Tessa slept most of the day after her mother left. She might as well have been drugged, so desperate was she for rest. The new schedule wasn't agreeing all that well with her biorhythms, she thought when she finally stirred to see the condo filling with the red light of a winter sunset. She felt as if she hadn't even rolled over on the couch, and she couldn't remember having dreamed.
For a few minutes she didn't move, looking up at the reddening ceiling, trying not to think about all the night might hold.
Somehow she suspected her new friends were going to try and keep her well and truly out of the fight. Heck, they'd probably try to lock her and Julie and Beth up right here.
Damned if she'd let them. Because as dead as she'd been in sleep, she'd apparently reached a conclusion of some kind: if she didn't take a stand with her pack and the vampires, she would never again have a hope of not feeling like an utter failure.
Yawing, she rose, wishing for a hot shower, but instead she went to make coffee for Beth. And where was Julie? Fear pricked along her spine. Wasn't Julie supposed to return before dark fall?
Suddenly wide awake, she quickly filled the coffeemaker with grounds and water, and turned it on. Then she went to the bedroom that was barred to her.
She hesitated, looking at it with loathing. It was a tangible reminder that she didn't belong her. She glanced over her shoulder at the sky, nothing the sun had sunk below the horizon, leaving red steaks in low-hanging clouds. Was it safe to wake them now?
She didn't know. She just knew Julie wasn't here.
So she hammered as loudly as she could on the closed door. The thud sounded dull, and she wondered if it was even penetrating to the room beyond.
Desperate, she pulled out her cell and called the M.E. office. A strange voice answered her. "I need to talk to Julie," she said, her voice tight.
"Dr. Matheson left a little while ago."
"Thanks." And she wasn't here yet.
She turned again to hammer on the door but before her fist made contact, it swung open and Kane slipped out.
"What's wrong?"
"Julie isn't back yet. I just talked to her office and they said she left a little while ago."
Kane scanned the sky "Ok." He turned, throwing the door open. "Asher. Julie's not at the office and she's not here yet."
As if conjured by magic, Asher appeared with a phone in his hand. "Julie? Where the hell are you?" Then, "I'm on my way. I'll be there in a couple of minutes."
"I'll go with you," Kane said as Asher disconnected. "Is there trouble?"
"Not yet. She was late leaving. She's in her car, but that's no protection."
"I'll go," said a third voice. Soren appeared behind Asher and closed the door. "They don't know me yet and I can watch over the two of you from a distance. Asher, you stay here with the women. Beth's still asleep, and Tessa needs protection."
Tessa needs protection. Tessa, for now, was getting awfully sick of hearing that, but she didn't know what she could offer right now. The vampire could get to Julie faster, and Tessa's paltry efforts to protect the woman would among to nothing to them.
Asher and Soren departed immediately, leaving Kane and Tessa alone in the living room as dusk deepened.
"Did anything happen?" Kane asked.
"As a matter of fact, yes. My pack found about ten corpses around town that hadn't been picked up. I called Julie and she was sending people out to get them. I suppose they've been debrained now, or whatever it's called."
"Both good and bad news."
"Exactly."
She returned to the couch with her coffee, trying to appear nonchalant but certain she was ailing. Just sight of Kane now made her ache with longing, yet he seemed determined to keep as much space between them as possible.
Remembering what Asher had told her, she forced herself to look away. She had absolutely no right to risk putting Kane through the kind of pain Asher had talked about, that he himself had talked about. Certainly not when she wasn't sure of her own feelings.
Wanting him was not the same as loving him, and she had to keep that in mind. Unfortunately, she still remembered those minutes in the snow such a short time ago, minutes when she had found a transcendence she could never have imagined without experiencing it.
He'd ruined her, she thought. He'd evidently given her a taste for something she might never be able to experience again.
She swallowed a sigh and sipped coffee, pretending that nothing mattered. Pretending was something she'd had a lot of practice at. She'd been doing it her entire life, pretending things didn't matter, even when they hurt.
A phone rang and Kane pulled it out of his pocket. Tessa rose and went to stand at the window, staring out over the darkening city. She hoped Beth would get up soon. She needed something else to think about and maybe someone to talk to.
"You jest, non?" Kane said. "All right, but we could order food. Surely Soren has done enough of that."
A moment later he hung up, making a disgusted sound. "Julie wants to stop at the grocery. And they're letting her."
