When Wicked Craves (18 page)

He dropped it into the night, then focused his attention on getting to the girl.

Weak from loss of blood, the transformation wasn’t easy. But with effort, he managed, shifting his body into the form of an eagle. He spread his wings, and with keen eyes, he searched the sky, finding her above him, her body spread wide to slow her fall.

Clever girl, he thought, but his pleasure was short-lived as he saw what was above her—the plane itself, turning sharply, the steel hull so overwhelmed by velocity
and gravity that it would soon spin out of control—with a trajectory that would surely intersect Petra.

With a mighty flap of wings, he burst forward as the inevitable roll began and the plane started to tumble from the sky. The engines whined in protest, and he could see that Petra heard, even through the rush of air past her ears. She shifted, turning her head so that she could look up.

Nick heard her sharp intake of breath, and expected to immediately sense her panic.

It didn’t come.

Instead, she knifed her body, increasing her angle toward the earth, her speed increasing as she sliced through the air.

It was a gutsy, brilliant maneuver, and one with which he wouldn’t have credited many humans.

Too bad it wasn’t going to work.

The plane’s descent was too rapid and her trajectory too steep with no time for correction.

Nick was her only hope, and he still had distance to cover.

Faster he moved, his avian body cutting through air now disturbed by the mass of the falling plane.

He fought the wind it generated, frantically cutting a path to Petra, the steel beast getting closer and closer until he had only seconds to maneuver. But she was right there, so close, and he reached out, gripping the back of her shirt tight with his eagle’s claws. And then, with her squeak of surprise muffled by the whoosh of air from the plane, he forced his wings to give one final, mighty flap before dropping them both into a controlled, angled dive.

Behind them—missing them by only inches—the plane fell through the sky. He extended his wings wide, flapping hard to fight the wake that was trying so desperately to pull them to the ground as well.

And then, so quickly that the horror seemed like a bad dream, the air was calm again, and thousands of feet below them the plane continued to fall, faster and faster until it impacted the earth and the fuel tanks ignited into a fiery ball, the heat waves from which once again rippled the air around them.

He couldn’t continue to hold her like this, but shifting into mist was dangerous, too. She was weak from multiple transformations into mist, and he was weak from the hematite and from giving her his blood. He would need to feed soon—hell, just being near a human was making his fangs tingle with need. But feeding off Petra was not an option, not even were she willing.

Nourishment was a problem for later, though. Right now, he had to try to hope for the best.

He pushed through, urging his cells to transform. The change didn’t come easy, and he could feel her molecules protesting—but it did come, and right then, that was all that mattered.

She was mist now, as he was. He let his consciousness twine close around her, telling himself he wished to keep her tight against him, fearful that in their weakened state they could become separated even as sentient mist. But even as he told himself that, he knew it was a lie.

In truth, he wanted a moment of intimacy with this remarkable human. This woman who kept her head when she was thrown from a plane. This woman who now twined her consciousness with his, who was generating
a heat and a longing that matched his own. He’d given her his blood and now, even more than before, he could feel her essence in the mist, her consciousness aware despite her humanity. An unexpected reality that stemmed from either her curse or her magical bloodline. But right then he didn’t care, because right then it was desire that was rippling through her, rising and filling as he moved with purpose through and around her, his mind touching her, stroking her, imagining hot flesh and warm blood and soft lips upon skin.

The need for contact throbbed inside him even as he sensed it growing in her. A wondrous awareness and longing for more. So much more, and he wished he could give it to her. Wished he could transform into himself and strip her naked in the air. Wished he could take her in freefall, the chill of rushing air cooling the heat they generated until they both exploded in a fiery climax that would leave them both desperately satisfied and yet aching for more.

It was not to be—in the mist there could be only passion, but not satisfaction. And, dammit, right then he needed to focus on getting them safely on the ground, not making the journey there as explosive as possible.

