Beast of Fire -- a Demon Hunting Sexy Romance (23 page)

Instead, he’d left her to guilt and worry. Left her alone. He knew some of the pieces of her life, and he could fill in the blanks on the rest. Her parents had left her the first chance they had, treating her as if she herself was a disease because of her fire. Until recently, she couldn’t control her fire. There had been no friends, no intimacy. Her fire had made that impossible; it had scared people. It had scared her. She blamed her fire for everything. And since her fire was an intricate part of who she was, that had translated into blaming herself for everything that went wrong.
 

Resolve formed in Lucan. She believed her fire was evil, because it attracted evil. She didn’t understand that the evil lusted after what it could not have – it sought to destroy all that was good. Evil would always come for her.
 
But she had him and he would fight for her, he would protect her. He would not let her down. Because in Kresley, he’d found the little piece of heaven he needed to crawl out of hell – and he was taking her with him.
 

Tara walked into her apartment and tossed the keys on the table, still reeling from her encounter with Cullen Moore. Why, oh why, did she have to find the Wolf attractive? She kicked off her shoes. Okay, more than attractive. She could inhale that man and not get enough of him. That iron will and effortless power he conveyed were downright sexy. Not to mention his body. That was a body to make a girl beg to lick him all over.
 

But as much as she liked those broad shoulders, and nice, tight backside – the one that, yes, she had snuck several peeks at – what really got to her, was the way she felt when she looked into his deep, smoky eyes. The way he moved her on some invisible, personal level. A knot formed in her throat. Moved by the man she was destined to betray. How messed up was that? Besides, fantasizing over Cullen was a distraction, a way to hide from what was really on her mind.

She walked to the living room area and stood in the center of her tiny little apartment, her emotions twisted in knots. Bookshelves – the kind you bought at Wal-Mart, not Lord and Taylor, where she suspected Cullen Moore bought his – lined the walls, filled with knickknacks and her favorite paranormal romances. The scent of lavender and vanilla incense laced the air from a spell she’d practiced the night before. Big, fluffy red chairs sat in the center of a room too small for a couch as well. She liked color, and for this reason the abstract picture on the wall blazed with orange, yellow, and blue. She’d painted it herself. This was her sanctuary, her peace. Tonight it gave her none.
 

A sound pulled her attention to the sliding glass door a moment before it opened. It was locked, and she lived on the fifteenth floor. She didn’t move. Running would do no good. She knew who her visitor was.
 

As expected, Adrian appeared in the opening and shut the door, his Adonis-like body hugged by tight, red leather, his long, blond hair hanging around stellar broad shoulders. He was too perfect, too handsome. Too able to make
 
red leather sexy when it should be cheesy. I mean, who wore red leather? But yet, Adrian did so in a devastatingly hot way. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was all a façade, if he really had worms crawling out of a skeleton face and simply cast some spell to look gorgeous.
 

She sat in one of her red chairs, nonchalant. He wouldn’t sense her fear if she didn’t show it. That was another of her nifty little gifts. She could hide her emotions. No one could read her. Not Cullen Moore. Not even Adrian, which was quite an amazing feat, considering how powerful a Demon he was. But it did nothing to protect her – not from him.

“I’m surprised you bothered with the door,” she commented dryly, despising the way he slipped into a room with the snap of his fingers.
 

A shadow passed behind the curtains, a low snarl. A Hell Hound. “I didn’t want my pet to eat you.”

She managed to keep a straight face, because, yeah, getting eaten would really suck. She'd seen one of the snaggledtoothed monsters once and that was enough. She barely suppressed a shiver as she posed as witty a question as possible, keeping up the guise of cool and collected. “That would interfere in your plans, now, wouldn’t it?”

He walked over to the chair opposite her and sat down, making himself right at home. That intimidated her more than if he had stood there, billowing over her. It said he owned her home, he owned her.
 

“How are my plans coming?” he queried.
 

“I’m earning Cullen Moore’s trust, if that is what you mean.”

His lips twisted upward. Evil. “Excellent. And what of the council? How is the Fae’s grand effort at bringing a bunch of worthless Demons together against me?”

She swallowed hard, really, really hating this next part. “Cullen was a bit more receptive to the idea of the Knights of White’s involvement in the council than expected. Prince Risen is arranging an immediate meeting between Cullen and the Knight. I believe the name was Jag…?”

Adrian didn’t move, didn’t flinch. She might have thought him unaffected if not for the sudden shattering of a vase to her left. She didn’t have to look. She knew which vase it was. “That was my mother's,” she murmured.
   

“That meeting is not to take place,” Adrian spouted, orbing to a standing position behind the chair he had occupied moments before. “You will ensure Cullen Moore does not trust the Knights. Tell him that ‘the Hunter’ is a Knight of White.”

She shot to the edge of the chair, the blood draining from her face.
 
“If the Fae discovers that I told Cullen of the Hunter, he will kill me.” Prince Risen had been explicit in his demand that the Hunter’s identity be guarded for the very reasons Adrian wanted Cullen to know. The Prince did not want Cullen distrusting the Knights.
 

His eyes flashed red. “Then I suggest you take care that he does not discover you were the source of Cullen’s discovery.”

That wouldn’t work. “I am the only other person who knows his identity. I am telling you, Adrian, he will kill me.”

“Better you than your brother,” he said with menacing promise.
 

She sunk back in the chair, the wind knocked from her chest with just those few words. Adrian had taken Caleb the week before. Caleb. Only thirteen and, no doubt, terrified. “How is he?”

Another vase broke and she squeezed her eyes shut. Her mother’s again. He really knew how to hit at the heart. Her mother had been dead only a year. Her brother might well be.
 

