A Hunger Like No Other (Immortals After Dark #2)(61)

“Do you understand me? Always.”

Her brows drew together. “You have someone else—”

“It’s you, Emma. It’s always been you.”

His words were like a promise, like a…vow. She whispered inanely, “Not Australian for buddy?”

He shook his head slowly, his thumb stroking her, making it difficult to comprehend what he was telling her.

“B-but you said…” Why’d he have to tell her this now, while he made unhurried, perfect circles with his thumb? She vaguely understood what he was saying, and still she wanted his fingers playing, wanted him full and thick inside her. “You…you lied to me?”

He hesitated, then said, “Aye, I lied to you.”

She groaned with frustration. Damn it, so close! “Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because we begin this tonight. With the truth between us.”

“Begin this?” she asked in a bewildered tone. “What do you mean? Like our lives together or something?”

When he didn’t disagree, she tensed. Lives together. For a Lykae, that meant forever, and forever for an immortal was literal. She scrambled away from him, pulling her panties back, and curled her legs under her. “You never intended to let me go.” She worked her shirt and bra down, shivering when the material covered her nipples.

“No, I dinna. I had to keep you with me. And I’d planned to entice you to stay by then.”

She repeated dumbly, “Had to keep me with you?” Her unfulfilled desire was making her body feel wrong, burning out of her control.

“In all the years that have passed, I have waited for the one woman who was meant to be mine alone. You are that woman.”

“Are you still crazy?” she snapped, angered that her body felt bereft of him. “I’m not that woman. I’m just not.”

“You will realize soon enough that you were given to me above all others. You’ll understand that I’ve searched relentlessly for you in every age that I have lived.” His voice went low and gravelly. “And, Emma, I’ve lived and I have searched a verra long time.”

“I’m a vam”—she patted her chest—“pire. Vampire. You’ve forgotten that.”

“It stunned me as well. I dinna accept it at first.”

“No kidding? I never would have known! What if you were correct then? You could be wrong now,” she said desperately. “How can you be sure?”

He leaned over her. “I scented you from…afar, and it was beautiful and eased my mind. I saw your eyes for the first time, and I recognized you. I tasted your flesh, and”—he shuddered violently above her and his voice went guttural—“there is no way to describe it. But I can show you if you let me.”

“I can’t do this,” she said, trying to dislodge herself from her pinned position, disgusted that when he’d shuddered, she’d gone soft for him once more.

Dawning horror. Her suspicion that she’d harbored and resisted was true. How could she have been so stupid—She stopped herself. No, the idea had been easy to discount because how could she, a half-creature who was part vampire, be a Lykae’s mate? A vampire and a Lykae bound together?

And then there had been his convincing, ego-crushing lie….

“So what had you planned to do with me?” She feinted right, then ducked left out from under his arms, snaring her jeans. She knew he’d allowed her to get away and faced him, shaking with anger. “Really planned? Am I to, say, live with your pack? The one you were quick to point out will rip me to bits?”

“No one will ever hurt you again, from my clan or outside of it. But you will no’ live among them, because I am their king, and our home is here at Kinevane.”

“Wow, I landed European royalty! Somebody call People!” She stormed from the bathroom, then wriggled into her pants.

What she wouldn’t give to be able to trace, to disappear her ass out of this castle. She hated being lied to. Since she could never lie back.

Mimicking his accent, she said, “ ‘Ye’re no’ my mate, Emmaline. Nothing so serious as my one mate, but I would no’ mind keepin’ ye for my mistress. I want ye, but no’ for that.’ How condescending you were!”

He followed, gripping her arm and forcing her to face him. “I regretted having to lie, but what’s done is done. I want you to at least listen to what I have to say.”

“And I want to go home and see my family.” And get her mind straight and ask them, Why do I dream his memories? Why am I always overwhelmed and confused, like someone put a chaos spell on my life?

“Will you no’ even consider that this could be true? You would leave me, even knowing what we could have?”

She frowned as a sudden thought occurred. “You said ‘every age that I have lived.’ So how old are you? Six hundred? Seven hundred years?”

“Does that matter?”

She shook his hand free. “How—old?”

“Roughly twelve hundred years.”

She gasped. “Do you know what ‘robbing the cradle’ means? I am almost seventy-one. This skeeves me out!”

“I knew it would be difficult to accept, but you’ll come to see it in time.”

“Come to see what? That I want to live in a foreign country away from my family and friends in order to stay with the dishonest, unbalanced Lykae who keeps lying to me?”