“It’s servitude.”
“What would we do with ourselves if we didn’t have that? Where would we go? You gonna take a desk job? Have a commute? Have human toddlers over to your house for playdates with your pups?”
“Maybe. I’d be free. I could do anything I wanted.”
“We’d be hunted. Every day we’d be looking over our shoulders, waiting for Adrian to walk in the door and put us down. Running isn’t freedom.”
The redhead sat on the bed opposite him. “You’ve thought about this-a lot, it sounds like. Unfortunately, I have to pack-I’m heading back to Louisiana on a hunt-but we’ll talk more when I’m home again.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Escape would be futile. Stop pushing.”
“I’m your Beta, El.” Micah grinned. “It’s my job.”
“I don’t need a Beta. I don’t have a pack.”
“Keep telling yourself that. Still won’t make it true. You control your beast, and somehow, that makes it strong enough to dominate the rest of us. I know you feel it, too, the way every lycan instinctively looks to you. We can’t help it. That makes you boss whether you like it or not. We can stir shit up on our own, but when it comes down to it, we need a leader, and you’re the only one who exerts the force necessary to become one.”
Elijah stood. His uniqueness might be their one saving grace. If they couldn’t band together cohesively without him, that might just save their lives. He knew what was said about him: his ability to rein his beast in at all times was an anomaly among lycans. Fear, anger, pain-they could all trigger an unwanted shift, but he never altered unless he chose to. As far as he was concerned, that might make him a mutant, but it didn’t make him an Alpha. It sure as hell didn’t make it acceptable to lead his kind to slaughter.
“You’re asking me to lead a charge into a bloodbath,” he said, “knowing it’s pointless. Not gonna happen. Ever.”
“It’s too late to avoid, El. Centuries too late.”
CHAPTER 6
As Lindsay licked a crumb from her lower lip, the thoughts sweeping through Adrian’s mind were unrepentantly sexual. She was a beautiful woman-a tigress with her golden hair and dark, watchful eyes-but what roused him at that moment was the gusto with which she ate. She alternated between using chopsticks with skill and eating with her fingers, her enjoyment evident in her soft hums of appreciation and hearty appetite.
“This is
Her fervency made him smile inwardly.
Sentinels were created to be too neutral to relish anything with such passion. The highs and lows of human emotion weren’t meant for them. They were the weights that balanced the scales, the sword that leveled the field.
She held a shrimp up by the tail. “My dad took my grandma out to a teppanyaki restaurant for dinner once. She totally dug the flames and flying spatulas until the chef did this fancy maneuver that ended with a shrimp flicked onto her plate. I thought it was
Adrian’s brows rose.
Lindsay rocked back on the bar stool, laughing. “You should have seen the guy’s face. My dad bought him a couple shots of sake just to soothe his pride.”
Her laughter was infectious. The sound was so open and free he couldn’t fight a smile any longer. His mouth curved for the first time in centuries. He liked her. He wanted to get to know her better.
But he had to maintain the appearance of a calm, unaffected host. Both for her sake and for the benefit of his Sentinels. He could feel their wariness and distrust. Although they would never voice the accusation, they knew Shadoe weakened him. Their concern for his well-being could foster a dangerous resentment if he wasn’t cautious. His unit was comprised of seraphim who were better than him, angels who didn’t suffer the same emotional frailties he did. They didn’t fully understand what a vulnerability Shadoe was to him, because they couldn’t grasp the mortal love he felt. If a Sentinel came to believe their mission had been overly compromised by Lindsay, they’d kill her and be justified in doing so.
Focusing on deep-frying the vegetable tempura,Adrian resisted glancing at Lindsay too often. She sat on a stool on the opposite side of his granite-topped kitchen island, nursing her third glass of water. He found himself aroused by the way she swallowed. Two hundred years of celibacy had taken their toll. During Shadoe’s dormancy, he craved no woman’s touch. But when her soul returned, his repressed need and hunger surged to the fore, all the more voracious for having been contained for so long. He was aching to taste her, push inside her, make her writhe beneath relentless thrusts of his cock.
But that would have to wait. Lindsay needed to trust him first, then want him as much as he wanted her. When he finally had her, there would be no restraint. And he didn’t expect she would allow him any. Not as fierce as she was. When she gave herself, it would be with abandon, he suspected. This woman with the heart of a warrior and a soul radiating such pain.
He would simply have to be patient through the necessary prerequisite steps: keep her safe, make her strong, win her trust.
“You’re not eating,” she noted.
“I am, actually. Just not in the same manner as you do.”
“Oh?” Her tone was deceptively neutral. “What’s your way?”
Her grip on her lacquered chopsticks changed, became lethal. He could snap her spine with the slightest touch, yet her sense of right and wrong coupled with her need to protect others goaded her to prepare for an offensive move in a no-win scenario. He admired that fighting spirit and strength of conviction.
Adrian considered his answer carefully. It would do him no favors to have her see him as a parasite like the vampires. “I absorb energy.”
“From what? How?”
“There’s energy all around us-in the air, the water, the earth. The same energy harnessed by wind turbines and hydroelectric plants like the Hoover Dam.”
“Bet that comes in handy.”
“It’s convenient,” he agreed, returning his attention to cooking the last of the batter-coated shrimp and vegetables.
His energy levels were thrumming now, as they always did when Shadoe was near. Her proximity-the unique force of two souls in one vessel-allowed him to achieve the greatest levels of power of which he was capable. Life- force energy from souls was the primary source of seraphim sustenance and the reason why the Fallen had turned to blood drinking-they still needed life-force energy to survive, but the stripping away of their souls forced them to obtain that energy through direct means.
“So,” Lindsay began, “you hunt vampires.”
“I do.”
“But the guy in the grocery store, he was a dragon.”
“He was.”
She took a deep breath. “Are there also demons? I mean, angels and demons always seem to go hand in hand.”
He pulled the last of the tempura out of the oil with a strainer, then turned the burner off. “The dragon was a demon. There are other classifications of beings that fall under that designation.”
“Vampires?”
“There are some creatures who have fangs and drink blood that are demons. But they’re not my problem. My responsibility is other angels-fallen angels. The vampires I hunt were once like me.”
“Like you. Angels. Really.” Her lips thinned. “But aren’t demons everyone’s concern? They’re the bad guys, right?”
