“You’re darn tootin’ the mama won’t be a problem, ’cause you’re not going to be here!”
She stepped away from the couch, and her knees buckled.
One moment he was across the room, his shoulder against the wall, the picture of aloof boredom, and the next she was in his arms. She closed her eyes and swallowed a sigh as she was lifted against his hard chest. The man sure had muscles, she’d give him that.
“You will recline, at once.” His tone was stern.
Okay, muscles and a few control issues.
She opened her eyes as he lowered her to the couch and saw a grimace of pain flash across his features. It was the first expression of any kind she’d seen on his face, unless you counted the lip twitch thing. The man could give a marble statue lessons in being stoic.
She caught his arm as he started to rise. “That thing hurt you!”
He stilled, his gaze on her fingers wrapped around his wrist. “You are mistaken. The djegrali did not injure me. It is your touch that disturbs me.”
Addy stiffened and drew back. “Well, excuse the hell out of me.”
He caught her by the hand. “You misunderstand. You do not repulse me.”
He knelt beside her, put his fingers under her chin, and tilted her face with gentle fingers. Addy stifled a gasp. Who was this guy? The merest touch from him and her breasts tingled and she felt hot and wobbly inside. What was the matter with her?
“Look at me,” he commanded.
Sweet Sister Ruth, he had a voice like whiskey and smoke. She shivered and raised her eyes to his. He stroked her cheek with his thumb, a rapt expression on his face. His thumb drifted lower to brush her bottom lip. “You must be patient with me, Adara Jean Corwin. The Dalvahni do not experience emotion. It would be superfluous. We exist for one purpose and one purpose alone, to hunt the djegrali. For ten thousand years, that has been my objective, until now.”
“Ten thousand years, huh?” With an effort, she squelched the sudden urge to scrape the pad of his thumb with her teeth. No doubt about it, she was in hormonal meltdown. “Sounds boring. You need to get a new hobby, expand your horizons.”
“Earth is but one of the realms where the Dalvahni hunt the djegrali.”
Oh, brother, too bad. He was paying a visit to schizoid-land again. Then the impact of his words percolated through the fog of lust that set her brain and her body on fire.
“Hey, wait a minute, I didn’t tell you my name!”
“The animal you call Dooley informed me of many things, including how to find this dwelling.”
“You don’t say? Funny, she’s never said a thing to me in four years.”
He put his hand on her shoulder as she tried to sit up. “You will not rise,” he said with annoying calm.
“Oh, yeah? That’s what you think, bub.”
She pushed at his arm, an exercise in futility. The man was built like the proverbial brick outhouse.
His hand slid over her abdomen and down her running shorts to her legs. She froze. His hand felt hot against her bare skin.
“Dooley, come here,” he said.
The dog rose and trotted over to the couch.
Brand traced an intricate pattern with his fingers along the skin of her inner thigh. Addy began to shake. What was happening to her? This was so unlike her. All her life she’d struggled to rein in her reckless nature, the wild streak that made her mama wring her hands in despair. Self-control was her hardearned mantra. Think first and feel later. But this guy . . . this guy really got her going, made her want to throw caution to the wind. She wanted to arch her hips against his hand, a
stranger’s
hand.
“Speak, Dooley,” Brand said with his gaze on Addy’s face.
“Dooley love Addy. Love, love, love,”
the Lab said in the growly voice of a three-pack-a-day smoker. Flinging up a back paw, she scratched her ear.
“Can Dooley have chicken leg in cold box? Can Dooley?”
Her head snapped around.
“Oh, look, a bug!”
There was a long moment of silence as Addy gaped at her dog in shock. Slowly, she raised her eyes to Brand’s.
“Who
are
you?”
A slight crease appeared between Brand’s brows. The expression in his eyes grew puzzled. “Until tonight, I thought I knew.”
Lowering his dark head, he kissed her.
Chapter Two
N
ever been kissed . . .
