Hunger Embraced (The Hunger Series) (11 page)

“What?”

“You are driving me to distraction.” His eyes began to glow and he looked away, focusing on the far wall.

I swallowed. “Good to know.” The memory of his mouth on my throat and his blood-coated tongue caused my pussy to clench.

T.T.B. surged over me. His plate clacked against mine, and he captured my face with both hands. He kissed me in a swell of possessive, anxious energy, grinding his teeth into my lips and shoving his hand under my shirt.

When he broke away, we both panted. He rested his forehead against mine and met my eyes. “If you were mine, I would never use you the way Adrian did.”

“I know.” I tucked his hand against my cheek and closed my eyes. Time to get back on track before things devolved into a sex extravaganza. He had information I needed.

“It cannot happen again.” He took a steadying breath and licked my mouth. “Sex.”

“Why?” A whine entered my voice, and I swallowed. “Why not? Adrian?”

“No. There are…restrictions. Laws I must follow.” His fingers delved behind my ears and coaxed me in for a long sweet kiss, only retreating when I clutched at his back and plastered my body to his. “No, Miri. We cannot.”

He used his superior strength to hold me at bay when I strained to reach him.

I sucked in a deep breath to slow my heart. “It’s not fair, kissing a girl that way then telling her no more sex.” He swallowed and opened his mouth to speak, but I poked his chest to distract him. Nothing he said in that moment would be something I wanted to hear. “So, answer my questions. You tried to distract me with making out, but I asked you a question. What’s the deal with your apartment-condo thingie here and why do you have to announce yourself?”

He stole another kiss and settled back down as though nothing had happened.

“Phillipe and I are old acquaintances. Your father granted me permission to hold a residence in his kingdom many years ago. Even so, I have to announce myself because it is the proper protocol when intending on staying in a differing kingdom than the one you belong to for a time. If I were merely passing through in my travels, it would be the polite thing to do but not required. Kingdoms are won and held by power and control. It would be politically damaging for him to appear weak if I were here without letting him knowing my intentions and agreeing to some rules of conduct while I am in the area.”

I finished my breakfast while he spoke and let the information rattle around my head. If what he said was true, that meant Adrian didn’t have my father’s consent to be in the area. Although there was that contract he mentioned… Maybe I could get lucky and Adrian was an interloper. I hoped so, because that may afford me some help from the coven. Otherwise, I ran the risk of being shanghaied.

I hopped off the bed and wandered around looking for the cutoffs Daniel had peeled off me the night before. He watched me traverse the room, answering my questions about the courts and how they were structured. It was basically a monarchy ruled by the most powerful vamp in residence. Lower ranking vamps rarely challenged the ruler or their inner circle; they’d be hamburger in seconds.

Each monarchy was its own little island with its own laws. The only hard and fast rule was when you were traveling: you either stopped in and asked for permission to stick around—which could be tricky because the monarch may decide to collect you—or you left a tribute gift and hurried on through. Even ambassadors weren’t completely safe.

My anxiety built with each new snippet of information. My father and mother hadn’t answered my calls, and it made me think perhaps Phillipe had been overthrown. If someone else was in charge of the coven T.T.B. insisted I belonged to, I could be in really deep shit. Daniel had been here for a few days and hadn’t been accosted. That added to my suspicions that he was considered pretty powerful among other vampires or had huge balls. He didn’t seem crazy.

I was really only concerned with keeping myself from being kept like a circus freak and being able to kill vampires if I had to. I’d taken a basic self-defense course a few years ago, but I wasn’t stupid. The best way to stay out of trouble was to stay far away from it. Vampires are really, really strong. Particularly when they’ve been well fed. I didn’t stand a chance against one with nothing but a knee to the groin and strike to the face. They’d stand there and laugh if I even managed to land a blow.

I finally found the cutoffs folded up with my bra sitting on top of them on an armchair in the corner. I whipped the T-shirt off to put on my bra but paused when I saw Daniel watching, enjoying the way his gaze roved over my body.

Unfortunately, I had to get him to focus. “T.T.B., what do you know about fighting?”

He shook his head, and his eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. Being only human strong, I needed an advantage in combat.

