“Oh, you did not,” he said, exasperated. He slammed her into the ground with such force he could hear as well as feel something snap in her body. A strangled cry broke out of her. Her back arched as she tried to flip out of his hold. “Shut up. You’ll heal. Which is more than I can say for Rasputin if he’d broken his neck when you dropped him.”
“Come on,” she gasped. She clawed at his arm again. “You don’t care about that horrible little creep any more than I do.”
“I understand him better than you think. He’s an alpha dog. There’s not a thing wrong with him that some obedience training wouldn’t fix.” He bent over her. “I also don’t go around killing or maiming just because things haven’t gone my way. You got handed a pink slip. Get over it.”
“She threw me away like garbage.” Tears glittered in the Vampyre’s red gaze.
“Did she, now. Did she, really.” He rolled his eyes. “She’s been remarkably patient with you, considering. Interrupting us at the cottage? Slamming the door on us like a goddamn teenager? You would have been happy just now if you had hurt her dog.”
Rhoswen didn’t say anything, but he could see the truth in her eyes. She had wanted to hurt Carling and had, in all seriousness, hoped Rasputin would get injured.
“You know,” he said. “Dragos would have filleted you by now, if you had acted out around him the way you have acted around Carling.”
Rhoswen looked at him with loathing. She spat out, “She only got rid of me when you came along.”
“Were you her lover? Did she cheat on you?” He paused. Rhoswen glared at him but remained silent. He said, “I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that’s a no. Did she really have to get rid of her servant just because I came along? Wait, here it comes again: no.”
“She needed me. She didn’t have anybody else. You changed all that.”
Okay, that was getting a little too unbalanced for him. He said, “I can see there’s no talking sense to you. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
He shifted his hold on her, grabbing her by the arm and the leg. She tried to escape again, bucking her body hard, but he held her easily as he stood up. Then he threw her down the beach and walked after her as she tumbled head over heels on the sand.
Rhoswen caught herself and came up on her hands and knees. As he approached, the Vampyre watched with an animalistic cunning, all trace of humanity gone from her distorted features.
He had faced them so many times before, Powerful children who rampaged like drunken godlings, profligate with their gifts as they brutalized more vulnerable creatures in fits of sullenness. He had no patience for it. He squatted down in front of her, leaned his healing forearm on one knee and regarded her calmly. Gradually the snarl faded from her expression, to be replaced with a flicker of fear.
She knew better than to try to attack him, even though he could see how badly she wanted to. He said, “You’ve been good to Carling in the past, so even though I am tempted, I will not kill you. You are going to leave now, and maybe someday you’ll realize that life is not all about you. Then again, maybe you won’t. I don’t really give a shit either way. But what you will do is stay the hell away from both Carling and that dog, because if you don’t, I will tear the limbs from your body and burn them on a pyre while you watch. Vampyres can live for a very long time that way.”
She whispered, “You wouldn’t.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I have.”
The fear in her face grew. He saw that he had shaken her at last. He really didn’t know why people always forgot he had this side to him.
“I can’t even say good-bye?” She didn’t even try to pull the pitiful card or to appeal to his better nature; she just asked it in a flat, matter-of-fact voice as her red, fascinated gaze clung to his.
“No,” he said. “Not after the shit you’ve pulled. I don’t trust you now. If I see you again, I will kill you. No excuses, no conversations, no second chances. Do we understand each other?”
She held his gaze as she raised her fingers to her mouth and licked away his blood. “We understand each other quite well, I think,” said Rhoswen.
He stood, hands on his hips and watched the Vampyre dive into the ocean. She did not resurface. After several minutes of waiting to make sure, he scooped up the dog, tucked him in the crook of his elbow and went in search of Carling. He met her on the path to the forest.
Carling studied Rune curiously as she walked toward him. She was growing almost used to the mélange of unfamiliar emotions that started rioting the moment she laid eyes on him. He was shirtless, dressed only in jeans, boots and the bright silver cascade of moonlight, and his powerful body moved with liquid feline grace. His chest was heavy with the muscles of a swordsman, a light sprinkling of hair arrowing down the long taut abdomen.
She had no racing pulse for him to detect, and she put her hands behind her back to hide how much they started to shake as he grew close. Then she caught the rich iron scent of blood, his blood, and she noticed Rasputin’s small form in his arms and suddenly she was running toward them.
As she reached him, he said in a calm voice, “Don’t worry. Everything’s all right.”
She touched Rasputin and scanned both dog and collar magically even as she searched Rune with her gaze. The dog was fine, the collar working as it should. She tried not to be affected by the play of shadows along Rune’s bare torso but found it to be impossible. He had no softness anywhere, not even an ounce of extra padding that civilization gave to so many creatures. He was all ridges and hollows, and the thick flex of hard-used muscle underneath the flow of skin. Even though he was standing relaxed beside her, his breathing slow and unhurried, the force of his presence punched the air.
Then she found the marks. The long scores ran the length of his forearm. They were faint in the moonlight and fading fast. She touched them and ran her fingertips lightly along his skin. They were claw marks, made by a hand very similar in size to hers.
Rage locked up her body. She said, “Rhoswen did this.”
“It’s nothing,” he said.
“This is not ‘nothing,’ ” she murmured. The wounds had gone deep, maybe to the bone. The heavy scent of blood lingered in the air. The scent was as intoxicating as she had imagined his blood would taste. She saw that he had bled on his jeans. “Did she taste you?”
A long-fingered hand came under her chin. He eased her face up. His head was bent over hers, his expression mild, the lean features peaceful, those lion’s eyes clear. “You’re smoking around the edges, darling,” he said gently. She was, too. He could sense in his mind’s eye the fury spreading through her aura.
“Did she taste you?”
He went immobile, staring, his expression arrested. Then his beautiful carved mouth lifted at the corners, just a little. He said, “She tasted the blood on her fingers.”
Carling’s long dark eyes flashed ruby red in the light of the silver moon.
Rune caught her by the arm as she started toward the house. “She’s gone. I’ve already drop-kicked her on her way.”
Carling struggled to take in what he said. The rage was an overriding force with a life all its own. It bucked against her attempt to control it. “What did she do?”
“She was indulging in petty vengefulness,” Rune told her. He raised his hand to turn her face back to him. His smile had disappeared. He looked serious. “I’ve warned her to stay away, so if you see her, don’t trust her, Carling.”
“I won’t,” she said.
He slid his fingers in the heavy hair at her nape and bent his head. She was already lifting her face to him as he gave her a soft, lingering kiss. All the passion from the cottage was still there, still burning hot, underneath the gentle, leisurely caress. His enjoyment of the kiss for its own sake allowed her to relax and enjoy it too. None of the distant memories of her previous sexual experiences held this dimension. The pleasures of sex had seemed perfunctory, and the few lovers she had taken too self-involved, so much so that she had grown bored and stopped taking lovers altogether. Intrigued by the foreign concept of sexual affection, she moved her lips experimentally under his. The serrated edge of her rage eased into a smooth murmuring pleasure. She found herself leaning toward him, tilting her face further.