Schattenwandler: Kane Read online

  “Oh my God! Oh God, you feel so good,” she cried out blindly, splitting her focus between the feel of him against her wriggling body and the sensation of his hot skin under her palms. Then the feel of his skin was replaced by the coarse thickness of denim and the burning heat of hardened flesh beneath it. The next thing either of them knew, her deft fingers were unbuttoning and unzipping his pants. She reached into his briefs and wrapped an eager hand around the incredibly thick circumference of his erection.

  Kane broke from her mouth and shouted a vivid curse. His hips surged up into her grasp, forcing himself through her fingers. “Corrine!” he gasped, choking on his next demands when she slid her fist straight down his jutting length.

  “Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes . . .” she hummed as she looked down the landscape of his body to see the prize she’d taken hold of. She couldn’t get her hand completely around him and the realization made her body go wet with anticipation. It was as if she were possessed by something within herself that she had never encountered before. For a moment she tried to focus on the remnants of suspicion and confusion that had hounded her before she had touched him. Before she had tasted him.

  Tasted him.

  The craving for his taste seared through her mind an instant before it seared through his. Realizing what she was going to do almost unmanned him. The fever in his blood reached a boiling point as her fiery hair trailed down his torso. Tensed tight in anticipation, Kane threw out a desperate plea to his mentor, the man he called Siddah.

  Let me be free! he begged Abram.

  You know I cannot. Not without Noah’s leave, was the reply.

  I was seized in order to protect her from unwanted advances! You see she is willing!

  She is possessed by the Samhain moon, Kane. You’ve used it against her to have your way. She is young, unskilled, weakened, and uninformed. The fact that she is being the aggressor at the moment is a mere technicality. Jacob and I raised you better than this.

  Kane threw back his head and roared with the agonizing pain of his needful body and his stabbed conscience. It was the feel of her breath coasting hotly over the wet head of his erection that jolted him back to the issue at hand.

  “Corrine, stop! Don’t do this. Sweet Destiny, you have to—”

  Her tongue touched against him and he felt it like a match burning a fuse into life. It was nothing tentative or shy; it was the bold stroke of a woman starved for the flavor of her lover. Kane jolted and his entire being seemed to gather energy up all at once. He had been suffering in need for so long beside her that this single contact had the power to drive him out of control. He was going to lose it all. Like an overeager boy fumbling clumsily with the precious gift of a young girl’s innocence, he was going to create damage that could never be undone.

  “Jason Deaver!”

  Chapter 4

  Kane blurted out the accursed name, a last ditch effort to rescue himself from the disaster he had created. He dragged the offensive moniker out of the deepest, darkest place in her mind and slapped her with it. She drew back so sharply and so suddenly that Kane had to fight not to sob with relief; to sob with devastation and loss. But now her suspicion was back, and pain and hurt were welling up fast and fierce in her eyes. She backed away from him as if he’d suddenly sprouted plague symptoms and curled her back into a cringe.

  “What did you just say?” she asked him hoarsely, even though they both knew what he had said.

  Kane needed precious moments to catch his breath, to calm the rage within his body. Abram was right. He could claim no satisfaction from Corrine while she was lost in the blind fever of the Samhain moon. When that haze cleared she would feel used and betrayed . . . and she would be right to feel that way. And even though it made him suffer vicious jabs of pain from unrealized release, he confronted her with the name again.

  “Jason Deaver. You were fourteen to his eighteen. Infatuated and innocent, you thought you could trust him.”

  “Shut up,” she hissed darkly at him.

  “But he just wanted to get off, and he didn’t give a damn about how you felt. He blundered around on top of you for what? Ten seconds? And then it was over and you—”

  “Shut up!”

  “—never saw him again.” Kane drew a deep, unsteady breath. “I won’t let this be like that, Corrine. I lost it for a minute there, I know, but I am not going to let you get all caught up . . . only to come down from it calling me the names you called him for years.”

  The Demon watched with no little suffering as she withdrew even further and curled up into her own body. She took Yoga, he knew, and so was in the habit of flexing her limber arms and legs around herself, but this was strictly protective. She was trying to erect an armor of limbs around her hurting heart and spirit.

