Nicole just tried not to think about it. She’d know within twenty-four hours if the vaccine didn’t work, and at that point . . . she didn’t know. Ever since Boris nearly ripped her throat out with his teeth, her second-greatest fear had always been that she’d be bitten by another vampire. Her greatest fear had been that she’d be turned into one.
She thought about Riker sinking his fangs into her. Thought about him doing it again. And crazily, the idea excited her instead of repulsing her. Would turning into a vampire truly be so bad? Especially now that she had no desire ever to see anyone involved with Daedalus again, let alone her brother? She had nothing to return to in the human world, so how bad would it be to turn into a completely different person? A different species?
She let herself digest the idea as she dried off and headed for the bedroom, but a knock on the door stopped her in her tracks.
“Nicole?” Riker’s muffled voice came from the other side.
“Um, yeah . . . one second.” She hastily wrapped the towel around herself and cracked the door open.
Riker stood on the other side, also freshly showered and changed into jeans and a black sweatshirt. His damp hair, darker blond than when it was dry, stood up in spiky chunks that made her want to smooth them with her fingers, if for no other reason than to have an excuse to touch him.
“Can I come in?”
His hesitation was a new thing, and it highlighted the change in their relationship. Before, he’d barged into the room as if he owned it, and now he was asking to come in. She wondered what he’d say if she refused.
“Please.” She backed up, allowing him to enter. “There’s only one guard outside now,” she said as she closed the door behind him. “Guess I’ve earned a little leeway, huh?”
It was meant to be a joke, but Riker’s expression grew serious. “You’ll earn more,” he said. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“Oh.” Apparently, it was time to discuss her future. “Should I be worried that someone wants something to happen to me?”
“No.”
She fisted the towel more tightly around her. “That wasn’t a very convincing answer.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Too bad, because her life was on the line. “What do you want—”
With a great surge, Riker backed her against the wall. He didn’t touch her. He caged her in with one hand on either side of her head, holding his body away from hers. He might not have been doing anything sexual, but intense hunger burned in his eyes.
“I can feel you running through my veins,” he said. “I can taste you on my tongue and smell your sweet spice. But more than that, I can’t stop thinking about you and the way you gave yourself over to me in the lab. The way you sacrificed yourself to save Neriya.” He swallowed. “The way you handled my son.”
She licked her lips, and his gaze dropped to her mouth. Kiss me, she thought. Kiss me, and make me feel safe here.
When he lowered his head in agonizingly slow motion, she nearly wept with both relief and impatience. Then his lips were on hers, warm and soft, and so very gentle. A wonderfully shivery sensation spread through her insides as he licked and nibbled, alternating light pressure with firm kisses.
Oh, but he was amazing at this. He blew away the memory of every man she’d ever kissed. Hell, no one could compare to him. Ever.
Moaning, she opened to him. His kiss grew fiercer in response, but he still remained tamely away from her, the space between them nothing but empty air.
“Riker,” she said against his lips, “I don’t want this to be like last time. I need you to be all in.”
He lifted his head and pegged her with those silver blades he called eyes. The hesitation in them made her heart sink. “I’m sorry. I can’t promise you anything.”
She jerked, lanced by his words. Sudden anger helped soothe the cut, and she shoved him hard enough that he had to step back. “Of course you can’t.”
“Dammit, Nicole.” He closed in on her again, but she ducked out of the cage he tried to trap her in. “I came here to thank you for everything you’ve done for me, my clan, and my son.”
“Wait . . . so . . . this is about gratitude? You want to pay me back with sex?”
His cheeks reddened, and she knew she’d hit the nail on the head. “No.”
“Too bad,” she said, surprising even herself. But dammit, she was tired of having no control over her life and feeling like she was blowing in the wind. If he wanted to thank her with sex, who was she to refuse? “I want an orgasm.”
His mouth fell open. Closed. When she dropped the towel and stood in front of him, buck naked, his mouth fell open again.