The thought spun through Addy’s mind as Brand’s lips met hers. Lightning streaked along her nerve endings, and her toes curled. Good grief, her toes
curled.
This was beyond absurd. A thousand giddy butterflies did the happy dance inside her stomach, and the man had barely touched her. She was a grown woman. She’d been kissed lots of times. Why . . . ?
The tip of Brand’s tongue touched the corner of her mouth, and she forgot everything else. He traced a lazy path across her bottom lip, tasting her, his touch leisurely, lingering, as if he wanted to memorize the shape and texture of her mouth.
Oh, Lord. Addy’s thoughts grew hazy. Maybe she only thought she’d been kissed. Heavens, but the man had a wicked mouth! The glide of his lips across hers was sinful, exquisite. Giving in to the heady temptation, she sighed and kissed him back. Their tongues danced together, warm velvet on warm velvet. She licked his firm bottom lip.
He groaned and cupped the back of her head in his hands, deepening the kiss. Tearing his mouth from hers, he rained a trail of hot kisses down her throat and across her chest. He paused when he reached the spot where she had been stabbed. He murmured something indistinct and pushed aside the edge of her ruined shirt to lick the dark mark on her breast. Addy gasped and arched her back, wanting more, wanting everything.
“If you would disengage your mouth from the female, we could converse,” a bored voice came from behind them.
Addy shrieked and tumbled off the couch, landing in a heap at Brand’s feet. A flaxen-haired man with silver eyes stood in the middle of her living room. Instead of a sword he carried a long bow and a quiver of arrows. Like Brand, he was tall and muscular and drop-dead gorgeous. Also like Brand’s, his handsome features formed an expressionless mask.
Brand lifted Addy to her feet and stepped in front of her. “What brings you here, Ansgar?”
His calm, detached tone hit Addy like a bucket of ice water, cooling her ardor in an instant. He spoke without inflection, no trace of his earlier passion discernible in his deep voice. She’d been on the verge of doing the horizontal mambo with a stranger, and the guy in question was, from all appearances, unaffected. Cool as a cucumber, a regular the-ice-man-cometh
not
!
How. Humiliating.
Seething with mortification, she stepped around Brand. “Look here, Mr. Ansgar, I don’t know who you are or how you got in here, but I want you to get out of this ho—”
She froze, her eyes widening. Dooley hung suspended a few inches off the floor, caught in mid-pounce. The dog’s ears were perked, and her tongue lolled out of her mouth like a big pink snail.
“Dooley, baby,” Addy cried.
She stumbled over to the dog on wobbly legs and ran her fingers through Dooley’s thick yellow fur. The Lab felt warm but stiff as a board to the touch. Addy found a heartbeat and breathed a sigh of relief. She stroked Dooley’s head. No response. The dog wore the same frozen look of surprise as the deer her brother Shep shot and had mounted on his den wall.
Addy glared at the two Adonises who’d invaded her living room. Anger sizzled through her veins. She rose to her feet, her earlier dizziness forgotten. “What the hell did you do to my dog?”
The man called Ansgar flicked a look of cool disinterest in her direction. “I silenced it. Such creatures are annoying and invariably noisy.”
Addy pointed a shaking finger at the front door. “Out. Both of you.”
“The djegrali—” Brand said.
“I don’t give a rat’s behind about your demonic little buddy.” Outrage seethed in Addy’s veins, making her feel stronger. “I want you two bozos out of this house. Now.”
“Bozo?” The blond hunk looked thoughtful. “This appellation is unfamiliar to me. Is this a term used to signify hunters in this realm?”
“It’s a term signifying I’m going to get my gun if you don’t leave, and pronto.”
Ansgar raised a brow. “You refer, I assume, to the metal tube you grasp?”
Addy looked down. She balanced a shotgun in her hands. The wooden stock felt cool against her palm. She broke open the gun. It was loaded with bird shot.
“Yeah, that would be the one.” She closed the shotgun with a snap and pointed it at the two men. “Get out.”
Brand and Ansgar exchanged glances and strode toward the door.
