Noah (24 page)

He already had it in hand as she was saying that. He draped it over the bed and then turned to the only dresser in the room. He selected a bra and underwear with just enough care to make her blush uncharacteristically. Kestra told herself it was because she didn’t like being ill and waited on. Then she told herself she was a coward and the blush was because she liked his choices, that they were sexy and she had bought them after they had made love, probably with temptation in her subconscious.

Sex. Had sex. Not made love
, she corrected herself hastily.

“You were not wearing hosiery the other day…?”

He let the unspoken question hang, the memories of that torrid meeting crowding between them both. Kestra shifted beneath the sheet, the fabric suddenly overly stimulating against her skin. She casually crossed an arm over her breasts in an attempt to hide the sudden thrust of her nipples.

“I…wear garters and stockings, but I haven’t found any I like yet,” she managed to say in a passably even tone.

“Oh. I forgot you had to buy—”

He stopped again.

She watched his eyes slide closed and was sorely tempted to call him on it, to know what he was thinking that very second. After a moment he looked at her and smiled in a way that didn’t reach his eyes. “We will not be leaving your clothes behind this time.”

“Barneys and Saks will be very sorry to hear it,” she joked. It was clear there was no enthusiasm behind it, but he smiled again anyway.

Noah moved to the bed, coming to her side and sitting down so his hip contacted hers and he was facing her. He reached out to push back a strand of her hair as he found and held her gaze. Kestra could see the seriousness in his eyes and she felt her throat constrict with an anxiety that she couldn’t make herself understand.

“When we are settled at my home, I would be very grateful if you would allow me to talk to you about some…unusual matters between us.”

“Unusual matters?” She looked perplexed. “I don’t believe I have ever heard it put quite like that before.”

“Believe me, you have never had a discussion like this before.”

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” she said with a frustrated sigh.

He looked at her with bald confusion.

“Now I’ll spend the entire time from here to there worrying and wondering what it is you want to say to me that’s unusual,” she clarified.

“Worrying? I do not think worrying is required. As for wondering, you will have no success, so you should not attempt it.”

“Just like that, hmm? You think telling me not to worry and not to wonder is going to make it happen?”

“I am appealing to your logic,” he said, a grin already playing over his lips. “But you are beginning to sound suspiciously like a woman.”

“Ooo.” She squinted her eyes and wrinkled her nose at him as she shook a scolding finger. “You just said that because I almost made that man comment.”

“I told you, the man comment did not faze me.”

“Uh-huh.” She clearly didn’t agree.

“Come. Dress,” he ordered her. “Unless you need my assistance?”

“No!” She snatched her clothes from him, fighting back a wave of nausea as she moved too fast. “You go take those lethal hands elsewhere,” she commanded, not thinking about her phrasing.

“Lethal hands?” he echoed, his tone suddenly careful.

Kestra froze, bit her lip, and cringed slightly when she realized she’d spoken the words aloud.

“Yes. Lethal,” she said, facing the music. “Deadly. Dangerous. Otherwise unwise to be in the vicinity of.”

“I see.”

“Are you leaving so I can get dressed?”

“Yes.”

“Well, might I say it is a very slow departure?”

Noah got up and walked out of the bedroom. He ended up back at the kitchen counter. He was smiling, unable to help himself.

Banda ran for his life.

He had been caught in the city. He’d had no choice but to go, but for every shadow there was light. He felt them coming, slipping shadow to shadow as he was, just as adept, more than powerful enough to seek him out. He didn’t understand what they wanted with him. Their people were not enemies. Banda hadn’t been making any mischief on any of their kind.

As he ran flat-out among the streetlights he felt the glow touch his skin with irritating prickles, touching just his arm but running the entire course of his nervous system, whenever he had to run out of the shadows to cross the path of the frightening light, the blessed light that created shadow sanctuary as well as representing imminent death.

The young Shadowdweller could hardly breathe, he was running so fast. Besides the pounding of his feet on the pavement, all he could hear was the coarse and violent rasp of his own breath as it labored in and out of his body. The Vampires were faster than he, and the light didn’t hurt them at all, unless it was sunlight, which Banda was very unlikely to find at this hour. All the better. He’d rather get caught by the threatening Vampires than get caught by the deadly sun.

There were too many of them to fight, and his powers were too untried to go up against those that were clearly very potent. His only hope would be to contact a more mature Shadowdweller, one more powerful than himself, more powerful than the Vampires. The odds of finding one in the city were very low, but better to try than not. The fact of the matter was he couldn’t even attempt it while blindly on the run and shuddering head to toe with fear.

Banda had to stop, if for no other reason than that his body ached from the running and the harsh slaps of light that burned him. He tried to control his breathing as he stepped back into the deepest shadows and tried to hide. He blended, phased, and because of his desperation, found the power to become a perfect shadow, indistinguishable from the shadows that belonged against the building made of gray and pink brick.

