A Hunger Like No Other (Immortals After Dark #2)(13)

She whirled to face him—somehow keeping her balance. She looked hurt, her luminous eyes filled with pain. He resisted the recognition taking hold in his disordered mind.

She whispered, “Why are you doing this to me?”

Because I’ve wanted what’s mine. Because I need you and I hate you. “Come down now,” he ordered.

She shook her head slowly.

“You canna die from this. From sun, or losing your head, but no’ from a fall.” He made his tone casual, though he was uncertain. They were how many floors up? If she was weak…“And I’ll easily follow you down to bring you back here.”

She glanced over her shoulder down at the street. “No, I might die in my condition.”

For some reason he believed her, and his alarm spiked. “Your condition? Because of the sun? Damn you, tell me!”

She turned toward the street and put one foot off the railing.

“Wait!” He tensed to spring for her, not understanding how she could possibly still be balanced. Won’t bend. She’s broken. “I will no’ do that again. No’ until you want me to.” The wind was picking up, plastering the silk to her body. “When you woke…that was meant to give, no’ to take.”

She put the foot back and faced him. “And when I refused your gift?” she cried. “What was that?”

If she died…The fear for her brought him his first true clarity since before the fire. Twelve hundred years he’d waited. For…her.

For whatever reason, the world had given a vampire to him, and he’d pushed her to this? Destroy what you’ve been given. He was devastated by what she was—but he didn’t want her dead. Or ruined.

It enraged him even to contemplate the hell he’d just been through, much less to talk about it, but he had to try anything. Have to get rid of this feeling—this dread. “Understand that I’ve been…locked away for one hundred and fifty years. Without comfort, without a woman. I’d only just escaped a week before I found you and I have no’…acclimated well.”

“Why do you act as if you know me?”

“I’ve been disoriented. Confused. I know we’ve never met.”

“Who are you?”

Just minutes before, he’d been about to claim her—without even telling her his name. “I am Lachlain, head of the Lykae clan.”

He could hear her heart speed up with fear. “Y-you’re a werewolf? You must let me go.”

She looked otherworldly, with her hair streaming about and her skin so pale. She was not of his kind, and he had no idea how to be with her. “I will. After the next full moon. I vow it.”

“I want to go now.”

“I need you…to get to my home,” he said, adding lie to truth. “And I will no’ hurt you again.” Possibly another lie.

She laughed bitterly. “You were going to force me just then, and I almost died this morning. Of sun.” She whispered the word. “Do you know what that’s like? The pain?”

He had a bloody good idea.

Her expression suddenly grew horrified, as if she was recalling a nightmare. “I haven’t felt the sun on my skin”—she swayed on the rail—“since I was three years old.”

Inching closer, mouth gone dry, he said, “I doona ken how to care for you, but you will tell me. And this will no’ happen again.”

“I don’t want your attentions. You…you frighten me.”

Of course he frightened her—his rages left even him shaken. “I understand. Now, come down. I know you doona want to die.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the waxing moon rising, giving him her flawless profile. A gust pushed her hair across her neck. In all his years, he’d never seen such a preternatural scene as her pale skin against her blood-red gown with the moon glowing behind her.

She didn’t answer, only exhaled wearily, swaying.

“Look at me.” She didn’t—she glanced down. “Look at me!”

She seemed to wake up, her brows drawing together, her eyes bleak. “I just want to go home,” she said in a small voice.

“You will. I vow you’ll go home.” To your new home. “Just help me get to mine.”

“If I help you, you swear you’ll release me?”

Never. “Aye.”

“You won’t hurt me?”

“No, I will no’ hurt you.”

“Can you make that promise? You can’t seem to…control yourself.”

“Every hour I gain control.” Because of her? “And know that I doona want to hurt you.” That, at least, was now true. He thought.

“You won’t do those…th-things to me again?”

“I will no’ unless you want me to.” He held out his hand to her. “Do we have an agreement?”

She didn’t take it, but after several agonizing moments, she did come down with a bizarre movement. She stepped down as if she were strolling and had stepped from a curb without breaking stride.

He gave her shoulders a shake. “Doona ever do that again.” He had an odd urge to squeeze the vampire to his chest, and set her away.

She looked down. “I won’t. Unless it’s a better alternative.”