Hunger and heat tangled inside her, tightening like the softest silk across her skin.
“Lucan…” Sweet tension clamped down on her muscles, holding her body prisoner as an explosive release rocked her.
“Easy.” Lucan’s arms kept her trapped against the wall when her legs would have given way.
Heart racing, she spared only a moment to catch her breath and then moved to help the rough hands that tugged at her pants, pushing them farther down her legs.
“I need to be inside you.”
Gods, she needed that too, needed him so much—
Something banged into the wall behind them.
“There you are.” Cian’s voice exploded into the night, and Lucan froze. “I hope you know where Briana disappeared to or Tristan will have your balls for brunch…”
Shit. Briana met her brother’s gaze over Lucan’s shoulder.
“Oh good. You found them.” Still half drunk, Emma stumbled outside after him. Unlike Cian, the sorceress wasn’t surprised to see them together, but when she glanced at Cian, realizing what they’d interrupted, she sobered. “The enchantress responsible for tonight’s orgy has decided to be a good girl.”
Cian’s jaw made a popping sound. “The spell was broken a few minutes ago.” Briana could almost hear the buzzer going off in Cian’s head like one of the game shows he loved as he realized who her mate was. “Well, fuck.”
Chapter Four
“Emma!” Briana prompted, tugging her pants up. If anyone could shut her brother up before he made everything worse, it was his mate.
And judging by the distant look on Lucan’s face and the way he held his body away from her, worse wasn’t that far off. He hadn’t released her, but his expression had already shut her out.
“Cian.” Emma tugged on his arm.
“Tristan… Oh, shit, Tristan.” Cian whistled. “Now I know why you didn’t say a damn thing.”
Of course her brother would choose this moment to verbalize his little epiphany.
“Go!” Briana snapped.
Moments ago she would have wished for someone to tell Lucan what she hadn’t had the courage to do for months now. One look at the granite hold he had on his expression, and she knew hearing it wouldn’t make a difference.
He’d already made up his mind to pull away.
The door clicked shut behind Emma and Cian, and somehow it sounded so much louder than being slammed open.
Without a word Lucan fixed her pants, then turned to grab his shirt. “We should go inside.”
Somehow she knew the fact that he wasn’t bolting immediately wasn’t a good sign.
“Your brothers will be worried about you,” he added.
After what just happened, he was thinking about her brothers? Second by second the euphoria that had left her breathless moments ago drifted away, and the harder she tried to hold on to it, the faster it slipped through her fingers.
She finally found her voice in the midst of the choking disappointment rising inside her. “And you wouldn’t want them to think you bailed on me.” No, he’d wait until he turned her over and then he’d retreat into the shadows. Again.
“I promised—”
“So that’s it? You want to just go back inside and act like none of this happened?”
He took a moment to meet her gaze. “The less your brothers know the better.”
“And then what? You disappear like you did in Vegas?” She couldn’t do that again, couldn’t watch him vanish knowing it could be weeks or months before she saw him again.
But there was really no stopping it, was there? The wraith’s black eyes were more welcoming than the hard expression Lucan wore now.
No. She wouldn’t watch him abandon her again, leaving her to face the dozens of questions her brothers would fire at her.
She strode past him, bypassing the door altogether.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
Lucan caught up with her, his shirt back in place but ripped at the shoulder. Probably from her claws. “We need to go inside.”
“Maybe you do, but I don’t.” The one thing she needed wanted to pass her off like he’d fulfilled his obligation and be on his way. She couldn’t face her brothers right now, couldn’t stand the thought of them feeling sorry for her because she’d chosen the one man she couldn’t have.
She couldn’t pin down the moment both woman and cat recognized Lucan as her mate. For some gargoyles it was an instant awareness while it took others time to realize how deep the connection ran, not unlike the way humans fell in love. And some denied the truth, refusing to see the bond that attraction, biology or fate—maybe all three—conspired to set in place.
But once a gargoyle chose their mate—intentionally or instinctually—the bond was unbreakable.
“Briana—”
“Don’t.” She had known where this was headed the second Cian had burst into the alley.
“Don’t what?”
She pivoted coming within an inch of colliding with him. Her throat ached from holding onto the emotions tearing her up. “Don’t act like it was all because of a spell.”
“How else do you explain it?”
The cool, indulgent tone left her shaking her head. “You know it was more than that.” She’d seen the way he’d looked at her, felt the tenderness as much as the hunger when he’d touched her.
The rain came down harder, pelting her skin. She blinked through wet lashes, willing him to say something—anything that would stop the ache in her chest from cracking her wide open.
“What do you want from me, Briana?” Impatience flared in his eyes.
Hurt and anger boiled inside her, sweeping away the longing she’d clung so hard to. She raised her chin. “The truth.”
“The truth is that I’m nothing more than the pawn of a goddess and neither one of us can ever forget that.”
“No.” She took a step toward him, sliding her hands up to frame his face. “It doesn’t have to be like that. We can find a way—”
“Don’t be stupid. There is no way and even if there was…” He let out a breath, then pulled her hands away from him. “Whatever you thought you felt, it was nothing more than a spell.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he snapped.
She shook her head, the sting of tears burning behind her eyes. “I know you want to be with me.”
He let go of her hands. “Like I wanted to be with you back then?”
At the festival centuries ago…when he’d broken her heart.
Flinching, she stumbled away from him. “This is different.” It had to be.
His gaze softened and eyes that had held such heat and desire reflected only pity now. “Not for me.”
Briana retreated beyond his reach, every step threatening to break her. “Then I guess you were right.” She forced the words out, forced herself to believe them. “You’re not the knight I remember.”
“I was never the knight you remember.” He turned his back on her.
His name rose to her lips, but she pressed them together until they burned. She didn’t wait for him to reach the door before she turned away. He didn’t try to stop her when she walked away from him this time, and she didn’t expect him to.
He’d made his choice.
Go after her.
The compulsion pounded through Lucan’s brain until he wasn’t sure if it was the wraith’s need or his own.
He glanced back at the empty alley, his gut twisting hard. He shouldn’t have let her walk away like that, shouldn’t have…
Fuck! He drove his fist into the brick wall. The sound of bone cracking and the flare of teeth-grinding pain that followed didn’t compare to the weight of longing and guilt crushing his chest.