Lisa Renee Jones Read online

  “Ah,” she said finally, when he just kept staring at her. “Can I make you a sandwich for desert? Or maybe a steak served rare?” Still, he just looked at her, yellow bleeding into the silver. She clung to hope with the absence of red. “I take your silence as a ‘no’.” She wet her lips. His gaze followed and she felt the hunger in him, and this time it wasn’t for blood. It was for her, and it wasn’t the first time he’d look at her like this – okay, not exactly like this, not quite so… primitively. Her body heated, awareness rushing through her where perhaps there should have been fear, especially with the threat of bloodlust. But she was a wolf with a primal side of her own, one this man called to more than any other she’d ever known. Still, while she didn’t fear him, she was afraid for him.

  “What’s happening to you, Troy?”

  “That’s the question of the year,” he said, grabbing her hand beneath the cuff and headed out of the kitchen. “Let’s go talk about that.”

  Cassie grimaced at the bite of the silver on her wrist, at him tugging her around like a dog, or in this case, a wolf on a leash. She cared about Troy, but this part of their meeting was wearing on her nerves.

  “Is the cuff necessary?” she asked, realizing they were headed down a hallway to what she was pretty sure was the only bedroom in the place. He didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t. Why did she think he would answer when he clearly had grown some aversion to conversation?

  A few more steps and they were in a small, dimly lit bedroom with a king sized bed and nothing but plain white sheets. She wasn’t beyond admitting she’d had more than a few fantasies about his bedroom and none of them looked quite like this. The place was a dump and she wondered why. All the Wardens were paid, and paid well.

  He stopped by the broken down nightstand and unlocked his cuff, his long blonde hair draping his face. She reached up and gently shoved it away aside, and his gaze slowly lifted to hers, his eyes glowing silver, all remnants of yellow now gone. “What’s happening to you?” she repeated, then rephrased. “What happened to you?”

  “A wolf happened to me,” he said, and then moved abruptly.

  Suddenly, her hand was over her head, and her wrist was attached to the bedpost. Cassie was no push over. She was a member of the elite Royal Guard, and when she wanted to fight, she could fight.

  She wrapped her legs around Troy’s, and grabbed his shoulder with her free hand. “Take the cuff off of me,” she hissed. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll help you.”

  He held up the key and she reached for it. He flung it across the room. “Damn it, Troy!”

  “Let go of me, Cassie, before I forget why I want you to. Before I’m no longer responsible for my actions. Believe me, you don’t want me this close to you when I’m like this. I don’t… want to hurt you.”

  If the words had been a threat, she’d have rejected them instantly. But they weren’t. They were a plea of desperation. She had to let him go. She knew this. She sensed it. But everything inside her screamed to hold on. That if she let go of him, he might run out the door and she’d never find him again. The Troy she knew was still inside this rougher, darker Troy, and she was going to find him, one way or the other.

  She was about to tell him as much, to beg him to talk to her, when he suddenly buried his face in her neck, a low growl escaping his lips, before he began to tremble… like a Red wolf about to shift.

  Chapter Five

  “What’s happening?” Cassie asked urgently, sliding her free hand over his hair, and cursing the key he’d thrown away. “Let me help you, Troy. Please. Let me help.”

  “I need up,” he hissed into her ear, pain etched in his tone. He tried to roll off of her and she let him this time. It wasn’t as if she could have really stopped him without a struggle that she would have ultimately lost. Something told her a struggle wasn’t a good idea right now.

  Troy curled to his side, and gave her his back, which told her he was in serious pain. She’d seen him fight unfazed, with huge, gaping wounds that he didn’t even seem to notice. She tried to reach for him, but the cuff kept her from getting close enough. He moaned again, a wolfish sound that defied reason. Cassie gaped as his jeans ripped down his thighs. Not only was he doing the impossible for a vampire by shifting, the agony he was in told a story. Natural born wolves didn’t feel any form of discomfort with a shift. Red wolves did. Cassie didn’t want to think about what that meant for Troy, but she was pretty sure that allowing him to shift would be a very bad idea. She was also fairly sure that the only way she’d come out of this alive if he did was by shifting herself to hold her own. Troy was right, though. She really didn’t want to lose her hand in the process.