“Go ahead and thank me,” she said.
“Nicole . . .” The warning in his tone should have been a clue, but she was beyond comprehending subtle signals. Or maybe she just didn’t care anymore.
She coyly circled her belly button with a finger, loving how his gaze latched on as she trailed her hand upward. Heat scorched her where he looked, and she took a very long time stroking her way up her abdomen, to the full swell of her breast, and finally, to her nipple.
“Well?” She pinched and played, enjoying the way Riker’s breaths came faster. But he still hadn’t moved. “Fine.” She sighed, dropping her hand to her side. “I guess you aren’t all that thankful.” Very deliberately, she turned around and bent to pick up the towel.
That was it. Suddenly, she was upright, her body pinned between Riker and the wall, her cheek kissing the wooden support beam built into the stone. His hand gripped a fistful of her hair as the other delved between her legs. Forcefully, he tilted her head back so he could kiss her. The position left her immobile, barely able to move, and wow, something about being restrained like this was a huge turn-on.
She ground her butt against his erection in time to the stroke of his fingers at her core. Long, light passes over her sex grew firmer, and when he worked a finger into her slit, she cried out.
“Thank you.” His hot breath caressed her cheek, and his deep voice vibrated through her in an erotic wave. “Is this what you want?”
“Yes.” She gasped.
He made a harsh, greedy male sound as he pushed his finger inside her. He didn’t waste time with teasing. He worked her hard, stroking that place inside her that had her pushing into his hand. Liquid heat seeped into her center, and she wondered if he noticed how ready she was for him.
“Thank you,” he repeated, his voice guttural. “Thank. You.” He pulled his hand away, and she almost cried at the loss.
Until she heard the zing of his zipper and felt the prod of his shaft between her legs. “Thank you,” she whispered.
He drove into her, burying himself in one smooth motion. They moved together, his hips slapping against her buttocks. He released her hair and gripped her hips, holding her for his powerful thrusts. His breathing grew ragged, joining hers, and she knew he was as close as she was.
Could he go all the way?
She sensed he was holding back, that part of him still hadn’t come to grips with what had happened to Terese and Nicole’s family’s role in it. But screw that, she wasn’t going to let his past interfere anymore. He was hers now, and he was going to learn that, right here and now.
Hers? Vaguely, she was aware that there was an impossible number of reasons he couldn’t be hers, but right now, none of them mattered. A fierce, primal instinct rose up in her, requiring that she stake a claim on the male she wanted.
“Stop,” she snarled, and to her shock, he froze.
She pushed against him, forcing him free of her body. In the narrow, crushing space between them, she turned, smiled at the confused look on his face . . . and then scaled him like a tree.
“Jesus, Nicole—” He caught her waist as she lowered herself onto his erection. Ruthlessly, she dug her nails into his shoulders, and he hissed in pleasure. Once again, he braced her against the wall as he pumped his hips with an urgency she hadn??
?t felt from him before.
Still, she felt his restraint, weaker than a moment ago but hanging on. No, no, no. Rocking her head, she bit him, sinking her teeth into the soft spot between his shoulder and his throat.
He shouted and bucked, drilling her savagely, sparing her nothing. She clawed harder, forcing him to think about her and her alone. The past wasn’t allowed here. No other female was allowed here.
Oh . . . yes. Her body tightened as ecstasy engulfed her, sparking from nerve ending to nerve ending. She cried out, clenching around him, the orgasm going on and on. Riker’s chest expanded on a huge, shuddering breath, and then his movements became jerky and erratic. A hot splash filled her, setting off another climax for her as he convulsed and shuddered.
Riker’s forehead, damp with sweat, rested against hers as he continued to move inside her, wringing the last drops of pleasure from both of them.
“Thank you,” he murmured, petting her hair with lazy, uneven strokes. “That was . . . amazing.”
She couldn’t agree more.
Too soon, he slipped out of her and lowered her to the ground. With tender care, he wrapped her in the towel and kissed her.
