Of Love and Darkness (7 page)

The light of a full moon shone through the windows, sending a pattern of white rectangles across the bed. She could see Gavin, who was indeed sprawled face down on her bed. She sighed and stepped farther into the room.

His head was buried between two pillows. One hand hung over the side, while the other was curled into his shoulder. His long legs stretched to the foot of the bed.

He’d changed, she noticed, into his own clothes. She spotted a black duffel bag parked on the dresser. Apparently, Gavin had gone home at some point during the day and gathered a few supplies. He, along with the five men in her living room, intended to stay awhile.

Gently, so as not to disturb him, Sydney sat on the edge of the bed and lifted the pillow covering his head. He shifted restlessly, turned his head to the side, smacked his lips, and then settled back into sleep. She saw the bottle of whiskey sitting on the bedside table and lifted it. Empty. She returned it to its perch and then allowed herself to do something she’d wanted to do since the moment she laid eyes on him: she ran her fingers along the stubble on his cheek. It was unexpectedly soft, which took her by surprise.

“What am I going to do with you?” she murmured as she continued to watch him sleep.

“End this charade. Make love to me.”

Sydney gasped and leaped off the bed. She hadn’t expected him to be awake.

Gavin’s arm shot out and grabbed the belt loop on her pants, pulling her back to him.

“Don’t go,” he mumbled. “Don’t leave me. I’m always alone.”

“I’m not going to make love to you, Gavin.” But she did sit back down on the bed. His arm snaked around her waist and settled there.

“Have you ever?”

“Have I ever what?”

“Made love. To anyone.”

“Of course I have,” she said indignantly.

“What’s it like?”

“Excuse me?”

“What’s it like? I’ve never made love before. I just wonder if it’s different.”

“Of course you’ve made love before,” Sydney insisted. He was far too sexy, far too sure of himself to still be a virgin. Besides, just yesterday evening, he had bragged about the women he slept with.

“Nope. Never. Plenty of sex. Never made love. Never thought I’d want to. But I do. With you.” He rolled over onto his back. The hand that had been around her waist lifted and draped across his forehead, while he wrapped the other around her, as if he couldn’t keep himself from touching her.

“You’ll let me someday, won’t you?”

Sydney hesitated. It was on the tip of her tongue to say yes, but she wasn’t sure if that was such a good idea. “Will you remember this conversation in the morning, Gavin?” she asked instead.

“Probably not. Drank a lot of whiskey. Needed to. Otherwise I would have picked a fight with those five bastards in your living room, and then your Fate would have had a hell of a mess to clean up.”

“I appreciate your consideration for William’s sake,” she said with a wry smile.

“Not consideration for him. I just didn’t want you to pull that mojo crap on me again. Or worse, refuse to sleep with me. Sleep with me, Sydney. I like the way your body fits with mine.”

Sydney stared at him.

“Your other option is to curl up with William. But I think he’s stealing Quentin from you, so there might be three of you in the bed. You are not sleeping out there with all those horny bastards. Come to bed. I promise I won’t do anything you don’t want to do.”

Sydney blew out a breath. “Okay.” She stood up, and after promising she was just going across the hall to the bathroom to prepare for bed, Gavin let her go. When she flipped on the light and looked in the mirror over the sink in the bathroom, she smiled.

He’d just called her by name.

Chapter 6

“Fuck me.”

Sydney jerked out of sleep when Gavin groaned and muttered the explicative. They were spooning, she realized. Her backside was pressed intimately against his penis, which was swiftly growing in size. Gavin rolled over onto his back and Sydney immediately felt bereft, almost lost for a moment.

She glanced over her shoulder. He lay there with his arm thrown over his face.

“Gavin?”

“What?” His voice was more gravelly than usual, and gruff.

“Are you okay?”

“I drank a fucking fifth of Jack last night. Do you
think
I’m okay?”

Not a morning person, she decided. Certainly not after a night of heavy drinking.

“Can I get you anything?”

“You can make the goddamned hammers in my head stop. And water. Jesus, my mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton.”

“Bear,” Sydney muttered as she slid out of the bed. He was as grumpy as a bear disturbed in the middle of hibernation.

“Fuck off.”

Okay, worse than a bear. Sydney hurried from the room.

“Took you long enough,” he complained when she returned and handed him a glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen. He ripped off the cap with his teeth, dumped four capsules into his hand, tossed them into his mouth, and then drank the entire glass of water.

“I had to wait for someone to get out of the bathroom so I could get the ibuprofen,” she said defensively. She felt oddly hurt by his gruff treatment this morning. He’d been so sweet and
nice
last night. And he called her by name. He had been beginning to show signs of acting like the sort of man she might actually consider mating with. Maybe.

Apparently, it had been the liquor talking.

“Those bastards are still here? You can kick them out, you know.”

“I know. But it doesn’t feel right. Not when they travelled so far. Ignacio came all the way from Spain.”

“He may have been born in Spain, but he lives in fucking Milwaukee now. That’s only a day’s drive from here. Send him home.”