  Cassie jerked hard at the cuff, and then did it again, over and over, trying to break it, but it wasn’t normal silver or steel, that was clear. It had to be spellcast by one of the ‘Coven of the Rain’ witches who’d recently aligned themselves with the vampires. Damn her brother Nico for pissing those ladies off. They were clearly better allies than foes.

  Just when Cassie was going to give up on freedom and rethink her next move, the headboard creaked under her efforts. The next second, the metal bar her cuff was attached to, broke away from the frame.

  Cassie tugged again and the bed piece came completely lose, and shot out towards her, all but smacking her in the face. She recovered, but much to her frustration, the ends of the bars were too wide to shove through the cuff. She was stuck with it. She needed the key.

  Cassie kicked off her shoes that she had remarkably kept on up to this point, then lugged the bar with her, scrambling off the bed, half expecting Troy to grab her, but he didn’t. He just kept shaking.

  Frantically, she searched for the key, and thankfully found it with surprising speed. Cassie snatched it up, quickly releasing her wrist. She rushed back to the bed, approaching Troy from behind, knowing that male wolves’ didn’t do well with anything they thought to be confrontational. And rational or not, right now, her vampire seemed more wolf than blood sucker.

  Cassie pressed herself to Troy’s back, stroking his face. “I’m here,” she whispered. “Tell me how to help you.”

  He tried to move away from her. She grabbed him, turning him over and climbing on top, straddling him.

  He shackled her arms, his eyes glowing that silvery yellow again and his face beginning to change. “I need… blood,” he huffed, breathing heavily. “Have to stop… shift.” He tossed her off of him and she scrambled to get back to him, but suddenly, he was convulsing, the sound of cloth tearing and bones snapping telling her he was out of time, and so was she.

  There was no hesitation in Cassie. With quick, decisive actions, she shoved Troy to his back, then snatched the blade she’d seen him shove inside his boot. His body jerked and cracked, driving her urgency. Cassie straddled him again, and sliced her wrist with a grimace at the acid burn of the silver on her flesh. Blood poured from the wound and she held it over his mouth the best she could with him moving around. She’d only have a short window to feed him before she’d have to shift to heal her wounds before she bled to death. The instant blood touched his lips, the vampire in him responded instantly, and somehow, that vampire’s existence comforted Cassie.

  With a low moan escaping his lips, he grabbed her arm and held it to his mouth, drawing deeply on her arm. Only then, with him drinking, holding her with a vice grip, did Cassie let herself think of the consequences of her actions, that she might not be able to make him stop. The more he drank, the more she thought of shifting, but if she did that too soon, he might shift, too. And if he did, if he was a Red Wolf, she feared they would end up fighting, perhaps to the death. She cared about Troy, more than she’d let herself admit until this moment for all kinds of reasons. Beyond personal, and there was plenty of those, she couldn’t - wouldn’t - risk a battle with him, that might leave one of them dead, and ensure a war between their races.

  No. She was going to have to trust in Troy, who she knew to be strong enough to battle any mon
ster, even his own. She’d seen him battle the hurt of betrayal and never falter, never make a mistake that might have cost lives. She trusted him. She was still telling herself that when she started seeing spots, even moments before everything went black.

  ***

  Troy came back to himself in a rush of awareness the instant Cassie collapsed on top of him, and fear for her slammed into him head on. The wolf, the monster inside him, was silent while his vampire senses were not. He could barely hear Cassie’s weak heartbeat and he reacted instantly.

