To Love a Shifter: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (55 page)

“You’re drunk on poisoned steel,” he murmured dryly.

She gasped in outrage. “Someone—”
Burp
. “—
drugged
—”
Burpburp.
“Me?”

Luka did not know if he wanted to laugh or groan, maybe a little of both. Caylie burping was hilarious, but the smell was indeed goddamn awful and only his impeccable manners kept him from pinching his nose.

“Didn’t I tell you not to accept drinks from strangers?” he asked unsympathetically. Poisoned steel had a mysterious effect on Caro blood, causing them to either lose consciousness…or—in Caylie’s case—suffer good old intoxication with a touch of digestive disorder.

“This is so humiliating,” she muttered. She tried to glare at him, as if blaming Luka for what happened even while continuing to fight off her drowsiness.

Luka didn’t bother saying anything as he bent down to pick her dress up from the floor, knowing Caylie wouldn’t remember a word she’d said the next morning. She wouldn’t even remember how he had almost taken advantage of her, as well as almost murdered her in the process.

Luka straightened up. He gazed bleakly at Caylie, knowing it could be the last time he’d have the luxury of gazing at her almost-naked body.

The immortal words of his kind blazed into his mind with painful clarity.

Let the blood flow, the flesh burn, but never let the heart decide.

He was only half-Caro and yet the torture of withholding himself was already beyond imaginable.

Caylie caught him staring mid-yawn. “What?” Her voice had become slurry.

“Come on,” he said gruffly, pulling her close so he could help her dress.

“Luka?” Caylie mumbled insistently. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said shortly. “Arms up.”

She scowled even as she obeyed, always letting him help her, just as a bauble expected to be cherished by its owner or a beloved pet who had charmed its master to being its slave. That had always been their roles to each other, ever since he had started playing babysitter to her at age four. Most of the time, Luka had been content with the status quo. Even after the first explosive kiss they had shared, Luka had thought he would be strong enough to be with her, to wait for Caylie until she grew up and realized she was in love with him, too.

But now he knew he was wrong.

It was true.

This murderous feeling would only grow worse for as long as his love remained unrequited.

“I’m sleepy.” Again, she said it accusingly as if it was Luka’s fault.

Luka didn’t bother answering as he finished pulling her dress back down to its not-that-respectable length. This wasn’t a dress, really. It was just a fucking piece of cloth masquerading as one, and with not enough fabric to cover her ass.

“Luka?”

“I’ll tuck you to bed.” It took teeth-grinding effort to keep his voice soft, more so when Caylie looked up trustingly at him. Luka suddenly wanted to rage. He wanted to smash the wall with his bare hands, snap necks, and bury his fangs into any breathing thing that he had the right to kill.

Take her, own her, kill her.

Pain clawed at his heart at her drowsy smile, especially when she asked him so sweetly, “Up?”

He couldn’t speak at the pain, so he simply swept her up in his arms. She giggled, and Luka treasured the sound. He climbed the stairs, sure of his way to her fourth-floor bedroom as if this was his own home. For most intents and purposes, it had been.

He tucked her in. She turned to her side, facing him with a sigh. “Night, Luka.”

She was sleeping not a second after, leaving Luka with a feeling of gaping emptiness that for all his supposed cleverness he couldn’t figure out how to get rid of.

Fury at the unfairness of life tore at Luka, and his fangs sliced out, eyes turning nearly midnight black. In his mind he said a word he thought he would never have to say to Caylie.

Goodbye.

Luka & Caylie

6 Months Ago

      Her eighteenth birthday was going to suck. She meant it in a literal sense, knowing she was only a few seconds away of having her throat sucked by a horribly aroused Caro male.

      She leaned back against the club’s cold granite wall, indifferent to the hot, jerky breaths against her throat. Her sensitive ears picked up the second the sound of fangs flashed out, her skin prickling as the guy’s body over hers trembled in ill-suppressed excitement.

      He was incredibly aroused and getting more so with each second that she let pass without moving away. Any moment now, he would be able to taste her in the most primal sense for all Caros, something similar to having public sex.

