against him, she would do anything for him to be made right.
“I may hurt you,” he said harshly.
“No worse than I have already survived.”
“Why…”
“Stop talking. Stop trying to think. Do what you must to take care of yourself.”
There was a long, tense silence. And then the light went off, the little room going dim, with the only illumination that which bled through the milky glass panels of the door.
She gasped.
He breathed harder.
And then an arm linked around the back of her waist and jerked her forward. As she hit his chest wall, it was as if she had been thrown against rock, and she blindly put her hands out to grab onto something—
The flesh of his arms was smooth and hot, the skin thin over hard muscles.
Tugging. Tugging on her braid. Then wrenching… and her hair was unbound, her scalp spared the stretch and pull of the binding, the release drawing her head back.
A large hand speared in through her tresses, tangling them, pulling downward. And as her neck stretched further, her spine was forced to follow until she was held up entirely by the strength of him.
Disoriented and off balance, she momentarily lost her purpose, just as he had before darkness had been wrought.
Searching for his face, she found it. But there was no grounding to be had. She could not see the features, could not find him in the male body she was up against.
Instantly, his visage became nothing but anonymous planes and angles. And his body was not that of Tohrment, the Brother who had attempted to save her, but some stranger.
There was no turning back, however, no undoing the spin of the wheel she had unleashed.
His grip, his arms, his body tightened up even more until she was crushed against him. And as she stiffened, he brought his head downward, a chuffing growl emanating from that deep rib cage of his, a dark, rich scent nearly permeating her sense of fear.
There was another hiss, followed by a razor-thin scratch that started at her collarbone and rose e’er higher.
Panic o’ertook her.
His presence, his hold on her, the fact that she couldn’t see properly, everything about the experience shifted her back into the past, and she started to struggle.
Which was when he struck.
Violently.
No’One cried out and attempted to push away, but his fangs were already in deep, the pain sweet like a bee sting. And then the sucking, the powerful sucking that was accompanied by a wild trembling in his body.
Something hard protruded from his hips. Pressed into her belly.
Using all her strength, she tried again to get free, but her efforts were a countervailing breeze in the face of a hurricane gale.
And then… his pelvis began to move against her, gyrating, that arousal of his pushing at her robe, searching for a way inside as he took deeply from her, groans of satisfaction rising up in the air between them.
He did not even feel her fright, so consumed was he.
And her conscious mind could not regrasp the fact that she had wanted this from him.
Staring up toward the ceiling, she recalled other times she had fought to no avail, and prayed, as she had before, for this to pass soon.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, what had she done…
The body against Tohr’s yielded everything there was to give, blood, breath, and flesh. And goddamn them both, but he took, took hard and ravenously, drinking deep, and wanting more than just the vein.
He wanted the core of this female.
He wanted in her as he drank from her.
And this was true even as he was acutely aware that this was not his Wellsie. Her hair didn’t feel the same—No’One’s fell in smooth lengths, not thick curls. Her blood didn’t taste the same—the rich flavor against his tongue and the tang at the back of his throat were altogether different. And her body was thinner and more delicate, not robust and powerful.
But he still wanted her.
His godforsaken cock was roaring without excuse—ready to take and take and… own, as well. At least sexually.
Shit, this fireball of want and need was nothing like the pale anemic feeding he’d had with the Chosen Selena. This was what it should be, this abandonment, this shedding of the civilized skin to reveal the animal at the marrow.
And goddamn him, he went with it.
Repositioning No’One, he let his hold around her waist go downward until he was gripping her lower back, and then her hip… and then her ass.
Abruptly, he pushed her into the glass cupboards, the panes on the doors rattling. He didn’t mean to be rough, but it was impossible to fight the need. And worse, in the recesses of his mind, he didn’t want to.
Lifting his head, he let out a roar that stung even his own ears, and then he bit her again, his control snapping at the feast of his starved senses.
The second bite was higher and closer to her jaw, and his sucking became even more intense, her nourishment speeding to the fibers of his muscles, strengthening him, restoring him, making him physically whole once more.
The sucking… fuck him, the
When he finally lifted his head, he was drunk on her, his mind spinning for different reasons than from blood hunger. Next would be the sex, and he actually looked around for a bed.
Except… they were in the butler’s pantry? What the hell?
Christ, he couldn’t even remember how all this had happened.
He was sure, however, that he didn’t want her bleeding out, so he dropped his head to her throat. Elongating his tongue, he stroked up the column he had nailed twice, feeling velvet and tasting her and smelling her—
The scent that entered his nostrils was not a commercial perfume.
And it was not a female’s lush arousal, as he had sensed in the beginning.
She was terrified.
“No’One?” he said, as he felt her trembling for the first time.
With a hoarse cry, she began to sob, and in his shock, he went momentarily numb. Then, as sensation returned, he felt all too clearly her nails clawing into the backs of his upper arms, her delicate body trying to get free.
He let her go immediately—
No’One slammed into the corner cupboard and then went for the door, jerking at the knob, rattling it so forcibly the opaque glass was liable to break.
“Hold on, I’ll let you—”
The instant he sprang the lock she took off, flying through the kitchen and out the other side as if she were running for her dear life.
“Shit!” He tore after her. “No’One!”
He didn’t care who heard him as he called her name again, his voice echoing up through the dining room’s high ceiling as he blew past the long table and then shot into the foyer.
As she ripped across the depiction of the apple tree in the floor, he recalled the memory of her that night they had tried to bring her home to her father’s, her nightgown streaming behind her, turning her into a ghost as she ran across the moonlit meadow.
Now her robe streamed behind as she headed for the stairs.
Tohr’s panic was running so high he dematerialized in pursuit, reassuming form halfway up and yet still not
