“No! She’s sealing it off. Don’t let her seal it off!” Even though she knew in her heart that it was already too late, she beat on his arms, struggling to get free, not just from him, but from this whole awful place, with its werewolves and vampires and three-headed monsters. Then, when that didn’t work, she collapsed against him, grabbing his jacket to get in his face and cry, “Did you see her? Did you see—?”
She broke off when his arms shifted, their bodies aligned, and she became suddenly aware that he was hard and aroused, his eyes glazing as they locked on hers. And although it was the entirely wrong time, the entirely wrong place, heat leaped up inside her, flaring through her veins. Breath thinning in her lungs, she pressed against him, arched into him as his lips came down…parted…
And moonlight glinted off the two long, curving canines that hadn’t been there before.
CHAPTER FOUR
ONE SECOND DAYN was locked on Reda’s mouth with nothing in his head except: Need. Want. Now.
In the next, she screamed and jerked away from him, her face ashen with shock, her mouth a round O of horror as she whispered, “No. Dear God, no. You’re…”
Startled, he reared back. “Reda, what—” And he felt his lips slide over his secondary canines. His fully extended secondary canines. The ones that were a good bit bigger than the witch’s, and made for the exact same purpose. “Oh, shit. Wait. I can explain.” He took a step toward her, reached for her. “It’s not—”
She broke and bolted, scattering like a wild hare into the nearest section of trees, which put her headed away from both the cabin and the cave.
He went after her, but let her get ahead and moved only fast enough to keep her in sight. Not just to give her some room, but to give himself some, too. Because he was suddenly very not okay with what had just happened.
He’d seen the female blood drinker feeding from the gnome’s neck vein, and he’d damn near lost his mind. Or maybe he had lost it there for a few seconds, because that was the only possible explanation for him trying to kiss Reda with his fangs up close and personal. “Wait,” he called, lengthening his strides to catch up to her. “Please, just give me a minute to explain.”
She threw a panicked look over her shoulder, then at the surrounding forest. And, seeing a lighter spot off to one side, swerved and bolted toward where the normal forest trees gave way to a roughly circular patch of scattered trunks whose roots overlapped and intertwined in intricate patterns.
“Reda, no!” he shouted, accelerating after her. “Stop! Those are borers! The ground isn’t safe!”
But she just kept going. Either she didn’t believe him, or she didn’t think a tree could be worse than a vampire. She plunged into the grove, pounding across the root network, seeming not to notice how her footsteps suddenly echoed hollowly.
Cursing, Dayn followed her in, staying close to the skin-smooth trunks and leaping among the sturdier roots. The surface gave like a mattress beneath his boots and the stink of sulfur wafted up, warning that the grove was fully mature. The roots of the carnivorous trees had pushed aside the earth, creating a hollow to collect their digestive acids.
Too late, she understood. She stopped abruptly near a large parental tree, hands outstretched for balance, and looked back at him with new horror written on her face.
And she fell through.
“No!” He lunged for the ragged hole, stopping on the last sturdy root and coughing against the sulfurous stench that rose up from the torn spot. His gut wrenched. “Reda!”
Then—thank the gods—a wrist-thick root near the edge of the hole shuddered and he heard a low cry of, “Help me!”
“I’m coming.” Yanking off his sword belt, he jammed the leather-sheathed short sword into the huge trunk of the main borer, fisting it so hard that the blade sank in, leather and all. Then, hanging on to that anchor, he leaned out as far as he could without falling in himself. Which put him close enough to catch a glimpse of her wide, frightened eyes, but not close enough to grab her. Stretching out his hand, he strained to close the gap. “Move slowly and don’t shift your weight when you reach for my hand,” he ordered, his voice rasping with the burn of the sulfur vapors. He couldn’t see her face anymore, couldn’t see anything but her hand reaching up for his. Slowly. Slowly.
The ground sagged and collapsed as the smaller roots gave way, tearing, tearing… And then she screamed, lunged upward and grabbed his wrist as the rootwork around her fell away.
Dayn yanked her up and against him and propelled them both to the main trunk; then he spun them and pinned her against the tree with his body, in case she was still thinking about trying to run. Instead, she burrowed both hands beneath his jacket to wrap her arms around him and grab fistfuls of his sweater as she buried her face in his chest and clung, shaking.
And if things had been entirely wrong in his universe only a few moments earlier, now they suddenly seemed very, very right. She fit seamlessly against him and warmed him where he had been so cold. She was safe. She was unhurt. And she was in his arms.
She’s your guide, dumbass, snarled a very humansounding voice of reason. And you’re supposed to be remembering your damn priorities.
But wasn’t his guide a priority? He didn’t know what role she was supposed to play in his journey, but was beginning to suspect it wasn’t nearly as simple as merely showing him where to go. For now, though, it was enough that she hadn’t left him stranded in the wolfyn realm, hadn’t fallen to her death.
“Shh,” he said against her temple, letting the subtle flowers-and-spice scent of her curly hair fill him with a touch of the feminine whimsy he had gone so long without. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
She sucked in a shuddering breath. “But you’re, you’re…”
“Not a threat to you, I promise.” He pulled back far enough to give her an exaggerated smile that included only normal teeth. “See? The spares are all tucked away. I’m not going to bite you, and I can’t turn you. The human legends have it wrong, Reda. I swear. I’m just another kind of man.”
She shrank back against the tree, though she didn’t let go of his sweater. “The woman. Moragh. She…” She shuddered, face plastered with revulsion. “He couldn’t pull away. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. She was controlling him. And then, after…it was like she was inside his mind.”
Damn it. He hesitated, trying to find the right words, because he suddenly wanted—needed—her to understand this part of him. He cursed the bad luck that she’d seen the witch feeding from the throat in a brutal, invasive attack of mind and body rather than the way it should be, as an expression of…well, love, really.
He blew out a breath. “Blood drinking is an inherited trait like any other, but it’s magic, too, so it comes with various other, um, characteristics. Most of us are stronger and quicker than average. I can heal fast, especially when I’m in fang mode. Some of us can move things without touching them, and lots of us can mindspeak to one degree or another.”
“Mindspeak,” she repeated, eyes going white-rimmed. “Brainwashing, you mean. That’s what she did to him.”
“What you saw just now was something that shouldn’t have happened. A blood drinker normally feeds from the wrist or elsewhere, not the throat. There should only be throat action between consenting lovers, usually mates, because it creates a bond between them, makes them aware of each other on a different level.” He paused. “Yes, it’s possible for a mindspeaker to put a compulsion on someone when they drink from the throat, like you just saw. But it’s just…not done. There are codes. Ethics.”
It galled him to find one of his kind allied with the Blood Sorcerer, and it disturbed him deeply that seeing her feed had brought out his fangs. That was partly due to how badly Reda had inflamed his senses, but that was no better. He shouldn’t be thinking of her in those terms; he couldn’t be. Hadn’t he learned anything from his past mistakes?