With regret, he shifted his energy, feeling her essence protest as he mentally pulled back. They were closer now, the earth rising up to meet them, and he put on the brakes, slowing as the high-rises of Manhattan filled his mind’s eyes.

Around them, the air shimmered as the night began to dissipate, the eastern sun poised to slip above the horizon. He’d not experienced a sunrise or sunset for hundreds of years, and he would not enjoy this one,
either. Not and survive. But somehow, what had never troubled him before bothered him now. For he would have liked to have stood with Petra in his arms and felt the sun warm their faces.

The streets of the city were wide now, so close that the vision of his mind could read the street signs. He found a set of stairs leading to a subway tunnel and slid in, taking refuge from the sun in the darkness of the realm of the underworld.

Even at this early hour, the station was crowded, and they twined around and among the throng of humans, some of whom moved, almost as if aware that he and Petra were there. Some saw the mist, some wondered, their question “What is that?” following as he sped toward the tracks and finally down deep into the tunnels themselves.

Safe in the dark, he shifted back, pushing Petra away with reluctance as they changed back, taking care not to touch.

Her skin was pale, her eyes cloudy, and he feared that he had done her harm.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded. “I knew you’d catch me.”

He couldn’t help his smile. “Did you?”

She grinned in return, but he saw a hardness in her eyes. “I changed him,” she said, her expression defiant, as if she anticipated his protests. “I did it on purpose and I don’t regret it.”

“Good.”

Her eyes widened slightly, and then, slowly, she smiled. “So who arranged this? Gunnolf?”

“Most likely.” He forced his daemon down as anger
swelled. “Pyre could have been acting on his own, but I doubt it.”

“Rand?”

He could see from her face that the possibility that Rand had been in on the treachery disturbed her as much as it did him.

“I hope the hell not.” He drew in a breath. “Forget it. I’ll call Luke and leave the matter to him.”

“Call? Do you think a cell phone is a good idea?”

“As soon as we hid Serge away, we started using disposables. It’s safe.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, looking at her face. “We’ll find the truth about who betrayed us, but right now we have bigger problems.”

“Right. Of course.” She frowned. “Where are we?”

“Manhattan. The subway tunnels. It’s almost sunrise.”

“Oh.”

“You’re weak. You need to rest.”

She glanced around at the tunnels in which so many of the city’s homeless lived, at the filthy ground littered with everything from plastic wrappers to dead rats to human excrement. “Great.”

“I have someplace else in mind. It’s not far. Can you walk?”

“I think so. Where are we going?”

He met her eyes, knowing that she would appreciate the irony. “Serge’s apartment,” he said, then turned to lead the way.

“Holy shit,” Petra said as they stepped into the glass-walled penthouse. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

In front of them, the sun was rising over Manhattan, a city that Petra had never seen but had always wanted to visit. Considering the millions of people crammed onto a tiny island, however, it was also a place that had long ago been checked off her list. Too crowded. Too many possibilities for accidental touching.

Now that she was here, the thrill of seeing the vibrant metropolis spread out like a picture postcard in front of her was tempered by the fact that Nicholas was standing in front of a wall of windows, and any second now a ray of sunshine was going to hit him dead on. The
dead
part being literal, considering he’d dissolve into a pile of ash immediately.

A prospect that troubled her on a number of levels, none of which she wanted to examine closely.

She hurried to the window and grabbed the cord to close the curtain, then groaned in frustration when the cord had no effect.

“Nicholas!” she repeated.
“Dammit, move!”

The terror in her voice must have finally gotten through to him, because he turned to her, his expression so satisfied she feared he’d lost his mind and really was suicidal. “Come stand by me.”

“Dammit, you are not doing this.” Even as she spoke, she knew she should keep her mouth shut. He wanted to cure Serge, after all. And that meant her death.

Sooner or later, she was going to have to slip away from Nicholas. She was going to have to strike out on her own, with only her wits and, perhaps, her brother to help her avoid the wrath of the Alliance. It would be one hell of a lot easier to get away from the vampire if he were dust.