“Hold your horses, Blondy!” The big blond turned, and Addy jerked a thumb in Dooley’s direction. “What about my dog?”
“I would advise against releasing the creature,” he said. “It is bound to create a disturbance.”
“And I would advise
you
to un-whammy my dog.” Addy swung the barrel of the shotgun toward him. “Or else. It’s been a long night, and I’m starting to get a little cranky.”
He looked at her without blinking for a long moment and waved his hand at Dooley. Dooley landed on the carpet and erupted in a frenzy of barking.
“Obnoxious, is it not?” Ansgar’s expression was pained. “You cannot say I did not warn you.”
“Yeah, yeah, you told me.” Addy waved the shotgun in the general direction of the door. “Beat it, both of you.”
The two men walked out of the house without a word. With a final triumphant
woof,
Dooley ran to the door and sniffed. Satisfied she had done her duty, the dog trotted up and nudged Addy’s leg with her nose.
Addy dropped the gun. It hit the floor with a dull thud.
“That’s telling ’em, Dooley,” she said, staring at the door with a pang of regret.
Brand left, without saying good-bye. Waggle a shotgun in a guy’s face, threaten him with a little mayhem, and he ran fast enough to make a girl’s head spin. Well, who needed him?
Staggering to the door, Addy flipped the dead bolt and made her way through the living room. What a night. She felt drained and exhausted. She needed a hot shower followed by the bed. She got all the way to the bedroom before it hit her.
She didn’t own a shotgun.
Brand stood in the shadows watching the house. Long minutes passed, the night quiet but for the rustle of the wind in the leaves and the soft chirruping of insects.
“The human interests you?” Ansgar asked, breaking the silence.
“Yes.”
“You have lived a hundred of her lifetimes. She is but a child.”
Brand thought of Addy’s soft lips moving beneath his, the feel of her smooth skin against his palms. He itched to touch her again. Adara Jean Corwin might be many things, but she was no child.
“If it is emptiness you seek, why not avail yourself of a thrall?” Ansgar persisted. “Is that not their purpose?”
Brand’s gaze moved to the back of the house. A shapely form passed briefly in front of the curtained window and disappeared. “Perhaps it is not emptiness I seek.”
“The emptiness serves its purpose,
our
purpose. We can ill afford distractions . . . no matter how tempting the distraction might be.”
Ah, so Ansgar found the human enticing also.
Something hot and unfamiliar unfurled inside Brand.
He gave the other warrior a cold look. “You have not answered my question, Ansgar. Why are you here?”
Ansgar ran a loving hand along the curve of his bow. “I tracked my quarry to this place and lost it. I sensed the presence of another hunter and sought you out. What brings you to this place?”
“I followed two of the djegrali to this realm. One I slew, the other escaped, wounding the female human in the doing of it.”
Ansgar grunted. “Three djegrali in one locus—odd, is it not? What do you think it means?”
“I do not know.”
“You mean to linger here?”
“I do.”
“Is that wise?”
Brand shifted his gaze to the other man. “The djegrali marked the female. It will return. When it does, I will be waiting.”
“So, you mean to use the human as bait.” Ansgar nodded in understanding.
Brand turned back to the house. “What else?”
“For a moment, I thought . . .” Ansgar shrugged. “No matter. It is a good plan. I will leave you to it then. To the hunt.”
He raised a hand in farewell and vanished.
Brand studied the house for a long moment. “To the hunt,” he said softly.
Addy made her way to the bathroom. Her chest still ached, but some of the dizziness was gone and she felt stronger. She took out her contacts and got into the shower, letting the warm water ease the tension from her muscles. It had been a hell of a night, and her nerves were worked. There was a rational explanation for what happened tonight—what she thought had happened tonight—wasn’t there?
Uninvited, an image rose in her mind of the thing in the woods, its black scabrous hands reaching for her. The bathroom door banged open, and Addy jumped. She whirled around in the shower, lost her balance, and scrambled to keep a foothold on the slippery tile. She squinted and tried to focus her nearsighted eyes on the new threat. Instead of a soul-sucking fiend, she spied a familiar buttery blob through the glass shower door.