His hand obscured his tattoo when he scrubbed his palm over his chest. “I can handle a sword, although they’ve fallen out of favor since the invention of guns. And I’m decent at hand to hand. There are other weapons of course, knives and such. But the older vampires are so fast it is difficult to hit them with a throwing weapon, and it just doesn’t seem sporting to use them against the younger ones.”

I slid my bra straps over my arms and stretched to fasten the clasp in the back. “Sporting? You think fighting—maybe getting killed—is sporting? What? Have you been alive so long things have just gotten damned boring?” The underwire dug into the bottom of my boobs so I reached into the cup and adjusted the girls. Ah. So much better.

When I gave him my attention again he leveled a look at me. I flinched. Perhaps he had. I cleared my throat and turned the conversation back to safer topics that wouldn’t leave him depressed and me wondering why I had to put my foot in my mouth so often. Daniel rolled off the bed and crossed the room to his dresser.

“I’m sorry. I think sometimes I’ve forgotten how to have a normal conversation.” Crap, I sucked at apologizing.

He shrugged in response. “Don’t worry about it.”

I liked the way his ass flexed as he walked and the play of shadow and light on his back as he rooted in the drawers, removing clothing. Each muscle stood out, defined and sculpted from his shoulders to his trim waist. Damn, I wanted more of that. “Look, I need training. If I’m this Chosen…person there may be more people out there who want a piece of me. I don’t like the idea of being held captive as some sort of breeding slave. Having horny vamps track me down all the time is bad enough.”

He glanced at me. “That may cease now that your king has found you. If you feed and are in his presence that should help you control your power—”

“Please, please Daniel. Don’t refer to him as my king. Just don’t mention him if you don’t have to. I have a feeling the ‘contract’ he mentioned is bad enough news for me as it is.” I’m not sure what the look on my face told him, but he nodded. I secured the waistband of the cutoffs. “Just tell me you’ll give me some self-defense training once we figure out the sitch with my father and his coven.”

“Yes.”

“All right then, back to our little interrogation.”

The quip earned me a smile. We headed to the kitchen with the dirty dishes, and I stifled a laugh at his expression when he saw the mess I’d made cooking breakfast.

There wasn’t much he could tell me that was different from what I already knew. I didn’t know if it was because he wanted to withhold information or for some reason he wasn’t allowed to tell me. Most vamps still fell into one of the four broad categories of Eaters, Feelers, Fuckers, and Suckers. E.F.F.S. was my snappy little acronym for that.

Finding out the Flesh Eaters could assume the appearance of humans and other vampires they’d fed on gave me the heebs. I hadn’t known that all vampires could feed on blood in an emergency. Guess that’s why my father had fangs. They weren’t just decorations after all.

After our chat, I was more unsettled than ever about my father’s court. Any vampires in the area could have taken over his coven for a myriad of reasons. They didn’t generally feed on others of their own kind because for some reason it just wasn’t a good meal. But given the chance, many of them would happily cannibalize someone from a different coven.

While he finished cleaning up the kitchen, I prepared to leave. He met me by the door, wearing nothing but those damn baggy, impossibly sexy, basketball shorts. I studied the gorgeous line where his groin and thigh muscle met—the trough of skin begged to be licked. Coated with something delicious and edible and then licked some more. He put both arms above his head, locking his hands together, and stretched onto his tiptoes.

The fucker knew I couldn’t resist the show. I grasped the hem of my shirt, gathered all the extra cloth up until my breasts were exposed, and swiped at the corners of each eye. “Damn, my allergies are still going strong this year.” When I lowered the cloth and caught the look on his face, I coughed to cover my laugh.

“Touché, Ms. Thibodeaux.”

“Thank you, thank you very much.”

He tilted my face back. “Promise me you’ll wait to hear from me before you call the coven again.”

I crossed my toes and put one hand behind my back and crossed my fingers too. “Sure, no problem.” My eyes couldn’t get any wider. I tried to look guileless and innocent.

He moved closer. “Why don’t I believe you?”

Uh-oh, he was getting serious about using my attraction to him to manipulate me. The man was damned smart. I scooted back out of range and opened the door, then crossed the threshold to stand in the hall.

