Embrace the Night (Cassandra Palmer 3)

He was warm, which I took as a good sign, but for a long moment I couldn’t feel anything else. Heavy strands of hair had wrapped around his neck, and I tugged them loose before trying again. I almost sobbed with relief when I finally found it, a tiny pulse that beat strong and sure under my fingertips. But a sticky wetness dripped off his jaw onto my hand, and after a little exploration, I found a nasty-looking cut on his scalp and another on his upper arm.

I propped open the door to let some of the vapors out, and turned back to find Pritkin on his feet. “It’s only fair,” he said nastily, before grabbing me by the shoulders and slamming me back against the unforgiving stone of the wall.

“Let go of me!” I twisted and fought, but he held me there while his eyes did a visual strip search by the faint light of the orb.

“Give it to me!”

“I don’t have it!”

“No more lies!” Pritkin hissed.

“I never found it!” I yelled, pushing at him but getting nowhere. “Now let me go or I swear—” He shut me up by kissing me, hard and angry, so angry that I didn’t know what to do except let him, silenced by him swallowing all my air. It was oddly like he was yelling at me in a new way, since all the old ones hadn’t worked. I felt the scrape of stubble and the indent of his fingers through the silk, pressing me closer, then he tore away, those icy eyes vibrantly green.

“Tell me!”

Startled out of fighting for a moment, I stared up at him, panting. There was drying blood tightening the skin on his forehead and a blooming bruise on his chin, but his eyes were glittering brighter than I’d ever seen them. A sweet, heavy warmth started to spread through me, and despite the cold I could feel sweat springing to the surface of my skin. Suddenly the idea of Pritkin as half incubus seemed plausible for the first time.

The suggestion surged through my veins, almost like a drug. “I was looking for it when you attacked me,” I said, not fighting it. I was telling the truth, and I needed to save my strength to escape. “I thought you had it on you, but it wasn’t in your clothes.”

“I said no more lies!” Pritkin kissed me again, hard, taking my lower lip in his teeth, biting. His lips were cold and a little chapped from the winter wind, but his kiss was deep, hot and hungry. My heart sped up, flight reflexes kicking in, but I wasn’t pushing him away. Suddenly my hands were clutching his shoulders, my nails clawing at the bunched muscles they found there, and I was kissing him back, brutally.

I wrapped my right leg around his, feeling him hard against my silk-clad thigh, while he tore at the lacings on my back. I wasn’t wearing much underneath the dress—the tight fit had made a bra unnecessary—which became obvious when he pushed the dress down to my waist. The feel of the freezing air on my skin slammed me back into my body, as he ran his hands over me. The only minor satisfaction was that he didn’t look much better than I did. His skin was shiny with sweat, and it was running out of his hair and down the back of his neck. And despite everything, I wanted to bury my face in that limp hair, to lick that glistening skin, to bite that flexing shoulder.

“Where is it?” He grasped me by the shoulders, shaking me roughly. The motion caused the dress to slide even farther, the silky lining slipping over my skin with a soft hiss until it crumpled around my feet, the transparent fabric looking like a heap of plastic wrap. I was left standing there in the freezing cold, wearing only panties and thigh-highs and Pritkin’s oversized boots.

Rage and hurt thickened my throat for a moment, so that all I could do was look at him, eyes burning, as he continued his search. He didn’t strip me, but his hands ran over every inch, stopping only at the tops of my stolen footwear. “You don’t have it on you!” He glared up at me accusingly, his hands still on my calves.

“As I told you!” It took everything I had not to kick him in the face.

“You had time to hide it!”

He started on the laces to his boots, while I furiously tried to think. I didn’t think another denial was likely to do me any good, not when he wasn’t even listening to me. “It drains your power, doesn’t it?” I said instead. “Seducing someone who resists you?”

In a flash, he had my wrists pinned against the rock, his hips pressed up against me, between my legs. “Not when they’re practically starved for it,” he said softly. “It must be unsatisfying, lying with a corpse, night after night. I can feel the frustration in you, the desperation, the need.”

I stared up into green eyes that glittered so brightly they might have been on fire. And for an odd, out-of-body moment, I really wanted to claw them out. “At least I know what Mircea is!” I spat. “Can your lovers say the same?”

Shock lit those eyes for an instant, before it was masked behind the certainty that I was bluffing. “And what am I?”

He’d had to guess about my weak spot, sensing the buildup of emotion from weeks of battling the geis but not knowing the real cause. But I didn’t have to speculate about his.

“I knew as soon as I saw you,” I said flatly, hating myself even as I uttered the words. It’s never easier to twist the knife than with someone who once trusted you enough to bare his secrets. But I didn’t have a choice. If he tried another suggestion, I honestly didn’t know if I had the strength left to fight it. “You’re half incubus.”

A look flashed across Pritkin’s face for an instant, like he’d been slapped, hard, and was trying to hide how much it hurt. “How did you know?”

I ignored the question. I had to do this while I actually had his attention, or there was no telling where this would end. “If I’m lying, why did I take your things?” I demanded, my heart hammering. “I could have been long gone before you showed up, if I hadn’t taken the time to search your belongings. Why do that if I already had the map? Now let go!”

For a second, something like doubt flickered behind his eyes. Then his chin jerked out in familiar stubbornness. “I will let you go when you return my property.”

“I can’t return what I never had,” I snapped, throwing everything I had into wrenching out of his grip. He didn’t come after me and I snatched up my dress, before remembering that it was useless for concealment. I put it on anyway—the stairs were damn cold. “If you wouldn’t mind,” I said through gritted teeth.

His gaze moved down my body again and my skin tightened from just the pressure of his eyes. Then he blinked and looked away. With a quick gesture from him, my dress suddenly became a lot more opaque. I didn’t thank him for it.

I headed for the door, only to have it slam in my face. “We are not finished here,” Pritkin barked.

I whirled

, so angry I couldn’t even see, and tripped on the too long skirt. He helped me up and without a word turned me around and did up the lacings. His fingers were cool against my overheated skin, and swiftly competent. The only reason I let him touch me was the certainty that if I returned to Mircea like this, he’d kill Pritkin.