Tessa turned around. "Sometimes we need to feel like we have some control."
Kane's brows lifted as he tucked his phone away again. "Is that what is wrong?"
"I didn't say anything was wrong."
"You hardly need to say it when I can smell the distress all over you. Your muscles are coiled. I can see the heat in them."
She just shook her head and turned away.
"Talk to me."
"Why? You don't give a damn anyway."
"Ah."
In an instant, she felt him standing behind her. His deep voice was little more than a breath in her ear. Despite her upset, she responded as she always did to him, with a warm quiver of passionate longing. "Is that what this is? I'm trying to protect you but you think I don't care? I told you that's not true."
"And I'm sick of being protected. All my life I've been tucked away in places so I would be safe. All except the months I lived here, at least until I was attacked."
"What is so bad about that? People only protect you if they care about you."
"I'm sick of feeling useless. Feeling like a failure. Like I don't belong anywhere."
"Now, that, I can understand." His hands found her shoulders, gripping her gently. "Perhaps you have just not yet found your world, Tessa."
"I'm quite sure I haven't. I'm not a lycan and I'm not a human. And what do you see me as? A threat of some kind? Well, how can I possibly be a threat to anyone? I apparently can't even protect myself. Or help protect those I care about. If my mother had her way, I'd be back up north tending pups, and she'd take the car keys away because I couldn't... I couldn't..." Her voice broke and she had to fight for control.
"You couldn't what?" he asked gently.
"I couldn't even run through the woods far enough to reach a road and hitchhike out of there. So I'd be a prisoner. And that's what you and the others are planning to do tonight, isn't it? Keep Beth, Julie and me prisoners while you and my pack go face the rogues. How the hell do you think that makes me feel, Kane?"
"Not good, I can tell."
"Someone attacked me and I couldn't even defend myself."
"Four someone's," he reminded her.
But she wasn't listening. It was as if everything, every single thing in her life that had made her feel less valued, less important, less useful, was coming to a head.
"I was attacked," she repeated, "and I couldn't protect myself. I needed you for that. And now you and the others, including my pack, will be attacked and I'd just be a distraction, no help at all, so once again I have to stay in a cage and out of the way."
He turned her around and wrapped her in his arms, holding her close. She wanted to sag against him, drawn by his scent, by memories of what they had shared and by a desperate need for comfort.
"I understand," he said and ran his hand along her back as if petting her. The touch had a quite unintended effect, she was sure, as she seemed to liquefy and heat began to flow into her groin. But he was afraid of that, evidently with good reason. She forced herself to remain stiff.
"I've had a lot of time to ponder not belonging," he said. "We vampires don't seem to need it as much as your kind, probably for our own safety."
"My kind? Just what is my kind, Kane?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But maybe you should find cause to rejoice in just being you, and stop worrying about things that make different. So you are not fully lycan. So you are not fully human. These are not the best metrics to use."
"No? Then what is?
"That you are loved. Love is what makes us belongs. Love is what creates our place in the world. In all my centuries, I belonged only with Violet. I think the feeling you have is more common than you realize."
"Maybe. But what about being useless?"
"You compare yourself to things you are not when you define yourself as useless. We all have different contributions to make."
"Oh, that's so much crap!"
"It's not, little wolf."
"I told you not to call me that."
He sighed. "All right. Feel sorry for yourself. But you never know at what instant you may become the most important being on the earth for someone keep that in mind."
His words stung and she wanted to pull away even though she knew he was right. She was indulging in self-pity in the midst of a situation where her only concern should be the safety of those she cared about. And if keeping them safe meant staying locked up, then she should consider that the right thing to do.
"I'm sorry," she muttered finally.
"Don't be. I understand. On this, I understand. There was a day when I awake out of the maddened haze of being a newborn and I realize I could never again be the man I had once been. I lost my friends, the remains of my family, everything I cared about. I would never belong with any of them again. I had become different."
"Yes," she admitted quietly.
"We had expectations of what our lived would be, both of us. And in the end, we were both disappointed, set apart. But I finally learned to stop loathing myself. Everything you say, Tessa, speaks self-hatred. And for you, at least, none of it is your fault."
He tipped her head up and kissed her, long, hard and deep. Instantly she melted, her heart and body began to throb in time with his as if they were one. Stars whirled behind her eyelids, her entire being pulsed with need—then just as quickly he reappeared across the room.
