Her memory thrust Jonathan before her. Her husband had been handsome and well built, an average-sized man. Lucas could’ve snapped him in half and wouldn’t have given it a second thought. He’d just toss the broken body aside and continue on his way. She had no chance. In a physical fight, Lucas would destroy her.
“Drink,” he said.
Karina forced some more water down. Her throat had gone dry and she drank again. Suddenly Lucas gathered himself. His gaze fixed on the door. His body tensed, his expression alert. His feet gripped the bare floorboards, his legs bent lightly, as he readied to launch himself into a leap. Muscles bunched and knotted across his shoulders and back. His arms lifted slightly, spread wide, the fingers of his big hands like talons, ready to grasp and crush. His eyes ignited with a hot, hungry fire. Poised like this, he was barely human.
Someone’s knuckles rapped on the door.
“What?” Lucas growled.
“Do you want the sedative?” Henry’s voice asked.
Lucas glanced at her and asked quietly, “Do you want to be drugged?”
“No.”
“She said no,” he snarled.
The footsteps retreated. Lucas eased, relaxing slowly, muscle by muscle. He glanced at her with his light green eyes and she shrank from his gaze.
“How much did they tell you?” he asked.
“I know what I agreed to.” She hesitated. “Are you . . . ?”
“I am.”
She tried to reconcile the beast and the man, and couldn’t. That dark, grotesque creature was huge, twice as big as Lucas. A horrible meld of ape, dog, bear—Karina struggled for a comparison, a point of reference, and could find none. Her memory was fuzzy. She remembered fangs and baleful eyes, and massive shoulders sheathed in dark fur. How was it possible? Her mind refused to admit that thing existed. But her body felt Lucas near and knew the beast was real.
She had to have an explanation. Anything at all. “Are you a vampire?” she asked.
“No.”
“What are you?”
He sighed. “There’s no myth or legend or cute explanation. People here call those like me Demons. It’s just a name, nothing religious attached to it. You might also hear people call me Subspecies 30. The rest is complicated.” He took her half-empty glass and went to top it off. “I don’t actually need your blood to sustain me. I require the endocrine hormones your body will secrete in response to my bite.”
“For what?”
“To counteract the effects of my venom. It hurts me.”
He handed her the full glass, rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, and held the palm to her face. The odor of hot metal hit her nostrils and she drew back.
“That smell means I’m hungry for you.”
He was too close. The cup trembled in Karina’s fingers. God, she was scared. It took all of her will not to scream and run. “Will it hurt?”
“Yes. It’s not like vampire movies, where the vampire bites the woman and she moans softly and comes all over herself. There’s no rapture involved. No cl**ax. Just me chewing on you.”
He took her by the chin, lifting her face, and peered into her eyes. Karina pulled back. He leaned closer. She tried to scramble away, but he grasped her shoulder, keeping her still. His lips touched her forehead. “Fever.” Lucas grimaced. “Your eyes are still bloodshot.”
His presence pressed on her like a physical burden. Karina closed her eyes. She sat there, world shut out, and pretended that everything would be okay even if every instinct assured her it wouldn’t. She had to survive and adapt. She had to do whatever was necessary to get her daughter back.
When she opened her eyelids, he waited for her with a synthetic cord in his hands. She hadn’t heard him move.
“To keep you still.” He moved toward her, uncoiling the cord.
No. Lying there tied up and completely helpless while he drank her blood would be too much. “That’s okay,” she said quickly. “I won’t change my mind.”
Lucas kept coming.
“I won’t change my mind.” Desperation put steel into her voice. “I’ve agreed to this to save my daughter. They’ll let me see her after you feed. I won’t run or fight.”
He halted.
“Arthur said I would stay here for as long as I live. That means you have to feed frequently. Might as well start it right.”
Lucas gripped the rope. His biceps bulged. He snapped the rope apart. Karina winced. “If you’re trying to intimidate me, it’s too late. I’m already as scared as I’m going to get.”
“I’m not trying to scare you.” He rolled the section of the rope into a tight wad, wrapped the end about it several times, tied it, and dropped it in her lap. “To bite down. In case it gets too rough.”
She picked it up.
Lucas sat next to her. “Arthur isn’t in charge of your daughter. I am. I guaranteed her safety. Both of you belong to me.”
