A Hunger Like No Other (Immortals After Dark #2)(15)

Didn’t matter. Finish the task—get to go on as usual.

As she lathered and rinsed her hair, she mused over her typical week prior to the misbegotten trip. Monday through Friday she did research for her coven and trained before watching a late movie with the more night-owlish of her aunts. Friday and Saturday the witches came over with their Xbox and blenders full of pastel drinks. Sunday night she rode horses with the good demons who often loitered around the manor. If she could tweak just a couple of little aspects about her existence, life could be damn near perfect.

She frowned at her thoughts. As a natural-born vampire, she couldn’t lie to others. If an untruth arose in her thoughts and the impulse to use it fired in her mind, she would become violently ill. No, Emma couldn’t lie to others, but she’d always had a talent for lying to herself. A couple of little tweaks? In truth, there was a yawning loneliness in her life—and a fear about her nature that rode her constantly….

As far as she knew, she was like no one else in existence—she truly belonged nowhere—and though her Valkyrie aunts loved her, she felt loneliness as sharply as a blade driven into her heart every day.

She’d figured if she could determine how her parents had lived together and had been able to have her, then maybe she could find others like herself. Perhaps then she could finally feel a connection to something else. And if she could discover more about her vampire half, she might allay her fear that one day she would become like them.

No one should have to worry each day that she might turn into a killer….

If she’d assumed he would give her privacy because he’d learned a lesson, she’d have been wrong. He walked right in and opened the shower stall door. She jumped, startled, fumbling not to drop the conditioner bottle before catching it on the pad of her forefinger.

She saw his fists clench and open, and that finger went limp. The bottle thudded.

One hit…The image of the shredded bedside table flashed in her mind, then the memory of the car he’d batted like a crumpled piece of paper. Chunks of marble that hadn’t been pulverized still littered the shower floor. Fool. She’d been a fool to think he wouldn’t hurt her. Of all the things she should fear, she feared pain the most. And now a Lykae clenched his fists in anger. At her.

She turned into the corner, giving him her side to try to shield her nudity. And because if he hit, she could sink down and draw her knees to her chest. But with some foreign curse, he stalked off.

After showering, she returned to the bedroom to find almost all of her belongings gone. Had he taken them to the car he’d secured? If so, ten euros said that he’d tossed her laptop under everything else. She supposed it didn’t matter anyway, since she’d uncovered nothing about her parents to go into said computer. Just because she could navigate Tulane’s research library did not mean she could crack the Lore in a foreign country—oh, and in the hours between sundown and sunup.

She’d accomplished nothing on this trip. But for her abduction, of course.

Why should she even be surprised?

She exhaled wearily and trudged to the items he had left her—one outfit laid out on the bed. Of course he’d chosen the tiniest, most sheer lingerie she’d brought with her. The thought of him handling her underclothes, deliberately choosing them for her, made her blush for the thousandth time since she’d met him. She must have wasted a gallon of blood blushing because of him.

He’d also picked out long pants and a turtleneck and a sweater and a jacket. Did he want her to be buried in clothes?

At that moment, he appeared again. She leapt backward, clearing the length of the mattress to stand at the headboard. Even with her keen hearing, she hadn’t heard a hint of his approach.

He raised his eyebrows at the quick movement. “That frightened of me?”

She clutched her towel. I’m that frightened of my own shadow, much less an overgrown Lykae! But his voice hadn’t been cruel, and she gathered the courage to study him from beneath her lashes. His eyes were that warm golden color and he was wearing new clothes. He looked like a mid-thirties millionaire. Or more aptly, a physique-model playing one.

The bastard was a remarkably handsome man. And he obviously knew it, which nettled. “You’ve attacked me twice. You’ve given me no reason not to be frightened.”

He was getting irritated again. “That was before I gave you my word that I would no’ hurt you.” Then, seeming to get his temper under control, he said, “Everything is ready. I have a rented car waiting and I’ve settled the bill for this room.”

She could just imagine that bill. Even though he’d annihilated the antique bedside table in this room, it wouldn’t add up to the cost of her stay. “But I’ve been here for weeks. I can pay for my own—”

“You did pay. Now, come down from the bed.”

When he held out his hand to her, she crossed to the opposite side and stepped down, feeling dizzy and fearing the worst—the utter abuse of her credit card. “And I suppose I paid for your new clothes?” she dared to ask with the bed between them. Emma knew fine things—all Valkyrie did—since they’d inherited Freya’s acquisitiveness—and the cut of his clothes reeked of money.

He wore a dark leather car coat that was hand-stitched and flat-front trousers, camel in color and lean in fit. Under the opened jacket, a black thin cashmere shirt molded to him like a second skin. Between the edges of his coat, she could see the rigid outlines of his chest. His clothing said, I’m rich, and I might be a little dangerous.