Darkness Unleashed (Guardians of Eternity #5)(76)

He didn’t look up. It was bad enough to have her so close. To be wrapped in her exotic scent and feel the heat of her body.

To actually see her on the bed where he’d so recently spread her legs and plunged into her damp heat…damn, it was enough to snap what little control he had left.

“Lummox?” he muttered.

“It’s a word.” He sensed her shift on the bed. Gods. His jeans tightened painfully over his growing erection. “What are you doing?”

Don’t look. Do. Not. Look.

“I would think it’s rather self-evident.”

“I guess it is. Hard to miss a six-foot-plus sulking vampire. Or is it pouting? Difficult to tell,” she taunted. “I assume you’re leaving?”

“First I intend to go imp hunting.”

“And then?”

Pain ripped through his chest, nearly sending him to his knees. “Then I will return to Chicago.”

She breathed a shockingly vile curse. “So, you’re fleeing back to your prison…oh, I mean lair. It’s so much safer to watch the world through MTV and YouTube, isn’t it, chief?”

His hands clenched into fists at her accusation, refusing to consider the bitter truth of her words.

“Return to Styx, Regan. He’ll be able to track Culligan.”

“I don’t need him or you or anyone else to track Culligan,” she gritted. “I already found him.”

The defenses he’d been struggling to build were shattered as Jagr jerked his head around to stab her with a shocked gaze.

“What?”

Her eyes flashed, as if pleased at by his sharp reaction. “Where do you think I picked up that handy-dandy little amulet?” Her brows abruptly drew together. “An amulet, I might add, that was confiscated by your friend Tane before he would let me come down here.”

Jagr shook his head. Later he would thank Tane for ensuring that Regan couldn’t slip up on him unaware, but for now he could think of nothing but the realization that she’d found the imp who had tormented her for thirty years.

“He’s dead?”

She shrugged. “He was alive when I left the cabin, but his odds of living through the night are about zero to none. Not once the curs realize he’s just as pathetic at being bait as he is at being an imp.”

He stepped toward her, his bare feet sinking into the thick carpet, his damp braid brushing across his back. Not that he noticed. He was utterly consumed by the tiny female perched on the end of the bed.

“You found the imp and…walked away?”

“I had other things on my mind, as I have mentioned more than once,” she said.

Jagr frowned. She was behaving as if finding the demon responsible for her years of misery, a demon who she had risked her life to kill, was nothing more than a trivial encounter.

“Dammit, Regan, you’ve waited your entire life to have your revenge.”

The emerald gaze never wavered. “I’m well aware of that.”

“Then why didn’t you take it?”

“I told you.”

He growled low in his throat as he studied her stubborn expression.

Okay, it was official.

The woman was going to drive him right over the edge.

“There had to be more than just a need to find me, little one.” He folded his arms over his chest, refusing to back down. He didn’t understand why he had to know. Only that he did. “Killing him would have taken you less than a heartbeat. Tell me the truth.”

She abruptly rose to her feet, standing so close to him that his entire body was bathed in sweet jasmine heat.

“Christ, I don’t know,” she rasped. “I suppose a part of it was the fact that he looked so incredibly pathetic chained in that cabin. For so many years he was my personal boogeyman. He brutalized me for so long I began to think of him as invincible.” Her lips twisted as she gave a shake of her head. “But then I saw him as he truly is. A weak, cowardly idiot who crawled through the sewers because he didn’t have the talent or intelligence or spine to be a decent man. He just wasn’t worth the effort of killing.”

He trembled with the need to pull her into his arms as her eyes darkened with a vulnerability that cut through his very soul.

This was more than lust. More than an instinctive need to protect.

This was…

Gods, he didn’t know what to call it.

He only knew that it had buried so deep inside him that he’d never be rid of it.

“And the other part?” he demanded, his voice thick.

“I realized I didn’t need to kill him.” She held her arms wide. “The chains are already gone.”

A combination of emotions warred through him. Pride, relief, astonishment, and a treacherous sense of regret at the knowledge she no longer had need of him.

Unable to battle his need, he reached up to lightly stroke his fingers down her cheek.

“Regan.”

She stepped even closer, sending jolts of agonizing need through his body.

“I understand now,” she said, softly. “He wasn’t holding me in the past. I was. It’s time to let it go.”

He shuddered at the feel of her soft skin beneath his finger tips. A warm, satin temptation. His thighs clenched in response, his erection painfully hard.

“So you’re free,” he whispered, ignoring the desire clamoring through him. It was something he was going to have to get used to.