Regret (Lady of Toryn Trilogy) (10 page)

“Let me help you,” she said,
trying to keep his attention. “I have the
resist
stane. Don’t you want to put it back on?” Again, she felt profoundly
ridiculous talking to Drake like this, as though he were a petulant child in
need of coaxing.

He ignored her words and lunged
forward again, fangs bared. She swiped the knife at him, but he grabbed her
wrist, then her other wrist when she attempted to punch him. His strength was
unnerving, and Ashlyn winced at both the vice-like grip and the heat of his
skin against hers. His hands felt like they were on fire.

Drake snarled again and tried to
bite her, but she dodged awkwardly and kicked at his knee with one leg. He
danced out of the way so that her blow just glanced off his calf, and tried to
bite her again. This time Ashlyn dropped to her knees and fell backwards,
repeating the same move she’d done earlier when she used her feet to fling him
over her head. He held onto her wrists though, and she squealed as he dragged
her with him. Rolling over onto her stomach, Ashlyn scrambled to her feet,
Drake just inches away and still clutching her wrists.

Furious now, Ashlyn kicked at his
knee a second time and jerked her arms up, loosening his grip but not quite
breaking it. She landed a solid boot to his stomach and managed to twist her
wrist, gashing his forearm with the knife. Drake roared and yanked his hands
back.
Finally!
Ashlyn whirled,
hitting him in the side of the face first with her fist and then the hilt of
the knife, knocking him to his knees. It might have been a lethal blow if she’d
used the blade, but she wasn’t about to kill Drake Lockhart without at least
trying to use
resist
to save him.

She moved to kick him, hoping to
knock him out, but he grabbed her leg and threw her down. Ashlyn fell flat on
her back, the wind knocked out of her, and suddenly Drake was on top of her,
grabbing her wrists and pinning them down beside her head. The hand with the
knife slid across the grass as he tried to force the weapon out of her hand,
but she held tight.

Their eyes met, and for a moment
Ashlyn thought she saw a glimmer of recognition, a hint of the man she knew.

Then he snarled and buried his
face in her neck, and she knew he was going to bite her.

As she felt his fangs sink in,
the air was instantly sucked from her lungs, her breath rushing out in one
pitiful, mewing scream-

“Drake!”
                   

And then, just as suddenly as it
had begun, it stopped.

Drake froze against her, the
painful pressure of his teeth stilling. His hands, clenched over her wrists,
trembled, pushing her hands deeper into the thick grass as he visibly fought
for control.

After a long moment, she felt his
fangs recede completely, a trickle of blood tickling her neck as he pulled
away.

He drew in a shuddering breath.
Exhaled. His fingers pried themselves free of her wrists, seeking hold in the
grass, digging into the earth in agony at the forced restraint.

“Ashlyn.”
His voice was guttural, hoarse
with desperation.

She squirmed underneath him,
flinching when he growled at the increased physical contact. Her gloved fingers
found the smooth stone and clenched around it. “I’ve got it,” she rasped,
surprised her voice was working at all, and yanked the
resist
stane out of her pocket to press it, palm up, against his
chest.

The change was immediate. He
gasped, one hand coming up to cover hers. His breath caught, his head thrown
back as his weight let up, and she could breathe again. His irises were glowing
in the moonlight, the brightest red she’d ever seen, the color of fresh blood,
and Ashlyn lay there, fascinated as the shifting colors warred with each other
inside his eyes- dark crimsons and brilliant scarlets, rolling, twisting and
fading into one another as the vampire slowly began to regain control.

He braced one arm against the
ground beside her head and dropped his forehead to the grass above her
shoulder- not quite putting his entire weight back on her, but not giving her
any room to move, either. His breathing became deep and even, the intense heat
fading from his skin.