“Dooley Anne!” Addy clutched her chest. “You almost gave me a heart attack!” She opened the shower door a crack. “Nothing to say for yourself, huh? Good, ’cause you sure had plenty to say a little while ago. I gotta tell you, it seriously freaked me out. I guess that Brand fellow hypnotized me. I mean, it’s not like dogs can talk, right?”
Dooley wagged her tail in answer and trotted out of the bathroom and into the adjoining bedroom. She sat down near Addy’s queen-size bed, her ears perked at attention and her gaze on something only she could see.
Addy shut the shower door with a shake of her head. The Lab had an unnerving habit of staring at nothing. “Dooley-vision,” she muttered.
Her Aunt Muddy said dogs could see things that humans could not, like spirits . . . or demons.
She shivered, then reached for the bar of soap. As the sponge glided over her wet body, she closed her eyes and allowed the soothing scent of lavender and chamomile to dispel her dark thoughts.
Brand waved his hand and the dead bolt turned with a satisfying snick. The door to Addy’s house swung open. He frowned. The djegrali could have done the same thing with ease. The woman needed a keeper. He set a number of protective spells around the property’s perimeter to alert him to the demon’s presence and stepped inside the house. He stood in the darkness for a moment, listening. Faint sounds and a sliver of light drew him to the back of the dwelling. Silent as a shadow, he entered the bedroom and looked around. A large bed stood against one wall, the coverlet turned back to reveal green and white linens. Overhead a ceiling fan lazily stirred the air.
From the adjoining room he heard the unmistakable sound of flowing water. The dog trotted into the bedroom, and Brand mentally kicked himself. He had made himself invisible to humans, but he’d forgotten about the animal. Dooley’s eyes lit up when she saw him. She sprang forward, her ears cocked in recognition. He raised an admonishing finger, and she swallowed her yip of welcome and sat down on the carpet. Wagging her tail, she gave him a doggie grin. Satisfied he had the animal under control, Brand glanced through the open door into the connecting room and received a shock. Addy stared back at him from the other room . . . some kind of bathing chamber, he realized dimly, unable to take his eyes off her. She could not see him—her gaze was on the dog—but he could see
her,
every delectable inch of her. She was naked, utterly, gloriously naked. The water coursed down her satin skin, and her wet hair hung in damp curls against the nape of her neck. She gave Dooley a nervous look and resumed her bath. Brand eyed her hungrily, drinking in the tantalizing view of her backside. A wave of lust hit him that nearly brought him to his knees. Perhaps Ansgar was right, he thought through a haze of desire. He should have availed himself of a thrall. Such strong emotion could not be productive.
Addy turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. He caught a brief glimpse of damp, gleaming skin.
“Thanks, hound doggie, for letting in all the cold air,” she scolded, shutting the door.
Brand closed his eyes, thankful his view of Addy’s lovely body had been blocked. He heard a mechanical whir from behind the closed door. Some kind of grooming apparatus, his muddled brain surmised. Taking a deep breath, he tried to curb his racing pulse. His heartbeat had scarcely slowed when the door to the bathing chamber opened and she stepped into the bedroom. She wore nothing but a towel. Her cap of light brown hair was still slightly damp. He stared at her, transfixed. His traitorous heart thundered as she walked toward him. Somehow, he retained the presence of mind to step out of her way before she bumped into him. He caught a tantalizing whiff of lavender as she sauntered past. The scent shot up his nostrils and straight to his groin. With an effort, he shook himself from his stupor and followed her on silent feet across the room. She stopped before another door, opened it, and disappeared inside. Brand stole forward. Addy stood in the center of some kind of storage room. Garments hung on racks in neat rows, and a large number of drawers marched along the walls on either side. He edged closer. Some of the shelves held an alarming number of shoes.