      The other guests in the bar weren’t bothering to hide the fascination in their gazes. Caylie could feel their eyes feasting on her and this—this nameless guy—over her body. She knew what they were thinking. The Caylie Sonora everyone knew, once as untouchable as the sun, was no more.
This
Caylie
was different and darker, the embodiment of all their forbidden desires.

      Almost every guy in the club were panting, their fangs threatening to burst out the longer Caylie did nothing to prevent a nobody from mauling her in full view of everyone.

      Luka Georgiades.

      Her eyes shot wide open at the sound of that terribly beautiful name, her attention immediately drawn to the 3D TV screen mounted in one corner of the bar. As this was a Caro establishment, there was no need to pretend they were humans. They served drinks with blood, played music so loud human ears would have long ago started to bleed, and the TV tuned in to a Caro-owned network that required special wiring and coding to access.

      “Officially endorsed by the Lyccan Council…strong contender for the Advisor position...maybe no longer an eligible bachelor by the end of the year?”

      Something inside Caylie snapped as she heard the last juicy bit of rumor the reporter was delivering with relish.

      The scene with the reporter faded, but he continued with a voiceover as the screen revealed a politely smiling Luka stepping out of his limousine. Young, dashing, powerful, and with a fucking overly made-up bitch at his side.

      Caylie hissed in contempt.
A nouveau riche upstart.
Was that what he was into these days? Maybe this cheap bitch was so kinky that she made Caylie look boring?

      Her heart shuddered with rage as the woman at his side tiptoed to blow into his ear, like it needed a tornado to get clean.
Really?
That was what he wanted? A cougar who liked to play porn-style janitor in public?

      She waited for Luka to move away at the disgusting display of intimacy, but he did not. If anything, his smile actually widened.

      Caylie’s blood went cold—an indication of fear for humans but for Caros it was a warning—a sign of the most devastating fury.

      Why?

      Even after so many months of crying, of going through a thousand what-if situations in her mind, Caylie still could not understand why he had left her, why Luka had to throw her away in such a publicly humiliating manner when normally even the thought of sneezing in public would have been loathsome for him.

      And he had done it at her come-out ball no less, as if Luka wanted to give her every reason to hate him.

      She pushed the guy away, no longer uncaring, no longer dead to the world.

      Her eyes, glowing midnight black, flicked back to the screen, where Luka had started answering questions, his arm wrapped casually around the woman’s waist.

      Her fingers curled, sharp nails almost slicing into the flesh of her palms.

      Luka Georgiades was going to pay.

      She would make damn sure of it.

* * * *

      Violet eyes turned to midnight black as he pictured his fingers encircling her slender neck before squeezing, punishing her for daring to let another man soil her skin with his touch. When he saw the guy’s mouth open, fangs glistening with saliva as they start to stretch out, his own fangs extended as a snarl rapidly made its way out of his throat.

      “
Luka
.”

      Claws bit into his shoulders, the pain snatching him back from his murderous hallucinations just before he snapped and killed someone for good. He crashed back to reality with a gasp, the blackness in his eyes taking more than a moment to recede.

      “Breathe,” Domenico Moretti urged him quietly. The werewolf prince’s gaze was concerned when he met Luka’s turbulent violet eyes.

      “I told you,” Luka said in an uncharacteristically revealing tone as bitterness twisted his perfectly shaped lips into a grim smile. “I can’t handle being this close to her anymore.”

      Domenico shook his head sharply. “That’s not true. You can and you
will
. I won’t lose one of my best allies to vampires just because you’re too fucking—”

      “
NO.”
Luka’s head snapped back to the club, his eyes unerringly finding Caylie amidst the glittering backdrop. He had heard his name on the TV screen, knew what the report would be—

      The sight of Caylie pushing off the guy panting above her should have relieved Luka, but it didn't. He could sense her hurt, welling inside her like it came from a bottomless pit. So much pain—was he the one who caused her all that?

      That kind of pain didn’t kill, he reminded himself. But if he came back into her life, if he gave in to the temptation of claiming her, the kind of pain it could cause would be irrevocable. If he came back to her, sooner or later Caylie would die—by his hands—and there was no going back after that.

