When Passion Lies: A Shadow Keepers Novel (28 page)

Duggin’s flesh sizzled and burned, and his anguished cry was like something out of hell.

Caris kept her hand pressed against him, unfazed by his cries. “Where?” she demanded. “Where is Lihter’s headquarters?”

“In a mountain,” he said. “That’s all I know. I swear.”

With her good hand, she grabbed his neck. Her bloody hand she moved to his crotch.

“No!” he cried out. “I don’t know where. I swear! He
only told folks at the highest level. That’s not me. For fuck’s sake, that’s not me.”

“Where did you deliver the girl?”

“To the airport! I packed her in a crate and put her on a cargo flight. I just did what I was told to do. I swear. I swear!”

She released Duggin and took a step back. “See how easy it is to be cooperative?”

Duggin was actually nodding when Caris moved in for the kill, slipping a kitchen knife right into his heart, and then using that same blade to slice off his head.

That was all Tiberius saw before the coldness of death took him. Darkness, nothingness.

And then …

Caris’s face above his, the stake that had been in his heart now in her hand.

“It’s a damn good thing you’re so old.” She smiled. With more than two millennia behind him, Tiberius had physically changed. Unlike younger vamps, merely piercing his heart wouldn’t kill him. Or, technically, it did kill him. The death, however, didn’t last, and the deeper the thrust of the stake, the more complete the death and the longer it took to recover.

An elder vampire only truly died from a staking—only turned to dust—when the organ was fully penetrated, complete with an exit wound.

Duggin hadn’t managed that.

Tiberius glanced at her hand. “Will it be okay?”

Without a word, she turned from him, then dug through the drawers in the kitchen until she found one filled with pot holders and towels. She folded a pot holder and pressed it over the wound, then twisted a
towel around it like a bandage. Neither said a word as he stepped over to help her tie it into place.

For a moment, the material fizzled and bubbled, the polyester threads reacting to the acid in her blood. Then the reaction slowed as her body healed itself and the blood ceased to flow. She turned away from him, deliberately not meeting his eyes, and he wanted to lash out. To tear the goddamned countertop off. To pummel the weren who lay dead on the floor.

Most of all, he wanted to kill Cyrus Reinholt.

But Caris had already done that on her own.

Caris
.

She’d already left the kitchen, and the image of her face—tortured, embarrassed, ashamed—seemed burned in his brain.

This wasn’t the first time—she’d been like this for almost twenty years, so how many times had she been cut? How many times had she been forced to hide a wound?

He wanted to hold her and soothe her. Wanted to tell her it would be all right. That no matter what, she was still Caris at the core.

But he realized with profound sadness that someone else had already told her all those things. Gunnolf.

And if that pained him, he had no one to blame but himself.

Caris was standing in front of the living room window when he found her. She kept her back to him, but she could see his reflection in the glass, and beyond that the pale gray that signaled the coming sunrise.

“Quite the fight,” he said.

“It’s what I’ve been doing for years. Fieldwork. Wet work.” She met his eyes in the reflection. “And I’m good at it.”

“You are,” he said, his words surprising her. “You are. I was wrong to keep you from it.”

“I—” She cut herself off, not sure what to say.

“You’re a fighter, Caris. You always have been. It’s one of the things I loved most about you, one of the things that attracted me to you. The way you refused to accept your father’s failure to send troops after your brother. The way you were taking on those men in the tavern when I found you. For years you fought by my side, and I didn’t want you anywhere else.”

“And then you made me stop.”

“I did. I was so terrified of losing you that I allowed myself to not see all of you. And then I lost you anyway.” He paused. “I’m truly sorry.”

She turned to face him. “Thank you for that.”

“We should go.”

She nodded at the window, and the streaks of pink that were now coloring the gray. “I don’t think we can.”

“This place could definitely use window treatments. Curtains, perhaps.”

“Oh, please. Shutters. Or electrical blinds.”

“Expensive proposition for all those windows. But we can afford it,” he said.

“True.” She headed out of the room. They couldn’t leave now, but they did need to find a place that wouldn’t be invaded by sunlight. She was halfway up the stairs when he tugged her to a halt. She turned to look back at him, and saw the amusement in his eyes.

“Like old times,” he said.

“Except we never looked at inland property in the hills. Only on the beach.”

“You like the water.”

“I do,” she said. “Do you remember—” She cut herself off with a shake of the head. Better not to go there.

“The house outside of Nice?”

“Yeah,” she said. Apparently he was willing to go there. “The pool.” They’d swum naked in the pool, not realizing that when the real estate agent had said she was leaving, she’d only meant for ten or so minutes.

“First time in a long time that I’d had the urge to kill a human.”

“You convinced her to leave, though. You were most polite.”

“I scared the poor woman to death,” Tiberius said. “But we had the place to ourselves for an entire night.” Caris met his eyes. “We have this one, too.”

“No pool. And no night.”