But she couldn’t wish that on him. Even had he not saved her life multiple times, she couldn’t bear the thought of knowing that Nicholas Montegue was no longer of this earth.

No, letting him turn to dust was unacceptable. When she left, she’d do so with him still alive—and undoubtedly pissed off—behind her.

He’d called her over, and now she was standing in front of him, her back to the window, her body trying to shield his. She was even on tiptoes, wishing she were a few inches taller so that her shadow could better protect his head.

She was swaying a bit, like an awkward dancer trying to follow a lead, when she realized he was fighting an amused grin.

She glared at him, and he lost the fight, chuckling as he asked her what the hell she thought she was doing.

“Saving your ass,” she said curtly. “Though I’m not entirely sure why I’m bothering.”

“Nor I.” He nodded to the windows. “Serge invented the glass. And although I have always been dubious, fearing that someday I would come to this apartment and find nothing more of my friend than a pile of dust
on the floor, I confess that for years I’ve been jealous of his ability to watch the sunrise.”

“I thought you were Mr. Scientist. Why didn’t you invent the Wonder Glass?”

“I’m certain I could have.”

“This is your first time? How long have you and Serge been friends?”

“A long, long time.”

“Son of a bitch,” she said, cocking her head to study him. “You didn’t invent it—you didn’t even come visit Serge for a sunrise breakfast—because vampires aren’t supposed to see the sun. Somehow you didn’t strike me as a guy who put that much stock in convention.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m going to watch today,” he said. “Turn around and enjoy Mother Nature’s show with me.”

She stood beside him, their bodies close but not touching, and she tried to watch the sun with a vampire’s eyes. In a way, she supposed she understood how he felt. He couldn’t bask in the sun. She couldn’t touch another human. Of course, she wasn’t trapped in the darkness, wasn’t bound by the need for blood. And although these thoughts didn’t lessen her certainty that she definitely had the crappier end of the deal, she did feel a tug of camaraderie with him. Something she’d never felt before, not even with Kiril, who had always set himself up as her superior—her protector and salvation—even more than as her brother or her twin.

She remembered the way she’d felt in the sky—not while they were falling, but once he’d caught her and changed her and twined his essence with her.
Desire.
At her side, her fingers twitched, and she clenched her hand
against the urge to reach for him. She couldn’t, of course, but right then the barrier tossed up by the curse seemed even more monstrous than ever.

Soon.

The thought bubbled up from deep within her, confusing at first, and then shifting into something tangible—the knowledge of what was coming. The certainty that tonight had been designed for her.

A blue moon.

Something sharp and unfamiliar shot through her, a bolt of desire that left her nipples hard and her sex tingling. It had been years since she’d experienced that desperation that flowed with the moon, and never had she been able to act on it, her brother her only company on that long, lonely night.

But her brother wasn’t there now. Nicholas was. And though he hadn’t said so, she’d felt his desire when they were mist as surely as she had felt her own.

She would have him. Dear God, she would have this night with him.

Antsy,
horny
, she looked out through the glass and wished the sun were making its trek downward instead of up.

Patience … she would have to learn patience.

In front of them, the sun crested a rooftop, sending a sparkling ray straight toward Serge’s windows. It hit the glass, coloring Nicholas’s face in soft yellow light. He closed his eyes, and drew in a breath, and she was awed by the intensity of the pleasure reflected on his face.

For a moment she envied the sun, because she wanted to do that to him. For once in her life, she wanted to
touch a man and see him melt, lost to the power of his own desire.

Tonight.
The word swept through her, soft and sensual, promising delicious things to come. She didn’t want to wait, but about that, she had no choice. And hadn’t she been waiting her whole life? A few more hours would make no difference at all in the grand scheme. On a personal level, though, she’d be a wreck by the time the sun set and the blue moon hung full in the sky.

Beside her, Nicholas sighed, then turned to face her, his eyes taking her in, as if he knew her secrets. She smiled, content with the knowledge that what was in her head was her own.