burned with a steady, unyielding
resolve. He would be unstoppable in all
things he set out to do. Honorable to his
last breath.
Trygg seemed to know this about
his teammate. He seemed to respect it.
With a slow exhale, the terrifying Breed
male let his shoulders relax a degree.
His jaw pulsed, but he did as his
comrades demanded, easing back on his
heels with a quiet rumble in his throat.
Then he turned and walked away,
stalking down the far length of the
corridor.
“You okay?” Sav asked.
Melena nodded. “Is his problem
just me, or does he despise all women?”
Sav gave her a sardonic look. “It’s
not just you. And it’s a long, ugly story.
If you have a week or five to spare,
maybe I’d tell you.”
No, she didn’t have that kind of
time. And the fact that tomorrow Lazaro
would be taking her back to the States
put a pang of regret in her breast. She
wanted to stay a bit longer with Savage
and Jehan.
She wanted to get to know them:
Savage and his easy charm and gorgeous
smile. Jehan, with his intriguing past and
enigmatic personality. She wanted to
know what obligation awaited him in
Morocco, and why was he trying to
outrun it. Against her own sense of logic
or
self-preservation,
Melena
also
wanted to stay long enough to understand
what had inspired Trygg’s terrifying
animosity toward women.
And Lazaro...
Would there ever be enough time in
this life to unravel all of his torment and
secrets and dark, hidden thoughts?
Would he even allow her that, if by
some miracle they did have more time?
All those rooms of his upstairs, missing
memories...she wanted to help him fill
them back up again.
She wanted to be the one to save
him this time.
“Come on,” Sav said. “You really
shouldn’t be down here in the operations
compound. Lazaro will have our balls if
—”
The warrior’s words cut short as a
gust of cold, dark air seemed to blow in
from the far end of the corridor. He was
there. Melena waited to hear Lazaro
growl his fury at the men, or demand to
know what she was doing back in the
Order’s domain after he prohibited her
from distracting his team.
But he didn’t growl or demand
anything. He just stared at her in silence,
his sapphire gaze trained on her alone.
Intense. Penetrating. Focused on her
with searingly sensual regard.
She trembled a little under that
potent
gaze,
not
from
anything
resembling fear. Seeing him there,
looking at her as though no one and
nothing else existed but the two of them,
it was all she could do to keep from
launching herself at him from down the
corridor and flying into his arms.
But Melena held back. And now
she noticed that there was something
different about him tonight. Something
different in the relaxed state of his
glyphs, in his schooled expression.
“You were gone for a long time,”
she murmured. And then she did start to
approach him, though not with the
jubilation she felt just a moment ago.
This was something heavier. Something
that stung as the realization began to
dawn on her. “You’ve fed. You went out
to find a blood Host. A woman?”
He didn’t deny it.
Damn him, he just stood there,
watching impassively as she slowed to a
stop in front of him. The array of skin
markings on his arms under his rolled-
back sleeves were calm, satiated. “Did
you fuck her too, Lazaro?”
Behind her, Melena heard Jehan
movement in the corridor at her back,
followed by the polite closing of a door
as the two warriors made a hasty exit.
“Did you?” she repeated, now that
it was just she and Lazaro in the
passageway.
He swore, roundly, fiercely under
his breath. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
She scoffed. “You know what’s
ridiculous? Sitting around waiting for
you to return. Hoping that I didn’t
somehow push you away tonight. But
how can I push you away when I never
had you in the first place?”
She swept past him on a wounded,
furious cry. She didn’t know if he
followed. In that moment, she didn’t
care.
But he had followed her. She had
only made it to the main floor of the
mansion’s residential wing when Lazaro
halted her by grasping her hand.
“Melena—”
“You
know
what
else
is
ridiculous?” she fumed at him. “Hoping
you’d come back and tell me that you
realize there’s something serious going
on between us too.” She glanced away,
giving a shake of her head. “It’s
ridiculous to expect that a man who’s
been living his life like a ghost for
twenty years could ever admit that he
actually feels something again.”
Wrenching out of his light hold, she
ran for the stairs. She heard him stalking
up behind her, but he didn’t stop her
now. Her breath was heaving by the time
she found herself in the center of
Lazaro’s palatial living room suite.