"Kane..." Her head was still spinning.
"You tempt me, Tessa. You tempt me in ways that make me concerned for my self-control."
"Then don't control yourself."
He made a smothered sound. "You don't know what you invite."
"Then tell me?"
"Already you crave me. Do you have any idea how much I could make you crave me? I could ruin you for anyone else. I could deprive you of any semblance of normal life. Because of me you could spend the rest of your life hunting for another to give you're the same experience. That is why I control myself. I will not harm you in such a way."
What in the world did he mean? Tessa wondered, struggling against the yearnings he awoke, trying to find sense in his words. She had gotten the part about claiming being dangerous for him, but what was this about craving him so much that no one else would satisfy her?
But she knew. At some level she knew. He'd given her a taste of something the other night, and that taste was pushing her toward him despite all the warnings.
At this point, maybe she could live without him. Maybe not if they went any further. Already just thinking of never seeing him again caused a deeper pang than almost any she had known.
He pulled out his phone. "Asher, what's going on? Why aren't you back? Ok."
"Are they all right?" Tessa asked as soon as he hung up.
His smile was crooked and a little wry. "I'm running on vampire time, expecting them to be back as fast as I could. Julie is still shopping. She says you all need a decent dinner."
"At the risk of her neck? Not likely."
"I have observed that when it comes to Julie, Asher would risk his life rather than deny her the least little thing she wants. And Soren is with them, keeping watch."
Tessa tried to imagine such love but came up short. Although she shouldn't, she reminded herself. Her family had come here and allied themselves with vampires because they loved her.
At once she felt small and ashamed. Before she could beat herself up anymore, however, Beth emerged from the bedroom, freshly showered and dressed but looking weary and yawing.
"What's going on? Do I smell coffee?"
They gathered at the table, the two women with coffee, while Kane and Tessa filled her in.
"Wow." Beth sighed. "I missed a lot. I wonder if I'm coming down with something. I don't usually sleep so long."
"Stress," Tessa suggested. "I slept all day."
"Maybe. Life with vampires is seldom dull, I'll give them that." She yawned again and rubbed her eyes.
Tessa looked at her. "How did you and Soren meet?"
"You'll never believe me."
"Try me."
Beth shrugged. "I went to Asher on the recommendation of a friend of mine who is a detective because there was something weird going on in my condo. I met Soren there."
"You didn't have any trouble with him being a vampire?"
"I found it surprisingly easy to deal with, with because I write fantasy novels. I don't know. The biggest thing, most likely, was actually getting to know him."
"That makes a difference," Tessa agreed. It had certainly made one for her. "I always knew vampires existed."
Beth nodded. "That's right. You're a lycan."
"Not really, but my family is. And we always knew about vampires. So believing wasn't my problem. Getting over our...aversion to them was. Briefly."
"These guys are extraordinary," Beth said. She shook her head. "I have admitted that I'm afraid. I've seen a little of what vampires are capable of. If they square off, all bets are off."
Kane said nothing. Tessa looked at him, trying to read something on his face but failing. Her phone rang and she pulled it out. It was her mother, and she was on her way to visit them.
Almost at the same moment, the door opened and Julie, Asher and Soren entered with bags of groceries.
"Dinner," Julie announced brightly, "The three of us are going to have a feast."
"Make it four," Tessa said. "My mother's on her way."
"We've got plenty. Am I feeding a wolf or a human?"
"Most likely she'll come in human form. Easier to get past secure downstairs."
Julie laughed. "Very true."
Tessa helped her and Beth set the table for four. The three vampires disappeared briefly into the bedroom, probably to have their own dinner in a place that wouldn't offend Danica's nose or sensibilities.
"It's snowing again," Danica announced as she arrived. She paused, looking Soren over, and frankly sniffing the air around him. Then Tessa introduced her to Beth, and Danica joined them at the table for a meal of rotisserie chicken, potato salad, and a green salad.
"The pack is out hunting again," Danica said while they ate. "Looking for more corpses. We were pretty thorough last night, but there'll probably be more soon. It's a big city, too." She paused, biting into a drumstick and chewing. "I left a watch at the morgue, to see if they'd home in on it as a problem. It's early yet, though. They might not have realized we got most of their monsters."
"Perhaps not," Kane agreed. "They have no interest in controlling the newborns that I can imagine, and sometimes it takes several nights for the change to complete."
