Hot Decadent Rising (Breath of Darkness) (2 page)

His mind was racing. Who was she? A
witch? What the hell was she doing to him? How was she doing it to him?

“What’s up with your eyes?” she asked.
“They’re glowing. Are they contacts?”

Shit! Something about her was drawing
his wolf to the surface. To no avail he tried to push the beast back. It didn’t
make sense. He didn’t know her, but he knew he didn’t like the woman at all.
His wolf shouldn’t be aroused by her. 

“No…I mean, yes. They’re contacts,” he
lied. It was his only option.

The longer he stood there staring at
her, breathing in her sweet exotic scent, the more havoc she created in him by
riling his most primal side, his wolf. Again, he wondered why she,
a human
,
didn’t smell bad to him. He needed to figure it out. First, he needed to get
far away from her. He took a step back. Well, actually, he stumbled backward
and would have fallen flat on his ass if it hadn’t been for the gas pump behind
him.

“Oops.” She laughed out loud. She
covered her mouth as if to hide it, but she continued to laugh for several
seconds. Once she stopped, she lowered her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to
scare you. No worries. I’m unarmed.” The tone of her voice was just as mocking
as the little upward curve of her lopsided grin was provocative.

A growl, a damned playful growl, rumbled
in his chest. His double-crossing wolf was getting off on her making fun of
him. “You didn’t scare me.” She was however, making him lose his mind.

“Don’t worry.” Her lips parted in a
full, tantalizing smile that drew his attention to her small, perfectly
straight, white teeth. “Your secret is safe with me. I swear I would never
dream of telling anyone that girls terrify you.”

 He was about two seconds from
showing her something unequivocally fear-provoking. A fire, a ravenous
firestorm of raw lust ignited in the pit of his stomach as he imagined the
erotic sensation of her teeth biting into his flesh. A sure sign his canines
were lengthening, his gums began to ache. Whatever was happening to him it
wasn’t normal. It wasn’t good. It was dangerous. She was human. She was off
limits.

“Okay. Okay. You really don’t look well.
I’m sorry. I’ll stop teasing you.”

He raked his hand through his hair. He
wasn’t well. He was a wreck. “I’m fine.” His voice was more than a bit too
defensive for his liking. It was way too damned defensive. He couldn’t think
straight. Judging her behavior and appearance, he certainly wasn’t having the
same
affect
on her. That truly pissed him off. He
straightened his shoulders and squared his stance to appear confident and
strong. He’d never been so unnerved by anyone. Worse yet, he had no idea why
she made him feel so unsettled.

“Don’t get all grumpy and flustered. I didn’t
mean to upset you. I just came over here to ask you a question.” Her gaze
briefly shifting to the side, she paused for a moment. Her swallow was audible
and, thanks to his supernatural hearing, he heard her heart rate speed up. It
was the first signs of her having any anxiety. She was scared. Not of him.
Something or someone was intimidating her. She was being hunted. It bothered
him. It shouldn’t have mattered to him. But it did.

He opened his mind to scan the area for
a threat, but he felt nothing. “You said you didn’t want anything from me.”

“I lied.”

“What’s the question?” Being a hundred
and ten percent sure he didn’t want to know the answer, he couldn’t help but
wonder why he’d asked.

“Can you jump me?”

It was more than just being taken aback
by the mischief in her eyes and the erotic images that flashed in his mind. It
was as if, the throttle wide open, he’d slammed his Harley into brick wall. He
blinked. “What?”

“Do you have jumper cables?”

“No,” he answered, and then being a
powerful, in control, confident alpha male, he turned from her to make his
escape. He was damn lucky she hadn’t needed some form of major engine repair.

“Wait.” She got in front of him and held
her arms out to stop him.

He pointed at his Harley. “I’m in a
hurry. Look for yourself. I don’t have cables.” He stepped to the side to get
past her.

Effectively stopping him, she mirrored
his movement. “I’ve another question.”

He wasn’t going to ask. He didn’t want to
know. “What?” he asked. Okay. Maybe some small part of him wanted to know.

