Wondering what kind of monsters they’d run into now, Chloe peeked around his broad shoulder, a sliver
of fear slipping down her spine as she spotted a man and woman standing at the far end of the narrow passageway. The man was tall, with thick, sun-streaked brown hair and the ice-blue eyes of the Casus—but it was the woman who caught her attention. She was petite, barely reaching the Casus’s shoulder, with masses of curly golden hair that reached all the way to her hips, the thick locks tangled and wild around a face so thin, she looked as if she were nothing but skin and bones. At one time, the woman had likely been beautiful, but now she was nothing more than a shell, her expression void of emotion, as if she felt nothing at all.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your little escape,” the Casus drawled, “but you have something that belongs to me, Watchman.”

Realizing that this was
Gregory
, Chloe pressed closer to Kellan’s back, fear twisting her stomach into a painful knot.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Kellan growled. “The Merrick is
mine
.”

Prowling a step closer, the Casus lifted his brows. “You’re just a pup. You really think you’d stand a chance against me?”

“I’m ready to die trying.”

Gregory lifted his nose and sniffed the air, then slid Kellan a hard, knowing smile. “I can smell the poison in you, Lycan. You’re already as good as dead.”

“Then what do you have to fear?” Kellan snarled, his deep voice raw with fury as he started toward the Casus.

“Take care of the canine problem,” Gregory murmured to the blonde. “As much as I’d enjoy teaching him a lesson, I just don’t have the time.”

The woman lifted one of her hands, her fingers up, her palm pointing right at Kellan, and his powerful body suddenly slammed to a stop, then flew face-first against the wall, his muscular arms pinned at his sides. “What the fuck is this?” he roared, the tendons in his neck straining, while the muscles in his arms and back quivered beneath his dark skin. He was obviously trying to move—but be couldn’t. It was as if he’d been locked in place, and Chloe’s fear tripled, nearly doubling her over.

“Chloe, can you move?” Kellan shouted, while the Casus’s ice-blue gaze raked over her body, and she shuddered, wishing she had on more than underwear and a shirt. “Chloe, damn it, answer me!”

“Yes,” she whispered, trying to choke down her stupid fear so that she could think of something to do. She couldn’t just stand there like an idiot, waiting for Gregory to kill them.

Kellan’s voice shook with rage. “Then get the hell out of here!”

“I’m not leaving you,” she told him, and the Casus slid her a slow, provocative smile. Kellan was roaring for her to run, but she stood her ground, refusing to leave him, her complete attention focused on Gregory.

She couldn’t believe
this
man was the reason she’d been taken. If the look in his eyes hadn’t been so evil, he would have been gorgeous, like one of those models in the Armani ads that they put in all the fashion magazines. Not as good-looking or as well-built as Kellan, but not the kind of guy you’d expect to be a ruthless, cold-blooded monster, either—and it was easy to understand how these bastards had been able to lure their human victims into trusting them. When they were
hidden inside human hosts who looked like this one did, it no doubt made it easy for them to prey on the unsuspecting.

He started toward them, jolting Chloe into action, and she quickly grabbed the gun that Kellan had tucked into the back of his jeans. She had no idea how many bullets were left, but she planned on making every single one of them count as she pointed the weapon at Gregory, taking a single step forward.

“Stop her,” the Casus told the witch, slowing his steps.

The blonde raised her skeletal hand again, but nothing happened. Chloe took another step forward, ignoring Kellan’s curses as she moved past the next support beam that held up the ceiling, an idea suddenly coming to her.

“Why is she still moving?” Gregory snarled over his shoulder.

The woman lowered her hand, her brow furrowed as she said, “She’s a witch.”

“One without any power!” He flung the words at the woman, his face turning red with fury, and yet, the blonde’s expression never changed.

Studying Chloe with her pale, emotionless eyes, she simply said, “No. That’s not true.”

Still straining against his invisible bonds, Kellan growled, “So she’s the reason you’ve been able to survive the Wasteland, isn’t she, Gregory?”

With an arrogant roll of his shoulders, Gregory seemed to throw off his anger, sliding Kellan a sharp smile. “She’s amazing, isn’t she? My own little one-woman army.”

“Are you blackmailing her?”

The Casus gave a low, rusty laugh, pressing one hand to the center of his chest. “Is it so hard to believe she might actually champion my cause?”

“Whatever he’s promised you,” Chloe said, cutting a quick glance toward the blonde, “it’s a lie. You can’t trust him.”

Gregory casually crossed his arms over his chest, a smile still curving his mouth as Chloe came a little closer, her two-handed grip on the gun surprisingly steady, considering her palms were damp and her heart was beating like a bitch.

“You can shoot me,” he offered in a smooth drawl, sounding as if he was actually enjoying himself, “but she’ll only heal me again.”

“Move back!” Chloe snapped, jerking her chin toward the end of the hallway. “I’ll go with you, but we’re leaving Kellan here.”

Eyeing her with a speculative, hungry gaze, the Casus followed her command, taking a single step back.

“Another one,” she ordered, praying her plan would work, her inspiration born from the events that had taken place about an hour ago. She moved past a second support beam, hoping she’d put enough distance between herself and Kellan. Another five steps brought her to the next beam, the Casus standing not fifteen feet away. Taking a deep breath, she searched within her body for any new, unfamiliar spark of power, curious after the witch’s words—but there was only the Merrick, and so Chloe relaxed the hold she’d had on the primal creature, unleashing its visceral fury as she turned and buried the gun’s remaining bullets into the beam. The wood cracked, and she turned the gun in her hands, using everything she had to slam the butt against the
groaning support. It started to bow, only seconds away from giving out, and Chloe quickly turned, running back toward Kellan as fast as she could, while Gregory roared with outrage, his heavy footsteps pounding against the floor as he came after her.

“It’s coming down!” the blonde screamed, and Chloe looked back over her shoulder just in time to see the woman grabbing hold of Gregory’s arm, then yanking him back with surprising strength. They hit the dusty floor, and before DeKreznick could regain his feet, the beam snapped and a portion of the ceiling caved in, crashing into the passageway in a mass of rubble and dust. Though she didn’t remember falling, Chloe found herself sitting on her bottom in the middle of the corridor, and she pushed her hair out of her eyes just as Kellan broke away from the wall, the witch’s spell obviously broken.

“I don’t even want to know what the hell you were thinking,” he growled, yanking her back on her feet.

Coughing, she said, “I was thinking I was saving your ass.”

He grunted, then snatched up the backpack and grasped her upper arm, pulling her back the way they’d come, the air still thick with dust, making it difficult to breathe. “We have to hurry,” he muttered. “That’s not gonna hold him for long.”

“How do you feel about climbing out through a window?”

Looking down at her, he snapped. “Where?”

Chloe jerked her head in the direction they’d just come. “That last room we passed.”

Without a word, Kellan turned back, and within minutes they’d stacked the room’s furniture into a makeshift
platform that allowed them to crawl out one of the high windows that lined the far wall. It was about a ten-foot drop to the ground on the other side, but Kellan braced himself in the open window, lowering Chloe as far as he could, before dropping her into a bank of snow. Without shoes and proper clothing, she was freezing, the shocking blast of cold that tore into her lungs making her cry out, but Kellan lifted her into his arms as soon as he’d dropped onto the ground beside her, his landing one of perfect animal grace that she would have been tempted to compliment, if she wasn’t so miserably frozen.