Immortal Craving (Dark Dynasties) (37 page)

It was his eyes, though, that Lily couldn’t seem to avoid. Light gray, with a silvery cast from the moonlight, they watched her steadily, unblinking. She wanted to believe he meant her no harm. But there was an intensity in the way he looked at her that kept her off balance.
I should get moving, get out of here
, Lily thought, feeling like a deer that has picked up the scent of a predator.

But she was caught by those eyes, unable to look away. She shuddered in a soft breath as he stepped in closer, never letting go of her hand.

No
, she thought, her eyes locked with his, her legs refusing to move. But then, right on the heels of that:
Yes.

“Lily,” he said, his voice little more than a sensual growl. “Now, that’s a pretty name. Fitting.”

No one had ever said her name quite like that before, savoring it, as though they were tasting it. Desire, unexpected, unwanted, but undeniable all the same, unfurled
deep in her belly. She tried to think of something to say, something that would break this odd spell she was falling under, but nothing sprang to mind. There was only this dark stranger. Everything else seemed to fade away, unimportant.

“You’re shivering,” he remarked. “You shouldn’t be out here in the cold all alone.”

“No, I… I guess not,” she murmured, mildly surprised that though she was shivering, she hadn’t even noticed. She certainly wasn’t cold anymore. And for some reason it was difficult to hang on to her thoughts long enough to form a coherent sentence. “I was… just going to my car.”

His eyes
, she thought, caught up in a hazy rush of desire that flooded her from head to toe, banishing any awareness of the temperature of the air. His eyes
were
silver, she realized as they grew closer. Silver, and glowing like the moon. Strange, beautiful eyes.

“Why don’t you let me walk you?” he asked.

The words barely penetrated her consciousness. After struggling to make sense of them, she found herself nodding. Car. Walk. Yes. Probably a good thing. “Yeah. That would be great.”

Tynan smiled, a lazy, sensual lift of his lips. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that, despite what each of them had said, neither of them made a move to go. Instead, he trailed his free hand down her cheek, cool marble against her warm flesh, and rubbed his thumb slowly across her lower lip.

Lily’s lips parted in answer, and her eyes slipped shut as a soft sigh escaped her. She’d never felt such pleasure from such a light touch, but all she could think of, all she wanted, was for it to continue.

“Lily,” he purred again. “How lovely you are.”

“Mmm,” was all she could manage in response. She turned into his touch as his skilled fingers slid into her hair, as he let go of her hand to slide his around the curve of her waist as he stepped into her. It was like drifting in some dark dream, and Lily embraced it willingly, sliding her hands up his chest and then around to his back, urging him even closer.

She wasn’t sure what she was asking for—but at Tynan’s touch, something stirred inside of her, some long-dormant need that arched and stretched after a long sleep, then flooded her with aching demand. She turned her face up to his, a wordless invitation. His warm breath fanned her face, and even through the strange haze that seemed to have enveloped her, she thrilled a little at the ragged sound of his breathing, at the erratic beat of his heart against her chest.

“Lily,” he said again, and this time it was almost reverent.

He bent his head to hers, and Lily’s lips parted in anticipation. She had never wanted a man’s kiss so desperately; her entire being seemed to vibrate with desire. Her breath stilled as she waited for the press of his lips against her own. But instead of taking what she offered, Tynan’s mouth only grazed her cheek, and his long fingers deftly cupped her chin to turn her head to the side.

Lily made a noise then, a soft, frustrated moan that drew a chuckle from her tormentor.

“Patience, sweetheart,” he admonished her, his gruff brogue more pronounced now. “Too fast and you’ll spoil it.”

Tynan trailed soft kisses along her jawline, the relative chill of his lips against her warm and sensitive flesh a shocking pleasure. Lily writhed in his arms, wanting to be closer, wanting some nameless
more
that she couldn’t
identify. But Tynan seemed to be relentlessly controlled, the uneven intake of his breath the only clue that he might be as close to undone as she. Lily heard his voice then, seeming to echo right inside her head.

Let me taste you.

Powerless to do anything but obey, Lily let her head fall back in submission, baring her throat to him, willing him to touch more, take more. In some dim recess of her mind, it occurred to her that this entire situation was madness at best, suicidal at worst. But the harder she tried to hang on to any rational thoughts, the quicker they seemed to evaporate. And wasn’t it so much more pleasurable to just give up, give in? As though Tynan wanted to illustrate just that point, he nipped at her ear, flicking his tongue over the sensitive lobe.

“Please,” Lily moaned, moving restlessly against him, not even sure what she was asking for. Then he was drawing her hair away from her neck, tugging her head to the side to gain better access. He forced the collar of her shirt down, baring her collarbone to the cold night air. Lily allowed it all, her only desire to feel his lips on her skin again, to give him whatever he wanted. All the world had vanished except for Tynan. She could feel his hands shaking as his handling of her roughened, and she sensed his need was even greater than her own.

Suddenly he stopped, going stock-still as he expelled a single shaking breath. Lost in the deepening fog of her sexual haze, Lily gripped the thick wool of Tynan’s coat harder and made a soft sound of distress. Why had he stopped? She needed… she
needed
…

All she heard was a softly muttered curse in an unfamiliar tongue.

Then, a ripple of air, a breath of chill wind. Lily slowly opened her eyes, only barely beginning to register where she was and what she had been doing. Her hands were fisted in nothing but empty air. She blinked rapidly, taking a stumbling step backward, feeling a crushing, if nonsensical, sense of loss. She turned in a circle, knowing that he had to still be here. He couldn’t have left. It was impossible for a man to vanish into thin air.

