Claimed by the Immortal

the vampire who held her now.

Then, startling her, Damien said, “I can’t do this.”

An instant later, she was sitting all alone and he had backed to the farthest edge of the circle.

“Can’t do what?” she asked, totally at sea.

“I can’t act normal. I’m not normal. I’m a damned vampire and there’s just so much ordinary I can give you.”

* * *

Damien’s eyes burned in a way he couldn’t remember feeling since his change. His entire body was overloaded with the hungers she woke in him. His blood pounded in his ears. His Hunger had pushed him to a brink where he felt he might snap. The ache to taste her blood, to lose himself in the ecstasy that sex with her would be, had reached phenomenal proportions, agonizing in their intensity, all the more dangerous now because he was aching for her pain. An emotional connection threatened him far more than a physical one.

And she sat there, uninitiated human, looking so shocked and, damn it, wounded by the way he had withdrawn so suddenly.

But it had either been that or give in to the tsunami of need that hammered him, that tried to sweep him away on its roaring waters to places Caro didn’t want to go, might never want to go.

His basest instincts raged, demanding satisfaction, and the little voice in his head that was trying to remind him of all the reasons that wouldn’t be wise was almost drowned by waves of need and Hunger.

Every single instinct he possessed demanded that he pounce and pounce now. He couldn’t remember the Hunger ever being this strong, except in the days right after his change, when the temple had kept him well satisfied with willing food.

Wisdom dictated he should get out of here before he did something Caro would never forgive. Wisdom also reminded him that he couldn’t leave her alone. Not yet. Damn, never in his many centuries could he recall having felt so torn by competing needs. Willing women had always been easy to find. Always.

But while this one might be showing signs of willingness, there was still resistance. And worse, somewhere deep inside he feared that he might become the one addicted.

He’d always avoided that. What the hell was he doing here? He should just turn her over to Jude and get back to Cologne.

A wildness filled him as he realized he was trapped. This woman was trapping him as surely as if she had chained him out in the sunlight.

He looked at her and saw not only the object of his desires, but also the biggest threat he had ever faced.

“Damien?”

He couldn’t even speak. How could he possibly begin to explain what was tearing him apart inside to someone who had no such needs.

“Hush,” he said, and closed his eyes. Not that it helped much. He could still smell her. The gods had never created a better ambrosia than this woman’s scent.

“What am I doing wrong?” she asked.

His eyes snapped open. “You exist.”

He was surprised she didn’t leap up and flee across the circle. Instead, her cheeks still tear-stained, she simply looked at him.

“You can leave if it would make you feel better.”

“Leave? Really? I can’t leave you alone with whatever this threat is. I’m a better vampire than that. Besides, you haunt me even when I’m not with you. If I could still dream, I’m sure you’d be there, too.”

Astonishment washed over him as he saw one corner of her mouth crook upward and a faint blush come to her cheeks. “You certainly haunt my dreams.”

That was something he did not need to hear. She was a witch all right, although not the kind her grandmother had meant. She had ensorcelled him, wrapped him in the spell of her scents, his needs, her temptations. A Siren. A real Siren, not some creature of myth.

Her faint smile faded, and her expression became damnably earnest. Then her words told him that she was pained for him, as well. “You said you could drink from me without hurting me.”

“No, Caro. No.”

“You mean you can’t?”

“I can, but it’s dangerous.”

“I’m willing, if that’s what you need.”

“You didn’t just go there.” He closed his eyes again, as once again powerful needs surged, trying to break the fragile leash that controlled them. “Just stop it. Don’t provoke me. Don’t tempt me.”

“You look like a man in agony.” Her voice had grown tight with a deep caring he could actually smell. She hurt for him. For him!

A man. For the first time he wished he were just an ordinary man, one whose hungers couldn’t turn him into a ravening beast. He’d been content with what he was for a long time now, and it shocked him to realize he could actually wish for the days when he’d been an ordinary mortal.

She was doing that to him. Had he been able, in the maelstrom of conflicting emotions, he might have added hatred to the storm.

Except he could not hate her. Nothing in him would allow that.

He studied her gloomily. “You don’t get it and you can’t get it.”

“Then try to explain it!”

“I have. Apparently the words don’t explain well enough, or you simply can’t understand, being a mortal.”

“Then try again. Please.”

“You’ve never been an addict, have you?”

“No.”

He waved a hand. “Then you can’t begin to understand.”

“Try anyway.”

A burst of anger filled him, and in one fluid, invisible instant he attained his feet and loomed over her. “Listen very carefully, Caro. Accept that I am not exaggerating.”

She nodded, looking a little uneasy. Of course she looked uneasy, but she had asked for this.

“There are delights no mortal can imagine until they are experienced. There is a place where vampires can take their mortal lovers, a place between life and death where ecstasy becomes a pale word to describe what happens. I can lift you to heights of satisfaction and completion you will never find any other way. If I drink from you, you’ll get just a taste of that ecstasy. More than one human, after experiencing that, has gone on a lifelong hunt to experience it once again. To use your analogy, like a crack addict.”

“How can it be so good to be drunk from?”

“It just is. How in the world do you think we’ve survived for so many centuries? If we had to kill everyone we drank from, we’d all be dead, or you’d all be dead.”

“Oh.” She barely breathed the word, and he could see she was trying hard to understand. “But there’s more, isn’t there?”

“Of course there’s more. I told you about claiming. Maybe you don’t really believe it. But if I were to claim you—and I’m not at all sure that is something I have the power to decide—I’d follow you to the ends of the earth or beyond. The only way I could stop would be to kill myself. You don’t want to risk that, nor do I.”

“Just from drinking from me?”

“Drinking from you and making love to you at the same time. Thank goodness it can’t happen from just one or the other separately. Not for vampires. Not as far as I know. But drinking from you could make you addicted. I won’t hurt you like that.”

“You don’t know for sure that will happen.”

God, she was driving him to the edge of madness. It would have been so easy just then to swoop and take everything he wanted and then, when she looked at him with hazy, amazed and satisfied eyes, tell himself that she had asked for it. Because she was asking, whether she realized it or not.

“You’re playing with fire,” he said sharply. “You have absolutely no idea how badly I want to taste you. No