“We can make do.” She tugged on him again, urging him up the stairs and into the master bathroom. There was a huge walk-in shower with multiple showerheads along with a garden tub. “Sweet,” she said, turning the water on in the tub and then getting the shower going as well.

She stepped back from him and eyed him mischievously as she peeled off her clothes.

“Nice bathroom,” he said. “Love the fixtures. And all the other amenities.”

“Ha,” she said, then stepped into the shower. “Coming in?”

“Absolutely.”

He slid in next to her and she grabbed the soap, lathering him up, sliding their bodies together. “And here
we thought that being stuck in a house during the day would be a bad thing,” she said.

Her lips parted in question, but she didn’t know what to ask. There was hope hanging there. Hope and comfort and home. Because that’s where she was now. She’d come home to his arms, but it was only an illusion, and if she hoped too much she’d only get hurt.

“I—” she began, but he cut her off, his mouth closing over hers, erasing her memories, her fears. Leaving only the blood-deep desire to lose herself. To let go and forget everything that was happening. Everything that had happened before. To simply be with this man again, this man she loved—yes, loved and always had. Always would.

Gently, she pulled away, and got a little feminine thrill of satisfaction down her spine when she saw the frustration in his face as she broke the kiss.

“Caris—”

“No,” she whispered. “I like this. I want this. It feels wonderful. Your lips, your arms. It feels like we have a chance.” She pressed a finger to his lips, just in case he was thinking about chiming in. “Not for it to be like it was before—I know we can never get there again. But just that we can work together again, be together again. You were my best friend for over five hundred years, and as much as I’ve hated you, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I missed you.”

“And I, you.”

“But, Tiber—I know … I … I don’t want you to think I expect more. I know what this is.”

“And what is that?” he asked.

“Really hot sex.”

He laughed, just as she’d wanted him to, and the moment
of truth was defused. But it was out there, and that was good. Because Caris knew reality when she saw it, and in Tiberius’s reality, he couldn’t be with her. Not forever. Not anymore. Not when every vampire he ruled believed that she’d betrayed him to go into Gunnolf’s arms.

But for now …

She looked at him, then kissed him, forcing her mind not to go places that it shouldn’t. Not to wish for things she couldn’t have and shouldn’t want. Right now, she had him. His touch, his company. And that was enough. It had to be.

“Make me forget,” she said, sliding his hands around her back and pressing against him. She felt his cock harden, knew that he wanted this as much as she did—and since they had all day she intended to draw it out for as long as possible.

Duggin might have been an asshole, but he had good taste in soap, and she lathered her hands with the enticing scent of vanilla, then stroked it over him, rubbing, teasing, as he did the same to her, making heat build, making want grow.

And after a while she abandoned that whole making-it-last thing and simply begged him.

He didn’t hesitate, and as she pressed her palms to the cool tile, he slid behind her, their bodies fitting together, his hands on her breasts, his knee easing her legs apart. And then, sweet heaven, he was inside her, filling her, and she really didn’t want it to end.

He slid one hand down her belly, his hand cupping her, playing with her and bringing her higher and higher until she couldn’t stand it any longer and she shattered
in his arms, then sagged down, relying on his strength to hold her up.

“Too fast,” she murmured.

“Just the beginning,” he countered.

The tub was full now, and she turned off the shower, then eased him out of the stall and down into the languid heat of the tub. She straddled him, her legs wide, her body wet and needy.

He was inside her, filling her, pulling her into a sensual haze filled with memories of the hundreds—thousands of times they’d done this before.

Dear God, how she’d missed him.

There’d been a time when they’d fought, and hard, to be together. She remembered making love to him like this, soft and sweet. She remembered her father rushing in—going so far as to kill Tiberius to keep them apart.

As with Duggin’s attempt, it hadn’t succeeded. How could it have when they were meant to be together? And finally, after nineteen years they were back again. Even if it couldn’t last—at least she was in his arms again. At least she felt alive one more time.

“Caris,” he murmured, and she realized she was thinking too much. She didn’t want to think. Didn’t want to do anything but feel. His hands on her, his cock inside her.

“Yes,” she whispered. She splayed her hands across his back, feeling the scars of the past still etched into his skin.

She slid her hands down farther, spreading her legs wider, feeling the water pulse in waves around them as she rode him, deeper and deeper, over and over, until she was climbing a wall of pleasure and he was reaching
down to tug her over the top. Close, so close—and all she had to do was grasp and then—
yes
.

Dear God, yes
.

Her body shook with the force of the orgasm, and he rode through it with her, drawing it out, making her crazy, taking her to the place where pleasure merged with pain.

And then her body went limp in his arms. He pulled her close, stroking her, kissing her, holding her, pulling her down until she was enveloped in warm water and the strength of his arms.

The world was unraveling around them. A madman on the loose, a hybrid poised to infect the world. But right then she wasn’t scared.

Right then, they were together.

And together, they could do anything.

Tiberius couldn’t remember ever wanting her more. The taste of her. The touch of her. The scent of her.