“I’m going to leave this room now, before this conversation deteriorates any further. If you think it would be better for all involved, I’ll bring you breakfast in here, so that you don’t have to pretend to be nice to everyone out there.”

“I would never pretend to be nice to those assholes, even if I didn’t have the hangover from hell. Get out of here. It pisses me off when you’re nice to me while I’m being an asshole.”

She left.

As far as Sydney was concerned, this day could be ripped from her life and burned. Nothing went right. It started out lousy, and progressed down that same path until she wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed and bury her head under the covers until it was over.

But she couldn’t even do that, because Gavin had determined her bedroom was his bedroom, and she was half afraid she would either run into him, or he would walk in on her, and he was the very last person she wanted to be alone with at the moment.

Mostly, it was because she felt humiliated. He had been so nice and considerate the night before. She had willingly climbed into bed next to him, lay there while he curled himself around her like a positively toasty cocoon. And he purred. He had actually purred, like a content cat. It was oddly endearing and strangely comforting, and Sydney had fallen into one of the best sleeps she’d had in a very long time.

She had even contemplated doing more than just sleep with him. The man positively radiated sex, and he kept insisting they were mates, and Sydney could not deny the way her body felt whenever he was in her presence. Where was the harm in sleeping with him? Maybe, just maybe, they would enjoy themselves, and one time would turn into another time and another and maybe, eventually, she would find herself in love, and wouldn’t that just be, well, wonderful?

Fat chance now, she thought gloomily. As much of a jerk he had been when he woke up this morning, Sydney had no intention of letting him back into her bed, even if it was just to sleep. Which she found terribly depressing. And then she got mad at herself for still wanting to sleep with him, even after the way he treated her.

“How is your steak,
mi Chala
?”

Sydney blinked and regarded the man seated across the table from her. Ignacio was tall, dark, and handsome, by any woman’s standards, and his accent would no doubt make lesser women swoon. He was unfailingly polite, and she was confident every day would be Valentine’s Day, if she chose to mate with him. When she agreed to this date, he had immediately left the house, and when he returned to sweep her off to dinner, he produced a box of chocolates, a bouquet of flowers, and an ornate gold brooch, all gifts for Sydney.

But her thoughts were on another shifter, and he was making it difficult for her to enjoy this evening out.

The sad fact was, she never would have agreed to this date if Gavin had his head on straight. If he would have acted half as nice this morning as he had the night before, when he had been under the influence of a fifth of Jack Daniels, Sydney would have happily booted every single one of her suitors and focused on attempting to grow a relationship with Gavin. It was his fault she was on this date, and it was his fault she wasn’t enjoying it.

Mostly, it was his fault she wasn’t enjoying it, because she could actually feel him. It was annoying, this strange connection between them. She would have thought her anger at his behavior this morning would have severed whatever mild connection they had been forming, but that was not the case. The connection had grown so strong, it felt as if he was in the restaurant with her. But he wasn’t.

When the feeling first washed over her, she had immediately lifted her gaze and scanned the entire area. And when it did not go away, she excused herself to use the ladies’ room, and then she made a circuit of the place, searching for him. If he was there, she intended to give him a serious piece of her mind. He had no claim on her. He had made that perfectly clear this morning.

“I’m not really a steak person,” Sydney admitted as she pushed the prime cut of beef around on her plate.

Ignacio had taken her to one of the best steakhouses in the state. They had a secluded table in the back, and no less than five servers fawned over them. When she took a sip of water, someone reached over her shoulder to refill the glass. Every time a course was removed, another person appeared to scrape the crumbs from the table. The manager hovered, introducing himself and informing them that he was at their service, should they need anything, anything at all. It should have been the best dining experience of her life.

“My Chala does not like steak?” Ignacio said, a little too loudly. He lifted a hand and beckoned a server, who immediately rushed to their table.

“No, Ignacio, it’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with—”

The server’s appearance cut her off.

“Take this away. My Chala is not pleased.”

“Stop calling me that,” Sydney said through gritted teeth. The man was worse than Gavin.

Ignacio ignored her protest. “It is not good enough. Nothing is good enough for my Chala.”

The server slid the plate away and stammered apologies.

“Ignacio, it was fine, really. I’m just not very—” She was interrupted again when the manager swooped down upon the table.

“Mr. Arroyo-Lopez, my sincerest apologies. I told the chef that cut was too well done. Should I bring another? What can I do to make this up to you?”

Sydney shook her head. “I really don’t want—”

Ignacio cut her off and nodded. “Bring me another filet, with that crab béarnaise on top.
Rare
, this time.”

The manager apologized again and hurried off to do his bidding. Sydney stared at him. “I don’t like my steak rare.”

Ignacio shrugged. “You said you were fine. I’ll eat it. Why waste this opportunity?”

Ignacio was crossed off her list.

Unbeknownst to Sydney, Gavin’s day wasn’t faring any better. It was, in fact, possibly worse, because on top of a killer hangover, he carried guilt like a thick, oppressive cloak.

