Shadows on the Soul

  His target turned a corner, and Drake hastened to catch up. He reached out with his senses, discovering that the next street over was empty of pedestrian traffic. A good spot for an ambush.

  But he pulled up short before he rounded the corner himself, because at the last moment, he sensed something else entirely.

  Swearing under his breath, he turned to look behind him, where he’d sensed a vampire following him. Not surprisingly, it was Fletcher again.

  Fletcher’s glamour wasn’t as strong as Drake’s, and every once in a while, a mortal would glance in his direction and begin to notice him. Fletcher turned the attention away in time, but he must be exhausting himself doing it.

  For the puppy’s own good, Drake ducked around the corner to the deserted street rather than confronting him in front of a crowd. Drake’s intended victim was pounding on a door halfway down the block. Someone opened the door, and he shoved his way in just as Fletcher came into view again.

  Drake sighed and shook his head. He was so tired of all these games of one-upmanship. And he was tired of being the responsible one, the one who was always looking out for everyone’s best interests. Right now, the idea of snapping Fletcher’s neck was more tempting than he’d like to admit.

  He lowered his fangs and snarled at Fletcher. “If you couldn’t take me with two buddies, you can’t take me single-handed.”

  Fletcher held up his hands in surrender, but the look in his eyes said he didn’t mean it. “I’m not here to start a fight,” he said.

  Drake narrowed his eyes. Like hell he wasn’t! He hadn’t opened his mouth wide enough to show the fangs, but the hint of a lisp said they were down.

  Damn it, he’d had enough of all this! He’d had enough of the Guardians, and he was beginning to think he’d had enough of Eli too.

  Of course, if it weren’t for Eli, there’d be no place in the world for him. If he tried to move to another city, he’d step on the toes of the city’s master, and end up dead. If he moved to some place quiet in the country, he’d never find enough prey of the sort his conscience could stomach killing.

  He was trapped, and that didn’t help his temper any.

  “One false move, puppy, and that dislocated shoulder is going to seem like a bee sting.”

  Fletcher’s face went red with anger, but he answered in a deceptively mild voice. “I said I didn’t come to fight, and I meant it.”

  Drake grunted in disgust. “So what did you come for?”

  The Guardian’s smile was singularly unpleasant and revealed the fangs Drake knew were there. “Nothing. Nothing whatsover. Please, just go on about your business as if I weren’t here.”

  So, that was his game. “You think you can disrupt my feeding by following me around.” Drake laughed. “If you think I’ll refrain from killing just because you’re watching me, you’re sorely deluded.”

  “Far be it from me to interfere,” Fletcher responded. “As I said, please, go about your business.”

  What was the damn fool’s game?

  The gangbanger Drake had been following emerged from the house. Drake thought he heard the echo of a feminine sob before the door banged closed, but he couldn’t be sure. He glanced at Fletcher indecisively.

  “Don’t mind me,” the Guardian said, eyes glittering.

  Drake still had no idea what the puppy was up to. But the reality was, he needed to feed, whether Fletcher was watching or not:

  Ignoring the Guardian as best he could, Drake set off down the street after his meal.

  GABRIEL WAS BROODY AND silent throughout the walk to his apartment. Jez bit her lip to keep from pestering him with questions.

  Was his last conversation with Eli a good sign? Did it mean the chasm between them was narrowing? Or was it just that Gabriel hated this di Cesare person even more than he hated his father? She longed to know, but she didn’t dare ask.

  Besides, as shaken as she was by tonight’s events, she couldn’t help thinking that perhaps she’d been given a second chance at her evening’s attempted seduction. Smiling faintly, she slipped her hand into Gabriel’s. His face barely acknowledged her touch, but his fingers closed around hers.

  His apartment turned out to be a penthouse with a fantastic view of the city. At any other time in her life, Jez would have stood at the windows to drink in that view. Tonight, she had other plans, and with dawn only a few hours away, she had to get those plans into action.

