Bound by Night (The Moonbound Clan Vampires) (6 page)

Pain forgotten, Nicole snapped her eyes open. The blurry image of a woman’s face hovered in front of hers. Beyond her head, pinpricks of light shimmered from what appeared to be a ceiling made of stone and . . . roots? She blinked, bringing a little focus to her vision. The woman peered down at her, her dark skin creating indistinct lines in the background, which was definitely composed of stone, roots, and what looked like packed earth.

Maybe this was a dream.

The rock jamming into her spine said otherwise. But how had she gotten here?

Riker
.

The break-in at her mansion came back to her in vivid 3-D—her terror at the sight of Riker, the feel of Ginsu’s
fangs scraping her neck, and the masculine, smoky scent of Riker’s skin.

“Where . . .” She swallowed, grimacing at the raw scrape of her voice on her throat. “Where am I? Who are you?”

One black eyebrow popped up. “Aw, you can’t even guess?” A smile joined the amused cant of the woman’s eyebrow. “You’re in a vampire stronghold. And I’m a vampire. Basically, you human scum,” she said, her smile widening to reveal glistening, deadly sharp fangs, “you’re in your worst nightmare.”

THE PIERCING SCREAM
caught Nicole off guard, drilling into her head with laserlike intensity until it felt as if her brain would explode. Only when the vampire slapped Nicole hard enough to roll her onto her side did she realize that the scream had come from her own throat.

The female leaned close, her eyes glinting like silver fishing lures caught in the sunlight. “I have a bizarre condition that makes me go into murderous rages when I hear screaming,” she whispered. “So don’t.”

Nicole nodded, swallowing the fresh scream that had built in her lungs.

“Katina.” A familiar male voice froze Nicole to the cold ground. “I’ll take it from here.”

The female vampire inclined her head sharply and stood with effortless, sinewy grace. “She’s all yours, Rike.” Katina pegged Nicole with a look so full of hunger that she should be drooling. “But when it’s time to eat her, share the wealth. The skank looks like she has rich blood.”

Skank?
Nicole planted her palms on the hard-packed dirt floor and sat up. “You have no idea, you bitch.” Probably not the brightest thing to say in this situation, but then, Chuck often teased that the default mode for Nicole’s tact switch was set to off.

Riker went down on his haunches in front of her, and her heart skipped a beat. Maybe two. He was as imposing as he’d been at the mansion and as huge as she’d remembered as a child. Always before, when she’d thought about him, she’d wondered if her memory had exaggerated, if maybe her small size had made him seem bigger.

But no, if anything, he was larger than she’d remembered, an intimidating figure clad in jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black leather jacket that didn’t do enough to conceal the weapons stashed on his body. Worse, he was even more handsome, and how twisted and sick was it that she thought anything about this bastard was attractive? He was a vampire. One who had killed his own
mate
.

Yet she couldn’t deny his savage beauty, his chiseled cheekbones and full, crimson lips. Sterling eyes framed by thick lashes a few shades darker than his messy blond hair. A jaw as strong and sharp as a knife blade . . . or a vampire’s fang.

“I’d be careful about slinging around insults if I were you,” he said. “Can’t think of many that can’t be thrown right back in your face.”

Nicole could think of several.
Bloodsucking fiend. Fanged monster. Every dentist’s nightmare
. It was probably best to engage her tact switch, though. Chuck would be proud.

“Where are we?” She peeled her gaze away from him long enough to scan the surroundings. “What is this place?”

Now that she was sitting up and the blur in her vision had cleared, she could see that her initial impression was correct. She was in some sort of underground chamber. Faint light streamed through the tiny barred window in the door, allowing her a chilling view of chains and shackles secured to slabs of stone in the wall. But what truly freaked her out were the rows of skulls, some human, some vampire, high up on one wall.

“You’re at my clan’s headquarters.” Riker flicked his tongue over a fang and grinned at her involuntary flinch. “In what we affectionately call the prey room.”

Terror tightened around Nicole’s chest like a steel band. Breathing became a luxury as fear put a stranglehold on both her lungs and her memories. This was like something straight out of a horror movie, and while she’d expected nothing less from vampires, seeing it firsthand chilled her to her bones.

Calm down. Remember that vampires are as afraid of you as you are of them.
The words of her therapist came back to her in a rush, easing her anxiety but only a little. Riker didn’t strike her as being afraid in the least. But then, she’d dedicated her life to learning about vampire physiology, not psychology, so maybe she should trust what her therapist had said. Plant some doubt into him. Some fear. Maybe at that point, she could regain a measure of control.

And if worse came to worst, she had a weapon.

Clearing her throat, she shoved herself to her feet. Riker rose with her, much more gracefully.

“I don’t think you know who I am.”

“Really.” He folded his thick arms across his chest. “Enlighten me.”

She lifted her chin to look him directly in the eye. “Since you broke into my house, you must know I’m a member of one of the most powerful families in the world.” His expression remained impassive, but she didn’t falter. Even before she’d taken over at Daedalus, she’d still been involved with the company, and she’d earned her stripes in boardrooms full of stone-faced executives and shark-eyed lawyers. “But you made a fatal mistake, because I’m also the CEO of Daedalus Corporation. If the authorities aren’t aware that I’m gone already, they will be shortly, and I promise, very soon you’ll have the weight of every law-enforcement agency on top of you. Not to mention VAST and, most likely, every private bounty hunter my brother can hire.”

Riker might as well have yawned, he looked so bored. “I’m shaking in my human-skin boots.”

Son of a— Had he just said
human
-skin? She looked down at his brown leather work boots. “Are those really . . .” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Made of the soft, supple skin of a human orphan I stole from the loving arms of a caregiver?” When she nodded, he laughed. “The fact that you believe we’re such monsters says a lot about you.”

