Authors: Sarah McCarty
He deliberately focused on her breasts, which rose and
fell with each rapid breath. “Is that an invitation? Because I had my mind set
on sleep, but if you want a turn beneath the blankets, I can probably work up
the interest.”
There’d be no working up to it. In reality, he was
astonishingly ready. And he didn’t like it. He thought he’d eradicated his
emotions over the last hundred years, settling for blank calm over the upheaval
of conversion. And he didn’t like the fact that this little vamp could disturb
it with nothing more than her presence. He didn’t intend to feel again. Ever.
Her hands fisted at her side. “You’re being
obnoxious.”
She said it with strict precision, each syllable
colored with that intriguing accent that said English wasn’t her native
language. And dammit, if it didn’t make him feel guilty for his previous
off-color response. He sighed, trying to ignore the prick from his conscience.
“What I am is tired, so whatever it takes you to get
to sleep, I’m willing to throw myself on it.” He sat down on the hard floor. He
confiscated her backpack, mushed the contents around until they resembled some
sort of pillow, and then lay down on his back. She stood above him, mouth
working, eyes flashing small flicks of vampire flame. Her energy lashed his
with the same agitation. He kept his grin to himself.
“Good night.”
“That’s my pack.”
He watched her from under his lashes. “Unless you’ve
got a reason it can’t do double duty as a pillow, it’s staying put.”
“It’s mine.”
He shrugged. “You’re not using it.”
Her hands opened and then clasped into fists. “That
doesn’t give you the right to take it.”
He tipped his hat down over his eyes to hide his
smile. No, it didn’t, but as he didn’t think she’d be leaving without it, using
it as a pillow was another way to insure she stayed put. “The oldest law in the
world gives me the right.”
“And that would be?”
“Might makes right.”
She spluttered and fussed. He could hear her angry
breaths and the shuffling of her feet. “If you kick me, I’m going to kiss you.”
The shuffling stopped. “You’re insane.”
“Nah, just tired.”
He reached up and caught her hand. The fineness of her
bones sharpened his desire. She was the complete opposite of him. All softness
and talk. He tugged. She tumbled against him with a squeal of outrage.
“Good thing none of those Sanctuary hounds are
anywhere near here, or we’d be lab bait for sure, what with you making all that
noise.”
In reality, he’d soundproofed the chamber with one of
Slade’s discreet little devices. For an ex-outlaw and saddle bum, his brother
had turned out to be quite the scientist.
“It might be preferable.”
He didn’t dignify that with a response. She wiggled
and wormed for what seemed like forever, teasing his libido with the feel of
her breasts and hips rubbing against his chest and hip. His cock hardened. His
senses focused. He held his breath. She kept wiggling. He swore under his
breath at the hot, sweet torture.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to get comfortable.” Another contortion and
she picked something up and threw it. It bounced off the wall and hit his boot.
A stone.
Clearly he wasn’t going to get any sleep until she was
settled. He angled his arm under her head. His hand fell naturally to the small
of her back, her cheek to the hollow of his shoulder. Her breath hit his chest
in moist puffs he could feel through his thin cotton shirt. Arousal started a
thick chug though his system. Shit, it was going to be a long eight hours.
She pushed at his side. “This isn’t exactly an
improvement.”
He couldn’t agree with her more. With her sexy little
body snuggled up to his, the chances of him getting a decent rest were somewhere
between zero and zilch. “Tough.”
She wiggled this way and that for a minute or two more
and then she rose to her elbow. “I need my blanket.”
She reached past his face. Her unique scent covered
him, along with her body, as she fished in the backpack. She knocked his hat
askew with her elbow as she tugged.
“Can’t you just adjust your body temperature?” he
asked, pushing his hat back.
“I’m not good at that.”
From where he sat, she wasn’t good at a lot of things
that were commonplace for a vampire.
“Then a blanket isn’t going to cover it.” The cave was
dark and dank, the floor cold. If she couldn’t adjust her body temperature,
she’d be an icicle by morning. He rolled onto his side. From there it just took
a matter of anchoring her thigh to his and then rolling back, giving her a
little “umph” with his right arm to pop her the rest of the way on top of him.
She landed a bit higher than he planned. Her breasts pressed into his cheek. He
slid her down, setting his jaw against the urge to open his mouth against that
softness and test it with his fangs. Raisa gasped. Before she could explode in
outrage, he put his hands on her hips and drew her down. With one hand, he
clamped her cheek to his chest, letting her kick and struggle as he reached
over his head. It took several yanks, but he eventually got the blanket out. It
was wool and soft from frequent use. He tossed it over her, releasing her cheek
to tuck it in around her. “There. Now you can sleep.”
She grunted, her anger palpable. “This is not a step
up.”
“You’re warm.”
“It’s outrageous.”
He settled his hat down over his eyes, leaving enough
angle that he could sneak peaks at her. He found watching the expressions chase
across her face enthralling. “Why?”
“I don’t even know your full name.”
He gave her side a nudge, moving the sharp point of
her hip bone off his cock. Two squirms that had him gritting his teeth and the
soft curves of her body melded into the hard planes of his. “It’s Johnson.
Jared Johnson.”
“Well, Jared Johnson, I can’t see where you’ll get a
bit of sleep with me crushing you.”
Crushing? Another smile tugged at his lips. As if
there was enough of her to crush a fly. He stroked her hair off her face. “I’m
tired enough to sleep through a bronc busting. I think I can manage.”
She was tired, too. He could feel the weariness
dragging at her. He adjusted the blanket up over her shoulders. A shiver went
through her. He upped his body heat to warm her faster. He couldn’t maintain it
that way forever, but he could long enough to heat her up.