They stayed that way for what
might have been mere moments, or maybe an eternity. Ashlyn lay still, entranced
as ever by the lack of heartbeat beneath her fingers, but feeling as though
she’d crossed a threshold with Drake- something they couldn’t come back from.
She’d seen him lose control before, but never to this point. He’d never lost
resist
before.

He’d seen her at her most
vulnerable, saved her when she was in danger of falling to pieces. Stupidly, in
addition to her relief and receding fear, Ashlyn felt…vindicated, somehow.
She’d been able to return the favor.

His fingers moved against her
hand. She could feel the coolness of his skin through her gloves.

She pulled her hand from under
his, leaving the stane against his chest, and pressed her fingers to her neck.

“I’ll probably bleed to death,”
she said faintly, trying to keep her tone light. “Thanks a lot.”

His sharp exhalation was more
like a bark than a laugh. There was no humor in the sound.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She nodded.

He shifted his weight onto one
arm, the other hand coming up to cradle her face. The
resist
stane pressed against her skin, warming between his palm and
her cheek. Ashlyn swallowed and met his eyes, her nervousness subsiding as the
calming effects of the magic enveloped her.

She could hardly breathe as she
stared into his face, Drake’s face, the face of the man who both captivated and
frightened her. The perfect, angular planes of his features were shadowed in
the moonlight.

“I’m sorry,” he said again,
fingers trailing along her cheek. “Ashlyn-“ His voice broke, and he shook his
head as he looked down at her. There was affection in his gaze, and that same
deep, simmering
something
that
constantly lurked at the corners of his eyes like a shadow. Suddenly Ashlyn was
wary.

“Don’t- don’t do this,” she said
unevenly.

His hand stilled against her
temple. “Do what?”

His cluelessness was infuriating.
“
This,
” she hissed, trying to wriggle
out from underneath him and gaining courage with every passing second. “This-
this leading me on. It’s getting old. I’m tired of your words and…and the way
you look at me and I’m- I’m tired of getting my heart stomped by you!”

He wouldn’t budge, his weight
pinning her down, and she used one hand to push at his chest with all her
might, the other arm still awkwardly pinned above her and clenching the knife.
“Who are you kidding, Drake? You
bit
me,
I’m pretty sure that’s a clear indication of your real feelings! You’re not
doing this to me anymore! Get
off!”

“Ashlyn-
wait
.” He caught her wrist, interlacing their fingers, pushing her
hand down into the grass again. “I didn’t-“

“I don’t want to hear another one
of your stupid speeches!” she yelled in his face, and brandished the knife
menacingly- or as menacingly as she could manage, with its awkward angle off to
the side and without the required range of motion to use it. “I put up with so
much from you- your stupid
resist
magic
and your brooding and your angst! You ignore me for years before screwing with
my mind, all your crap about rainbows and passion and destiny and then you turn
and
walk away
like I’m just some
stupid little kid- like I’m a diversion for when you get bored- only I’m
real
and you’re
not,
and I can’t keep pretending that it doesn’t
hurt
. So you know
what,
bloodsucker? You can-”

Her next word was smothered as his
mouth came down on hers, hard.

Ashlyn squeaked in surprise,
tried to turn her head to the side, but he dragged their linked hands above her
head, and braced his other hand next to her temple, so that her face was
trapped and she couldn’t move.

What was he
doing?
Determined not to let him break down her defenses, Ashlyn
dropped the knife and struggled to get her other arm free, to push him away. A
few heartbeats later, he finally released her, his hands moving to frame her
face.

Her blood was roaring in her
ears, singing a faint melody that was somehow familiar and welcoming, and even
though Ashlyn
meant
to push him off,
she
meant
to draw her fist back and
punch the hell out of him- somehow she found herself pulling him closer instead,
her fingers sliding into his hair as his mouth moved against hers. The
combination of his lips and hands and the warming effect of the
resist
stane were intoxicating.

His teeth scraped against her
lower lip, and she paused, tasting her own blood on his tongue.