  “There’s a guest room—” Gabriel began, but Jez cut him off by throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her mouth to his.

  For a moment, he resisted, putting his hands on her upper arms and trying to push her away. Not trying terribly hard, though, or he would have succeeded. She’d have been discouraged, if she weren’t pressed up against him from chest to hip, if she couldn’t feel how his body responded to her.

  She licked along the seam of his closed lips, and he made a sound, half growl and half groan. He grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head away from his. His eyes bored into hers, and he bared his fangs.

  She should have been frightened by the rough handling and by the implied threat. Maybe a part of her was. Her heartbeat seemed strangely erratic, and butterfly wings flapped in her belly. But at the same time, heat gathered at the core of her, spreading outward, engulfing her.

  “Be careful what you ask for, my sweet,” Gabriel growled, his grip tightening on her hair. “You just might get it.” He clapped his other hand to her ass and ground himself against her.

  Her breath came in short, frantic gasps, the desire an almost unbearable ache. But the fear was there too, making her limbs tremble.

  With a start, she realized it wasn’t her own limbs trembling. It was Gabriel’s. It was his fear that pounded through her veins.

  She sucked in a deep breath of air and met his eyes. “I trust you, Gabriel,” she said. “You won’t hurt me.”

  He closed his eyes, as if her words hurt. “Then you’re a fool, Jezebel.”

  But when their emotions bled over into each other, pretenses became difficult. She knew how much he wanted what she offered. And she wasn’t about to let him pull away.

  She raised up on her tiptoes and once again touched her lips to his, ignoring the pull of his hand in her hair. He kept up his resistance for about half a second. Then, his hand flattened against the back of her head, holding her steady as his tongue stabbed between her lips.

  She gloried in the pleasure of it, stroking his tongue with hers, marveling at how good he tasted. Her knees trembled, and if it hadn’t been for the way he held her so tightly against him, she thought she might have fallen.

  His hand squeezed her bottom, then slid down the back of her thigh. His fingers tangled in her skirt and started inching the fabric upward. When he found the hem, he slipped his hand underneath.

  She moaned at the touch of his hand on the bare skin of her thigh. But that wasn’t where she wanted his hand. She tried an experimental grind of her hips, pressing the hardness of his erection into the softness of her belly.

  “Jez!” he gasped against her lips.

  But if she let him talk, he’d talk himself out of this. She bit down gently on his lower lip, careful not to catch him with her fangs.

  With another of those sexy groans, he seized her lips once more, and his hand moved up to her bottom. He caressed her lightly over her panties. Then, with a quick, ruthless jerk, he tore the flimsy lace away from her, and his hand cupped her.

  His fingers dipped between her legs, stroking her most tender flesh, the touch both urgent and gentle. She’d never felt anything so wonderful in her life, and she wanted more!

  Even as his fingers teased and tortured her, she felt him pulling away again, so that when he broke the kiss she wasn’t surprised.

  “Don’t you dare stop now!” she growled, glaring up at him. But it was hard to glare too fiercely when his fingers kept finding ever sweeter places to torment.

  “If I don’t stop now,” he said breathlessly, “I’m
going to fuck you till you can’t walk. Is that what you want, Jezebel?”

  The fierceness in his eyes should have been terrifying. Instead, it inspired her to spread her legs a little wider to give him more access. His chest heaved with his heavy breaths, and his skin where he touched her seemed to burn with an inner fire.

  When instead of taking advantage of the access she’d granted him, he pulled his hand away, she almost howled in frustration. But there was something about the glow in his eyes that stopped her voice in her throat. She watched, wide-eyed, as he raised his fingers to his mouth and tasted the moisture that glistened on them.

  “Is this what you want?” he repeated in a molten murmur, sucking his fingers clean one by one.

  Arousal stole her ability to speak, and she could only nod. Her heart felt like it might explode out of her chest at any moment.

