Visions of Heat

Vaughn was caught completely off guard by that last word. His muscles relaxed without his conscious control. 'Changed your mind, Red?'

'I'm not sure.' She released her hold on his hair, but then began to stroke through it. 'You're nothing I've ever experienced. The rules don't cover situations such as this.'

'Rules?'

'The rules of Silence.' Her fingers brushed the skin of his shoulders. She withdrew as if she'd been scalded, her hand dropping to lie against the pillow. 'Why did my question offend you?'

Vaughn didn't talk about his past with anyone, but he found himself answering Faith—it was almost a compulsion, one neither man nor beast could fight. 'My sister died when I was ten years old.'

Skye had been so fragile, so weak at seven years of age that she hadn't been able to survive even in jaguar form.

He'd brought her food, given her everything he had, but Skye had given up fighting the instant she'd realized that their parents weren't going to come back for them. It was as if her soul had flown away and nothing he'd done had tempted her to return. She'd stopped eating, stopped drinking, and soon, she'd stopped breathing.

Vaughn had almost died then, too, because Skye had lived in his heart like no one else. She'd followed him around since before she could walk, a constant buzz of activity and energy. He hated his parents with a vengeance, but it wasn't because they'd abandoned him. No, it was because they'd broken Skye's heart.

'I can't understand what she meant to you,' Faith said, her voice holding a quiet gentleness he'd never have expected from one of the Psy, 'but I can guess. You mourn for her.'

'Do you mourn for Marine?'

The quicksilver lights in her eyes dimmed until they were dull echoes against the darkness. 'Psy don't mourn. To mourn requires feeling.'

'And you don't have any.'

'No.'

'Are you sure?' Dropping his head, he bit her earlobe with sharp teeth and caught her resulting cry with the palm of his hand.

'What are you doing?' she whispered, pushing away his hand.

'Your body feels, Faith. Your body hungers.' He spoke against her ear. 'The body and the mind can't be so far apart. Can they?'

She didn't answer. He heard the rapid beat of her heart and knew he'd pushed her too far. But it wasn't far enough. She had to go further, had to understand more. It was imperative. The jaguar knew why, but the man wasn't ready to listen.

'And the answer to your question is that if I'd found a strange man naked in my sister's bed, I'd have ripped him to shreds.' He ran his lips down her neck and tasted the fury of her pulse before lifting his head to look down into her face. 'I'll do the same to any other man I find in your bed.'

Faith blinked and by the time her lashes lifted up, Vaughn was a shadow sliding out of the skylight. But nothing could erase the scent of him on her sheets, on her skin. The feel of his lips on the suddenly sensitive skin of her neck had her clenching her hands in an effort to find control where there seemed to be none. How could he do this to her? How?

Her strength lay in Silence, in holding her emotions in a stranglehold. If she let go, what other sensations might her jaguar introduce her to? Her brain revolted, insisting on showing her images of her aunt's lipless face and rabid eyes. It was the bluntest of reminders—she had to regain control of her malfunctioning psyche or the visions would take her over as they were even now threatening to do. The logical course would be to go to the M-Psy, admit her conditioning was breaking down, and ask for retraining.

But would they give her what she wanted, or would they use it as an excuse to put her someplace 'safe,' a location from which she could make predictions without causing them any of the inconvenience she now did by asking for occasional moments of privacy?

It didn't matter what the M-Psy would do, because she wasn't going to go to them. She was going to make a choice where there was no choice; she was going to act in a way that might leave her wide open to the very madness she wanted to escape. That strange, unknown awakening part of her didn't want to stop being fascinated by the jaguar who touched her as if she belonged to him, as if she'd already said yes to his every demand.

Careful, Faith. It was a soundless whisper. He won't stop when you tell him to. Because he wasn't Psy, wasn't someone who'd follow her every command, wasn't a man who'd follow any commands he didn't want to. And still she wasn't going to keep her distance.

What better proof was there of her accelerating decline?

Vaughn entered his lair deep in the forests to the east of Lucas's aerie and padded up the natural stone steps that led, eventually, to the true entrance. His home was accessed through a warrenlike cave system that acted as his defensive perimeter. His living space was in the central core, brightly lit during the daytime by a clever use of several natural vents and low-tech mirrors.

From above, his lair looked to be nothing but a hill in danger of being taken over by the forest. To date, no one had stumbled upon it either by accident or design. His closest friends alone knew where he lived and how to negotiate the traps in the outer caves. Those who didn't know... well, jaguars weren't famous for their kindness.

Reaching the core, he padded through the living room to his bedroom, where he shifted back to human form. Naked, he stretched his arms above his head before walking into the shower, which seemed to be a waterfall cascading from the stone wall. He'd spent hours creating the illusion because his beast wasn't happy in any place that looked too human, too civilized.

But both man and jaguar enjoyed sensation and pleasure. And water. So his home had a waterfall, as well as lush carpets he'd collected year by year on which his paws or feet made no sound. The walls were hung with handmade tapestries finer than those seen in many museums. Not only objects of beauty, they acted to contain the warmth in winter—when he used eco-generators to heat water in the fine tubes that ran throughout his home. That warmth became particularly useful during those times when he worked through the night on a piece that required a lot of contact with cold chisels and hard edges.

His armchairs were comfortable, his bed big enough to sprawl in, and more than big enough to entertain a lover no matter how energetic he was feeling. But he'd never once brought a woman here. However, today, he could imagine dark red hair against the pillows, creamy limbs against the thick blanket. Faith would look like an exotic jewel laid on a bed of the finest black velvet.

A growl rose up in his throat as arousal caught him in a vicious grip and shook him hard. He could've eased the physical ache himself, but he didn't want to. He wanted the Psy he could still smell on his skin. The man advised caution, told him to wait to be certain she wasn't playing with his mind, wasn't a mole sent in by the Council to cripple DarkRiver from within, but the cat lived by instinct and it said Faith was his to take.

For many changelings, the human half would probably have won. But Vaughn's animal half was stronger than that of most others. Stepping out of the waterfall, he took a deep breath. The air should've smelled of the earth and the forest, but instead held teasing hints of fire and woman.

Pushing his hair out of his eyes, he stood there and considered his next step. Faith had come a long way since their first meeting. She could bear small touches, hadn't been made unconscious by his fleeting kiss, had reacted to his nakedness but in the same way any other woman would've reacted. He smiled at the memory. Faith wasn't cold, no matter how much she might try to pretend otherwise.

But all that didn't negate the fact that she was a long way from accepting the kind of touch the cat craved. He wanted to lick her from head to toe, with lingering stops in soft feminine places that drew him like a drug. However, the second he asked more of her than her mind was able to handle, he might lose her. And that was unacceptable. So, where did that leave him?

'Step by step,' he murmured under his breath, body taut with expectation. Faith NightStar was about to be hunted. He had no intention of harming her and every intention of breaking down the sensual walls that separated them. By the time he finished, Faith would be enslaved by her body's hunger, the woman core of her screaming out for him.

It would take patience, but Vaughn was used to stalking prey without break for hours, days ... weeks.