Darkness Avenged (Guardians of Eternity #10)(11)

The last time she’d left the Veil she’d draped herself in long robes that only hinted at the feminine flawlessness beneath.

Now he felt as if he’d just been punched in the gut. Trying to pretend a nonchalance he was far from feeling, Santiago folded his arms over his chest and met her piercing gaze.

“Santiago,” she murmured, taking a brief inventory of his own jeans, gray hoodie, and big-ass sword strapped to his back, her aloof composure rousing his most primitive instincts.

She wouldn’t look so cold and untouchable once he had her tumbled into his bed, he silently swore. She would be warm and willing and wild enough to sate his hunger.

He wouldn’t accept anything less.

He smiled, not bothering to hide his raw desire. Hell, she already thought he was a barbarian. No need to disappoint her.

“I thought you had scurried back behind the Veil.”

“Scurried?” A slow lift of her brow. “I returned to my home.”

“Without so much as a good-bye?”

“My people needed me.”

Bull. Shit.

“For what?”

She shrugged. “It was difficult for us to accept that we could have a traitor living among us and not have suspected the truth.”

Now that he believed her. Immortal Ones were arrogant enough to assume that they couldn’t be deceived. Their pride must have taken quite a beating for them to accept they’d harbored the traitor.

Still, he knew it was more than concern for her clan that had made her disappear without warning.

“And you were running away?”

A cool smile of disdain. “Running away from what?”

He was lunging forward before he even realized he was moving, grasping her by the shoulders, swooping down his head.

“This,” he muttered as he kissed her with all the frustration that had plagued him over the past month.

For a shocking minute Nefri went rigid beneath his hands, and Santiago felt a cold shard of fear pierce his heart. He couldn’t be wrong. Beneath all her ice, this female burned with an awareness that was as fierce as his.

Then, as his kiss gentled with a gut-aching need to taste her response, he felt a revealing quiver. It was faint, but unmistakable as she swayed toward him, her lips softening in invitation.

Sí.

Relief combined with a dark, intoxicating need threaded through Santiago. The scent of jasmine teased at his nose, the cool silk of her lips as potent as the finest aphrodisiac.

But before he could wrap her slender body in his arms and quench the lust that had raged through him for weeks, Nefri was lifting her hands and pushing them against his chest.

Grudgingly Santiago lifted his head to study her pale face with a brooding gaze. “Don’t expect an apology,” he muttered.

The dark eyes flashed with an indefinable emotion before they were once again calm pools of ebony. “You are . . .”

“What?”

“Uncivilized.”

His hands trailed up her arms, luxuriating in the soft caress of cashmere beneath his fingers. He was a tactile vampire who took intense pleasure in touching and being touched. It had been far too long since he’d indulged his senses.

All his senses.

“Why?” he demanded, not even randomly offended by her accusation. “Because I haven’t been neutered like those so-called Immortal Ones?”

“My clansmen aren’t neutered,” she denied, a faint accent threaded through her low, enticing voice. Like many ancient vampires she deliberately cultivated the current slang, but often slipped into a more formal speech pattern when she was distracted. “In fact, they happen to be extremely intelligent, thoughtful, articulate. . . .”

“Eunuchs.”

Her lips thinned. “I may have left this world a few centuries ago, but I’m fairly certain that men are no longer allowed to maul women whenever they feel the impulse.”

His soft chuckle filled the room. “Oh, I haven’t even started my mauling,” he assured her. He wasn’t stupid. This female had the power to crush him into little squishy bits if she was truly offended by his behavior. “This is only a small taste of my pre-maul.”

“Savage.”

He placed a kiss on the tip of her proud, aquiline nose. “And loving every minute of it.”

“That’s enough.” This time she pressed against his chest with enough force to assure Santiago she wasn’t teasing.

Reluctantly he dropped his hands and took a step back. “Not nearly, but it will have to wait for a more appropriate time and place.”

She tilted her chin, looking untouched. Only the faint tremble of her fingers as she adjusted the heavy gold medallion around her neck assured Santiago he hadn’t imagined her reaction to his kiss.

“You actually have the word ‘appropriate’ in your vocabulary?”

Aggravated by her calm while he was being seared alive with hunger, Santiago planted his fists on his hips. “What are you doing here?”

Unfazed by the abrupt question, she met his gaze squarely. “I could ask the same of you.”

“I’m Gaius’s only living child,” he said without missing a beat. “By rights I can claim his property after his death.” He ran an intimate glance up and down the stately length of her body. “In fact, by law anything or anyone attached to that property is mine.”