“I have to go,” he said. Sated and exhausted in a way she’d never been, she nodded. “Get some rest.” She let him carry her into the bedroom and tuck her into bed.
He left, and she was nearly asleep when she realized that they still hadn’t discussed a single thing.
RIKER WAS PRETTY sure hash browns weren’t supposed to taste like sawdust, but wood chips were all he tasted as he shoveled food into his mouth on the way to Grant’s lab. He left a trail of potatoes behind him, because apparently, he couldn’t eat and walk at the same time. Add thinking about Nicole to the mix, and he might as well put on a bib and drink out of a damned sippy cup.
He’d gone to check on her this morning, but she was still crashed, and there was no way he was waking her. If she wanted to sleep for a week, he’d let her.
Well, maybe he’d wake her up for sex. She’d seemed to like what they’d done last night.
His cheeks heated in remembrance, and his body hardened in anticipation.
Whoa, buddy. We’re not going back to her chambers right now.
Holding the plate he’d swiped from the main kitchen in one hand, he rubbed the spot where Nicole had bitten him with the other. She’d been a wild thing, and though her bite and claw marks had healed, he still felt them like erotic whispers on his skin.
Sex with Terese had never been like that. No, Terese had viewed sex as a duty to be tolerated, and the only time she was ever even remotely interested was on the new moon, when her hormones and her need for blood took control. Even then, she’d never scratched him. Or climbed up him. Or reveled in being fucked against a wall.
The raunchy images played like a skin flick in his head, and he missed a step as he took the corner to the lab. Baddon, who was coming in the opposite direction, grinned.
“Smooth, man,” Baddon said. “Can you do it again? I missed most of it.”
Riker snorted. “How about I kick your ass?” He popped Baddon in the shoulder as they passed in the hall. “You won’t miss any of that.”
Baddon’s laughter followed Riker until he entered the lab, where he wasn’t surprised to find Grant hard at work. He was, however, surprised to find a teepee in one corner and Hunter talking to Bastien at a table near the bison-skin tent.
His stomach did a few flips. It was both strange and awesome to see the boy Riker had once dreamed of having. The circumstances weren’t perfect, obviously, but he wasn’t going to turn down this amazing second chance.
When Hunter saw Riker, he excused himself and crossed the room.
“It seems,” Hunter said, “that your son is as stubborn as you are.”
Riker peeled his eyes away from the boy. “Why’s that?”
“He refuses to sleep anywhere but here. Morena had to pull an old teepee out of storage for him. The biggest problem is he won’t leave the lab.” Hunter shifted his weight with an awkwardness Riker had never seen from the rock-steady male. “Grant thinks Nicole might be able to persuade Sebastian to get out of here. Seems Bastien trusts her.”
“I seem to recall telling you that.” Riker smiled. “Looks like she might be useful after all.”
“We’ll see.” Hunter’s mouth became a forbidding slash. “I met with the warriors last night—”
“Without me?” Riker broke in.
“You were . . . busy,” Hunter said, leaving no doubt that he knew where Riker had been for part of the night. “But we didn’t make any decisions without you.”
“I’m guessing you discussed what we’re going to do about ShadowSpawn?”
Hunter nodded. “We think it’ll be best to wait until our deadline to tell ShadowSpawn that Neriya’s dead. We can use the time to develop a battle plan.”
“We’re going to need to outline several strategies. I assume we’re going to attempt to negotiate first? With Lucy’s life on the line, I don’t want to antagonize them with a forceful opening salvo.” God, he hoped she was okay and that they were treating her well. Somehow he doubted it.
“Agreed.” Hunter’s expression said he didn’t have high hopes for negotiation. “We have to try. We can’t afford a war.”
Riker glanced over at Bastien, who was sucking on a glass of what looked like chocolate milk. Terese had loved the stuff. “Let’s meet again this afternoon and storm some brains.”
“How’s Nicole?” Hunter asked, and hey, it had to mean something that he didn’t say her name the way he might say “Ebola” anymore. “Any signs of the turn?”