  He rolled her to her back, taking in the paleness of her face, the certainty he’d taken too much of her blood. He had only seconds to consider his options or she would die. If he gave her his blood, he could heal her, but he might infect her with the virus that had made him whatever he’d become. The time he’d lose to make the call, even to Marcus, could be too long. He wasn’t willing to risk Cassie’s life. She had to have known she was risking hers by giving him her blood while he was in the state he’d been in. It mattered to him. She mattered to him.

  Tormented by the potential of infecting her, Troy bit his wrist and held it to Cassie’s mouth, holding open her lips and forcing the blood down her throat. Praying his blood was still able to heal, despite the wolf he’d become.

  After only a few drops, she licked her lips and relief flooded him at the response. He forced his arm more fully against her mouth, knowing she could swallow now, knowing his blood was working, that she was healing. Her hand went to his arm and she drank hungrily, and he grabbed her wrist and confirmed the wound there was all but gone.

  When he was sure she’d had enough, he pried her mouth from his arm. “Enough,” he said softly, easing her mouth from his wrist with gentle insistence. He felt the wound on his wrist heal the instant she let him go and more relief flooded him. Every time he felt the qualities of a vampire alive within him, he was comforted with the hope that he wasn’t too far gone to be saved from the virus.

  Cassie blinked him into focus. “Troy?”

  Anger and relief collided, products of his fear for her. “What were you thinking?” He pressed his hands to the side of her face, fighting the desire to hold her to him and reassure himself he hadn’t really hurt her. “What if I hadn’t stopped drinking in time? What if I had drained you and killed you?”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I almost did.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Damn it, Cass, I don’t even know what the hell I am. I don’t trust me. You shouldn’t either.”

  “And still you chained yourself to me?”

  “I had to make sure you came with me.”

  She studied him a long moment. “And yet, we both know I would have. I trust you, even if you don’t trust me.”

  Blood - his blood - stained her lips, and heat surged through his limbs, but this time, the vampire, not the wolf, had control. And it was her blood, he realized, that of a wolf, that had calmed the beast in him, that could have so easily driven him over the edge to take too much. He could have killed her. He almost had.

  He stared down at her. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to fuck her. He wanted to trust her. He wanted so many things with this woman, this wolf, he couldn’t have. He kissed her anyway.

  Chapter Six

  She was the one thing that wolf, vampire, and man agreed on, wanted, needed. Burned for. The taste of Cassie’s blood, her passion, the forbidden fruit of everything she was, and might not be, swept through Troy with the brush of her tongue against his. She moaned, a soft, sexy, primal sound that ripped through him, and set him on fire, clouding his mind. Troy told himself to pull back, to stop, that he was headed to a deep, dark place where he’d lose control, where he’d forget how dangerous she was. And forget he did, and willingly, when she arched into him and twined her fingers in his hair, pressing her body against his. Troy groaned with the pleasure of her next to him, of her heat burning him alive.

  Hungering for more of her, he deepened the kiss, drawing in more of her sweet, wild flavor. It wasn’t enough. He wasn’t sure it would ever be enough with her. He slid between her legs, shoving her skirt as high as he could, and she opened for him like a flower spreading in a new morning sun. He settled into the sweet V of her body, his cock thickening with the promise of finally being inside, finally feeling the wet tight heat of her surrounding him. He could smell her desire, almost taste it in the air, and it was clouding his logic, tearing down the wall he’d used to keep her at a distance.

  “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do this?” he murmured against her lips, his voice rough, his confession falling from his lips into hers before he could stop it. Before he gave her the power of knowing how much he’d wanted her.

  “Do you have any idea how much I hated your willpower?” she asked, nipping his lip and then licking it, before her tongue slid back into his mouth.

  He didn’t even try to resist kissing her again, there was no point. Troy was her captive, she wasn’t his as intended, and he silently declared Cassie a drug far more potent than blood, more lethal than bloodlust. He couldn’t escape his desire for her, and right now he wasn’t sure why he’d even wanted to. It was why he’d never gone here with her, why he’d battled his need for her, for all those months working together. He could feel the rise of hunger growing in him, wild and unwilling to compromise, unwilling to let this end without satisfaction.