Danica nodded. "And some may have already changed. So far we think we've identified ten vampires in town apart from you three."
"Only ten?" Tessa felt immensely relieved.
"Ten is enough," Kane remarked. "They're not expecting us to have help from the lycans, though. My guess is once they have a sufficient number of newborns terrifying the city, they'll turn their attention to Asher. To me. Soren, you may still be off their radar."
He shook his head. "I wouldn't bet on it. I work with Asher a lot."
"I don't felt it," Tessa said. "If it's Asher they want, why not just come after Asher? They can do the terrorizing part later."
Silence answered her. Clearly, Tessa thought unhappily, vampires didn't read minds.
It was Danica who surprised them by answering. "If I were them, the first thing I'd want to do is prove Asher is an utter failure. That even though he's tried, he can't protect this city. He hasn't kept his own kind safe from notice."
"What good will that do?"
Asher answered. "It'll undermine vampire everywhere who follow the same rules."
"But you called for help from others like you. Why didn't they come? Don't they see how important this could be?"
"They now have to look to their own areas of concern. None of them believes there is a group of rogues."
"Not exactly," Danica said, calmly continuing her meal.
"What do you mean, Mom?"
"Whether they believe there is more than one group of rogues is irrelevant. What did I teach you about the pack wars, Tessa?"
"That territorialism made..." Her eyes widened and she looked at Kane, who sat with the other two a safe distance away on the couch. "They won't leave their own territories undefended. You did say vampires are territorial."
"Indeed." Kane nodded and looked at the other two. They nodded, as well. "Perhaps even more than your kind."
"That's it," Tessa said. "That explains it all. For the rogues, it doesn't matter. They know no one will come to your aid. They can go after one city territory at a time, the way the Wilani Pack did. I don't know what their eventual plans are, but Mom is right. They know you're not going to get any help."
Danica left after dinner, saying she wanted to check on her pack. She kissed Tessa's cheek, promising to return before morning with any news.
Julie claimed exhaustion and disappeared into one of the bedrooms. "I worked most of the night and all day. If I don't get some rest, I'll be useless."
Asher went with her down the hallway to another bedroom and returned a short while later looking quite content. The contentment didn't last night.
"We can't leave all the guard duty to the lycans," he said. "We need to take turns. I'll go out first."
Kane rose. "Not alone."
"Yes. Alone. I can call for help, but we have to divide up the work. Me first. You later. Give the newlyweds here some time together."
Beth blushed but Soren smiled. "I'll second that."
Soon he and Beth had disappeared into the main bedroom. Asher pulled on his long leather coat, but instead of going to the door of the condo, he headed for a sliding glass door that led out onto a terrace. Snow had begun to swirl thickly, catching the interior lights like jewels.
Kane followed him out. "Take care."
"You know I will. You keep guard here. With any luck, the wind will blow my scent away from the building."
Then he disappeared over the ledge.
Kane stood outside for a while, hardly aware of the snow and certainly not aware of the cold.
Right now, for him, the bigger danger seemed to await him inside Soren's condo: Tessa.
He was drawn to her, dangerously drawn. She had awakened him in ways he thought would never be possible again. Every whiff of her scent aroused his hunger almost beyond control. She awoke the predator in him, the predator who wanted to take what it chose and damn the consequences.
He ached for her. He had told her he could make her crave him beyond her ability to manage, and he could, but he already craved her that way. Stepping back into the condo, filling his lungs with her enticing scent would test every bit of his self-control.
And being around her was fraying that self-control seriously. He tried to focus on the danger they were facing from the rogues, but powerful instincts kept pushing those thoughts aside. He wanted to seduce her, taste her, and carry her with him to that pinnacle between life and death where bliss knew no limits.
His problem was that he knew exactly what that was like. She didn't yet, and he had no business showing her. He had seen what became of humans who visited that place and then were abandoned by thoughtless vampires: they became addicts, always on a hunt for another fix, prey to the unscrupulous.
He didn't want to do that to her. And after Violet and all he had endured since her death, he didn't know if he could offer any more than that.
He smiled with bitter amusement at himself. He'd been utterly absorbed in agrarian pursuits on his estates, pleasant enough to those he dealt with, but he wasn't sure he could ever remember shuddering the pangs of conscience.
