Kiss of the Night (Dark-Hunter 4)

He pulled his phone out and dialed it. Cassandra listened to him introduce himself to his security men as she opened the door and he followed her inside her room. Kat, who was sitting in a chair reading, looked up without comment.

"Hang on." He handed the phone to her. "Here, tell them what you need and where you live."

"Why?"

"Because if I tell them, they'll forget within five minutes what I said and won't leave the premises. I always have to have someone, usually Ash, Chris, or my friend Talon, tell them what I need done, or I e-mail them. And right now e-mail or text-messaging would take too long."

Was he serious?

"I can go with them," Kat offered as she set her book aside. "I actually know what she uses and I want to grab a few things of my own."

Wulf relayed the message to his guards and then had Cassandra repeat every word of it.

Once she finished talking to the guard, she hung up the phone. Lord have mercy, and she had thought her life was screwed up. "So are you telling me that humans can't even remember a conversation with you?"

"No, never."

"Then how do you keep Chris under wraps? Can't he just tell them you said it was okay for him to leave?"

Wulf laughed. "Because any order concerning his safety has to be cleared through Ash first and Chris knows it. The security guards would never move without direct orders from Ash."

Wow, the man was strict.

Kat gave Cassandra a gentle smile as Cassandra picked up the clothes Wulf had given her from the dresser. "I'm glad you handled this so well this time. And Wulf too. It makes things a lot easier."

Cassandra nodded. It did indeed.

If only Wulf could accept her heritage as easily as he had the baby. But then what good would it do when she was destined to die?

Perhaps this was the best way for it to work out. This way he wouldn't mourn her.

No, the voice in her head said. She wanted more than that from Wulf. She wanted what they had shared in her dreams.

Stop being selfish.

Cassandra swallowed at the thought. She was right. It would be kinder to stay away from Wulf. The last thing she wanted was to know he would grieve for her.

The fewer people mourning her, the better. She hated the thought of people hurting for her the way she hurt for her mother and sisters. There wasn't a day that went by where they weren't in her thoughts. Where a part of her didn't ache that she could never see them again.

Once she had the T-shirt and sweatpants in her arms Wulf walked with her back through his house. His powerful presence touched something deep inside her. She'd never imagined feeling like this.

"You know, you have quite a place here," she said.

He looked around as if he hadn't noticed it in a while. "Thanks. It was built at the turn of the century by Chris's great-great-grandmother. She had fifteen boys and wanted enough room to raise them and their children." There was a tender note in his voice whenever he talked about his family. It was obvious he had loved every one of them deeply.

"So what happened to them that Chris is the only one left?"

Sadness darkened his eyes and it made her heart ache for his grief. "The eldest son went down with several of his cousins and uncle as passengers on the Titanic. The influenza plague of 1918 killed three more and made two more sterile. The war took four more. Two died as children and one died in a hunting accident as a young man. The other two, Stephen and Craig, married. Stephen had one son and two daughters. The son died in World War II and one daughter of illness at age ten, the other in childbirth before the baby could be born."

Cassandra winced at his words and at the pain she heard in his voice. It was so obvious he had loved each of them dearly.

"Craig had four sons. One died in World War II, one as an infant, one in a car accident with his wife, and the other was Chris's grandfather."

"I'm sorry," she said, touching his arm in sympathy. No wonder he guarded Chris so zealously. "I'm amazed you let so many go to war."

He covered her hand with his. The look in his eyes told her how much he appreciated her touch. "Believe me, I tried to stop them. But there's only so much you can do to keep a stubborn man home. I finally understand how my father felt when Erik and I left home against his wishes."

"But you don't understand why your mother refused to welcome you home."

He paused mid-step at that. "How did you know that?"

"I..." She paused as she realized what she had just done. "I'm sorry. Every now and again I can read passing thoughts. I don't mean to and I have no control over it, it just happens."

His eyes were stormy again.

"You know." She tried again, hoping to comfort him a little. "Sometimes people say and do things in the heat of anger that they later regret. I'm sure your mother forgave you."

"No," he said, his voice low and deep. "I had forsaken the very things she had raised me to believe in. I doubt she ever got over it."

Cassandra pulled at the silver chain around his neck until she held his necklace in her hand. Just as in the dream, it held Thor's hammer and a small crucifix. "I don't think you have forsaken everything. Why else do you wear this?"

Wulf looked at her fingers that cradled his mother's cross and his uncle's talisman. Ancient relics he had worn for so long that he barely remembered their presence.

They were the past and she was his future. The dichotomy reached deep inside him. "It's to remind me that words spoken in anger can never be recalled."

"And yet you speak so often in anger."

He snorted. "Some faults can't be broken."

"Perhaps." She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him, intending it as a friendly gesture.

Wulf growled at the taste of her as he pulled her close and held her tightly against his chest so that he could feel every inch of her feminine body.

How he wanted her. Wanted to tear her clothes off her and sate the burning ache in his loins that he felt every time she looked at him. It felt so good to have a woman who knew him.

One who remembered his name and whatever he told her.

It was priceless to him.

Cassandra moaned deep in her throat at the sensation of his lips on hers. At his fangs gently grazing her lips, his tongue spiking against hers.

She felt his muscles flexing under her hand, felt the coiled steel of a body that was finely honed and ruggedly dangerous.

He was so overwhelming. So fierce and yet strangely tender. A part of her didn't want to ever let go of him.