  Gabriel surprised her once again when he suddenly bent and hauled her off her feet, slinging her over his shoulder. Somehow, her skirt ended up bunched around her hips, her bottom bare. One arm clamped down on her knees, pressing them against his chest. He clapped his other hand against her butt and continued his sensual torment as he carried her, presumably toward the bedroom.

  Jez took advantage of her position by grabbing a double handful of his shirt and tugging it loose from his pants. She grunted in frustration to realize she was too short to reach his butt.

  They passed through a doorway into a darkened room. Gabriel closed the door behind him with his foot, then slid her off his shoulder to her feet, steadying her shaky balance by lightly holding onto her hips.

  When she was no longer in danger of falling over from the head rush, he took a step back from her. Though the room was dark, the curtains were open and city lights illuminated his face enough for her to see the hungry glow of his eyes. He folded his arms across his chest and looked down his nose at her.

  “Strip.”

  She swallowed hard, nerves suddenly buzzing. But that was ridiculous. He’d seen her naked before! More than once, in fact. So there was no reason to be bashful. And yet something about the way he was looking at her made this into something entirely different.

  “Don’t make me repeat myself,” he said, his voice a soft but dangerous croon. There was a glitter of challenge in his eyes, and she realized that once again he was trying to scare her off. He was just being more subtle about it this time.

  She heaved an exasperated sigh. “How many times do I have to prove to you that I really want to do this?” she asked as she reached behind herself to unclasp her bra.

  He pulled his lips away from his teeth, tonguing first one fang, then the other. “As many times as I tell you to.”

  Well, he definitely had his Master of the Known Universe hat on tonight! If he thought he was genuinely scaring her, then he had to be blocking out her reactions. Jez felt certain that once again, it was Gabriel who was scared, not trusting himself. Perhaps as he said, it was foolish of her to trust him, but she did. Despite his snarls and his threats, she was sure he wouldn’t hurt her.

  Now, all she had to do was prove it to him so he could get the Rock of Gibralter off his shoulder.

  A slow smile spread over her lips, sensual and yet full of mischief. She knew it unnerved him, because some of the swagger left him.

  “You want me to strip?” she asked sweetly. Then she crossed her arms over her chest, mimicking his stance. “Make me.”

  His eyes widened in shock. “Jezebel …” he warned.

  A sense of power surged through her, a deep-seated understanding of just how desperately he wanted her. It went to her head like alcohol, and she laughed.

  “Yes?” she goaded. “What are you going to do to me if I don’t do what you tell me?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. Even in the dim light of the darkened room, she could see the sheen of sweat on his brow. Smiling at him, she cupped her hands under her breasts, pressing them together to give her even more cleavage. A glance at his groin showed him just how much he liked the view.

  “Don’t tempt me!” he snapped, but there wasn’t much of his trademark ferocity in his voice.

  She did a little bump and grind with her hips, laughing at the hiss of his sharply intaken breath. She reached down and pulled her skirt up to mid-thigh.

  “Come and get me,” she taunted.

  And that was the end of his restraint.

  He was on her before she realized he was coming, grabbing the straps of her top and yanking downward until her breasts popped free. A startled gasp escaped her. Then he wrapped one arm around her, hauling her toward him, while his other hand cupped her breast and his mouth descended on the nipple.

  She moaned in ecstasy as his lips fastened around her hardened nipple and his tongue flicked across it. She let her head sag backward, let her eyes fall closed so she could concentrate on the overwhelming sensations he sparked in her center. His teeth scraped gently over her and she arched her back.

  He moved to her other breast, sucking and licking and nibbling until she thought she’d go crazy with it. One hand slid between her legs, the touch almost, but not quite, rough enough to hurt. She widened her stance, and his finger slid into her sheath. Air whooshed out of her lungs, but before she’d had a chance to absorb the strange new sensation, he stopped.

  She was trying to muster enough brain cells to form a protest when he suddenly propelled her onto the bed. Her butt hit the edge of the bed and he pushed her shoulders down. She tried to wriggle backward until she was all the way on the bed, but he grabbed her legs, spreading them and then pulling her back to the edge of the mattress.