“I really don’t know.” It took every ounce of willpower to maintain my nonchalant body language and continue to meet his stare.

“Stay. You’ll be safe here.” He crowded me, dropped his hands to my hips, and nestled his groin against my abdomen. I tried and failed to ignore the line of heat from his erection.

“Can’t. I have to go home.” The smell of the ocean teased my senses, tried to lull me into complacency. “Stop that. It’s really not fair to use your magic on me that way.” I took my foot out of the slipper I’d found in his closet and caressed the back of his calf with my toes.

“I can get whatever you need.” The small circles he traced on my lower back encouraged me to melt against his torso, bury my nose against his chest, and suck his scent into my lungs in a greedy gasp. Liquid heat gathered in my belly, and he took my earlobe between his lips and licked it. “Stay here. With me.”

“And do what? Stare at you all day until you leave, doing my best not to jump you? Then I can stare at the walls while you’re gone and worry myself sick.” I turned my head and broke his suction on my ear. “I have laundry and cleaning and stuff—”

“We both know you don’t clean.” The heat of his palm warmed my rib cage as he snaked his hand up under the borrowed T-shirt and cupped my breast. He thumbed my nipple through the satin bra and clutched me tighter, picking me up off the ground with one hand on my ass. I twined my legs around his hips and undulated against him once, drawing a groan from us both.

“Yes I do. Sometimes.” He snorted, and I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be a smart ass. That’s my territory.” He chuckled and popped my breast free of the confines of my bra’s cup. Now he could palm it fully. I arched my back to give him better access. I gave into temptation and kissed the bottom of his jaw, worked my way over to his mouth, and insinuated my tongue through the seam of his lips. I broke the kiss when my heart thudded so loud in my ears I couldn’t hear any more and the sound of the sea became a dull roar.

“Oh, you stupid girl. Stay with him. He is a feast, he is ours.”

I flinched. The voice was back. “Put me down, Daniel.” My breath puffed against his neck.

“No.” He backed up a step until we were fully inside his condo.

“Yes.” I squirmed, straightened my legs, and set my hands on his collarbone, pushing away. “This can only go one way, and you told me this morning we can’t go there again. Put me down before we both end up hurt.”

He took his hand out from under my shirt and let me slide down his body. The friction as my breasts and thighs brushed against him was so hot and bittersweet. I didn’t move at first, trying to catch my breath.

I turned my back and fixed my bra, the sweet prickles from his touch fading. “Call me when you know something.” We stood in a kind of limbo for a few minutes, both fighting the urge to fuck right there on the floor, but I had to face reality.

Daniel’s motivations and allegiances were still largely unknown to me. He was exceptionally powerful, mysterious, and sporting a tattoo with a life of its own. Great sex and sweet personality aside, I wasn’t sure I could trust him. With my body, sure. But with my heart and soul? The jury was still out.

Chapter Seven

I cruised the crammed aisles grabbing candles, salts, crystals, herbs… My nanny Stella had been human, but she’d also been Wiccan and had taught me a thing or two about spells. Particularly protection spells. I didn’t know for sure if there was a deity out there that gave a shit about me and my little problems, but I did know the energy you put out into the universe came back to you. So if thinking really hard and willing something to happen could help it along, why not?

Lane came into view from the curtained area in the back of the store and smiled at me. “Miranda, welcome. I’ve never seen your aura looking so great. It’s much clearer and brighter than normal.”

“Really? ’Cause the last few days have been anything but.”

Lane pushed a stray hair behind her ear and pulled items from my basket. Her gypsy skirt swayed as she bustled around bagging and wrapping things.

“New love in your life?” Her eyes sparked with energy.

“I think you might be slipping.”

T.T.B. and I were not in love. We weren’t.

I wondered how many psychic gifts she had. Being Wiccan didn’t equate to also being gifted, but Lane made it obvious she came equipped with extra-specials. It’d be nice to know if she could tell me anything about all the colors I saw hovering around people. “Lane, what can you tell me about auras?” She smiled and kept packing things into a brown paper bag. “What do they look like?”