  He touched her the way he’d always wanted to touch her. His hands traveled her body, sliding over her slender waist, molding her breasts. Impatiently, he fumbled with the buttons on her blouse, and ripped them away. They popped and flew off and he leaned up long enough to toss what was left of his shirt over his head.

  She sat up, kissing his stomach, her lips hot, her hand on his waist soft. The fingers of her other hand traced his erection. He was hot and hard, his cock pulsing. Why in the hell had he not let her touch him like this before? He had no idea. He had no memory of anything but here and now and how much he wanted her mouth on his body.

  Troy reached around her, unhooking her bra, then unzipping her skirt, caressing her back, her hair. She was soft all over, and he was so very hard inside, so very dark. She curved her shoulders forward and shrugged off the bra, pressing her bare breasts to his stomach, and looking up at him, a raw, open hunger in honey colored eyes, before she kissed his stomach again.

  Troy growled, tangling his hands in her hair, and pulled her mouth to his, kissing her wildly, ravishing her with the strokes of his tongue, just as he planned to do with his cock. Her hand slid between them, stroking him and unzipping his jeans.

  Troy could feel the wolf coming to life in him, possessive and demanding, primal, oddly in sync with the vampire in him for perhaps the first time ever. It wanted her submission, every part of him wanted that, wanted control. Wanted them both naked. Wanted inside her, fucking her until neither of them could take anymore.

  He pushed away from her and stood up, discarding his clothes, all but ripping what was left of them away. Cassie shoved down her skirt and he caught her ankles, dragging her down the mattress, her high, full breasts bouncing with the movement. He spread her legs, tearing her panties from her body.

  She gasped and he dropped to his knees, placing her calves on his shoulders, urgent for a taste of her in every possible way. His mouth came down on the V of her body, suckling her delicate, swollen nub, before his teeth sunk into the sensitive flesh around it. Blood flooded his mouth, giving him control, even as it gave her immense pleasure. She came almost instantly, her fingers curling in the sheets. The taste of her pleasure mingled with blood, driving him wild. His tongue traced where he’d bitten her, sealing the puncture marks, before lapping at her clit, licking and suckling until she came again.

  She leaned up to stare at him, her eyes dilated. “Troy I -”

  He leaned in and kissed her, pinching her nipples. “No talking.” He couldn’t let this be about her and him, about the emotions, the things he felt for her. He turned her ov
er, an uncontrollable need to dominate overtaking him again, like nothing he’d ever felt with a woman. He knew this was the wolf in him mixed with self-preservation, a need to prove he was in charge and she wasn’t. A need to make this just about fucking when he knew it wasn’t. Not for him. He knew she had the power to destroy him, to shred his heart, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t, let her discover that.

  Anger, lust, fear, and desire chased hot, passion-laden adrenaline through his veins. Troy bent her over the mattress, lifting her hips and spread her wide and damn, it did his dick right when opened for him, time and time again. He scraped his teeth over one perfect butt cheek, and stroked the silky wet core of her body with his fingers, before repeating the action with his cock.

  “Oh God, yes,” she panted, as he slid back and forth, teasing them both with how close he was to entering her. “Troy. Yes. Now. I need you inside me. Fuck me. Please, fuck me.”

  He entered her with a hard, deep thrust, one hand on her lower back, the other on her waist. She cried out, pushing against him, telling him she wanted this as much as he did.

  The world fell away then, leaving him with nothing but the wicked, hot wonder of him inside her, him fucking her, him making her cry out in pleasure. And he wanted her pleasure to the point that it was pain. He pumped into her, hard and fast. Thrust after thrust, stroke after stroke, he buried himself inside her, driving for more. Taking more. His face slid to her neck, his nostrils flaring with the scent of her. His hands slid under her, cupping her breasts.

  “More,” she demanded, echoing what was in his mind, in his body. Her hand reached back, stroking his hair. “Harder. Please. Harder.”