Schattenwandler: Kane Read online

  So all these long centuries later, after who knew how many genetic dilutions, they had been found once more by the Demons who needed them so badly. Demons who suffered near insanity twice a year and were quickly losing all control of who and what they were. Granted, the curse of Samhain and Beltane Hallowed moons had been a just dessert. They had deserved this horrible fallout.

  But perhaps it was their maturity, their turn toward peaceful and benevolent ways that had brought them to this time and place. At long last, a Druid had resurfaced and Imprinted on their Enforcer, of all people. And lo and behold all that dilution, all that muddying . . . had only made them stronger. More powerful. Breathtaking. Corrine’s sister Isabella was now an Enforcer too. She could read the ancient Demon and Druid languages as if she had been born to it. She fought like a dervish, with deadly skill and strength although she had never been trained to it. Before she and Jacob had crossed paths, before they had touched, she had been a quiet, simple librarian.

  Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration. There was nothing about Bella that could be classified as simple or quiet.

  Noah smiled at that, enjoying the newfound influence of Bella in his life. In all of their lives. Bella was beautiful and, for all of her short stature, she was a giant in her heart and her compassion toward others. She had taken to her new life like a duck to water, had taken all of Demon society into her heart. She had embraced her new life as a Druid.

  Noah was not certain it would be so easy with Corrine. Jacob had had the advantage of time on his side, the luck of a few precious days when he was able to teach Bella about himself, his race, and their culture, and she had been given precious time to adjust to all the changes happening to her.

  Corrine, however, had been starved to the brink of death. Coming back from that would not be easy. Nor would it be easy for her to understand why she was forever connected to the man bound beside her. Worse, Kane would not be at his best. The fever in his blood and in his soul would make him savage, make him reckless.

  “Make certain he remains bound,” Noah stressed to Abram, although the Mind Demon wouldn’t have thought to do otherwise. “And don’t worry about the flaws in his actions. I have faith that the mistakes of youth can be overcome and tempered into miraculous things.”

  It was so strange how she suddenly knew things to be the absolute truth and yet had no shred of proof to support her belief. Yet she knew. When she opened her eyes, she just knew that he had manipulated her into sleeping, exactly the same way he had manipulated her into getting back into bed with him. This time when she awoke, however, she didn’t move even the smallest fraction of a millimeter. She just opened her eyes and lay quietly as she absorbed everything around her.

  She was lying cozily across his chest still, her cheek pillowed on an impressive pectoral muscle. She could feel wiry little hairs under her cheek and tickling her nose as well, and each time she took a breath she was inundated with that smell . . . the smell of a strong, sexy male lying warm and within her reach. God, it had been such a long time since she’d lain intimately naked with a man, just quietly absorbing his presence. And even then, she couldn’t recall any man having as much power in his presence as Kane seemed to have.

  He was perplexing and confusing, everything about the entire situation seeming surreal and crazy, but in that moment it was as if she’d settled into the perfect niche. It was as if she belonged exactly where she was, even if she wasn’t quite sure what that meant. The realization gave her an uncontrollable chill, gooseflesh running over her skin until she shivered, giving herself away.

  “I already knew you were awake,” he said, his voice hoarse as it whispered above her head.

  It was fully dark now, and she wondered just how long she’d been asleep.

  “Only an hour or two. It was sunset when you woke before.”

  “Okay, has anyone ever told you just how creepy that is?” she asked him sharply, lifting her chin to try to see him in the darkness. “How do you do that?”

  She felt him shrug in spite of his awkward positioning. “I was born this way.”

  “People aren’t just born that way. Not real people. Imaginary people maybe, comic book people or sci-fi movie people, but not real people.”

  “My people are born this way,” he corrected her, the soft emphasis on the way he said “my people” making her take note of his distinction. “Not all, but many.”

  Still, she didn’t ask. She wasn’t sure she was ready to know.