“I don’t want another blood bond,
Melena. I won’t risk it.” His deep voice
sounded brittle at her back. “So,
whatever you think is happening here
between us, it has no future.”
“Whatever I think?” She turned to
face him. It stung that he wanted to
diminish what they’d shared, but she
didn’t believe him. She could see that he
cared. But he was also determined to
push her away. He truly intended to
spend the rest of his life alone, punishing
himself for something he couldn’t
control. “I know about your family,
Lazaro. I know you blame yourself for
not being there to save Ellie and the rest
of your Darkhaven.”
He glared at her furiously, as if she
had violated some boundary simply in
speaking of the incident. “They trusted
me to keep them safe. I failed them.”
“You weren’t there. That’s all. And
that’s a completely different thing.”
“No, not to me. And if you know so
much about it, then you should also
understand why I left to
find a blood
Host tonight. After making love with
you, if I’d stayed...” He exhaled sharply.
“The ifs don’t matter. I don’t want
another Breedmate shackled to me and
reliant on me for protection, for her
sustenance. For her life. I won’t do that
to someone again. I prefer to keep my
appetites restricted to human females.”
Melena scoffed. “Safe women you
can fuck and feed from without the risk
of feeling anything.”
He stared, unflinching at her jab. “It
is simpler that way, yes.”
“Women who leave you free to
walk away and wallow in your guilt and
self-flagellation.”
His full lips had compressed in a
flat line as she spoke, his expression
hardening now. “That’s right, Melena.
That’s exactly the kind of woman I
prefer. Simple. Safe. Forgettable. What I
don’t want is what nearly happened
between us today. I’m not going to
sacrifice two decades of resolve on a
couple of days of passion.”
And she didn’t want to hear him say
that. No more than she wanted to
acknowledge the regret she saw in his
dark gaze, or the grim determination that
emanated from the stormy color of his
aura. “How fortunate for you and your
martyred honor that I’ll be out of your
life tomorrow.”
She pivoted away from him on a
burst of hot anger and bitter pride.
She didn’t even make it two steps.
Lazaro was suddenly in front of
her. And he was fuming. He seized her
shoulders, blocking her path with the
muscled wall of his body and the power
of his sudden fury.
Amber sparks crackled in the
midnight-blue pools of his eyes as his
gaze clashed and locked with hers. “The
fact that you’ll soon be out of my life is
fortunate for you too, Melena.” He drew
in a breath and more fire leapt into his
irises, reducing his pupils to thinning,
inhuman slits. “You should be thanking
me for my restraint thus far, not stomping
off to pout like a petulant child.”
“Let go of me.” He didn’t. If
anything, his grip only went firmer. His
face was so close to hers now, the bones
of his high, angled cheeks sharpening
with the emergence of his fangs. She
refused to shrink under the full blast of
his Gen One fury. “You call it restraint,
the fact that you deny yourself the things
you really want? Do you honestly think
your guilt is ever going to release you if
you only keep feeding it with your self-
imposed isolation and pointless, hollow
honor?”
A snarl curled up from his throat. It
escaped through bared teeth and fangs.
“You’re far too young to lecture me on
life and death or guilt and honor. You
don’t have any idea what you’re talking
about.”
“Don’t I?” she challenged hotly.
And maybe a bit recklessly too, but she
was so pissed off at him now, she
couldn’t stop. “Twenty years of licking
your
wounds,
hiding
from
life?
Pretending you don’t need anything or
anybody? One of us is acting like a
sulking child, but it sure as hell isn’t
me.”
A low, thunderous growl. That was
all the warning she had. Then Lazaro’s
mouth came down hard on hers. His kiss
was ruthless, punishing. Spiked with
raw fury and violent need.
Melena felt his fangs press against
her lips, against her tongue when she
opened her mouth to his invading kiss.
He was holding nothing back now. She
felt that hard intent roll through him with
the fierce drumming of his heart against
her breasts. She felt it in the steely
demand of his cock when he brought his
arm around her back and hauled her into
a brutal embrace, crushing her abdomen
into the immense ridge of his arousal.
