A Hunger Like No Other (Immortals After Dark #2)(39)

Injury, meaning his leg. The one that looked like a human’s leg just after a six-year-long cast came off. The injury that she found herself thinking about, imagining scenarios for.

He had to have lost it. Her bite on his arm, which she’d caught him peering down at with an almost affectionate expression—an expression that she might prize even over a rare hug—was rapidly healing. Yet he continued to limp. He must be completely regenerating it.

She glanced up at him, realizing that as she’d been contemplating his leg, he’d clearly been doing the same to hers, staring at her thighs, getting that…that wolfish look in his eyes. She pinched the hem of her skirt, endeavoring to hop up and wiggle it down. His gaze was glued to her actions, a low, barely audible growl rumbling from him for long seconds. The sound made her shiver, irrationally made her want to exaggerate her movements so he’d enjoy them more.

When sane Emma blushed at her thoughts and tugged the corner of the cover over her, he gave her a brows-drawn expression of deep disappointment.

She looked away, picking up the remote once more as she cast about for a handle on this bizarre situation. She didn’t need to be in a hotel room with this Lykae when both of them were lucid and when she was getting in the habit of falling asleep against his naked body in a bathtub each night. She cleared her throat and faced him. “I’m going to watch a movie. So I guess I’ll see you at sunset.”

“You’re kicking me out of your room?”

“That about sums it up.”

He shook his head—her desires ignored without even a thought. “I’ll stay with you until dawn.”

“I like spending time by myself, and for the last three days, you’ve allowed me none. Would it kill you to leave the room?”

He appeared confused, as if her wanting to be away from him was sheer craziness. “You will no’ share this…movie with me?”

The way he’d phrased his question almost made her grin.

“Then after, you could finally drink again.”

The urge to smile faded at his sexy, gravelly words, but she didn’t look away, too fascinated by the heated way he studied her face.

He continued to ask her to drink, reinforcing her belief that he’d enjoyed it as much as she had. Though it had baffled her, she’d felt his erection—hard to miss, that—and had seen the desire in his eyes. Desire just like she saw right now….

The moment was broken by the sound of some woman screaming her way to ecstasy. Emma gasped, and swung her head around to the TV. She’d been inadvertently pressing the remote and had somehow wound up on Cinemax. This late at night, Cinemax meant Skinemax.

Her face was hot with embarrassment as she frantically worked the remote, but even the regular channels seemed to delight in showing Unfaithful or Eyes Wide Shut. Finally, she landed on something without sex—

Oh, shite. An American Werewolf in Paris.

In full gory attack scene.

Before she could change it, he shot to his feet. “Is this how…is this how humans see us?” He sounded aghast.

She thought about other werewolf movies—Dog Soldiers, The Beast Within, The Howling, the oh-so-subtly-titled The Beast Must Die—and nodded. He was going to see these things sooner or later and he would learn the truth. “Yes, they do.”

“Do they see all the Lore like this?”

“No, um, not really.”

“Why?”

She bit her lip. “Well, I’ve heard the Lykae never concern themselves with PR, while the vampires and the witches, for instance, throw money at it.”

“PR?”

“Public relations.”

“And this PR works for them?” he asked, still watching with a sickened look on his face.

“Let’s put it this way—witches are viewed as powerless Wiccans. Vampires are seen as sexy…myths.”

“My God,” he murmured, sinking onto the bed with a long exhalation.

His reaction was so strong, she wanted to delve. But delving meant being subject to the same. Just then, she didn’t care. “So the werewolf appearance there…it was all wrong.”

He rubbed his bad leg, looking weary. “Damn it, Emma, can you no’ just ask me what I look like when I change?”

She tilted her head at him. His leg clearly hurt him, and she hated to see anything suffering. Apparently even crude and rude Lykae, because to take his mind from his pain, she asked, “So, Lachlain, what do you look like when you change?”

His expression was surprised, and then he seemed not to know how to answer. Finally, he said, “Have you ever seen a phantom mask a human?”

“Of course I have,” she answered. She did live in the most Lore-rich city in the world.

“You know how you can still see the human, but the phantom is clear, too? That’s what it’s like. You still see me, but you see something stronger, wilder, with me.”

She turned toward him on the bed, lay on her front, and bent her elbows to prop her chin up, ready to hear more.

When she waved him on, he leaned back against the headboard, stretching his long legs in front of him. “Ask me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Very well. Do you grow fangs?” When he nodded, she said, “And fur?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Christ, no.”

She had many befurred friends and took offense at his tone, but decided to let it go. “I know your eyes turn blue.”