* * * *

The Brethren

Present Time

      A uniformed guard suddenly blocked my parents’ path, their heels clicking hard against the ground when they were about to open the doors leading into the Discipline Hall. The sound echoed in the enormous marbled hallway, and I tried not to shiver. Only this part of the Brethren was free from the gay and busy crowds that filled its magnificently vast and opulently decorated ballrooms every day. This was also the part that all the Caros painstakingly avoided. Once you crossed this hall, there was a chance you’d never come out alive of it.

The guard’s gaze lingered on me. I had a feeling he thought I deserved to be here, with how disgraceful I looked. My hair was a mess, my makeup ruined, and one strap of my sparkly flapper dress was torn, leaving it to rest limply against my bare arm.

To Caros, image was everything, and yet here I was—a living blasphemy of everything our race stood for.

“Our apologies, sir, madam, but only violators may enter.” The guard’s face was expressionless when he spoke.

Violators were just a misdeed away from traitors. Violators could be punished, reprimanded, or tortured but for traitors there was no hope, no stay for execution.

All eyes were suddenly on me—the violator.

Panic eclipsed every emotion I felt for one fraction of a second, but I managed to hold it back. I forced a smile. Caros were never supposed to show their real feelings—and especially not the kind that put us at a disadvantage.

“I’ll go alone.” This was what I wanted. This was what I told myself I would die trying to have—and now was the time to prove it.

I didn’t turn to catch one last look at my parents when the ten-foot-tall steel doors closed behind me, not even when I heard Catherine Sonora’s sharp intake of breath as I gently extricated my hand from her tight grasp. My mom might seem frail, a tiny society blonde who only knew how to spend money—but she was more than that. She was a fighter, but I had a feeling she’d break down if she knew how terrified I was at this moment.

The Discipline Hall was glaringly bright and intensely humid. Sunlight burned my skin here and there, with golden rays managing to sneak past the mosaic art that made up the hall’s ceiling, the rainbow shades of glass leaving stinging spots on my flesh.

The mosaic portrait was like something straight out of an urban fantasy book cover—an Armageddon scene depicted in the most elegant selection of colors. It was but a taste of how violators could be punished, of how Caros still insisted on finding grace and beauty even in the way they inflicted pain.

Our ancient artists had vividly painted with glass vampires dying in a pool of blood in one corner, a murder of vidanges nesting on top of pine trees as they feasted on human flesh, werewolves howling on a full moon atop scraggly mountains while Souris with their pastel-colored wings, the mortal kindred of angels, soared into the midnight sky.

And behind it all was our race, infamous for our standoffish stance in wars between non-human lines. Or at least that was so before it became obvious to everyone that an alliance was all that stood between our race and eventual annihilation.

My eyes were stinging by the time I stopped a small respectful distance away from the judge’s bench, which was twice as large as what you’d normally see in human courtrooms. I had to crane my neck all the way up just to meet the eyes of the reviewer.

Here was yet another expressionless Caro, dressed in Brethren’s judicial robes, hood down to reveal sleek black hair and piercing silver eyes. She was young, probably not more than a few years older than I, but that wasn’t what shocked me.

Age wasn’t a factor in our society. What made me stumble was the red rim around her left eye. I couldn’t believe someone like her existed and that she was one of our reviewers. I glanced at her eyes again, but the blood rim around her left eye was gone, making me wonder if the Discipline Hall was rigged to make its defendants hallucinate into telling the truth.

“State your case.”

Nails digging deep into my flesh in an effort to keep my voice from shaking, I recited from memory the lines that we were taught as children if we were ever taken as violators of our code. “My name is Caylie Sonora. I am eighteen years old, and I have been sent here in violation of Order #4 under Act 5.”

A minute pause before the reviewer glanced down at the documents she held in one hand. “Five counts of violation listed here—academic failure, inappropriate public behavior in human presence, irresponsible behavior in Caro society, invalid absence from Brethren general assemblies, and lastly—public intake of blood.”

The memory of that one last violation blanketed my gaze, with Brethren guards coming out of nowhere at the club. One second, I was striving hard not to move away, to let a stranger’s fangs sink into my neck, but the next thing I knew I was being arrested, so discreetly that no one—not even all the Caros who had been lost in the throes of liquor-induced pleasure—had known what was taking place under the loud throbbing beat of music.