Lucas leaned to look into her face. She expected rage, hunger, some violent emotion, but instead she saw only steady calm.
“I promise you that no matter what happens between you and me, your daughter will be safe. I will never use her against you. Everyone is afraid of me, and she will never be bullied or mistreated.”
Karina stared at him in surprise.
“You wanted to start this right,” he said. “We can do that. Let’s be honest. The bitch in the hotel poisoned you. Technically she infected you with a virus that secretes a toxin into your bloodstream. To counteract the virus, you need my venom. I’ve already bitten you once but it will take several feedings before you’re in the clear.”
“You’ve bitten me?”
“Left thigh,” he said. “I was in the attack variant at the time, and biting you anywhere else would’ve caused too much damage.”
She grabbed at her leg, trying to feel the wound through the fabric of the jeans.
“It was a very quick bite,” he said. “To keep you from dying. This will be worse.”
He was serious. The thought of him feeding on her, chewing on her, was almost too much to contemplate. “Can we do a blood transfusion instead?”
“No. We’ve tried in the past and failed. There is some sort of relationship between your blood, my venom, and my saliva that we don’t understand. I have to feed on you. You need me to survive and I need you to . . .” He paused. “To counteract my venom.”
He was holding something back, she could feel it.
Lucas’s eyes held no mercy. “I’m a predator and my body knows that you’re my prey. Your fear is exciting. Try not to be so scared. Don’t struggle. The more you flail about and whimper, the more excited I’ll get. If you get me excited enough, I’ll chew up your veins and end up f**king you in a puddle of blood. I take it you don’t want that.”
“No.”
“Then stay calm.” He nodded at the cord in her lap. “You sure you don’t want to be tied?”
“Yes.”
Lucas stretched out on the bed, took her by the waist, and pulled her down, flush against him. They lay together, her butt pressed against his groin, her back tight against his chest. Like two lovers. Jonathan and she used to lie like this after sex. The perversity of it made her shiver.
“Lie still.” His arms pulled her tighter to him. The hard shaft of his erection dug into her butt. She tried to edge away from it.
“Don’t worry. I can’t help it, but I won’t molest you. Unless you start moaning and rubbing your ass against me.”
She stopped moving. The odor of hot copper was overpowering now. Karina cleared her throat. “I feel light-headed.”
“You’re breathing in my scent. Your body’s reacting. It will speed things up.”
That explained the shirt coming off. He wanted no fabric barriers between her and that smell, so it could roll off his skin and take her under. “Do I need to do anything?”
“Just lie there and endure. Your body needs my venom. As I said, I’ve bitten you already to kill the poison, but you got just enough to keep you alive. This will take some time.”
She brushed her hair from her neck, exposing skin. No point in drawing this out.
A low laugh answered her. He spoke into her ear, his breath a warm touch on her skin. “You ever watch hockey?”
“No.”
“The Buffalo Sabres had a goalie—Clint Malarchuk. Steve Tuttle, a guy on another team, was trying to score a goal, and as he charged at the crease, a defenseman grabbed him from behind and swung him up. Tuttle’s skate caught Malarchuk’s neck. A shallow cut, only severed the exterior jugular. Blood sprayed like water from a hose. Covered the whole crease in seconds.”
For some reason she couldn’t understand, his quiet voice steadied her nerves. “Did he survive?”
“He did. Had the skate cut a bit deeper, he would’ve been dead in about two minutes.” He gathered her even tighter against himself. “The neck nuzzling is fun, but the pressure within the jugular would expel your blood so quickly, it would kill you.” His finger traced an outline on the vein on her neck, sending electric shivers along her skin. She wished he hadn’t done that.
“If not the neck, then where?”
“The arm works well.”
“Can you . . . get on with it?”
“Not yet. The longer we wait, the less painful it will be for you.”
His body was hot against hers, his heat seeping into her. His scent enveloped her completely now. Her head spun.
“That’s it,” he prompted. “Go limp. Don’t strain.”
“I’m scared,” she told him.
“I’m sorry.” The undercurrent of violence that permeated everything he said muted slightly.
“What will happen after you feed?”
“You’ll pass out. It’s like giving blood except messier. Your body will go into shock from my venom. If you survive, you’ll get used to the feedings.”