“All vampires can control their get, at least in the beginning. It’s how baby vamps are kept from going absolutely mad and slaughtering whole villages.” Then he seemed to consider it and shrugged. “Unless, of course, that’s what you want to happen. Beyond that, only the most powerful can control another vamp.”
“The prince of the city couldn’t control me, sugar, trust me. My so-called maker couldn’t either. Probably because, wait for it, I’m not a vampire.”
The gentlest stroke of his fingers eased beneath the hem of my shirt and caressed the flesh there. It was pleasant, not provocative, so I didn’t break his hand. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.” No doubt existed in me on that front at all. “Ugh, why am I talking to you? I have a bathroom to build.”
“Perhaps because I’m here,” Maddox suggested. “And you’re not shivering from the cold anymore.”
I hadn’t been shivering before.
“It could also be, I’m on your side and came to rescue you.”
“Well, you’re doing a bang-up job so far,” I remarked. “How’s that going for you?”
“Challenging,” he admitted. “Yet, you won’t hear me complaining about the time together.”
I rolled my eyes. Not charmed.
“Then what was all that growling and shackling earlier, hmmm?” Yeah, wiggle out of that one.
“The shackles, I apologized for,” he said, catching my hand and lifting it to press his lips against my wrist.
“Not that I heard.”
“No?” A tease.
“No.” I kept my tone flat.
“Hmm.” Another kiss placed right over my pulse point that had absolutely nothing to do with the tautness in my core. I wasn’t hungry.
Why was I getting all soft and cuddly?
Ugh.
I would not be one of those women.
Or even one of those succubi.
“Then please accept my apologies, Kitten,” he murmured against my skin, the vibrations sending little shocks racing up my arm. “The intention was never to harm you.”
“Huh.”
He lifted his head, and his eyes shimmered as he stared at me. Interesting. All pretense of humanity abandoned those slitted eyes.
“What are you?” I asked before I could think better of opening that door.
“Curious, Kitten?”
I jerked my wrist from his clasp and slapped his chest. “Stop. Calling. Me. That.”
“No,” he answered with too much of a smile in his voice. He cradled me closer as though he wanted to tuck my head against his shoulder. I didn’t want to get much closer than I already was. The man’s scent seemed everywhere, like a cloud that wanted to hug me.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re sharp toothed and clawed, like a kitten,” he murmured, then pressed a kiss to my forehead. When I jerked my head back, he didn’t seem remotely perturbed by the action. “You’re impulsive and headstrong. You’re doing things without an ounce of consideration for the fact that you’re alone with a much older, much stronger, and far more dangerous being than yourself.” His voice dropped an octave as he reached the end of his not-threat.
“Far more dangerous than me?” I almost purred—fuck that analogy, really, but I did it anyway—and narrowed the distance to his face myself this time. I cupped his cheek, the rasp of stubble prickling my palm. His slitted eyes constricted, but the glow behind them intensified. Shifting until his lips were a breath from mine, I met his stare unblinking. His body went taut, and the band of steel around my back tightened further as his fingers dug into my side. “I don’t know about that,” I whispered. His sharp intake of breath made me smile. “I’ll give you old and cranky,” I said after a pregnant pause. “But dangerous? Hardly.”
The split-second between his pupils’ constriction and sudden expansion warned me of his intention, and as soon as he darted his head forward to claim my lips, I wrenched his head sideways.
I didn’t snap his neck, but the action promised I could have, and I held his head tight, not releasing my grip even when his own turned bruising.
“Don’t presume you know me,” I whispered through clenched teeth. “I didn’t ask for your help. I didn’t ask for you to come here. You don’t own me. No one does.”
“Fuck, that’s hot,” a new voice said from behind me, startling the fuck out of me. I scrambled to disentangle myself from resting dick face. Not that I needed to bother, he’d already risen and tossed me behind him on the cot as he lunged to put himself between me and our new arrival.
Instead of an immediate fight, Maddox laughed. “You always did know how to make an entrance.”
“Been here a few minutes,” the new voice said, though I couldn’t make out more than a faint outline of negative space in the dark. “But you two were being all cuddly, I didn’t want to step on your moment. Should have known better, brute. Your lack of charm seems to have rubbed our lady the wrong way.”
The possessiveness in that last sentence irked. With a light slap, the owner of the voice sidestepped Maddox and then seemed to hover over me. Top notes of ginger, grapefruit, and cardamom teased a clean, almost playful essence, but the vetiver, cedar, and the rich loam of freshly turned earth cautioned me.
“Has Maddox been being his normal, boorish self?” Sympathy and humor weaved through his voice. “He means well, he really does.”
“Fuck off, Fin,” Maddox growled. “Kitten, this is Fin. Our ticket out. Fin, this is Kitten.”
“Kitten?” ‘Fin’ sounded almost insulted. “Maddox, the lovely lady has a name. Don’t you, darling?”
The sweetness in his voice threatened to choke me, or maybe send me to a dentist. Instead of answering, I turned my glare on where Maddox stood. “Why are there now two of you?”
“Ignore her, she’s been in here too long,” Maddox stated. “Has the breach calmed down?”
“No,” Fin said before he dropped to sit next to me on the cot. Only—there was an absolute absence of warmth. If Maddox was the sun, this guy was the cold, dark void. How did he have such a powerful scent and absolutely no heat?
And why couldn’t I be left alone to design my house?
“In fact, it’s worse,” Fin sounded almost cheerful about the fact. “The warden’s pacing the levels, going one by one. Did you know he’s a shadow demon?”
Maddox growled.
Fin leaned toward me. “Don’t mind him, he gets a little grouchy about demons of all kinds. Present company excepted, of course.”
“She’s not a demon,” tall, dark, and growly snarled. He said it with almost the same amount of force I’d used when I told him I wasn’t a vampire.
Weird.
“Anyway,” Fin said, with a wave of his hand. I couldn’t quite make him out, even this close. My night vision was good, even with the absence of light, but it was like he was undefined. “They’re really hot to find her. That, or they’re just having a dick measuring contest with how much security they can throw out there. The corpsesnare is wandering, Sentinals are out, there’s like three times the number of normal guards at all the exits, and I almost ran into Brina.”