A Hunger Like No Other (Immortals After Dark #2)(18)

“As if I can lie! All right, you want to know? I think he’s…he’s wildly handsome!” With emphasis on wild. “He knows what I am and we’re leaving Paris together.”

“Great Freya, you’re serious. What’s he like?”

“He’s strong. Said he’d protect me.” Great kisser. Intermittently insane. With a broad chest she’d wanted to lick like ice cream.

In a scoffing tone, Regin asked, “Strong enough to take down a vampire?”

“You have no idea.” Getting out of town with a powerful Lykae—the natural-born enemy of the vampires—was sounding more and more like a bingo idea. But then she frowned. If Lachlain hadn’t been the danger they’d warned her of, then what was his agenda? What did he want with her? Why didn’t he simply kill the vampire he’d captured?

A suspicion tickled her mind, but she mentally scratched it away. He can’t even drive a car—obviously he needs help. And I’m from the Lore….

“When are you leaving Paris?”

“Tonight. Right now, actually.”

“That’s good, at least. Tell me where you’re going.”

“So Annika can come drag me home by my ear?” And fight Lachlain to the death? “Nope. Tell her I’ll be home week after next at the latest, and that if she tries to find me, I’ll know she doesn’t trust that I am more than capable of taking care of myself—”

Regin snorted, then laughed outright.

“I can take care of myself.” Her tone hurt, she asked, “Why is that funny?”

Shrieking laughter.

“Piss off, Regin! You know what? I’ll send you a postcard!”

She slammed the phone down, then snatched up her boots. Stomping into the first one, she muttered angrily, “I will so go.” Another boot shoved on. “And I won’t be catching any Stockholm syndrome.”

When the phone rang seconds later, she yanked it back up. “What?”

“Alrighty then, have it your way—you’re officially on your own,” Regin said, then sniffled as if she’d cried from laughing so hard. “Now, if you come across a leech, no offense, remember your training.”

“None taken. And would that be the sword training where you fly past my defenses and swat me on the ass, chirping, ‘Dead!’? Another swat. ‘Dead!’? Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”

“No, that would be the training where you sprint like hell whenever you hear that I’m looking for you to train.”



Once she’d hung up the telephone again, Lachlain strode around the corner without even acting like he hadn’t listened.

She jumped again, then her brows drew together. “You eavesdropped, didn’t you?”

“Aye,” he answered without compunction.

“Learn anything new?” she asked in a nervous tone.

Not really. “Your accent’s odd and you speak too quickly,” he answered honestly. Then he smirked. “But I did hear that you think me ‘wildly handsome.’ ” He wondered why he’d felt a flush of pleasure at that. As if he cared what she thought.

She glanced away, but not before he saw her face flush. He thought he heard her mutter, “Emphasis on the wild.”

“Why did you no’ tell your family what I am?”

“I would never want to worry them unduly.”

“And knowing you are with a Lykae would worry them?” he asked, as though he didn’t know how violently they would react to the news.

“Of course it would. They’ve told me about you. About what you are.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “And what am I?”

For the first time since he’d taken her, she purposely met his gaze. “Deep down, you’re a monster.”





6


E mma wears her fear like a flag.

That’s what her aunts said about her, not cruelly, just with baffled shakes of their heads. Compared to them, she feared so much—and she was the first to admit it.

They were courageous, fierce, and each of them had a purpose in life—some to guard indestructible weapons that could never fall into the wrong hands. Some watched over a bloodline of a particularly strong or noble human family. They were considered guardian angels.

Emma? Well, Emma had undertaken the epic endeavor of…college. At Tulane. She hadn’t even ventured outside of her hometown to earn her identity of Emma the Co-ed, possessor of a B.A. in pop culture.

She remembered one time when she was young, playing at night in her sandbox. Out of the corner of her eye, she’d seen the yellow glow of a troop of ghouls as they descended on the manor.

She’d fled inside, bursting through the door, screaming, “Run!”

Her aunts had all shared glances. Annika had appeared embarrassed, her stunningly beautiful face displaying a frown. “Emma, sweetling, what precisely do you mean by run? We don’t run from anything. We’re the creatures they run from, remember?”

How surprised they’d been when Emma had wanted this trip abroad. How shocked they would be that her finger was very decidedly pushing the lobby button of the elevator to take her to the Lykae waiting for her. After she’d called him a monster to his face, his eyes had flickered, then he’d stormed out of the room, ordering her to meet him at the car downstairs.