  A flick of his hand had her skirt up around her waist. He pinned her to the bed with his eyes as his hands went to his belt and ripped it open.

  Her skin felt like it was on fire, and her heart slammed frantically in her chest. Some tiny remnant of prudishness urged her to close her legs, protect herself from his ravening gaze. But though she trembled slightly, she stayed right where he had put her, gasping for breath as his zipper rasped down and he freed himself.

  Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of his rampant arousal. His erection looked huge and threatening, a weapon that would split her in two. Goose bumps prickled over her skin and the trembling got worse, some of her bravado fading. She didn’t have a hymen for him to rip through, but logic told her there was no way he could shove that monster into her without it hurting, not when she was so inexperienced. She closed her eyes, bracing herself.

  Then, he was on her. He buried himself to the hilt in one thrust, and she cried out in anticipation of pain.

  Only, there was none.

  She opened her eyes to find him leaning over her, forearms resting beside her head. His eyes locked with hers, and he gave another hard thrust. Again she tensed, but again it didn’t hurt.

  Gabriel’s lips whispered over hers. “I’m too hungry to be gentle,” he murmured, slamming into her again. “But glamour has its advantages.”

  A little moan escaped her throat, and she wrapped her legs around his pistoning hips. This cruel, brutal, “sadistic” Killer was using his glamour to make sure he didn’t hurt her. The realization quelled the last of her fear, and she relaxed into him, feeling the delicious sensation of him moving inside her, drinking in the dark desire in his eyes, the musky scents, the sweat that trickled down the side of his face.

  His hand slid between her legs as he rode her hard.

  She’d thought it felt good before. Now, his fingers played with her hardened nub as he stroked her deep inside. The pleasure mounted rapidly. She wanted to rein it in, slow it down, make it last. But the fire burned too brightly, and all too soon the pleasure spiked and she arched her back as a cry rose from her throat.

  Gabriel lasted only a few more strokes before his own release shuddered through him. Breathing raggedly, sweat bathing his face, he lowered his forehead to hers.

  Jez wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close as her heart continued to ha
mmer as if it wanted out of her chest. She wanted to say something, but words couldn’t express what she was feeling right now. So she settled for holding him tight and hoped the psychic bond they shared allowed him to feel just how good it had been for her.

  15

  THE HEAVY DRAPES BLOCKED out the sunlight, leaving the room bathed in darkness. Gabriel reached over to the nightstand and turned on the light, squinting in the sudden brightness. He sat up and looked beside him, where Jezebel lay naked on her side, deeply in the grip of the daytime sleep.

  He couldn’t help the fond little smile that tugged at his mouth, even as the more sensible part of him warned he was on the roadway to disaster.

  He lay back down, propping his head on his hand and regarding her sleeping form. Her shoulder-length blond hair was thoroughly tousled, her cheeks still rosy from their last tumble. He reached out and brushed away a lock of hair that had caught in the corner of her mouth. A sleepy sigh escaped her, and he smiled again.

  Gabriel swallowed hard around a sudden tightening in his throat. A couple of hours rolling around in bed with Jezebel had shifted his entire perception of reality. He felt confused, unbalanced, uncertain. Like the world he’d known had taken a giant step to the side and everything was just a little off.

  He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling, fighting off something that was almost panic.

  He couldn’t even begin to count the number of women—and men, for that matter—he’d bedded during the near five hundred years he’d walked this earth. None of that had prepared him for Jezebel.

  He’d been rough with her that first time, but not out of any desire to hurt her. It had been only the urgency of his need, and a touch of glamour had made certain his lack of finesse caused her no pain.

  Before last night, he’d have said he couldn’t get off without causing at least some pain. When he’d hired mortal prostitutes, he’d always paid whatever premium they demanded for the privilege of slaking his unnatural tastes. Even then, he’d always experienced some measure of guilt afterward.