He hesitated at her sharp intake
of breath, and pulled back, ruby gaze taking in her shallow breathing, the
blood smeared across her mouth. Ashlyn returned the stare unabashedly. She
didn’t often have a chance to look Drake in the eye without feeling embarrassed
about it.

After a long moment, he sighed
and eased himself off her, sitting back on the grass and rubbing a hand across
his eyes exhaustedly.

At length, Ashlyn sat up, aching
all over from the numerous brutal battles she’d fought today. It felt…surreal.
He’d gone from rage and bloodlust to…well…lust of another kind, all too quickly
for her to keep up with.

Drake tied the cord at the back
of his neck to hold the
resist
stane
in place. “Let me see,” he said, leaning closer. When Ashlyn tilted her head to
the side, he swept her hair back behind her shoulder, his breath hissing
between his teeth as he surveyed the puncture wounds on her neck. His fingers
warmed against her neck, a green glow lighting his face briefly as he healed
her.

Ashlyn shifted, staring at the
moonlit blades of grass, and wondering if the entire world had changed in the
last few moments, or if she was simply seeing it more clearly now.

There was something to be said
for a kiss from the man you’d pined over for three years. It certainly wasn’t
anything close to what her muddled brain had been able to imagine, and hugely
different from the limited experience she’d had previously.

Vargo’s kisses had teased her-
tempted her with the allure of the unknown, the beauty of possibilities.

Kissing Drake was…different. Like
watching the sunrise after a lifetime of darkness, or tasting a delicacy that
was the only one of its kind. Each sensation was heightened, the breath in her
lungs tasting of sweet dew and the fresh hint of rain, the sounds of the night
like a symphony to her senses.

When her eyes flicked to Drake,
she was surprised to see that he was staring right at her, his expression
bleak.

“Thanks,” she said lamely,
feeling a little foolish.

He shook his head, fingers still
against her neck. He looked completely at a loss as to how to respond, but when
his gaze returned to hers, there was a resolve in his eyes.

He was going to apologize. He was
going to pull a typical Drake, backtrack and run away- and Ashlyn realized
suddenly how dangerous this was, being caught under the spell of a vampire when
he displayed such an obvious aversion to her affection.

“Don’t worry about it,” she
blurted out, and pulled away before he could say anything. His hand fell from
her neck.

“Ashlyn,” he said gently.
“Don’t.”

“Don’t…what?” She smiled humorlessly
as she repeated his own words back to him, and took a slow, deep breath. “The
last time I tried to talk to you about…us…you said I was asking you to be
something you couldn’t. Stop confusing me. I’m not asking you to be anything
but who you are, Drake. This-” she motioned awkwardly to her blood-streaked
neck- “this is who you are.”

Drake shook his head. “This is
what
I am. It has nothing to do with
who
I am. And that night…” He hesitated,
clearly conflicted. “Ashlyn, that night…”

“You don’t have to explain to
me,” she said. It was not an experience she particularly wanted to relive
anyway. She raised her hands, tucking her hair behind her ears and averting her
gaze.

“Stop.” Unexpectedly, he grabbed
her wrists.

Rather than flinching, she glared
up at him. “What’s going to happen now?” she said angrily. “I’m really
confused. Are you going to pretend I don’t exist every time Trace comes around?
Walk away the next time I try to tell you what I’m feeling? Thanks, but no
thanks.
 
I’ve had enough heartbreak for
one lifetime.”

He lowered his hands but didn’t
release her wrists, frowning. “What does Trace have to do with anything?”

“You tell me. What is she to
you?”

“She’s…” He paused, eyes
searching hers. “Ashlyn, why are you asking me?”

“Why did you kiss me?” she shot
back. “Why the hell do you keep confusing me like this?”

“Why do you keep coming back to
me?” he snarled. He stood abruptly, and turned away, the quaking of his body
like a drum in Ashlyn’s ears under her heightened senses. She watched his hands
trembling at his sides, a lump in her throat.