Kane

face against her updrawn knee and trying like hell to hide from her own embarrassment. What had gotten into her? It was to have been a simple kiss! How had that so rapidly evolved into her having his musky flavor on her tongue? What had. . what had he done to her?

“It wasn’t like that,” Kane said, interrupting her thoughts.

“You’ve already proven you can take control of my mind and manipulate me like a marionette!”

“Do I look like I want a marionette?” he demanded in a sharp temper. “If I wanted a brainless sex toy, Corrine, I have the power to make you forget everything you’d do! You wouldn’t be sitting there questioning me because you’d never even realize you’d missed a step in your daily life. And frankly, babe, if you and I are going to burn up the sheets together, I want you to remember every damn minute of it!”

“Why? Why me?” she yelled at him sharply and suddenly. “Why are you here like this”—she indicated his lashed down state—“and why am I here with you? You won’t explain any of this to me and yet you expect me to simply accept and believe whatever choice bits of information you feel like doling out! Just tell me what is happening to me!”

“Don’t you think I want to tell you all of that? I want nothing more than to clear the air and make you realize just how important all of this is!”

“Then do it, Kane! Stop pussyfooting around my delicate sensibilities and just explain this to me!”

“You’re mine!” Kane blurted it out in a growl of frustration and need. The demanding conditions of the sharp moon that rose higher and higher with every second forced the claim out of him. “Mine! Not just for now but forever, Corrine! The person you’ve been searching for? That other half you’ve always known was missing from your soul? It’s me. Me.” Kane closed his eyes then and laughed with strained control. He couldn’t bear to see that caustic, disbelieving expression on her face. She was looking at him as if he were some kind of horrible insect crawling up out of her drain. Unwanted. Undesired. Potentially dangerous and harmful. Well, so be it. If she was going to think the worst of him, then what more harm could it do to throw a few choice logs on the fire?

“I’m not human, you know,” he told her, a sudden grin striking his mouth. “And if you need more proof of that than what you’ve already seen, I’m momentarily going to have to disappoint you. My best parlor trick has been snuffed for the time being in order to keep me here.” Kane jerked on the wrist shackles above his head. “And for that matter, you aren’t entirely human either. I mean, you were, but then I touched you and apparently that set off this whole chain reaction that altered the hell out of your DNA. . to the point that it almost killed you. . and shot my sex drive into oblivion. See, I wasn’t supposed to touch you, and I wasn’t supposed to want you and I broke the law by doing both. I just couldn’t stay away. You’re just so remarkable. . so strong and vital. . so damn beautiful and independent. Yet you’re covering up this chasm of loneliness inside. You called me to you. You were craving exactly what I can offer.” Kane stole a glance at her. “Except the reality is that you think I am a lunatic. You think you’ve been kidnapped and thrown into some kind of weird human experiment or a practical joke. So I guess the odds of really getting to learn the things I want to learn. . like what you feel like under my hands. . like what you’ll sound like when you laugh genuinely for me. . I guess that’s completely screwed up now.”

Kane looked away from her, his long lashes lowering over suddenly hollow eyes. That he was utterly devastated by his situation was clear to Corrine. She could do little more than gape at him for the longest moment as she tried to process everything he had said to her. Of course, she ought to be telling herself he was insane because he thought he wasn’t human, but all she could seem to focus on was the shivering thrill that raced beneath her skin when he spoke of touching her. She couldn’t escape the way it made her feel when he spoke of craving something as simple as her laugh. She knew in her soul that it wasn’t just a line, and she had never believed the words of any man with such conviction. Not since she’d learned that boys sometimes lied to get their way.

What was it about him that compelled her to believe in him so utterly? “If you aren’t human, then what are you?” she asked.

Kane looked over at her briefly. His short laugh was a nearly soundless burst of air through his nose. “Well, pretty lady, my people are known as Demons. No wings, no fangs. . not usually, anyway.” There was a brief flash of a toothy grin and she could feel the mischief that swirled into his personality for that fleeting instant. It was an odd sensation, almost as if she were intruding directly into his mind. She wished for a moment that she could read his mind. Then she could figure out what he was up to. It wasn’t the first time she’d had the desire to be able to read a man’s mind so she would know if she could trust him. “We’re people almost exactly like you. Except. .”

