Any common sense blew up like a stick of dynamite the moment he pulled me into his arms. His hard, demanding mouth, made my senses overflow with him, the touch of his velvet tongue, the feel of his heartbeat beneath my palm, the urgency as he crushed me to him. It was an assault driven by a powerful need.
His kiss moved down my chin to the arch of my neck and I tilted my head back, eyes closed, afraid to open them and discover this was all a dream. A wine-induced dream.
“Danni,” he whispered against my ear. His tongue flicked across the lobe, sending shots of desire between my legs.
Not wine-induced. It was real. He was real.
His hands gripped me on either side of the neck and his lips trailed slow warmth down the column of my throat, tongue darting out to lick and kiss my skin. I moaned as heat swept across my sensitive flesh.
It was the slightest graze of his teeth, a nip on my throat that caused the flash of horror to come barreling into me like a punch to the stomach. I cried out, scrambling from his embrace, hand pressed to my neck as the memory hit me. I staggered backward, lost my balance and crashed to the floor on my butt.
He came toward me, hand outstretched, eyes narrowed with a scowl on his face. I scuttled backward on my ass until my back hit the door. “No, don’t.”
He stopped, arm lowering. The hurt that swept across his features was unmistakable. His eyes closed for an extended second, and the outer corners of his lips pulled downward.
“That shouldn’t have happened.” His fingertips dragged through his hair. “Fuck. This was a bad idea.”
My mind was a messed up confusion of colors as the feelings of now and then meshed together in a puzzle that refused to fit together. But I didn’t want him to leave—he couldn’t leave me again.
Please, end my pain.
His eyes flashed a deeper green for a split second and I saw the rage flare in his lethal expression before he abruptly turned on his heel.
He was walking away. Leaving. No, he couldn’t do that to me.
“Don’t you dare leave me,” I shouted as I scrambled to my feet. “Don’t you do this to me, damn it.” I ran after him, but he kept walking until I flung myself at his back, slamming my fists into him, pounding his muscles as tears of frustration ran down my cheeks. “Two years. Two years I’ve waited for you.”
His spine stiffened and his hands clenched into fists at his sides, taking my attack without any attempt at preventing me. I punched him again and again, wanting to hurt him the way I was hurting inside, yet wanting him to turn around and take me in his arms and hold me.
“Why did you come? To torment me?” My voice came out ragged. “I’m already tormented. I breathe it.” My hands stilled on his back. “But you can take it away, can’t you? You know what happened.”
I heard him swear beneath his breath. My tears stopped, yet inside I continued to cry, for me, for him—for us.
We’d both suffered. I knew this like I knew my own name. He’d protected me. That was how I felt whenever I looked at his picture—protected, sheltered in his embrace as if he’d done something to end the suffering.
“You have to forget me, Danni. Let it go.”
“No. I can’t. Tell me,” I begged. I don’t think I’d ever begged in my life until now. It broke me . . . and yet wasn’t I already broken? “What happened to us?”
“We can’t do this. You’re better off forgetting.”
My spine stiffened and my hands slid from his back. “Don’t you dare tell me what I’m better off forgetting. You came here. Why?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Look at me.” I grabbed the back of his coat and tried to force him to turn around. “Damn it, look at me.” A memory hit me of his voice saying those same words and I froze.
He took advantage and with one yank he was free and striding to the back door. I saw him hesitate, hand on the door knob, and I held my breath hoping he’d come back. Then he flung it open and disappeared.
I watched him leave, my body shuddering as the back door slammed and the uneasiness crept into me once more. It was as if this veil had been lifted while he was with me. Then it fell again and I was immersed in my own private hell.
I kicked out at the legs of an easel and it crashed to the floor. Then I screamed at the top of my lungs.
I leaned up against the door, hung my head, and ran my hands through my hair. “Fuck.”
I stiffened when I heard the crash and then her scream. I wanted to bolt back inside and pull her into my arms and never let go.
Fuck, this was one hell of a mess.
But walking away had been my only option. If I told her what had happened, that I was a Scar, her life would be in jeopardy. What I’d intended was for her to see me and know I was real and not a figment of her imagination, to get her to stop tormenting herself with the paintings.
It was all fucked up. Me. Her. This.
The past two years had been hell fighting the poisonous blood that ran through my veins. Any Scar knew what a vampire’s tainted blood did to you—destroyed your virtue and made your thirst for blood so strong you’d do anything to relieve the agony. Kill anyone to get it. That made it pretty damn important never to drink the shit in the first place.
Most vampires were soulless bastards who had no qualms about killing. Actually, they had no qualms about doing anything. Living with the constant thirst for blood made them a threat to humans, and it was the Scars job to make certain that didn’t happen. But that wasn’t the only war the Scars had to fight. New CWOs, Center World Others, were constantly rising from beneath the ground, and they were just as deadly. During my years of running, I’d run across lots of the assholes, and like the bugs they descended from, they were relentless pests.