She felt the wall come up against
her spine and realized dazedly that he
had moved her there using the power of
his Breed genetics to propel them both
across the floor in an instant. Lazaro
fucked her mouth with his tongue, grazed
her lips with the deadly points of his
fangs. His big body caged her, allowing
her no room to escape, even if she tried.
“Now tell me what you know about
my restraint, Melena.” His voice had
dropped to a timbre so low, so
dangerously dark, everything reasonable
and sane in her trembled with a dreadful
anticipation. His merciless gaze bore
into her, daring her to flinch as he bent
his head toward her vulnerable throat.
“Tell me about my hollow honor.”
She couldn’t speak. All of her
senses were drawn taut, coiled to the
point of breaking. His breath rushed hot
and fevered across her neck, into the
sensitive shell of her ear. Her pulse was
racing, electricity coursing through her
veins everywhere Lazaro touched her.
He reached up, ran his fingertips over
the scarlet teardrop-and-crescent-moon
mark at the base of her throat.
“Tell me you’re not afraid that I’ll
take your sweet, frantic carotid in my
teeth right now and do exactly what I’ve
been dying to do since I first saw you on
that boat last night.”
She was afraid. And for all her
desire for him—despite her sense that
she had been waiting all her life for him
and had never realized it until now—
Lazaro’s fangs nestled so dangerously
near her throat put an arrow of true panic
in her blood.
If he pierced her vein, just one sip
of her Breedmate blood would create an
exclusive, unbreakable bond. He would
be tied to her for the rest of his days—or
until her death, should that come sooner.
One sip and he would crave no one
else.
He would always feel Melena in
his blood, even if they were apart. Even
if miles or entire countries separated
them.
One sip and there would be no
other Breedmate for him, even if he
drank from another woman with the mark
after his connection was formed with
Melena.
And if she drank from him in
exchange, their bond would be a
complete circle. Sustaining. Eternal.
Unbreakable, except by death.
Melena held her breath, suddenly
understanding the full impact of what she
was inviting. Lazaro Archer, one of the
eldest, most formidable Gen One Breed
males in existence, his body pressed
&
nbsp; against her from breast to ankle, his
enormous fangs bared and poised over
her carotid.
And he wanted her.
Every muscled inch of him was
coiled with power, all of it at the razor’s
edge of breaking. Desire burned in his
eyes—desire for her body and for the
vein that throbbed so madly near his
mouth. Heat and rigid strength pulsed
where his pelvis ground so demandingly
into her abdomen.
He was feral and wild and nearly
unhinged...and she had never known
anything hotter in her life.
“Damn you for making me want
you,” he muttered thickly. His searing
breath skated across her electrified skin
like a lick of flame. “Damn you for
making me want this...”
She heard his brief inhalation. Felt
his head descend, his lips and tongue
sealing over her skin. Then she felt
Lazaro’s bite.
Sharp.
Deep.
Irrevocable.
CHAPTER 9
The first hot rush of Melena’s
blood over his tongue slammed into him
like a freight train. Warm, rich, potent.
And laced with the sweetest trace of
caramel and dark, ripe cherries—her
Breedmate blood scent, a fragrance that
had tempted him from the moment he’d
first encountered it. Now that scent
would call him as surely as a divining
rod seeking a spring of cool, pure water.
He would feel her in his blood,
everything
she
experienced
most
intensely would now echo in his veins.
Her joy, her sorrow, her fears. Her
hungers. Melena owned him now.
The bond he’d just activated inside
him was unbreakable. She had been a
distraction to his mind, will, and body
before; now she would be his lifelong
addiction.
And although better than a thousand
years’ of logic strove to persuade him
that Melena’s blood was a shackle he
shouldn’t want and damned well didn’t
need, the part of him that was purely
male, elementally Breed, roared with the
one word Lazaro never thought he would
utter again: Mine.
He had known this feeling before.
But what he had with Melena now was
all the more intense for how desperately
he’d tried to resist it. He groaned with possessive pleasure, knocked off his
axis with a force that staggered him.
Amazed him.
Holy hell, it humbled him.
He drank more, starving for her.
Twenty years of feeding from human
blood Hosts went up in flames as he
drew greedily from Melena’s tender