“Except you can read the thoughts of others,” she injected into the pause. “And we’re not in some kind of hell, I take it?” Corrine looked up to indicate the stone room around her with its beautiful stained glass cathedral windows and rich castle-like appointments. It looked like a high end tourists’ castle hotel, other than the gas lighting perhaps and the set of chains holding him securely in place.

“Oh, I’m in some kind of hell,” Kane countered bitterly. But the sarcasm spoke as an affirmative answer to her question.

“So it’s just a name. Demon.”

“No. It’s a culture, Corrine. A deeply complex culture with all the same sorts of mores, rules, and monsters as yours has. But it’s a little more dangerous and it revolves around the night instead of the day. We live our lives, have jobs, find mates. .” There was a distinct breech in his sentence as he slowly slid his gaze from the top of her head, all the way to the knees she was resting on beside him. The look was fast and fierce, beyond hot as it burned over her, and very, very clear in its intention. “Sometimes we have perfect mates. Soul mates. We call that connection an Imprinting. It’s oh so very rare, Corrine, but when it happens. .” He closed his eyes and drew in a slow, deep breath, his expression turning peaceful and passionate at the same time. “When it happens, we treasure it with all that we are. Just like you would.”

“But”—she laughed nervously—“we don’t usually just look at a total stranger and think ‘There he is! That right there is my soul mate!’ It’s a long process, getting to know someone that well. It takes time to figure that sort of thing out.”

“Not for us. Not for you and me. At least not physically speaking,” he amended when she startled at his intensity. “This is a chemical connection, sweetheart. It’s science. DNA and biological imperative. That much is written in our blood and cannot be changed. You and I are connected in this symbiosis of energy—” he indicated himself with his eyes, then looked at her—“and need for energy.” He rushed onward when she seemed to be quietly listening, needing for her to hear him. “Some creatures in this world are driven by certain biochemical compulsions and some are driven by the turn of the seasons and time. My people are driven by both. And tonight. . tonight is one of the most intense nights on our calendar. Tonight is Samhain, when the moon rises to its fullest in October. The weeks before and after are hard enough to deal with, but tonight is the worst. There’s only one drive that seems to matter to us. And if we don’t have our true mates, we’ll try to satisfy it as best we can wherever we can. But if we find that one. . that ever so precious one. . then only that mate will do from that moment on. Civilization and logic and mores stop meaning anything to us; all we want is our mate. No matter what. Even if she doesn’t know who we are. Even if she is sick and unconscious. It’s a drive, Corrine, and I want to fight it with everything I have so I can approach you the right way. . the way you deserve. The way I know you crave.” With sweetness and romance. Tenderness and caring. You want to be wooed and swept away and you think it’s a fantasy that will never be fulfilled, but it will. It will. I just need to get through tonight. Then I can give you the romance as well as the passion. I can give you everything!

But this is all just words and empty promises to her, he thought to himself, looking away from Corrine’s very stunned expression. She doesn’t believe a word of it. Why should she when all she has known are liars who’ll speak sweetness to her in order to coax their way into those amazing arms and that incredible body?

Kane’s eyes closed and the pain on his features etched into deeper lines. “Oh, honey,” he sighed, “I know you don’t believe me. To you I must seem like just one more in a long line of con artists. I’ve just got a better line right? More creative?”

Corrine didn’t acknowledge him. Her brain was churning out other information. I heard his thoughts! she realized with no little sense of awe. She realized by his spoken words that he had not meant for her to hear what had rung like a conversation in her head. It had been loud and then soft, fading in and out of clarity, different from when he spoke directly into her thoughts in a clear and distinct manner. What was most telling was the sheer emotion behind his thoughts. When he’d spoken into her mind before, it had only been his voice she’d experienced. But this time she felt everything. She felt his frustration and his desperation. She felt, once