He had been the world’s biggest ass to Sydney this morning, despite the fact that she had obviously let him sleep in her bed again the night before, and then she had gotten up and fetched him a tall glass of water and a bottle of pain relievers to combat his headache. And he thanked her by cussing and telling her to leave him alone?

Almost four hundred years of living had turned him into one hell of a jerk.

He wished he could remember the night before. Had something happened to cause Sydney to be so nice to him, or was that simply her personality, and she would have been so nice to anyone? Had he actually managed to seduce her while he was drunk as a skunk?

He didn’t think so, because he still felt like he had a raging case of blue balls. Hangover or no, he imagined if he had sex with Sydney, he would feel pretty damn sated the next morning. Besides, he’d been that drunk before, and usually, he wasn’t even able to perform.

Was it a simple matter of Sydney arriving home from work, seeing that he was in her bed—he was pretty sure he passed out there sometime before ten o ‘clock—and she decided it was easier to crawl in next to him than to try to boot him out? Knowing Sydney, and the fact that five additional shifters were now sleeping in her living room and one guest bedroom, that was exactly what had happened.

Which meant she had been her usual, nice self this morning, and it had nothing to do with him. Still, Gavin felt guilty, and felt like he probably ought to apologize. The problem was, Gavin had never been very good at apologizing, even when he knew something was his fault. And he was enough of a badass and enough of a loner that he rarely had to do it.

He doubted he could get away with not apologizing to Sydney. She was too considerate, too caring, too emotional. Damn, but he had always hated emotional women. Such baggage. He hated having to sort through all the bullshit to get to the prize. It wasn’t worth it, not when there were half a dozen other women who were willing to give up the prize without a fight. He fought real battles each and every night of his life. The last thing he wanted was to fight an emotional battle just to get into a woman’s skirt.

But she was a Chala.
The
Chala.
His
Chala. Which meant, if he wanted to consummate this relationship any time soon, he was going to have to figure out a way to make it up to her.

She managed to ignore him all day long. She had the day off work, but William worked a regular office job, so while he was gone, Sydney spent the day alternating between cleaning her house and entertaining her houseguests. When Gavin finally made his appearance in the kitchen, she pretended he wasn’t there.

Although he noticed she made enough bacon and eggs that there was plenty left over despite the vast number of shifters in the house. He decided to take that as a good sign.

It was over lunch that the bevy of shifters discussed their plans to woo Sydney via individual dates. None of them seemed bothered by the fact that they all had the same goal in mind: to win the Chala’s hand. They all had the same understanding: Gavin was the common enemy. They worked together to exclude him and give everyone else a reasonably fair chance, even the dorky eighteen-year-old Jack. Jack was the one who drew the graph, outlining each date night and each shifter who would go on that particular date. They even reviewed her work schedule with William, so they only planned dates for evenings when she wouldn’t be working late at events.

Gavin thought the whole thing was a stupid gimmick designed to flatter Sydney, and he figured she’d go off on them all and kick them to the curb for being so presumptuous. Instead, she had laughed and agreed that the schedule was quite nice, and she looked forward to each and every date. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but he could have sworn her voice lifted a notch when she made that proclamation, since he had been in the other room at the time. He considered pointing out to her that with his enhanced shifter hearing, she didn’t need to bother. He could hear her breathing three rooms away.

Hell, he could feel her presence, like she was a part of him. It was damned annoying, especially considering she didn’t want anything to do with him. But it was more than that. Gavin was nearly four hundred years old, and for the past two hundred, he’d been virtually a loner. Other than the short time he’d spent with Gloria and Hernandez, he’d lived alone, he’d hunted alone, he’d battled alone. A cursed Rakshasa didn’t fit in with dark
or
Light Ones.

It hadn’t really bothered Gavin. Unlike most of his kind, he always had a strong independent streak anyway. And he was used to it by now. Except now, he had a Chala to worry about. A Chala, who by rights, should be his to hold, to protect, to
care about
.

Was that what this was all about? Was he developing
feelings
for Sydney? That was crazy. Gavin had never loved a single person in his entire life. He had killed nearly every one of his sisters and brothers, and while he felt guilty on principle, he hadn’t felt sad or remorseful. In fact, if he had ever given it any thought at all, he would imagine he didn’t have the capacity to care.

In his mind, the idea of mating with a Chala meant he would have the opportunity to have sex on a regular basis, and the Chala would birth him a few Light Ones and little Chala over the course of the next few decades. She would raise them until they were ready to be weaned, then he would take over the training of the shifters, and she would teach her Chala daughters all they needed to know about their role in life. It was simple, straightforward, and shouldn’t really adversely affect the life he’d created for himself.

There was a problem with that scenario. Sydney did not fit into it. He could not see her being a vessel through which he created new Light Ones and Chala. He could not see her simply allowing him to go about his life as usual, only coming to her when he wanted a piece of ass, or when she was fertile and it was time to create life again. He could not see her raising her children alone, not if she had a mate who, in her mind, should be a part of the process—more than the means by which the children were created.