  The wound he spoke of was deep in her past, and it was true that she rarely even thought about it or took it out for examination. Corrine had considered it a hard lesson learned and had never forgotten since then to take everything a sexually invested male said with a very large grain of salt.

  But she didn’t know how to apply that lesson to this situation. She looked at him from the side of her eyes, seeing the way he struggled for control of himself, his breath coming so hard and his skin bright with perspiration. He was nearly stripped to his thighs, her eagerness and haste to hold him in her hands having been so sharp that she had . . .

  Corrine’s face flushed with new heat as she recalled exactly how she had felt and how driving that need had been. She felt a heavy thread of mortification for her unexpectedly wanton behavior. She closed her eyes, hiding her face against her updrawn knee and trying like hell to hide from her own embarrassment. What had gotten into her? It was to have been a simple kiss! How had that so rapidly evolved into her having his musky flavor on her tongue? What had . . . what had he done to her?

  “It wasn’t like that,” Kane said, interrupting her thoughts.

  “You’ve already proven you can take control of my mind and manipulate me like a marionette!”

  “Do I look like I want a marionette?” he demanded in a sharp temper. “If I wanted a brainless sex toy, Corrine, I have the power to make you forget everything you’d do! You wouldn’t be sitting there questioning me because you’d never even realize you’d missed a step in your daily life. And frankly, babe, if you and I are going to burn up the sheets together, I want you to remember every damn minute of it!”

  “Why? Why me?” she yelled at him sharply and suddenly. “Why are you here like this”—she indicated his lashed down state—“and why am I here with you? You won’t explain any of this to me and yet you expect me to simply accept and believe whatever choice bits of information you feel like doling out! Just tell me what is happening to me!”

  “Don’t you think I want to tell you all of that? I want nothing more than to clear the air and make you realize just how important all of this is!”

  “Then do it, Kane! Stop pussyfooting around my delicate sensibilities and just explain this to me!”

  “You’re mine!” Kane blurted it out in a growl of frustration and need. The demanding conditions of the sharp moon that rose higher and higher with every second forced the claim out of him. “Mine! Not just for now but forever, Corrine! The person you’ve been searching for? That other half you’ve always known was missing from your soul? It’s me. Me.” Kane closed his eyes then and laughed with strained control. He couldn’t bear to see that caustic, disbelieving expression on her face. She was looking at him as if he were some kind of horrible insect crawling up out of her drain. Unwanted. Undesired. Potentially dangerous and harmful. Well, so be it. If she was going to think the worst of him, then what more harm could it do to throw a few choice logs on the fire?

  “I’m not human, you know,” he told her, a sudden grin striking his mouth. “And if you need more proof of that than what you’ve already seen, I’m momentarily going to have to disappoint you. My best parlor trick has been snuffed for the time being in order to keep me
here.” Kane jerked on the wrist shackles above his head. “And for that matter, you aren’t entirely human either. I mean, you were, but then I touched you and apparently that set off this whole chain reaction that altered the hell out of your DNA . . . to the point that it almost killed you . . . and shot my sex drive into oblivion. See, I wasn’t supposed to touch you, and I wasn’t supposed to want you and I broke the law by doing both. I just couldn’t stay away. You’re just so remarkable . . . so strong and vital . . . so damn beautiful and independent. Yet you’re covering up this chasm of loneliness inside. You called me to you. You were craving exactly what I can offer.” Kane stole a glance at her. “Except the reality is that you think I am a lunatic. You think you’ve been kidnapped and thrown into some kind of weird human experiment or a practical joke. So I guess the odds of really getting to learn the things I want to learn . . . like what you feel like under my hands . . . like what you’ll sound like when you laugh genuinely for me . . . I guess that’s completely screwed up now.”

  Kane looked away from her, his long lashes lowering over suddenly hollow eyes. That he was utterly devastated by his situation was clear to Corrine. She could do little more than gape at him for the longest moment as she tried to process everything he had said to her. Of course, she ought to be telling herself he was insane because he thought he wasn’t human, but all she could seem to focus on was the shivering thrill that raced beneath her skin when he spoke of touching her. She couldn’t escape the way it made her feel when he spoke of craving something as simple as her laugh. She knew in her soul that it wasn’t just a line, and she had never believed the words of any man with such conviction. Not since she’d learned that boys sometimes lied to get their way.