Cygnus stopped a block away from his quarry when the slippery little ’Dweller up and disappeared. Cursory scans did nothing to find him, the little chameleon having exceeded himself this time. But Cygnus and his counterparts knew the ’Dweller had been just ahead of them a minute ago and that there were very few places he could hide. Especially if they got close enough to him. ’Dwellers could not trick Vampires for very long when they were as young as this one. And Cygnus had watched and purposely hunted this young one. While Vampires already had the ability to blend into the shadows unseen, to fog the minds of passersby from noticing them, Cygnus knew ’Dwellers had other abilities, powers that they did not advertise. He knew this because he had seen them.

It had been about a century ago. Ironically enough, he had been out hunting with Damien at the time. Hunting Shadowdwellers. A little pack of them who had taken to causing trouble for Vampires along the borders of some of their territories. This little pack had been unwise enough to nibble at Damien’s hunting grounds. The ’Dwellers would taunt whatever Vampire they found in the area, chasing off prey by scaring them or playing poltergeist tricks.

’Dwellers taunted humans as well. Though it was not blood they took, Damien did not appreciate the sloppy remains of a pack’s roving that was left behind for authorities to question, making it harder for Damien to hunt and for Nightwalkers in general to remain incognito. Luckily, humans had a way of making up reasons for things they could not explain, and Damien had quickly caught up with the pack and given them a sound thrashing that had sent them back to New Zealand…or Alaska. Whichever it was at whatever time of year that remained darkest most of the day and night.

But before that had happened, Cygnus had been tracking a stray, a ’Dweller who had somehow gotten separated from her pack. He had chased that one, exactly the same way he was chasing this one. Only that time, when he had found the little bitch, she had looked at him, right into his soul, and twisted something around inside himself. It had taken him three days to come back to his senses. Three days to remember what had happened. He had never explained to Damien what happened to him, figuring the information might come in handy one day. He had never expected to be so right. He was very interested to see what exactly he would acquire when he stole this new aspect from the young ’Dweller.

Cygnus stilled suddenly, his senses flaring as he neared a brick building. Now that he knew the ’Dweller was there, the trick was separating him from the rest of the shadows.

Banda held his breath. He could hold it for up to six minutes if he needed to. But he would release it and redraw every time the Vampire passed far enough out of hearing. Which was not often, because the Vampire could hear very well. Then the leader’s cohorts caught up to him, making it much worse. Banda’s odds plummeted as they crowded around. They were very focused on the building he hid against, so they knew he was near. All he had to do was maintain perfect concentration and he would stay safe, perhaps long enough for them to tire of the chase. He doubted it, though. Vampires were tenacious, and as hunters they could be extremely unhurried.

The lead Vampire passed Banda’s path a fourth time, and the ’Dweller had to push down the fear that rose in his throat. He tried to hold his shadow. Tried like hell to focus. The Vampire suddenly whirled on him, reaching into the nothingness with unsheathed claws and grabbing Banda by the face. As Banda stumbled out of the shadows, he felt those talons puncturing five separate holes in his cheeks and forehead. The Vampire resituated his grip, creating five altogether different holes. He dragged the struggling Shadowdweller up against his chest, laughing and making his partners laugh as well.

The Vampire jerked Banda’s head back with undue violence, nearly decapitating the boy with the force exerted against his light bone structure. Banda made a strangled sound of protest or fear, feeling the burning rip of claws again as the Vampire tore the collar of his shirt off his shoulder. The leader’s palm prevented him from crying out, actually suffocating him in the process, forcing him to hold his breath again. He felt a cold, slimy tongue and hot, unnecessary breath licking over his neck, and he shuddered with revulsion. The tongue suddenly stopped, and Banda could feel his own pulse beating against that wet thing that sought it as fear pumped through him.

Cygnus reared back and struck with the speed of a snake, only he did not puncture and remove to feed as all of his kind did. He used his fangs to rip the ’Dweller’s throat open on the side, blood spurting and welling all over his mouth and clothes as he took several long, drugging gulps of the powerful, fear-laced Nightwalker blood.

The others pressed forward for their turns.

“Sweet…”

“Mmm?”

“I really need to patrol the border. With those rogues out there, I cannot feel safe unless I do.”

Syreena looked up at her husband from her position sprawled over his naked body. She had been lazily kissing his chest and neck, adding those sinful little licks against his throat that she knew drove him just shy of madness.

“Damien, you know they won’t come here. It’s certain death. With you, Stephan, and Jasmine in the same household? The household staff in itself is a small army. Did I mention the full guard and their meticulous security measures which you and Stephan both planned out?”

“Jasmine is not here,” he pointed out, reaching to rub her irresistible shoulder, the pale line so graceful and elegant. Damien knew she tended to see herself more as a scrapper, a stalwart and steadfast support rather than a thing of great feminine beauty. She always insisted that her siren of a sister Siena, the sexy Queen of Lycanthropes, had inherited all the womanly genes along with her mountain cat aspects. He had very different opinions on the matter.

“Oh yes.” Syreena sighed with happiness and snuggled back down to kissing his neck with a contented chuckle. “That’s right. I was enjoying the peace so very much I had almost forgotten. Have I ever mentioned…?”

