Midnight Predator

until Lord Daryl had entered the picture. The remembered terror and pain of that first encounter left her with the taste of fear on her tongue, bitter, metallic, and hot.

Shayla had curled up beside her, and the mixture of the midafternoon sun, the jaguar’s own heat, and the nightmares had left Turquoise uncomfortably sweltering. Carefully, she moved back into the shaded grove where Jaguar had retreated.

His animal form remained still, curled up on the soft moss, as his voice flitted in her mind.You okay, Audra?

She nodded, realized he could not see her, and then formed the thought clearly in her mind:Fine. Just bad memories. She doubted Jaguar would be surprised to learn that a slave had a few bad memories, especially a slave who came with such a brutal history written on her skin in scars.

Jaguar startled her by standing and loping toward her. She smiled as he brushed along her side, a soothing but amusingly feline expression of comfort. Again she had a brief touch of his mind, wordless this time, but offering sympathy nonetheless.

He stretched out again next to her, and Shayla lay down at her other side, as if Turquoise was a frightened kitten to be guarded.

Maybe she was. Either way, sleeping with a protecting jaguar on each side successfully chased the memories away from her dreams. She could see why the old cultures had worshipped these creatures: beautiful and proud, they also radiated savage, protective strength.

CHAPTER 11

SHE FELL ASLEEPresting against the beautiful, soft fur of a jaguar; she woke in a very different situation. Sometime while they had both slept, Jaguar had returned to human form. Now he lay on his back, so that Turquoise woke to find herself snuggled against his side, one of his arms casually draped around her waist.

For a moment she paused to admire the beautiful form stretched out beside her: the black silky hair tousled on the ground, the smooth golden-tanned skin that was warm as any human’s.

The illusion did not last. Her cheek rested on his chest, and beneath it there was no heartbeat.

Jaguar woke at the sound of her sigh. She felt his chest rise and fall in a silent breath, and his arm around her waist tightened for a moment in a companionable hug. “Evening.”

Evening? Had she slept so long?

Yes. The sun had set, and in the darkness his voice was soft and a little too warm for her liking.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized by reflex, as she started to push herself to her feet.

“No need to be,” he responded. He did not release her instantly, and she found herself hesitating, trying not to stare into black eyes that at the moment were frighteningly intense. “It’s not an unpleasant way to wake up.”

Maybe not to him, her mind argued bitterly. He was the owner, not the slave. The choices were his.

He let her go and she stood hastily; Jaguar followed more slowly, but as she stepped out of the grove and into the open starlight he caught her arm.

Her mind kept flashing snippets of memory as she tried to deal with the present. Lord Daryl had mostly treated her as a disobedient pet. More than once she had fallen asleep—usually still bruised and aching from the last beating—with her head resting on his knee as he worked on some carving, and woken curled in his arms like a child’s favorite toy.

“Audra, there’s no need to be frightened.”

Only when he said it did she realize shewasfrightened, enough that she could feel her heartbeat in her temples and wrists, fast with nervousness. Jaguar and Lord Daryl were nothing alike; she repeated the words in her mind over and over.

The fact that he was a vampire did not scare her; she had hunted enough vampires over two years that they no longer forced terror into her mind.

The fact that she had let her guard down, forgotten even so briefly what Jaguar was, that frightened her. The fact that she actually found him likeable, with a sense of humor and compassion,thatterrified her.

She might need to kill him; she did not want to start thinking about how human he seemed.

“What are you afraid of?” Jaguar asked, as she yanked her arm out of his grip. “You had no fear in you until this instant.”

She ignored him, picking her way carefully around stones in the darkness and trying to remember which wall the door was on.

“You’ve bared your throat to me, Audra. You aren’t afraid of what I am,” he stated. “What else is there?”

She turned back to face him, wishing she could simply sink into the wall she leaned against. “I can’t explain.”

“Why not?” he asked, and though his voice was gentle she could tell he was not going to let her worm her way out of this easily. “Who is stopping you? I’m your only master here, and I’m not going to hurt you for anything you say.”

He stepped toward her, and Turquoise flinched as he planted one hand on the wall to each side of her shoulders. “What are you afraid of?” he asked softly. “Are you afraid I’ll recognize that you’re pretending to be a slave when you have as much free will as I do? Or are you afraid I’ll recognize these . . . ?” With fingertips that barely grazed her skin, he traced the scars on her right arm, finally settling on the ring around her wrist. “And that I’ll know whose weapon made this mark?”

Her throat was choked around the knot that must have been her heart, which jumped from her chest at the mere suggestion of Lord Daryl.

“Afraid I’ll remember stories I’ve heard, the ranting complaints of one of my associates? Pretty, but very disobedient, he said. And strong—but of course he would call her strong, since he couldn’t seem to tame her. She had a natural resistance; he couldn’t get into her thoughts, and didn’t know any other way to break her. He called her Catherine.”

The silence after he finished speaking seemed to last forever.

She jumped when he reached for her again, but all he did was brush a lock of hair out of her face. Jaguar’s proximity was awakening more than her hunter’s instincts.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Jaguar repeated. He lowered his lips to her throat, and she relaxed in the familiar position. “What is it that terrifies you not of this . . .” She felt the sharpness of fangs against her throat, not pressing quite hard enough to pierce the skin. “. . . but of this?”

He kissed her.

He kissed slowly, unhurried, as if he could stay all day and not miss a beat. At the same time he was demanding, deepening the kiss before she knew what was going on. Gentle he was not, but the aggressive edge of his kisses was like the sweet rush of adrenaline so dear to a fighter.

Of course, he had a few hundred years of practice, and Turquoise had very little to compare him to—human boyfriends, mostly, and all of those a long time ago. And Lord Daryl.

The last thought made her jump. Jaguar’s kiss had none of the violence of Lord Daryl’s, but the undertone of possessive dominance was the same, and that made Turquoise recoil the instant she recognized it. She pulled back, slamming her back against the stone wall as she pushed Jaguar away.

“Audra—”

“Jaguar, let go of me.”

He hesitated. “Audra—” he began again, and again she interrupted, “Let go of me.”

He released her so suddenly she had to bite back a gasp. “I’m sorry.”

Turquoise saw the newcomer enter the courtyard before Jaguar did. The vampiress glanced at Turquoise for a brief moment before turning her gaze to Jaguar. She caught him by the shoulders and whispered, “How