Chapter 2 #2
“Yet you came when Syre sent you,” Elijah said, stepping into a loose pair of jeans. “Walked straight into a wolf’s den at his order.”
She faced him again, her chin lifting. “We’re more civilized than you, lycan. We know the value of a hierarchy of power.”
He approached her, his barefooted stride sleek and predatory. The tight roping of muscles over his abdomen flexed as he walked, riveting her gaze. A surge of heat moved through her as his scent grew stronger.
Fuck. She’d been celibate too long if a lycan could make her hot.
Her hands fisted as he stopped in front of her. Too close. Invading her personal space. Trying to intimidate her with his powerful body and sharply edged hunger. She saw his need in his eyes and smelled the enticing pheromones in the air around him. He hated her, yet he desired her.
Despite her height and heels, Vash had to tilt her head back to look up at him. “Just tell me to fuck off, and I’m out of here. I only agreed to present the offer. I really don’t want you to accept.”
“Ah, but I have no intention of turning you down until you go into the details.” He caught a lock of her hair between his fingers and rubbed it. “And I want to see your face when you find out I didn’t kill your friend.”
Her breath caught. She told herself it was from surprise and not from the feel of his knuckle brushing over her breast. “My sense of smell is damn near as good as yours.”
One side of his mouth lifted in a cruel smile. “Did you check my blood sample for anticoagulants?”
She stepped back in a rush. She knew the Sentinels kept samples of every lycan’s blood in cryogenic storage facilities at the lycan outposts, but she hadn’t considered that those samples might be vulnerable to abuse. “What the fuck?”
“I was set up. You, however, are guilty of killing my friend. Hopefully, you remember him, since his murder signed your death warrant. The redhead you pinned to a tree and left for dead?”
He circled her. Dozens of pairs of emerald eyes watched her with open hostility. The chances of getting out of the cave alive diminished to zero.
“If you kill me now,” she warned, “you’ll have both the vamps and Sentinels after you.”
“That’s problematic,” he murmured, rounding her shoulder from the back.
“But there’s something I want more than my life. If you help me get it, I’ll let you kill me in a way that looks like self-defense.”
Elijah stopped in front of her again. “I’m listening.”
“Clear the room.”
With a wave of his arm, he gestured everyone out.
“Alpha…?” Stephan questioned.
“Don’t worry,” Elijah said. “I can take her.”
She snorted. “You can try, puppy. Don’t forget I have a few eons on you.”
In less than a minute, the room was emptied.
“I’m waiting,” he said, his eyes glittering dangerously.
“One of your dogs killed my mate.” Familiar rage and pain raced through her veins like acid. “If you think what I did to your friend was bad, it was nothing compared to what was done to Charron. You help me find the ones responsible and let me kill them, I’m all yours.”
His gaze narrowed. “How do you plan on finding these lycans? What are you looking for?”
“I have the date, time, and place. I just need to know who was in the area at the time. I can narrow it down from there.”
“Such bloodthirsty loyalty.”
She turned her head to look at him. “I could say the same about you.”
“You’d have to stay with me,” he pointed out. “I expect to be present anytime you question a pack member. It could take days, maybe weeks.”
The scent of his lust grew stronger by the moment, and she—damn it all—wasn’t immune.
“I’ve been searching for years. A few weeks more won’t kill me.”
“No, but I will. Eventually. In the meantime, I don’t have to like you,” he said softly, “to want to fuck you.”
She swallowed hard, damning the elevated rate of her pulse, which she knew he could hear. “Of course not. You’re an animal.”
He circled her again, leaning in and inhaling deeply. “What’s your excuse?”
She had none, which was screwing with her head.
In all the years since Char had been killed, the need for sex had been less than an itch.
But she wasn’t about to confess that he was getting to her in a way no man had since her mate.
Especially when she was certain her reaction had less to do with him than with her own anxiety at being in a den full of creatures she hated without a weapon on her back.
With her fangs and claws, she could take down a half-dozen lycans; with Charron’s twin katanas, she could hold her own against a legion.
Only Char himself could rival her skill with the swords.
“No excuses necessary. I’m a heterosexual woman, and you’re an exhibitionist who likes to fondle his big dick. The show had its merits.”
He bared his teeth in a semblance of a smile and crossed his arms. “What does Syre want in return for protection from the Sentinels?”
Vash studied him, noting his wide-legged stance and uplifted chin.
He was a solid, anchoring presence. She could almost imagine him remaining an immovable object in the midst of a tornado.
Although his rage was a tangible force, battering her senses along with his desire, his beautiful emerald eyes were shadowed with pain.
Whatever else he was, Elijah was loyal. If he were trustworthy as well, he could be an asset to the vampire nation. And to her.
Her arms crossed in mimicry of his pose. She watched his eyes dip to the V of her neckline, and his jaw clenched. He didn’t want to want her. That made her smile inwardly. She’d been using her sexuality as a weapon since Charron died; she was as deadly with it as she was with a blade.
Something Elijah was about to discover firsthand.
“You’re going to kill me,” Vash said softly, “in retaliation for the death of your friend, who died because I was seeking the same vengeance for Nikki. No…let me finish before you argue. I’m not going to renege on our agreement.
When all is said and done, you’ll be doing me a favor.
I’ll even lay my neck across a stump and make it easy for you. ”
The lycan’s gaze sharpened. “Your point?”
“I’m not asking for your sympathy or compassion. I just want you to look for the same fidelity in me that I see in you. I’ll come into this alliance with all I’ve got. You do the same, and we’ll both end up with what we want.”
“Will we?” His tone was low and intimate, belying the anger that thinned his sexy mouth.
“If you keep your wants realistic,” she qualified drily.
“You’re dodging my question, Vashti. What does Syre expect to gain from this?”