“I do not have time for this,” Adrian barked at her. Her lashes snapped open as he pointed to her. He could do dangerous things with a point of a finger, destroy more than vases. She grabbed the arms of the chair as his rant continued, “You will force a confrontation between Cullen and the Knight Lucan immediately. And make sure you are there. The minute Cullen attacks Lucan, the firestarter will take the ring. If anything goes wrong, I expect you to find a way to get your hands on the ring yourself.”

She really had no idea how he expected her to go up against a firestarter, or a ring that would kill her on contact, but she wasn’t about to say that. She forced air into her lungs, forced herself to be braver than she felt. “Not unless I know that Caleb is safe. I don’t want him turned into one of your Beasts. That’s not the deal. Give him back to me. You can always take him again. We both know you can.”

He flashed out of the room, flames flickering in his wake. A second later he was kneeling in front of her, between her legs, his hands on her waist.
 
No emotional shield could hide her fear as she began to shake.
 

"Scared little Tara?” he asked, leaning closer and inhaling. “I don’t smell fear. Perhaps I could taste it in your kiss?”
 

His seduction powers were legendary. His touch, though it should revolt anyone who knew what he was, drew women into a magical spell. She could feel his magic seeping through her limbs, heating her. Please no. Do not let this happen.
 

She imagined his face as nothing but a hollow, filled with snakes, and instantly recoiled, jerking her head backwards. “I want my brother back.”

He laughed. “You are impressive, Tara. Few are strong enough to resist my touch.” His hand slid to her hair, and she gasped from the pain as he yanked her mouth close to his, his breath hot on her lips. “But really, you are not so immune to me, and we both know it.” His lips barely brushed hers. “I would convert you and make you mine, if the wolf would not smell me on you.”
 

He released her hair, his hands coming down on her thighs with an iron bite that had her grinding her teeth to keep from screaming. “I cannot convert your brother. He is a child; his soul is worthless to me. But if I think for one minute that you have defied me, Tara, I will throw him to my Hounds.” A snarl sounded from outside the window. “Do not test me, little witch. Your magic is dirt beneath my shoes.”

His red eyes held hers for two poisonous seconds, her insides twisting with the contact. And then, with a flash of fire, he was gone. Tara pulled her legs to her chest, pain radiating up and down their length. Tears pierced her eyes. If there were Hell on earth, she’d found it.

Chapter Seventeen

Kresley jerked awake at the feeling of the embedded sensor in her arm vibrating with warning – a warning system her doctor had invented to prevent her from missing a shot. She sat straight up, and Lucan followed her to a sitting position.
 

“What is it?” he asked urgently.

She looked wildly around the room, trying to get her bearings. Hotel. Lucan. New York. The room was dark, the curtains tinged with enough orange to hint that the sun was rising.
 

“Light,” she said. “I need the light.”

Quick to comply, Lucan leaned to the nightstand and flipped the switch. The instant the light flooded the room, Kresley studied her inner arm. Blue. The dot that had appeared was blue. She’d slept through the twelve-hour warning. How had she slept through such an important thing? She had eight hours left. Right. Eight hours. She was okay.
 

“Kresley, sweetheart,” Lucan said urgently. “You’re scaring me here. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, her body slowly relaxing. “False alarm. I thought I'd missed my shot.” She showed him her arm. “I have a sensor in my arm that tells me when it’s almost time to take my shot. I thought I'd slept through the early warning. Actually, I did sleep through the first warning, which is a miracle considering what a light sleeper I am.” She dropped back down onto the pillow, her heart still racing from the scare.
 

“Because you used to set fires in your sleep,” he said, propping his weight up on his elbow as he lay down beside her. “I remember that from working with your doctor last year.”

She made a frustrated sound.
 
“Not just in my sleep. I set fires every time I so much as sneezed,” she said, running her hand over the light stubble on his jaw. It was sexy. Masculine. She couldn’t believe how comfortable she was lying there naked with him. “But the emotions set off by dreams – they were worse, because I had no way of reining them in.”

He grabbed her arm and looked at the blue dot. “The sensor changes color based on how long you have left between shots?”

“Yes,” she said. “Green is twelve hours. Blue, eight. Red, four. And Laura is working on a ring I can wear that will have an injection needle and serum built in. That way I am always prepared if I lose my injections. She’s always trying to find ways to give me that freedom I’ve never had.” She narrowed her eyes on him, curious about his medical background. “I know you are a scientist and a doctor, but were you always? Before becoming a Knight?”

There was a pause, as if her question had taken him aback. “Yes,” he said. “In Boston. It was different then, though. We had a lot fewer resources, yet we got by remarkably well. But we could never have fixed a flawed genetic marker like yours. That’s the miracle of modern medicine.”
 

“That you understand now. How is that?”

He shrugged. “Med school, self study, life. I’ve worked with some of the most brilliant minds in medicine. Your doctor being one of them.”
 

She opened her mouth to ask something more, but he pulled her closer, one of his muscular legs sliding between hers a moment before he tucked her beneath his big, warm body, his elbows resting on either side of her head. And that was when she saw the furrow of his brow, the worry in his eyes. “What?”
 

 
“Where exactly are you keeping your injections, Kresley?”

 
“My bag,” she said. “I brought enough to last a year. Laura made sure of it.”
 

***

In her bag. In the apartment. Lucan thought his heart might just explode from his chest with that announcement. She was going to panic. How could she not? She’d spent a lifetime dealing with the fear her fire would hurt someone, finally gaining control. And here he was, trying to convince her that fire, the very thing that had made her life hell on earth, was a gift, and he’d forgotten her shots.

What kind of doctor was he? He wasn’t one.
 
He’d become nothing but an assassin. He knew nothing but killing for the Guardians. With that self-depreciating thought, he buried his head in her shoulder. Damn it, how had he let this happen?