But whoever—or whatever—Tynan MacGillivray was, Lily was soon forced to acknowledge the truth.

He was gone.

Tipton, Massachusetts

O
N A NIGHT
when only the thinnest sliver of a crescent moon rode the sky, at a time when even the most adventurous humans had fallen into bed and succumbed to sleep, a solitary cat padded in and out of pooled shadow as he made his way across the deserted square in the middle of town. He was large, the size of a bobcat, with sleek fur the color of jet. His coat shimmered as he moved, gleaming in the dull glow of streetlights in between shadows, and he moved with speed and grace, if not purpose. Eyes that burned like blue embers stayed focused on the path ahead of him.

The cat had gone by several names in his long life. For more than a century now, he had been simply Jaden, or even more simply, “cat.” If pressed, he would answer to either, and neither if he could get away with it.

Tonight, in the night’s seductive and silent embrace, Jaden answered to no one but himself.

Jaden took his time as he made his way through town, savoring the stillness of the blessed lack of humanity with all its noise and emotion and complication. He paused in front of the darkened windows of a beauty salon, letting his gaze drift over the sign that read,
CHARMED, I’M SURE
, and then lifted his head higher to catch the scent of air that was heavy with moisture and ripe with the promise of rain. Jaden could sense that summer was making its way to this little corner of New England, while aware that even in early May the frost could arrive on any given night to give the season’s fresh blooms a deadly kiss.

Deadly kisses, Jaden thought, lashing his tail. Yeah, he knew all about those. When you were a vampire, especially a lowly shape-shifting cat of a vampire, deadly kisses were sort of your stock in trade.

Damn it. So much for a late-night walk to clear his head.

The shift came as easily as breathing to him, and in a single heartbeat Jaden stood on two feet instead of four, his clothes firmly in place by some magic he had never understood but always appreciated. He stuffed his hands deeply into the pockets of his coat and continued on down the street, glaring at the ground in front of him as he moved. Though he’d spent years seething silently at the Ptolemy, his highblood masters who had treated “pets” like him with little mercy and even less respect, these days he didn’t seem to have much anger for anyone but himself.

Jaden now had what he’d always thought he wanted: friends, a home, and most important, his freedom. The Ptolemy were not gone, but they were cowed for the time
being, and his kind, the much-maligned Cait Sith, had been chosen for an incredible honor. They were to be the foundation for the rebirth of a dynasty of highbloods that had vanished ages ago but had now resurfaced in the form of a single mortal woman who carried the blood.

The seven months since Jaden had helped that woman, Lily, make a stand against the Ptolemy had passed like nothing. And though it had been considerably less time since the Vampiric Council had given Lily’s plan its grudging blessing, Jaden was now really and truly free. Whether it had been a wise decision, Jaden couldn’t say. The Cait Sith were an unruly lot at best.

But he was grateful, as were the rest, which had to count for something.

Jaden rubbed at his collarbone without really being aware that he was doing it. There, beneath layers of clothing, was his mark, the symbol of his bloodline. Until recently, the mark had been a coiling knot of black cats. But a drink of Lily’s powerful blood had changed it, adding the pentagram and snake of the Lilim. It meant new abilities he was still exploring, newfound standing in a world where he had always been beneath notice. It should have meant hope, Jaden knew. After all, for the first time in his long life, he was not a pariah. He could be his own master. It should be everything. And yet…

The empty places inside him still ached like open wounds. Something was missing. He just wished he knew what it was.

A soft breath of wind ruffled through his hair, and Jaden caught a whiff of something both familiar and unfamiliar.

Then he heard the voices.

“There’s no place to run to now, is there?” That was a gravelly male voice, reeking of self-satisfaction. Its owner gave a low and vicious chuckle. “You’re going to have to accept me. I’ve caught you. It’s my right.”

A female voice responded, and a pleasant shiver rippled through Jaden’s body at the low, melodious sound of it.

“You have no rights with me. And chasing me down like prey isn’t going to get you what you want.”

He was almost certain he’d heard that voice before, though he couldn’t place it. What Jaden
could
place, however, was the scent that had his hackles rising and the adrenaline flooding his system.

Werewolves.

Jaden’s lips curled, and he had to fight the instinctive urge to hiss. Not only were the wolves vilified by vampires as savages, banned from their cities under penalty of death, but the smell of their musk caused a physical reaction in him that was difficult to control. He had two options: fight or flight. It was less trouble to run. But this was his territory now, vampire territory. And these wolves had a hell of a lot of nerve coming into it.

Jaden was moving before he could think better of it. His feet made no sound on the pavement as he headed for the parking lot behind the building. And as he slipped into shadow, he listened.

“You can make this easy or hard, honey. But you’re going to have me one way or the other. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”

A low growl from the female. A warning. “I’m not about to take a backseat to some social-climbing stray. I don’t want a mate.”

The male’s voice went thick and rough, as though he
was fighting a losing battle with the beast within. “My family is plenty good enough to mate with an Alpha. You should be glad it’s me, Lyra. I won’t be as rough as some. And you and I both know there’s no way the pack is ever going to have a female Alpha. There’s too much at stake to let the weak lead.”

Lyra
… The pieces clicked into place, and Jaden’s stomach sank like a stone.

He did know her. And that brief meeting had put him in one of the fouler moods of his unnatural life.

Memories surfaced of a Chicago safe house, full of vampires in hiding, in trouble, or on the run. And on the occasion he remembered, it had also been a hiding place for a female werewolf with a sharp tongue and a nasty attitude. Rogan, the owner of the safe house, had mentioned something about Lyra being a future Alpha… right after Jaden had demanded she leave the room.