“So maybe you could just close your eyes and let us
both get some shut-eye?”
She stared at him for a long, suspicious minute, but
then she either accepted he wasn’t going to let her lie on the floor or the
warmth surrounding her took the decision out of her hands. Her head relaxed
against his chest. “You are a very strange man.”
He cupped her head in his hand, just in case she got
the urge to struggle. “Weariness will do that to a man.”
With an astuteness that startled him she said, “I
think it’s more than weariness.”
He didn’t want her analyzing him, or feeling sorry for
him, or any of the other emotions women liked to bring into the moment. “Trust
me, I’m just tired.”
“I don’t believe that.” He noticed, for all her
beliefs, she wasn’t pulling away. The warmth was definitely getting to her,
draining the tension from her bones. A stab of guilt poked his conscience. She
must have been cold the whole time he’d been carrying her.
“Believe me, I’m bone weary.”
Weary of fighting what he’d become, weary of longing
for who he’d once been. Weary of being alone.
“Well, I’m-just-tired-Jared, brace yourself.” She
smothered a yawn behind her hand. “Because in the morning—”
“You mean night?”
“I found it was easier just to think of night as
morning after I turned.”
“That would work.”
She nodded. “I thought so.” Another yawn. “And in the
morning, we’ll be going our separate ways.”
Not in her current condition, and not without someone
to protect her. He held her as the minutes passed, counting her breaths,
measuring the loss of tension in her muscles by the number of limbs that
relaxed against him. First her shoulders and thighs, then her calves and lastly
her hands. He poked the backpack under his head, moving the lumps into a better
position. It was a collection of odd shapes. “Just what do you have in here?”
“My things.”
“Anything breakable?”
A pause, as if she had to think about it. “No.”
“Good.” He gave the bag a shake, resettling the
contents, and lay back down. “That’s better.”
She was almost asleep. He should leave her be, but he
liked the intimacy of the moment with her lying trustingly on top of him,
allowing him to care for her. It’d been a long time since he’d felt this
closeness. A long time since he’d had a woman depend on him. He found he wanted
to prolong it. “Raisa?”
“What?”
“Does your name have a meaning?”
“In your language, it means light.”
He continued to stroke her hair, letting her name and
its meaning settle in his mind. Raisa. Light. It was, he decided, a pretty name
for a pretty little vampire condemned to live in the dark.
THEY were being hunted.
Jared opened his eyes and stared at the roof of the
cave, his senses flaring as the knowledge came to him in a thrust of energy.
The fact that it was barely dusk meant the hunters were werewolves. That was a
plus. Vampires made for a much trickier confrontation.
Raisa slept on top of him, a softly curved, sweetly
trusting, completely oblivious weight. He gently eased her to the side. She
moaned as soon as her shoulder hit the cold floor but didn’t wake. Just
shivered and pulled the blanket over her.
Sitting up, he frowned down at her. She should be
awake, her senses screaming the same warning as his. But she wasn’t, which just
highlighted all the more why she needed protection. He lifted her head gently
and eased the backpack under her cheek before getting to his feet. With a
subtle manipulation of energy that went no further than the illusion, he
removed the concealing barrier. Raisa murmured. Jared glanced at her. She was
frowning in her sleep, looking completely insubstantial beneath the blanket.
The urge to return to her was overwhelming. The need to wipe the frown from her
face almost a compulsion, which made absolutely no sense. He barely knew the
woman.
His gaze lingering on her, he flexed his fingers,
loosening the muscles before reaching for his rifle and stepping out into the
cave.
It only took a second to restore the barrier, this
time with a time limit on the duration. Just in case he didn’t make it back. He
wasn’t really worried, but there was always an off chance something could go
wrong, and Raisa seemed to be the type who’d bitch up a storm if she were
entombed for eternity. He smiled as the illusion fell back into place,
irrationally amused at the thought of her angry, those brown eyes snapping with
that inner fire he felt in her and all that passion she suppressed raging free.
He bet she’d be the type who brought intellect to an argument. The type to keep
a man on his toes.
He glided to the front of the cave, staying out of the
fading light, taking stock of the situation as he did. The falling night was
crisp with the promise of snow, ripe with the energy of those who tracked him.
They were making no attempt to hide their presence, which just served to make
him suspicious. Either they were extremely cocky or they thought he was stupid
enough to be so easily tricked. Either way could work for him.
He waited ten minutes, until the light had faded to
the point that it would be just a discomfort on his skin, before he slipped out
of the cave. When he was two miles away, he released the barest hint of his energy,
keeping his path due west toward the heart of the mountains, away from
civilization. If they were smart, and he was sure at least one of them was
above average in the brains department, the unwavering determination of his
path would get them thinking along the lines of why he was heading so
purposefully in that direction and perceive his presence as a potential threat
to the secret compound the Sanctuary had there. Which would keep them from
exploring the area where he’d tucked Raisa.
An echo of their energy bounced back to him. They were
taking the bait. Whatever was in that compound must be mighty important to have
them charging after him just because he was heading in that direction.
Jared would have loved to actually check out the
compound. That was his primary reason for being out here, but with the
complication of Raisa, he didn’t dare risk it. He had a duty, first and
foremost, to get her to safety. He hit the button on his cell phone that sent
out the single signal—too short to be traceable—that said he was aborting his
mission, but that it was safe for someone else to try. If the three key
Sanctuary leaders were truly going to gather here in the next few days, the
Renegades needed to know it. Catching the bastards in one place would go a long
way toward ending the civil war that had started six months ago.