Well, why would he? Being born to a title and wealth had given him a certain level of arrogance; he knew which lines he dared not cross, and some that he was allowed to cross but never had. Nothing in his life had ever tested his conscience, although in retrospect he thought some of it should have.
So where over the centuries, while living as a predator and pretty much using his wiles to get what he wanted, he had developed some kind of moral code. Amusing. Which brought him to this point in time. Fighting vampire to protect a rule he had accepted only reluctantly at first, and fighting himself to protect a human female from the consequences of ultimate pleasure.
Hell, it hadn't been so long ago that he'd carefully taken the blood he needed from willing women because it was the only way he could survive. Now he was reluctant to do even that, miserable as it was living on the stud out of a bag, so full of preservatives.
But all did his reluctance arise from some moral code? He doubted it. He and Violet had frequently drunk from the willing. They were easy enough to find at clubs that catered to human vampire fetishists. But since Violet, he hadn't even done that.
Until he had had held Tessa in his arms in the snow and had been unable to prevent himself from taking a taste, a mere taste, of her lifeblood.
Even that little sip had been enough to intoxicate them both. He could see it in the way she looked at him, in the way she smelled sometimes. She wanted him. Oh, yes.
But he wouldn't give her what she wanted if it meant taking something too precious from her.
He couldn't.
He wondered if that would apply across the board now, or if it only applied to Tessa. Troublesome question, one he had to find an answer to.
He sniffed the cold air again and found it clean. Asher's scent had vanished. If the rogues were abroad tonight, they were far away. Good.
At least he gathered his willpower around himself like a cloak and stepped back inside, only to be assailed by Tessa's maddening, tempting scent. He closed the door and paused, looking around until he spied her curled up as small as she could get in a corner of the couch.
His heart quickened with need. Hunger pounded in his veins. He stood frozen.
"Did you smell something out there?" she asked, her voice small.
"No. Nothing."
"Then you were staying out there to avoid me."
He didn't know how to answer that. Nothing he could say would make things any better. Violet had taught him that sometimes the only thing a man could do was say nothing at all.
Tessa shook her head. Her chin quivered. "You didn't want to come in because of me," she repeated. "I'm driving you nuts."
He considered the word, then answered carefully. "That's an adequate description."
"Then go. Or I'll leave. This is making us both miserable."
"Both?" But of course, he knew, although he doubted she could be anywhere near as miserable as he was. She had merely glimpsed the paradise he knew they could find together.
"Oh, don't equivocate with me, Kane. You say you want me and back away. You know I want you, and you still back away. It's not like there's some cosmic question here. Either you want me or you don't. If you really do, then my being here drives you nuts. You're certainly driving me nuts."
"Tessa." He tried to make his voice stern, to put all the command in it a vampire could manage, even though he'd suspected from the first that he couldn't vamp this one. "It can't happen. You don't seem to understand, and I don't know how to explain any better than I have already."
"Why should you care if I crave you for the rest of my life?"
Good questions, some hungry portions of his mind answered.
"People survived broken hearts," she said, and her chin quivered again.
"Who is talking of hearts? We're talking about lust here. Desire. Passion. I want you, yes. I want you more than I've wanted anything in nearly forever. But you refuse to grasp the risks."
"You don't have to claim me."
"I might not have any choice!" He thundered the words and watched her curl up even tighter and hunch away from him. He expected Beth or Julie to come running out, but the condo remained still and silent.
He'd have given everything just then for some human intervention, but no rescue arrived. It was just him and Tessa and the building electricity between them. Her scent filling his nostrils. His hunger pounding deafening in his veins.
The air was thick with things he knew too well and she couldn't understand at all.
"I'm sorry," she said brokenly, then leaped up from the couch to run to the back of the condo.
He should have let her go. But he was still a predator, whatever veneer he might choose to put on it, and seeing his prey flee unleashed an inactive reaction.
He reached her before she had taken three steps, banding his arms around her like steel. He turned her toward him and she gaped up at him, real fear in her gaze. Ah, the fear. It intoxicated him as much as anything. The smell speed from her pores, joining the electric desire that had dominated only moments ago.
He was losing it. Losing it bad. And he didn't know how to prevent what was about to happen.
He would not drink from her. Not one drop. He could satisfy some of her longing without crossing that threshold. Satisfy some of his need, as well. He knew of no other answer.
Bending his head, he took her open mouth in a kiss.
An instant later he felt her response, and triumph filled him.
She was his.