  Corrine sat up, pushing off against him to do so, grateful to find she could move with comparative ease. She paused a moment, trying to recall the layout of the room. She slid up along his side carefully, and then reached across him, the shortest distance to the nearest lamp. She braced herself as she fumbled for the switch.

  Kane had to bite back a groan of pure craving as the tip of her breast brushed just beneath his nose. As she leaned further forward he could smell the delightful musk of her sleep-warmed skin. Better still, he could smell himself on her, impressed into her from the hours spent lying close together. Oh, every minute of it had been utter torture, but it had been worth it to have this sweet result. Even now, as her sleek, bare body brushed in haunting teases all against his, he swallowed down the agony of his need and reveled in the minute pleasures of her warmth and softness being so close to him.

  She finally found and figured out the key to the lamp. Since it wasn’t electric, the gas flame surprised her and made her draw back with a little gasp. The reaction brought that same luscious breast back across his lips and this time Kane couldn’t resist the temptation. He opened his mouth and snaked out his tongue, catching the soft flesh of her nipple quickly against his taste buds. Corrine yelped in surprise and jolted away from him, forcing Kane to curse his bound hands. Had they been free he could have caught her and held her to himself. He could have sucked on her until she completely discarded the impulse to escape and began, instead, to give in to the virulent chemistry he knew she was already starting to feel.

  Corrine pushed away from him awkwardly, her shock at his boldness doubling when she felt the fiercely stunning flood of sensation that burst over her entire breast and embedded itself deep into the heart lying beneath it. That devastation of feeling compounded itself yet again when she got a good look at him. With his arms stretched taut over his head and his chest and belly on tight display, he looked every inch the restrained beast. He was shifting restlessly, his hips moving in an attempt to angle away from her, but it was a futile maneuver. Once again she could see that he was blatantly aroused. The massive bulge behind the denim was unrepentant, even if the owner was a little bit more so. Corrine couldn’t help the knee-jerk flush of heat that rushed down the center of her body and up her neck to her cheeks.

  “Stop,” he rasped suddenly, the plea drowning in aching need. “Stop looking at me. Stop thinking . . .”

  Kane groaned and Corrine realized abruptly where her thoughts had begun to drift and that he could read her mind. Blushing in earnest now, she tore her eyes from him, covering her hot face with cold hands and trying not to mentally acknowledge the damp traces of arousal left between her legs.

  “Oh my God, what’s wrong with me?” she gasped, a flustered tinge of red spreading all over her fair skin. Kane couldn’t bring himself to look away, his gaze fixed as the lamplight flickered over her, illuminating the paths of pink that tinted her pale skin. She turned, searching, he sensed, for the top sheet that had been left on the floor earlier. She wanted to cover up the evidence of her reaction to their Imprinted chemistry. He was immensely satisfied when she couldn’t find it. Knowing she would be stupid to waste her energy climbing down off the bed again, she crossed her arms from shoulder to shoulder, hiding little more than the stiffened points of her nipples.

  “Nothing,” Kane answered with a gruff croak of his voice. “Nothing is wrong with you. You’re perfect.”

  She laughed at that, a hard sound full of bitter denial. “If that were true . . .” She stopp
ed, a moment of panic lighting her eyes. She was remembering he had access to her mind, but it was too late already.

  “If that were true,” he finished for her, “then you wouldn’t be alone.”

  “I . . . I’m not alone,” she denied quietly, her face turning from him. “I have my sister.”

  “Corrine, there is nothing wrong with wanting a companion in your life,” he told her.

  Perhaps it was the infinite compassion in his voice that made her look back at him, but the sight of her brimming eyes stabbed into Kane like a huge, butcher knife.

  “I’ve done everything I was supposed to do,” she said softly, a hard sniffle trying to force back her feelings. “I went to school. I’ve got a good career. I live a strong and independent lifestyle. I’m good to other people as much as I can be. I take care of my family. I try so hard to do everything right . . .”