Right. Because the fact that he and his friend broke into her house, murdered her colleague, and kidnapped her didn’t lend any credence to the monster thing. “So prove me wrong. Let me go.”

“After you arrange for Neriya’s release.”

“Call me skeptical, but I somehow doubt you’ll
just let me go my own way.” Casually, she rubbed her ruby ring against her thigh, taking comfort in its weight . . . and in the weapon concealed inside. “And I swear to you, I won’t go down easy.”

His gaze dropped to her neck. Automatically, she reached up, as if covering her throat would prevent him from sinking his teeth into it. “Maybe I like a challenge,” he drawled.

“Let me have one of those knives strapped to your chest, and I’ll show you a challenge.”

The light of battle flared in his eyes, and a sinister smile curved his lips. “Do your best, human.” He whipped a dagger from a sheath and pressed it into her palm. “This should be fun.”

“Fun?” Shaky legs barely supported her as she backed away from him. “I don’t stand a chance against you.”

“Then why did you ask for the knife?”

With a macabre sense of satisfaction, she put it to her throat, to the scarred skin where Boris had chewed through her flesh. “Because I’d rather die than let any one of you touch me.”

As true as that was, driving a blade into her own jugular was a last resort. She’d simply needed the dagger so she’d have a weapon against other vampires after she took him down.

The amusement fell off his face, and he barked out a nasty curse. “Don’t. Don’t do that.”

“Why not? You’re going to kill me anyway, right?” She would
not
die at the hands of a vampire. They’d tried to kill her once; they wouldn’t succeed the second time.

Riker held out his hand. “Give me the knife. Now.”

Again, he hadn’t answered her question. Again, she made a suggestion for a vacation spot. “Go to hell.”

“I can take it away before you can blink, female.”

She pressed inward, until the sting of the blade let her know she’d broken skin. A warm drop of blood rolled down her neck, but oddly, the lingering pinch energized her. For the first time since she’d been grabbed, she had a measure of control, even if the control was merely over her own pain.

Or her own life.

Riker’s body went taut, a subtle sign she comprehended too late. Then he was there, fist around the blade. Startled, she jerked, driving the tip of the knife deeper into her throat. “You stupid human!”

With a snarl, Riker wrenched the knife away and shoved her against the wall. The blade clattered to the ground, but the fangs jutting from Riker’s gums were just as sharp and probably far more lethal.

Nicole’s therapist was a huge fool if she thought vampires were more afraid of humans than humans were of them. Dr. Bhatia was so fired.

Riker’s gaze shifted down. To her throat.

Then his mouth shifted down. To her throat.

Boris’s face flashed in front of her eyes, and panic squeezed her heart in a cold fist. Like she had so many years ago, she tried to fight, but Riker held her easily, pinned to the wall with his weight. As his lips closed over her skin, she stopped breathing and waited for the rip of his teeth.

Instead, there was only a warm sweep of his tongue
and, with it, the most bizarre and disturbing sense of pleasure.

Vampires could release a chemical through their saliva that created a euphoric feeling in their victims, but she doubted Riker would use it on her. And even if he did, given her background, how could she possibly feel even the slightest amount of pleasure? Self-loathing gurgled up inside her like a storm sewer after a torrential rain.

But her disgust didn’t stop the odd tingle of awareness that spread from where Riker’s tongue soothed her laceration to every part of her body that touched his. Everyone said that vampires were inherently sexual creatures, dangerously seductive even when they weren’t trying. Hell, a special market existed for vampire sex slaves, which Nicole had never understood.

Until now.

Now she got it. But she wished she didn’t.

On her wrists, Riker’s fingers were callused, his skin hot. Vampires ran three to five degrees warmer than humans, and she felt the difference in body temperature with every blistering stroke of his tongue and every point of skin-to-skin contact.

Why was he being so . . . well, she wouldn’t call it gentle, exactly, but he could be causing her a lot of pain.

Vampires are crafty. They’re predators that play with their food. They feed on blood, pain, and fear
.

One of her father’s many lectures rang in her ears, and she started to tremble. Riker wasn’t hurting her at the moment, but he would. The way Boris had so easily hurt her after years of being kind to her.

A slow roll of anxiety threatened to smother her.
She drew a deep, calming breath, desperate to keep her head clear.

Think
. Hard to do when there was a vampire licking you.

Think
. Her bottom lip stung. She was biting it again.

Think, dammit!
She needed a weapon, a . . .
duh
. The ring. How could she have taken leave of her senses so easily? Other than the fact that a vampire was licking her. And then there was the distraction of her tingling breasts and an odd ache starting low in her pelvis.

Jesus, if Riker was ever captured by hunters, he’d be tagged for the sex market, for sure. Too bad he hadn’t been caught a long time ago, because if he had, maybe Terese would still be alive.

The thought was enough to hurtle Nicole back to her senses, and as she ran her thumb over the cool metal ring, she thought about how ironic it was that Riker was going to be taken down by his own mate’s jewelry.

Smiling, Nicole wedged her fingernail under the ruby lid’s latch.

This is for you, Terese
.

S
IXTY SECONDS AGO,
rage and pain had twisted through Riker, so intertwined that he couldn’t separate them. The stupid human had put a blade to her own throat. Why did this keep happening to him? Why were females so damned eager to kill themselves?

Fuck it all, this one wasn’t going to die. Not until he was ready.

So he’d put his mouth over the scarred skin of her throat with the noble intention of sealing the wound. But the moment he tasted her, a jolt of sheer, burning bliss streaked all the way to his groin.

Full. Stop.

He hadn’t felt much in the way of a sexual stir from feeding in decades, let alone with a female he despised. A human female, at that.