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He'd understood her trust couldn't be easily won. He'd said he'd expected her to fight, and to keep fighting. He'd also told her she had to give herself permission to make the leap. He didn't seem to feel those three things were necessarily in conflict, though they left her feeling confused. He wasn't, however. She saw that in his eyes, along with something else that had her pulse fluttering a different way. But at his direct order, she found her fingers on his throat loosening.
The other strap of her nightgown had tumbled. He caught it on his thumb, tugging it down, her jutting nipple catching the fabric before it dropped, leaving her naked from the waist up. Cinching his arm around her waist, he lifted and pulled her over to straddle his lap. His cock pressed between her legs. Then he did the unthinkable, something so ill-advised yet so ballsy she knew it had to be deliberate. Digging his fingers into her hair, he jerked her head back, and set his teeth to her throat.
All vampires had a visceral level, one that was so far beyond civility a rabid wolf would seem tame in comparison. Every one of them had to learn how to stay above that level, because to fall into that pit meant full blown bloodlust. Combined with all the other drastic changes she'd experienced today, Garron sinking his teeth into her throat triggered it.
She shoved off the floor, taking him with her, and heaved him up against the dresser. The upward thrust bounced him down hard on the surface, knocked him back against the mirror. The glass shattered behind him. She followed him right behind her throw, was up on the dresser with him, her knee planted between his legs, against his testicles. Before he could react, her fangs were buried a half inch in his throat, her hand dug into the hard muscle over his heart like talons, as if she could plunge through his chest wall to take his heart.
She could.
She swallowed the first ecstatic mouthful of blood, such a generous draught it escaped her lips, trickling into the pocket of his collar bone. She had her other hand clamped on the back of his skull, his flesh firm and smooth beneath her palm, except where the scars were. Her nose was against the scar that started under his jaw, where someone had obviously tried to slice his throat and damn near succeeded.
The warrior in him had understood her reaction this time was different. He was fighting for his life, trying to break her hold. He'd realize he couldn't. The predator in her shrieked with cold pleasure. After years of control, of grief, hate and rage, she could do as she wished. She could kill and take, and feed, and...
She glimpsed his eyes, fierce and intent. Even during this, he was seeking her gaze, seeking to make a connection. His expression was unrelenting, unsubdued. Still wholly unafraid. At least for himself.
Oh God. Oh...
She let him go so suddenly he rocked forward, pieces of the mirror falling around him on the dresser surface, to the floor. She scrambled with no grace toward the corner, toward the best position to turn and put up a fight, but she couldn't control her own movements. She crashed into the wall, spun against the stone, hands up in defense, fangs bared. Her arousal ran down her legs, dampening the short skirt of the gown. Her nipples were hard and tight, her heart beating high in her throat. Her body throbbed.
She was hissing, a feral noise she also remembered from her first days being turned. Never had she lost control like that...not since she'd been a fledgling. Her sire, Seth, had been there then. Protecting her from herself, protecting others. She'd never thought she'd need that stabilizing influence again. But Garron had awakened something in her so overwhelming, and that, along with that savage bite, had unleashed a primal reaction, the way she'd respond to a threat from another vampire.
Kill him. Destroy it before it destroys you.
What had hold of her now was pure fight or flight, and she didn't do flight. She wasn't a big fan of live-to-fight-another-day. Everything was the sharp, bitter, here and now. She could take him down, keep him down. Kill him. She, who'd dealt with a roomful of fifty vampires, was perceiving this one human Master as a greater threat to her wellbeing.
She wanted what he'd been about to give her, but it was everything attached to it that wasn't simple, the significance of all of it. Damn Theodosius Vardalos. Had he thought about the risks to Garron? Though the Master of Eden seemed to know so much about vampires, he'd discounted how little human life meant to them.
"No. I can't do this. I'm sorry. You need to leave. Now. I'll hurt you if you stay."
He straightened, standing before the dresser. Glancing at the glass scattered over the floor and dresser, he tilted his head, considering the diamond shards littering the shoulders of the T-shirt. Reaching down, he grasped the hem, removed it in a sinuous movement that revealed his lower body to the waist. The man was layers of tough, lean muscle over the large frame. As he turned to drop the shirt on the dresser, she looked at his broad back. There was more scarring there, as well as a stark black and red tattoo between his shoulder blades.
It was a coiled single tail whip, the end split into three barbed tips that spread out in a fan just beneath his left shoulder blade. Inside the coil, between his shoulder blades, was script.
Serve and protect. Master and cherish.
The words were done in red, several of the letters elongated so they looked as if they were dissolving into drops of blood.
He turned to face her again. He had scars on his chest, too. Small, shiny round scars from bullets, more shrapnel scars. Whatever had blown up near him, whoever had shot him, tried to cut his throat--any or all of that should have killed him. She could have killed him minutes ago, because she hadn't been mindful of her strength at all, hanging onto any level of control by a thread. Yet here he stood, as substantial as Atlas or Hercules, as if he would be standing as long as a mountain stood.
Which was foolish thinking, because she knew how fragile human life was. But this man pulsed with life. Life and lust.
Her gaze coursed down from his chest to the ripples of muscle over his abdomen, to the hint of hip bones and lower abdominal muscles that disappeared into his jeans, so her track led her over his groin, and the impressive evidence of virility there. Nothing indicated she'd cowed him in the least. From his reaction, she thought he might have some Viking in him, threats only rousing the warrior in him. Rousing him, period.
She despaired at the wave of red desire that rose in her to match it, fighting with an emotional reaction that was going to drown her. Serve, protect. Master, cherish. He could offer her all those things.
"You need to leave," she said again, moving her gaze to the opposite wall, looking anywhere but at what she hungered to have, the need so overwhelming she didn't think she could move without causing herself greater agony. "I'm not in control."
"No, you're not." He was moving stiffly toward her. She'd put him down hard. She'd be surprised if she hadn't cracked something.
"This isn't going to work. I don't want to hurt you, Garron. Please." She threw up a hand as he drew closer. "Stop. I mean it." She moved to another corner. He couldn't stop her. She was too fast. How could she have ever lost her mind enough to believe she could be successfully dominated by a mere human? She couldn't do this with vampire or human. It was a fantasy that was meant to remain an actual, only-in-her-head fantasy. "I have a blood pack in my things. I'll drink that. Tell Mr. Vardalos I want to go out on the next nighttime plane. I'm sorry. There's nothing wrong with you. This just won't work."
She tensed as he approached again. "Stop. I can hurt you. I can't control that."
"Yeah, you can. Because I say you can."
This time when she lifted her lashes, he was meeting her gaze, and what she saw there didn't let her look away. Ruthless determination, and a passion that couldn't be matched by a roaring fire. He wasn't going to stay away. He was going to dare her to kill him. To defy him. To refuse him.
"You did all that on purpose," she accused. "Have you lost your mind? I could have killed you."
"But you didn't. And you won't. I had to prove that to you. Saves time, don't you think?" He took another step closer.
Though she told herself to move again, she didn't. She sank down against the wall, put her backside on the floor in the hope the physical grounding would help with the mental one. Dropping to his heels, he braced his hand above her shoulder as he reached down, traced her lips, a fang, with the pad of a callused finger.
She closed her eyes, shuddered.
"Theodosius gave me a potion that would make me stronger than you. Faster."
She snorted out a hysterical half laugh. "Tell him to get back whatever price he paid for it. It's not working."