Rather than noticing he was a big, bad,
intimidating male predator, who was easily able to plow her over, she sighed as
she appeared to leisurely study him from head to toe. Truth be told, he sort of
liked the feeling of her finally giving him the thorough once over he deserved.
But he felt something else, an odd sense of insecurity. What was he worried
about? Why the hell wouldn’t she like what she was seeing? He was a good-looking
man. Right?

When her gaze finally parked onto his,
she gave him another sexy as hell smile. “My name is Kara. I swear you look
familiar. Have we met before?”

“No.” One two letter word. That was it.
Did his voice seriously crack? He shook his head in denial though he knew it
was true. He’d heard it.

She gently placed her hand on his arm.
“Are you sure we’ve never met?”

To prevent his voice from cracking
again, he cleared his throat. “Absolutely.” He looked down at her hand on his
arm. Her palm was generating unnatural heat and supernatural power. That’s when
he realized she was touching him to connect with his mind. She was attempting
to read his thoughts to gage whether or not he was telling the truth.

He blinked. Then, he blinked again. She
was physic. A powerful physic. His wolf, wanting to draw closer to her, happily
responded to the connection. No wonder she was able to turn him into a
blundering idiot. 

Giving her a firm mental shove, not
caring that it would cause her an amount of discomfort, he closed his mind to
her. Wincing, she moved her hand away from him. She shook her head. He knew she
was shocked, though looking at her it wasn’t entirely apparent. She knew how to
keep her wits despite the fact his actions caused her head to hurt.

“You do look familiar,” she prompted.
“They aren’t contacts. Your eyes are…I’ve never seen such lovely eyes.”

He frowned. What the fuck was her
problem? He’d never felt so insulted in his entire life. His eyes weren’t
lovely. He had predator eyes. The dark, don’t mess with me, dangerous kind of
predator eyes. Sexy, he’d been told plenty of times that he had sexy eyes.
Never lovely.

She was a nuisance of the worst kind.
She was making him lose his mind. She was a storm of hot temptation, a
firestorm of frustration and lust, looking for a man to devour. It wouldn’t be
him.

His gums were really starting to ache
like a son of a bitch. Perhaps he should give her a good smile and show her the
teeth he’d love to sink in her flesh. Certainly, that would change her mind
about his lovely fucking eyes. “We’ve never met,” he said. He purposely made
his voice sound harsh, hoping it would be enough to send her on her way, and at
the same time hoping it wouldn’t.

Once more he watched her gaze shift to
the side, as if she sensed something or someone watching them. When she looked
at him again, she frowned. “What’s your name?”

“Eli.” His wolf was going bonkers. He’d
never been forced to fight so hard to keep his predator nature under control.
Her nervous reaction to whatever danger she sensed was prompting his wolf to
act.

She held her hand out for him. “It was
nice to meet you, Eli.”

She’d changed tactics. If he willingly
took her hand he would be inviting her to touch his mind. It would be a
challenge to boot her out again. He smiled. He liked her. She was his kind of
woman. “Naughty, reckless and sexy. It’s a great combination. I like it.”
Before she had a chance to retreat, he took her hand and opened his mind to
her. “A lot.” He allowed her to sample the wild lust he had for her burning in
him. He made sure she felt his wolf’s desire to claim, to take possession of
her body.

Giving him a sense of satisfaction, her
eyes went wide as she stared up at him. She struggled to break their mental
connection, but he held fast.

“What are you?” He’d finally caused her
voice to crack.

“A badly behaved wolf with wicked
morals, questionable intentions and a ravenous appetite for trouble.” 

“Huh?” She looked extremely
uncomfortable.

Satisfied, he laughed. It was about time
something rattled her. Recovering way too quickly for his liking, she attempted
to pull her hand away, but he wasn’t ready to let go just yet.

“Very funny. Woof. Woof. I think you’re
a man whose inner child needs a little creative discipline.”

“I wasn’t attempting to be humorous. And
I’m not afraid of being disciplined. Not at all. Do your worst. To be entirely
honest, I like it rough.”