Damien groaned and suddenly moved, dumping her off his body and gaining his feet. He ignored her laughter.

“Whatever it is, I would prefer you continue
not
mentioning it,” he warned her, a storm of seriousness sweeping his dark features.

Syreena’s continuing giggles told him she wasn’t fazed by his warnings as she sprawled in their bed with her head hung over the edge, facing him, her charcoal hair snaking off the mattress all around her like a thousand little serpents. Since her hair was alive, with blood flow and feeling from root to tip, the imagery was completed as the soft waves sprang up to keep from touching the cold floor.

“Damien,” she crooned as she looked at him upside down from her position. “You must have noticed that she has an incredibly bad habit of concocting urgent situations that always seem to coincide with our lovemaking.”

Damien had known she was going to bring that up. Why wouldn’t she? Jasmine had been subtle at first, but it was clear she was growing bolder and less caring about getting caught in her mischief. Jasmine’s singular intention was to give Syreena grief and to play a power game with her.

The Vampire Prince looked at his wife, his response delayed for a moment by the sight of her irresistible body being spread out like a virgin sacrifice across the rumpled bedding. He also wondered if she was aware that she was absently running her hands over her body as they spoke. He could see no purposeful seduction in the movements, only that unending craving for stimulation that came with her current state of heightened sexuality. He made a soft, predatory sound in the back of his throat as his body instantly responded with hard flashes of heat and molten need that he knew would never be satiated, even after they’d been together for centuries. He loved her. Everything about her. From flaws to perfections, she was unbearably exquisite to him. And he wasn’t even describing her physically, although he would confess to a partiality for the next few weeks.

He saw her smile, knowing her eyes were fully on his body, that she was taking a great deal of satisfaction in the way it was reacting as he watched her. She lifted an arm and crooked that naughty little finger at him again, beckoning him to her, knowing he would come and the knowledge of it flashing with smug confidence over her entire being. She purposely licked her lips, and Damien suddenly was made aware of their current positions and all their intriguing possibilities, if only he took a few steps forward.

“When she gets back, I will have a talk with her,” he said before taking those few steps and once again forgetting all about patrolling his borders.

Kestra woke with a start, sitting up and blinking against the muted light as she tried to adjust.

Light.

The importance of light was instantly superseded by the smell of soap and steam. Then she saw Noah moving into the room from the far door, a towel swathing his hips and another in his hands as he dried his dripping curls. She found she was holding her breath as she watched him move. He was far too graceful for someone of his build, but too beautiful to be denied, either. His muscles flexed and moved beneath his skin with that repressed power that reminded her of a panther as it stalked slowly and with purpose through its natural habitat.

Likening him to a predator was only natural. He was just as polite and polished as she was, but as a woman she had advantages when trying to hide her dangerous and deadly sides. Simply, no one expected a sugar-haired blonde to pose a danger. But a male of his physical caliber fought the opposite prejudice—that all he could be was male and aggressive and quite possibly capable of violence, just as he was clearly built to be. But she was learning that there was far more to this man than his obvious virility, a depth that instantly sent a sensation of warning creeping across the back of her mind. She was getting too comfortable. She was beginning to like him. She couldn’t afford attachments or, even worse, entanglements. Watching him stalk with such ease of power around the room, she realized she could be in over her head, and that if this man decided he wanted her, there would be nowhere she could hide.

The problem was, she had known that from the very first time she’d laid eyes on him. The crisis part of the equation was that she was aware it was already far too late to jump off the road that was careening so wildly in his direction.

Okay, fine
, she reasoned.
This could be fun. It has great potential. He’s damn sexy, an incredible lover even with a far too brief sample to go by, and he isn’t an idiot who will bore me to tears.
She was attracted to him. Okay. Correction. She was hot for him. And he had that nice sense of honor and morality going on so that if she did want to bring it all to a crashing halt, she could just tell him what she did for a “living.” Yeah, that would chase him off pretty damn quick.

All she had to do was keep from doing anything stupid. Like falling for him. Actually, in his case, it was probably best to reserve
all
emotions. Because for all his physical size and aura of power, the danger in Noah came from the threat he posed to a heart starved for even a small sense of closeness, anything beyond the camaraderie she shared with the only person she considered herself close to: James. And that was almost a stretch of the imagination in many instances.

“Hey, you are conscious.”

The teasing remark drew her attention to Noah as he moved toward the wardrobe near the bed. How was it that she always ended up in his bed or in a room with one or both of them being half to fully naked? Just her luck, she supposed. Question was, was it good luck or bad luck?

Good
. She watched him move and held back a sigh.
Definitely good
. The man was a walking sin waiting to happen. After all, she had already sinned
and
burned for it all at the same time. She was still burning for it. She could feel the physical ache of her body increase as he neared. Her libido remembered him on sight. Her mind did, too. If she could keep her heart and soul out of the equation, one plus one could equal two happily orgasmic people.