A Hunger Like No Other

'Every hour I gain control.' Because of her? 'And know that I doona want to hurt you.' That, at least, was now true. He thought.

'You won't do those…th-things to me again?'

'I will no' unless you want me to.' He held out his hand to her. 'Do we have an agreement?'

She didn't take it, but after several agonizing moments, she did come down with a bizarre movement. She stepped down as if she were strolling and had stepped from a curb without breaking stride.

He gave her shoulders a shake. 'Doona ever do that again.' He had an odd urge to squeeze the vampire to his chest, and set her away.

She looked down. 'I won't. Unless it's a better alternative.'

He glowered at that. 'Do we have an agreement?'

When she nodded, he wondered if it was only the position he'd forced upon her that had made her agree, or was it more? He'd thought he might have seen compassion in her eyes for just a brief moment when he'd admitted his imprisonment.

'Then we leave tonight for Scotland.'

Her lips parted. 'I can't go to Scotland! I was going to direct you. Or at least, MapQuest was,' she added in a mumble. 'How would you plan to get there without burning me alive?' She was clearly panicked. 'I-I can't travel easily. No commercial planes. No trains. The sun…'

'I've secured a car. We'll drive there.' He was pleased by how casual he sounded, since a week ago he hadn't known what a bloody car was. 'And stop well before sunrise each day. A man downstairs mapped it out for me.'

'You know how to drive? You acted as though you'd never even seen a car—'

'No, I doona know how to drive, but I'm guessing you do.'

'I've only driven short jaunts from home.'

'Ever been to the Highlands?'

'Uh, no—'

'Ever want to?'

'Who doesn't—?'

'Then, vampire, you'll be going with me.'

Emma lifted an unsteady hand to her hair and pulled a hank in front of her face. She stared in horror.

Streaked. By the sun.

He'd left her to shower and dress, and alone in the bathroom, she gaped at the vivid evidence of how close she'd come to dying. Dropping her hair, she slid off her nightgown and twisted in the mirror to assess her skin.

It was unharmed now, pale and healed—unlike the last time. She glanced at the back of her hand, growing nauseated. Thank Freya, the memory of her burn was mercifully hazy as usual.

Though she couldn't recollect specifics, she'd learned her lesson well, avoiding the sun for nearly sixty-seven years, yet near dawn she'd passed out before she could either escape this Lachlain or beg him to shut the curtains.

Shivering, Emma turned on the shower and stepped in, avoiding the broken marble. She still sensed his presence from the night before. She could almost feel his hands skimming over her wet skin, his finger pressing full inside her, his powerful body shuddering and tensing as she'd stroked him.

When she turned in the shower, the water sprayed her sensitive breasts, making her nipples hard—In a flash, the memory of waking under his mouth hit her.

She'd struck out at him with such violence because she'd been confused and frightened. Yet she'd also been nearer to orgasm than she had in her entire life. She was a weak woman, because for the briefest second the temptation to lie there docile and let her knees fall open to accept his fierce kiss had been nearly overwhelming. Even now she found herself wet.

For him. She was bewildered by her response. She wondered how she would react to him if he wasn't debating killing her.

At least now she knew why he was so savage. Besides clearly having issues, he was a Lykae, considered a ruthless menace by even the lowliest in the Lore. She recalled what her aunts had taught her about them.

Each Lykae housed a wolflike 'beast' inside, like a possession. This rendered them immortal and made them crave and appreciate the elementals: food, touch, sex. But, as she'd seen tonight and the night before, it also could make a Lykae unable to control its ferocity, a ferocity their kind willingly unleashed during sex, reveling in scratching, biting, and marking flesh in a frenzy. Which had always sounded hellish to Emma—a being cursed with fragility and a deep-seated fear of pain.

How such a handsome façade could mask an ungovernable animal was beyond her understanding. He was a beast in the form of a fantasy. His body, except for the incongruous leg injury, was nothing short of…divine. His hair was thick and straight, a rich, dark brown that she imagined would look golden in the sun. She'd noted that sometime today he'd had it trimmed, and his face was now cleanly shaved to reveal his perfect features. On the surface divine, beneath…a beast.

How could she be drawn to a being that she needed to be running from?

Her arousal was involuntary, shaming in a way, and she was glad when the weight of her exhaustion stifled it. She was flagging by the minute, and the idea of driving to Scotland enervated her even more.

As she slumped against the shower wall, she wondered how Annika was holding up right now. Probably shrieking with worry and fury, ensuring that their hometown of New Orleans got flailed with lightning and that every car alarm in three parishes went off.

Emma also wondered if she really would've jumped. Yes, she thought with a start—if this Lachlain had been the same insane, howling animal of before, if his eyes hadn't slowly warmed to golden, she would've taken her chances.

And she wondered how he'd hurt his leg and where he'd been 'locked away' for so long and by whom—

Immediately she shook her head as if to dislodge the questions.

She didn't want to know. Didn't need to know.

Annika had once told her that vampires were cold and dispassionate, able to use their powerful logic as no other in the Lore because they could disregard any detail outside of their goal as incidental.

Emma had a job to do. Period. And when she completed it, she would be awarded her freedom. She just had to keep her eye on the ball. Never played baseball, freak. Oh, yeah.

Didn't matter. Finish the task—get to go on as usual.

As she lathered and rinsed her hair, she mused over her typical week prior to the misbegotten trip. Monday through Friday she did research for her coven and trained before watching a late movie with the more night-owlish of her aunts. Friday and Saturday the witches came over with their Xbox and blenders full of pastel drinks. Sunday night she rode horses with the good demons who often loitered around the manor. If she could tweak just a couple of little aspects about her existence, life could be damn near perfect.

She frowned at her thoughts. As a natural-born vampire, she couldn't lie to others. If an untruth arose in her thoughts and the impulse to use it fired in her mind, she would become violently ill. No, Emma couldn't lie to others, but she'd always had a talent for lying to herself. A couple of little tweaks? In truth, there was a yawning loneliness in her life—and a fear about her nature that rode her constantly…

As far as she knew, she was like no one else in existence—she truly belonged nowhere—and though her Valkyrie aunts loved her, she felt loneliness as sharply as a blade driven into her heart every day.

She'd figured if she could determine how her parents had lived together and had been able to have her, then maybe she could find others like herself. Perhaps then she could finally feel a connection to something else. And if she could discover more about her vampire half, she might allay her fear that one day she would become like them.

No one should have to worry each day that she might turn into a killer…

If she'd assumed he would give her privacy because he'd learned a lesson, she'd have been wrong. He walked right in and opened the shower stall door. She jumped, startled, fumbling not to drop the conditioner bottle