Cheeks flushing, her blazing eyes
narrowed. She wasn’t embarrassed. She was mad as hell. Rather than lose control
of her emotions, she used them for her benefit. “Let go.” He felt her harness
her anger and use its power to attempt to control him, to force him to release
her hand.

In a display of dominance he held firm.
“You’re the one who wanted to play.” Though it was gone in a flash, he saw a
shadow of fear in her eyes. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like that he was the
cause of it, but he refused to feel bad. She’d forced him to push her to get
rid of her. Convinced it had worked, he released her hand.

She gestured toward the building.
“Personally, I think the broken card machines and the prepay rule is a scam to
force us to go inside in hopes of enticing us to make more purchases. Like
chocolate.” Frowning, she nervously glanced around and took a step back. “Sorry
for taking up so much of your time.” She turned and walked away.

Suddenly, he didn’t want to her leave.
He took a few steps. He started to reach out to stop her. That’s when he felt
it. The atmosphere had changed. He stopped abruptly. A predator. A corrupted
vampire. It was close. Watching them. Waiting to attack her. Searching for it,
a low growl escaped his throat as he watched her walk away. Obviously hearing
it, she whirled around. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but she
didn’t utter a sound. They stared at each other for several seconds. He needed
to grab onto her. He needed to take her away to safety, but he couldn’t. He
wouldn’t. He didn’t even know her. She was a human. Turning away from him she
opened the door and walked inside.     

He’d stood there for few minutes. How
the hell had he failed to sense the cold, dark presence of utter evil earlier?
It was the cause of the fear in her eyes. It had nothing to do with him acting
like a bully. Physic or not, how could she, a human, sense the presence of the
undead hunting her before he’d sensed it? He laughed at himself. As pathetic as
it was, the answer was painfully obvious. She’d distracted him naturally with
her sensuality.

Eli probed deeper into the creature’s
mind. It was a young male, obviously unlearned in the techniques, a pure blood
ancient would have used to better masked his presence. At that moment reality
struck hard. It was Kara’s doing. He looked at the door she’d entered. It
wasn’t a matter of her distracting him with her sexy feminine wiles. Feeling a
mixture of amusement and awe, he smiled. She’d used her mind to block him in an
attempt to protect him from the vampire.

Careful to avoid allowing it to feel his
intrusion, he slowly pushed his way into the vampire’s mind. To his surprise,
it wasn’t planning to kill her. It was tracking her for someone else. A human.
It didn’t make sense. Vampires, not even pure blood ancients, were ever known
to do tracking jobs or any other jobs for humans. For that reason alone he
should investigate the situation, but he decided to leave it alone. It wasn’t
his problem. It didn’t matter to him. She didn’t matter to him.

His breath came out in a groan. It was
going to be a hell of a long day. Even as he told himself that it wasn’t his
problem, his alpha instincts to protect her had been kicked into high gear the
first moment he’d realized she’d perceived a threat. He walked toward the
entrance hoping he would, but knowing he wouldn’t overcome his wolf’s demand
that he look after her. He told himself that he was going inside, paying for
his gas, filling his tank, and then getting the hell out of there. Deep down,
he knew he was going to protect her. He just wasn’t willing to come to terms
with it just yet.

***

After
using the restroom and removing the remainder of her cash from her secret,
untraceable account from the ATM inside the gas station, Kara fixed herself a
cup of hot chocolate. As precaution she planned to wait until Eli came in to
pay for his gas before she left. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of him.
When she used her mind to scan the area she picked up on something out of the
ordinary about Eli. At first, aware of one stalking her, she had mistaken him
for a vampire.

His vibes weren’t human. Nothing about
him was even slightly similar to a human. Asking for a jump was an excuse to
get close enough to thoroughly read him. It didn’t take long at all to be
convinced that he was no more a vampire than a human. He wasn’t the one
following her. He’d been legitimately shocked when she approached him. He was
telling
the
truth when he said they’d never met, but something seemed familiar about him.