  “Corrine, your lack of a partner has nothing to do with some kind of cosmic scorecard. Not in the way you think,” he countered. “Destiny isn’t punishing you by forcing you to be alone. Very much the contrary, sweetheart. She was simply making sure you were ready and open when your true mate came along.”

  She pushed back at the thick coiling curls of her cinnamon-fire hair and gave him a dirty look. “And let me guess. That special guy just happens to be you, right? How friggin’ convenient for me that I just happened to get so lucky as to be held prisoner by your side, eh? Oh, wait. That’s not luck, that’s you insisting I’m going to croak if I budge so much as an inch off this bed! And can someone tell me again why I believe that ridiculous claim?”

  Kane watched her pull back behind this caustic display with a sense of fascination. It was almost enough to make him forget the insistent desire punching through his body repeatedly. She was so beautiful. Even when she tried to be as prickly as a cactus, he found her utterly gorgeous.

  “Because,” he replied absently as his eyes dropped of their own accord over her bare curves, “you’ve seen the proof of it. You left me and it hurt you. Drained you. Now, after only a couple of hours near me, you’re able to sit up again.”

  “It’s called rest,” she argued. “You had nothing to do with it!”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yeah, really!”

  “Then prove me wrong. Come here and kiss me.”

  Corrine gaped at him. “And just what the hell is that going to prove, besides the fact that I’m a gullible idiot?” she demanded.

  “Come and kiss me and see.”

  He watched with amusement as she debated the wisdom of falling for what she thought was a prank, a way of conning her into cheap thrills. He forgave her for thinking so little of him. After all, she hardly knew him. He, on the other hand, knew everything about her. He’d staked her out, observed her, read her mind, and hunted her down. There wasn’t a single thing about her, not even the deepest secret she had, that he wasn’t privy to. He knew exactly who she was, and Kane knew she was everything he could ever have wanted. He also knew he was everything she had ever wanted. It would just take a little time to make her see that.

  She chewed on her bottom lip for a long minute, forcing herself to keep her eyes on his face, studying him very closely to try to read what kind of game he was running on her. After a minute she made a little sound of disgust.

  “Fine. Whatever floats your boat, sport. I’m going to love to see how you fast talk your way out of this one.” With that, Corrine scooted up onto her knees, grasped hold of him with hands on either side of his face, and leaned forward until she was just about to lay her mouth against his. Kane didn’t even realize it, but as she hesitated he began to pant heavily for breath. The closer she was, the more difficult it became for him to control the vicious hunger Samhain was beating into his body. His hands curled down into tight fists, the chains pulling taut with a chink of sound that made her glance up at his bound wrists. The small smile that touched her lips at the corners told him that she was enjoying her position of power over him. But he didn’t begrudge her that. The tables were about to turn.

  Corrine was super cautious as she touched the barest surface of her lips to Kane’s. When he didn’t move or make a single sound, when he didn’t even so much as blink, she dared to move an increment closer. His mouth was nice, lax, and soft, completely lacking any aggression. Somehow she had expected him to try to press himself onto her, take instant command . . . to try to prove something to her. She certainly hadn’t expected him to lie utterly passive and quiet as she tentatively kissed him. She drew back and cocked a brow at him. He chuckled, the sound short and clearly derisive.

  “What are you? Two?” he mocked her. “I’ve seen twelve year olds kiss with more passion than that.”

  Kane’s redheaded mate gasped with a hot flash of indignant fury. “Why you lousy son of a—!”

  That was when Kane surged up at her and captured her scowling mouth. He caught the passion of that temper between them, letting the power of it loop them together like the surest of knots. It was true that all the information he and his brethren knew about the Imprinting had come from rare live examples and potentially embellished fairy tales, but one thing had always seemed to be consistent in the tales he’d heard. Nothing kick-started the Imprinting faster than fierce emotion, and some of the most ferocious was anger and outrage. Oh, he would have preferred love or even just blatant passion, but he was limited by the situation and could only work within certain bounds.

