Shadow's Claim

Now that he'd abducted her, this plan struck him as brilliant. Strange that it took a mad vampire like Lothaire to teach me that I need to be a vampire. Dimly, he wondered, What else are we Dacianos to be taught?

"So are you and I going to talk about what happened during that fight or not?" Bettina demanded, tossing her long hair back, as if preparing to spar. "You have to know why I did what I did."

"You made that abundantly clear!"

"I never imagined that you would shake off the poison so quickly."

His jaw slackened. Brazenly admitting it?

"But if I were in the same situation, I'd do it all over again!"

"What?" he roared, punching the closest wall. The building rocked.

Strangely, she didn't flinch, just took his measure with glittering eyes. "Obviously you're still unwell. I'm not going to fare any better with you now than I did the last time we talked. You need to take me home, Trehan."

"I'm not done with you, Bride." Will never be done with you. "As you once told me: resign yourself."

"I won't be kept here against my will."

He raised his brows. "And what will you do to stop me?"

"You forget I have my power back." Light glowed from her raised palms.

"How could I ever forget that?" He stalked to her, looming over her. "Do it, sorceress!" He bowed his chest against her hands. "At least my heart will feel altered from its current wretched state." Stopped heart, lost heart. What did it matter?

Chin raised, she shoved at him with both hands. He felt heat rising from them and tensed against the coming pain.

But she didn't go through with it, dropping her hands with a frustrated sound.

"You hesitate to use your power to help yourself? Yet you wielded it so readily to protect that demon."

"Of course I protected him! I always will if I can."

Fangs gone sharp, Trehan vowed, "He can't want you like I do-no one can! Even if you do worse than you already have, I'll still come for you."

Before Bettina could even react to his baffling words, Daciano had clamped her around the waist and traced her. An instant later, she perceived furs beneath her. He'd taken her to his bed?

"Vampire, stop! Just think about what you're doing!"

Without slowing, he followed her down, pinning her arms above her head, stretching his body over hers.

When he grazed the side of his face against hers, seeming to breathe her in, she peered past him at the vaulted ceiling.

His own scent called to her-his skin, his need-and she found herself responding to him. Gods, she'd missed him so much! "I-I don't understand what's happening." Maybe if she had more experience with relationships, or with his kind in general, she'd be able to decipher his words, his wild emotions. "I don't understand any of this."

"All you need to understand is that I'm never letting you go."

Some weak part of her thrilled at his words. But . . . "You can't just keep me here. I have a kingdom to rule."

"Can't I? Maybe I wouldn't have done so back when I had honor. But you've stripped me down to the bone, woman. Until I'm nothing but pain and need. A shade."

"Did you bring me here to punish me?"

"Yes! No." He worked his hips between her thighs, rucking her skirt up to her waist. "I'll figure this all out when I'm inside you."

Just like that night in his tent, she could feel his rigid erection pressing against her panties. Against her will, her sex readied for that hardness, growing damp. "I don't want you-not like this."

He drew back above her, but he kept her wrists pinned. "Damn you, Bettina!" With his free hand, he clutched the back of her head, searching her expression. "Choose me over him! Want me."

Over Cas? I did!

But before she could work up a scathing retort, the vampire yelled, "What do I have to do? Fucking tell me!" He jostled her mask, partly obscuring her vision.

"Let my hands go!" When he didn't, she rubbed her shoulder against the corner of the mask to right it.

At once, a change seemed to come over him. With his irises flickering from black to green and back, he released her, tenderly straightening it for her.

Then, with a groan of misery, he buried his face against her neck, punching the pallet again and again. "I can't hurt you," he rasped. "Even now, I can't."

"But clearly you wish you could?" she sputtered. She didn't deserve this from him! Yet he didn't seem to be listening to her whatsoever.

Against her ear, he murmured, "Before you, I was a male of little emotion." As if he couldn't help himself, he lifted his head up to brush his lips over her cheek. "Now with you? I've never struggled against such lust. I've never felt such wrath." He punctuated his harsh words with a gentle kiss to her temple. "I've never hurt so deeply." A kiss to the corner of her lips. "Or loved so hard."

"Love?" Daciano had talked about fate and bloodings and Brides. But he'd never mentioned love!

His eyes were mesmerizing as they caught hers. "I hate what you did. And still I love you." With a bitter curse, as if he'd said too much, he drew away from her. Turning to sit at the edge of the pallet, he dropped his head into his hands. "I won't let you go, dragă. You'll stay in this underworld with me until your other life is but a memory."