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“What are you doing here?” he demanded, keeping his voice low. He’d left Levian to rush upstairs before giving her a chance to explain. He should have known better than to ignore his sense that something was amiss. He’d known Levian was withholding.
“It is good to see you too, brother,” Niah replied with no hint she meant it. Her hazel eyes shifted from Gwendolyn’s room to meet his.
He repeated the question with far more bite. She stepped away from the door and strode slowly toward him. “That is no concern of yours,” she replied with a frigid sharpness that nearly matched his own. “And I could ask you the same.”
His sister stopped just out of reach, managing to mirror his height thanks to the aid of a pair of high leather boots. He narrowed his gaze. He wouldn’t ask a third time.
Niah knew him well and read the look of warning in his eyes.
She pushed her long red plait of curly hair over her shoulder before she explained placidly, “Levian and I have occasionally crossed paths over the years. We happened to bump into one another in Berlin. She mentioned her problems with the daemons and her intentions to come here. I asked to come along, and she obliged.”
Sirus didn’t doubt she was telling the truth, but her presence grated all the same. He brushed past her but stopped only a few paces away. “You will not touch her,” he made clear.
“Is she yours to claim?” Niah countered.
Sirus let silence linger. Gwendolyn was not his to claim. She was his charge. But Niah was owed no details.
“How long has it been?” she drawled. “Years? Decades? The others may not suspect, but you can’t fool me, brother.”
Ice filled his veins, and he fought the urge to fist his hands. When he’d last fed was none of her concern.
“You cannot starve yourself forever,” she added without any semblance of respect. “You’re getting weaker.”
“Enough,” he growled low.
He’d been present during Niah’s rebirth. He’d watched as she’d screamed and thrashed through the transition. Desperate to survive. She hadn’t changed. After all these years—she hadn’t learned.
“Wither to dust if you wish,” she said with clear bitterness. “I will not. I do what I must to survive. I do what I must to make sure our people survive.”
Niah had refused to accept their fate. She’d turned her back on the clan, determined to save vampires from extinction any way she could. But the Dökk, their dark faerie makers, were long dead, the magick they’d conjured to create vampires lost. What remained was fading into oblivion, as were their creations. Eleven vampires remained, that he knew of. At least Deckland, their brother, had made peace with it. He’d simply decided that upholding tradition was pointless if they were the last. It pained Sirus that his siblings had lowered themselves to such means. To take freely given blood was against their clan’s code of honor—a debasement not far above killing for sport.
Niah’s lips flattened into a hard line when he said nothing. “Playing protector is usually beneath your interest,” she noted sharply.
Usually, that was true. It grated that everyone continued to point this out. “My business is none of yours,” he replied coldly.
“I intend to stay,” she declared.
“Then stay,” he told her. “But you will leave the woman alone.” He moved toward Gwendolyn’s room.
“I don’t just go around eating whomever I please,” she clipped.
He didn’t even bother to acknowledge she’d spoken.
Once Sirus had closed the door to Gwendolyn’s room behind him, he immediately crossed to the bed. She was nestled amongst the spray of pillows and linen, her head tucked low to her chest, curled up into a ball beneath the sheets. At peace.
Sirus didn’t think Niah had done her any harm, but he felt compelled to check anyway. As he stood peering down at her, a heaviness settled over him, along with an odd realization. He couldn’t remember ever seeing a person sleep in such a way. It was rare that any creature slept in his presence knowing what he was, and when they did it was never with ease. Even his lovers wouldn’t sleep in bed with him. But he’d watched Gwendolyn sleep twice in the span of only a few hours.
Something about it felt uncomfortably intimate—yet not so uncomfortable he was compelled to turn away. He scanned the slender curve of her neck and took notice of the chestnut color of her hair. How it lay over her cheek. He lingered on her full pink lips and how they parted just so. He recalled the skitter he’d felt over his skin under her gaze. How his body had sizzled with awareness and—pleasure. Her scent of lilies fogged his senses.
Sirus wondered what it would be like to lie with a woman so deep in sleep, so at ease in his presence. To hold her while she slept, sated with pleasure in his arms. He’d never held a woman in such a way. His inamorata had never wished him to. He was a creature of utility, nothing more. Intimacy beyond the act of coupling was neither expected nor desired from one such as he, as he’d been reminded by their own lips on more than one occasion.
An old memory crept in from the recesses. His body slick with sweat and satisfaction, the clothes he still wore sticking to his skin as he held his lover in his arms. Their embrace had been impromptu, her desire to have him spontaneous and welcome. A rarity in his world. Their repeat encounters even more rare. He’d merely held her while she’d caught her breath, but his touch had lingered too long. She’d pulled away from him sharply, like he were a blight she might catch if she tarried near him for more than a moment.
“I should return to the party,” she’d told him, righting herself in the mirror across the room. A party to which he’d not been welcome. She’d glanced back at him, looming in the darkness, and there had been no mistaking the look in her eye. He’d been nothing more than a flight of dark fancy she was now finished with. No part of her suspected a creature such as he would desire or expect anything more. Could feel anything more.
Gwendolyn was unlike any creature he’d ever met. She was bold and instinctive, yet unsure and naive. He’d wanted to give her answers. Had wanted to ask questions of his own. Sirus’s fingers flexed at his side, itching to brush the hair from her face. She shuddered in her sleep, and he froze when she turned over. She didn’t stir awake as he’d feared, but settled back into her calm slumber.
What was he doing? Becoming lost in such wild fantasy was unlike him. So unlike him, it shook him to the core. He’d lied when he implied he could feel nothing. At that moment, Sirus felt the grip of raw temptation. Temptation not just of the flesh.