  The kiss seared them together at their mouths, the crush of lips awkward and harsh at first because of his lurching, graceless attack on her. But he cheated for just a moment or two, his mind taking over her motor control so she couldn’t rush away from him, the resulting paralysis dropping her against his chest and mouth.

  The result was instantaneous ignition. Like a rocket roiling out burning fuel at liftoff, the sensation exploded over them both. Kane’s libido screamed into overdrive, demanding all he had been denied when his brother and his King had bolted him down next to Corrine, forcing him to bear up under all her warm sighs and subconscious snuggling against his raw body. Her mind did not recognize him; the mores and hang-ups of her species interfering noisily, but when she’d been asleep, her body had had no doubt as to whom it craved. Now she was getting a crash course in what it had felt like for him as he had struggled through this sacred full moon. She would be untouched by it no longer. Never again, in fact. Kane growled inside in frustration as his shackles kept him from wrapping her into his embrace, kept him from dominating the moment anymore than he already had. But he knew Abram, his Siddah, who was keeping him from teleporting out of the bindings, would not free him until Noah gave him leave to do so.

  So he dismissed the limitation and let it work in his favor. He slowly relaxed back into the pillows behind him and Corrine hastily moved forward to close any distance that might be created by the action. Ensnared by the shocking heat of Imprinted passion, she was stunned into reacting purely on instinct. Kane knew she had never felt anything like this in all of her human existence, but he liked the feel of her wicked delight and surprise as it burst through her in sprays of hot cinder and liquid lava. She reached to wrap her hands tightly around his head, seizing him firmly and fiercely as her lush mouth worked heatedly against his. Kane pulled for breath as his body strained with hardest heat for her. She opened her mouth and licked his lips with an achingly gorgeous invitation.

  She sealed their mouths together and swiped her artful tongue against his. The pure flavor of her mouth burst against Kane’s tongue and he ground out a deep sound of pleasure. But it was nothing compared to the shout that escaped him when she unthinkingly threw her leg astride his hips and settled her weight down against his fly.

  Corrine did it to catch his kisses at a better, deeper angle. When she settled over him, though, she felt his entire being clench in response and need whiplashed back into her like a raging brushfire. She went liquid against him, pressing her rapidly overheating skin to his and rocking herself against his arous
ed body in thoughtless want. She never once broke their kiss, her slender, sensual body writhing with kinetic energy over his until he was shaking with the intensity of his desire for her.

  “Touch me!” he gasped in command against her devouring lips. “Sweet Destiny, have mercy on me, Corrine, and touch me!”

  Kane was straining so hard at his shackles that they were biting viciously into his flesh, the scent of fresh blood rising up sharply to compete with the pungent delight of Corrine’s aroused body. Musk, sweet and sultry, shimmered against his senses as she drew her hands free of his hair and finally brought them down the expanse of his chest.

  Corrine didn’t understand what she was doing! A kiss, a simple kiss! That was all it was supposed to be. An obnoxious little peck to disprove the claims of her obnoxious bed-partner. Except suddenly there was a conflagration of positive proof that all his claims might have more than a little value. Every second she remained connected to him she felt revitalizing energy infusing her every cell. The weakness that had dogged her was fading fast and she suddenly felt starved. Starved for food, starved for energy, starved for a passion long due her.

  This is it! This was what she had been looking for! This amazing, incredible feeling! It was like flying. It was all about dissolving into the ultimate and perfect passion. How? How could she possibly be finding this passion with a total stranger? Why now, of all the moments and of all the situations, why now? Why him?

  And why, when he asked her to touch him, was she unable to resist doing exactly that? Suddenly she needed to feel him. All of him, everywhere she could possibly reach, just as quickly as she could. She kissed him until she could scarcely draw a breath, her hands running down the bare contours of his fine chest and tensed abdominals. Her skin was burning with the need to feel his hands and she tried to satisfy it by rubbing her body sinuously against his.