A Hunger Like No Other

and most of those had been hanging around the manor since she'd been young. She saw them as nothing more than big brothers. With horns.

The infrequent demons who were strangers didn't exactly line up to come calling at the coven. Even they found Val Hall, their fog-enshrouded home in the bayou, terrifying, with the shrieks echoing within and the constant lightning hovering.

A few years ago, Emma had finally grasped that she would be alone when yet another cute, perfectly doable human male in one of her night classes had asked her out—for coffee the next afternoon. Emma loathed Starbucks for its very existence.

She'd realized then that she could never be with a man who was of her own kind, and could never be with most who weren't. Sooner or later they would discover what she was. The reasons she hadn't found someone in her life—A matinee…? Dinner and drinks…? A picnic…?—weren't changing, ergo…

Later she'd 'accidentally' bumped into the human just to know what she was missing. Warm touch, appealing masculine scent. She'd realized she was missing a lot.

And it had hurt.

Now Emma had a cruel but divinely handsome Lykae who couldn't seem to keep his hands off her. She feared she'd be a sponge for his touch even as she hated him.

She feared he could make her a beggar for it.

'What if I fall asleep?' she asked, her voice soft, her lightly drawling accent more pronounced.

'Fall asleep. Doona care,' Lachlain said, as he kneaded her neck and her slim shoulders.

She moaned again and her head sank back against his chest. She sounded as if she'd never been touched like this. The utter surrender wasn't sexual, but he thought she'd give anything for him to continue. She seemed starved for it.

He remembered days in his clan. Everyone roughhoused, men always found an excuse to touch their women, and if you did something well, you received literally a hundred slaps on the back. Lachlain had spent most hours with his family with a child perched on his shoulders and two bairns dragging on his legs.

He pictured Emma as a timid little girl growing up in Helvita, the vampire stronghold in Russia. Though gilded with gold, Helvita was damp and dark—he should know, since he'd spent time enough in the dungeon. In fact, she might have been there when he was imprisoned, if she hadn't already journeyed to New Orleans.

The vampires who lived there were as cold as their home. They would not touch her with affection—he'd never seen a vampire display affection. If she needed it like this, how had she gone without it?

He'd suspected she'd been long without a man, but now Lachlain knew that if she had had someone, the man didn't touch her nearly enough and she was well rid of him. He recalled how when they'd been in the shower, her tightness and her reactions had made him wonder if she'd ever had a man. But now, as then, he thought it unlikely she was virgin, since not many immortals made it through centuries abstaining. She was just small and, as she'd said, shy.

Remembering her tight sheath made his cock go painfully hard for it. He lifted her into his lap, turning her side to his chest. She stiffened, no doubt from his shaft throbbing under her arse.

Urges wracked him. She was wearing the silk that was little more than a string, and the sight of it was even better than his imaginings. He opened his mouth to simply inform her that he was about to stroke his fingers between her legs and then settle her down on his shaft. But before he could, her delicate hands lighted upon his chest, their paleness standing out against his skin. She waited a moment as if testing the waters. When he did nothing about her hands, she rested her face against him, settling in to sleep.

He drew back his head and frowned down at her, bewildered by this. Was this…did she trust him? Trust him not to take her while she slept? Damn it, why would she do that?

With a foul curse, he lifted her from the water. Her hands were still against his chest, clutching a little. He toweled her off, then laid her on the bed, her blond hair fanning out, the ends damp. The exquisite scent of it swept him up. Shaking, he peeled her wicked undergarments from her. He inwardly groaned at her body, about to spread her legs and set upon it with a vengeance.

Barely awake, she murmured, 'Can I sleep in one of your shirts?'

He stood back, clenching his fists, brows drawn. Why would she want to be dressed in his clothing? Why did he want it as well? He ached, he needed to be inside her so badly, and yet he was stalking to his bag. At this rate, he'd be returning to the shower and bringing himself release. How else could he make it through the day with her?

He dressed her in one of his new undershirts though it swallowed her, then put her under the cover. Just as he'd drawn it up to her chin, she woke and sat up. She squinted at him, turned to regard the window, then gathered the cover and the pillow and bedded down on the floor, tucking herself into the side of the bed.

Out of the path of the window.

When he scooped her up, she whispered, 'No. I need to be down there. I like it down there.'

Of course she did. Vampires craved low places, sleeping in shadowed corners and under beds. As a Lykae, he'd always known exactly where to find them to sever their heads before they even woke.

Anger flared again. 'No longer.' She slept with him from now on, and he would never even entertain the idea of accepting that unnatural custom of his enemy. 'I will no' let the sun get you again, but you'll break yourself of this.'

'Why do you care?' she asked so softly he barely heard her.

Because you've been out of my bed for far too long.

Annika's broken body lay trapped in the bricks. Helpless, she could do nothing but watch when the vampire brushed away Lucia's arrows as though they were flies.

Annika shared Lucia's obvious disbelief. Cursed long ago to feel unfathomable pain if she missed a target, Lucia suddenly shrieked, dropping her bow as she fell. She lay writhing, her fingers curled, screaming until she'd shattered every window and light in the manor.

In the distance, a Lykae howled, a deep, guttural sound of rage.

Darkness, except for the lightning now thrashing the earth and a flickering gas lamp outside.

Ivo's red eyes were ablaze in the lamplight, his expression amused. Lothaire secretly appeared in the background once more but did nothing. Lucia still screamed. The Lykae roared in answer—nearing them? Regin alone against three. 'Leave us, Regin,' Annika bit out.

Then…a shadow moved inside. White teeth and fangs. Pale blue eyes glowed in the darkness. It crept over to Lucia's twitching form. Annika could do nothing. So helpless. In the scant lulls between bolts, he looked human. In the silver flashes, he was a beast, a man with the shadow of a beast.

Annika wanted her strength as she never had, wanted to kill it so slowly. The beast pawed at Lucia's face. Annika couldn't bear to—

It was trying to brush away Lucia's tears? He lifted her, then crossed to a corner, tucking her behind a table.

Why wasn't it ripping her throat out?

It reared up with a terrible fury and launched itself at the vampires, fighting beside a shocked, but quickly adapting Regin until the two vampire followers were decapitated. Ivo and the horned one traced away, fleeing. Enigmatic Lothaire merely nodded, then disappeared.

The Lykae sprang for Lucia, then crouched beside her as she stared up in awe and horror. When Annika closed her eyes and opened them once more, it had disappeared, leaving Lucia shaking.

'What the fuck?' Regin cried, circling around as though shell-shocked.

Just then Kaderin the Coldhearted arrived, jogging up the glass-covered porch. Ever blessed to feel no raw emotions, she chided gently, 'Language, Regin.' Then she entered the war zone, and even she raised an eyebrow as she leisurely drew her swords from the thin sheaths at her back.

'Annika!' Regin cried, digging through brick. Annika strained to answer but couldn't. She'd never felt so helpless, never been beaten so badly.

'What has happened here?' Kaderin demanded, searching for a kill yet holding her swords so loosely, her wrists fluid as she swirled them in tight circles. When Lucia crawled out from behind the table, Kaderin backed her way to her.

'Vampires attacked. And you just missed the Lykae on top of all this,' Regin sputtered, digging frantically.