Riker tried to keep disappointment out of his voice. “She should be in the clear.”
“Keep me updated.” Hunter gestured to Bastien. “Ditto with him. If you need help, everyone is here for you.”
They clasped hands, friendship secured, and then Hunter left Riker with Grant and Bastien.
Riker approached Bastien slowly, letting the boy control their encounter. As Riker got closer to the table Bastien was sitting at with a deck of cards, Bastien gave him a timid smile.
“Hi, Bastien.”
“Hi,” Bastien said. “It’s Riker, right?”
“Yeah.” He tapped the back of a chair. “Mind if I sit?”
“No.” Bastien looked down at the cards, each of which had an image of an animal or object. “Morena told me to make two piles. One of the images I recognize, and one pile for things I don’t know.”
One pile was twice as large as the other, but Riker didn’t know which was which. “Did the humans teach you things?”
Bastien nodded, still not meeting Riker’s gaze. “Every night, I got to watch movies and stuff on the TV across from my kennel. I can read, too. Some of the lab people taught me, but I don’t think they were supposed to. They gave me books.”
“Like what?”
“I’m halfway through The Hobbit.” He finally peered through his long, shaggy hair at Riker, although he kept his head down. So like Terese. “Do you have books here?”
“We do. We have an entire chamber dedicated to them.”
The boy’s crystal eyes lit up. “I—I’d like to see that.”
“I can take you.”
Man, you’d have thought Riker had offered to beat him instead of show him the library. Bastien shrank back, his skinny fingers trembling over the cards. “That’s all right. I like it here.”
“How about if Nicole takes you?”
He gave a barely discernible nod. “That might be okay. She’ll bring me back here, right?”
“If that’s what you want,” Riker said, but the dubious expression on Bastien’s face said he didn’t believe Riker. “Bastien . . . you said you don’t know who your father is. Did anyone tell you anything about him at all? Or anything about your mother?”
“They said I look like her.”
“You do. Very much.” Riker just hoped no one questioned Bastien’s dark hair and mocha skin that was
a little too tan for someone who had never seen the sun, because neither Riker nor Terese bore that coloring.
The insane breeder male at the lab had.
“How did you know her?” Bastien asked. “You told Nicole about my name.”
Now Riker needed to proceed carefully, dole out the information in small doses and see if Bastien would reach the logical conclusion himself. “That’s because your mother was my mate, Bastien.”
“Oh.” He frowned. “Did you serve humans, too?”
“No.” Riker used a finger to straighten the largest pile of cards, the one with a rabbit on top. “Humans captured her. They stole her away from me and turned her into a slave. Do you know what a slave is?”
He nodded, but his gaze had turned wary. “They said she liked working for the Martin family. It’s an honor to work for humans—”
“No,” Riker snapped. “It’s not.”
Bastien scrambled backward, knocking over his chair and scattering the cards. And for a split second, Riker could have sworn the kid vanished. Then he was there again, crouched in the corner, eyes wild, panting like he’d run a marathon.
“Jesus.” Riker swallowed. So much for proceeding carefully. He’d just scared the boy half to death. “I’m sorry, Bastien. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He righted the chair and held out his hand, inviting Bastien to come back. “I’m just very angry with the humans.”
“Why?” Bastien crept toward the table, but when he sat, he did so a little farther away from Riker than he’d been before.
Riker struggled to keep in mind that Bastien had been raised by humans, had relied on them for his very survival. Like an abused dog that wouldn’t run away because it didn’t know any better, Bastien hadn’t yet realized that the people he’d spent twenty years with were the enemy.
“They’ve lied to you, son.” Riker kept his voice low and level and his hands folded tamely in front of him. “They’re a cruel, selfish race that enslaves and abuses animals and people. That’s what they did to your mother. That’s what they did to you. You should have been born here and raised by vampires who love you instead of being kept in a cage and poked with needles.”