  What was it about him that compelled her to believe in him so utterly? “If you aren’t human, then what are you?” she asked.

  Kane looked over at her briefly. His short laugh was a nearly soundless burst of air through his nose. “Well, pretty lady, my people are known as Demons. No wings, no fangs . . . not usually, anyway.” There was a brief flash of a toothy grin and she could feel the mischief that swirled into his personality for that fleeting instant. It was an odd sensation, almost as if she were intruding directly into his mind. She wished for a moment that she could read his mind. Then she could figure out what he was up to. It wasn’t the first time she’d had the desire to be able to read a man’s mind so she would know if she could trust him. “We’re people almost exactly like you. Except . . .”

  “Except you can read the thoughts of others,” she injected into the pause. “And we’re not in some kind of hell, I take it?” Corrine looked up to indicate the stone room around her with its beautiful stained glass cathedral windows and rich castle-like appointments. It looked like a high end tourists’ castle hotel, other than the gas lighting perhaps and the set of chains holding him securely in place.

  “Oh, I’m in some kind of hell,” Kane countered bitterly. But the sarcasm spoke as an affirmative answer to her question.

  “So it’s just a name. Demon.”

  “No. It’s a culture, Corrine. A deeply complex culture with all the same sorts of mores, rules, and monsters as yours has. But it’s a little more dangerous and it revolves around the night instead of the day. We live our lives, have jobs, find mates . . .” There was a distinct breech in his sentence as he slowly slid his gaze from the top of her head, all the way to the knees she was resting on beside him. The look was fast and fierce, beyond hot as it burned over her, and very, very clear in its intention. “Sometimes we have perfect mates. Soul mates. We call that connection an Imprinting. It’s oh so very rare, Corrine, but when it happens . . .” He closed his eyes and drew in a slow, deep breath, his expression turning peaceful and passionate at the same time. “When it happens, we treasure it with all that we are. Just like you would.”

  “But”—she laughed nervously—“we don’t usually just look at a total stranger and think ‘There he is! That right there is my soul mate!’ It’s a long process, getting to know someone that well. It takes time to figure that sort of thing out.”

  “Not for us. Not for you and me. At least not physically speaking,” he amended when she startled at his intensity. “This is a chemical connection, sweetheart. It’s science. DNA and biological imperative. That much is written in our blood and cannot be changed. You and I are connected in this symbiosis of energy—” he indicated himself with his eyes, then looked at her—“and need for energy.” He rushed onward when she seemed to be quietly listening, needing for her to hear him. “Some creatures in this world are driven by certain biochemical compulsions and some are driven by the turn of the seasons and time. My people are driven by both. And tonight . . . tonight is one of the most intense nights on our calendar. Tonight is Samhain, when the moon rises to its fullest in October. The weeks before and after are hard enough to deal with, but tonight is the worst. There’s only one drive that seems to matter to us. And if we don’t have our true mates, we’ll try to satisfy it as best we can wherever we can. But if we find that one . . . that ever so precious one . . . then only that mate will do from that moment on. Civilization and logic and mores stop meaning anything to us; all we want is our mate. No matter what. Even if she doesn’t know who we are. Even if she is sick and unconscious. It’s a drive, Corrine, and I want to fight it with everything I have so I can approach you the right way . . . the way you deserve. The way I know you crave.” With sweetness and romance. Tenderness and caring. You want to be wooed and swept away and you think it’s a fantasy that will never be fulfilled, but it will. It will. I just need to get through tonight. Then I can give you the romance as well as the passion. I can give you everything!

  But this is all just words and empty promises to her, he thought to himself, looking away from Corrine’s very stunned expression. She doesn’t believe a word of it. Why should she when all she has known are liars who’ll speak sweetness to her in order to coax their way into those amazing arms and that incredible body?

  Kane’s eyes closed and the pain on his features etched into deeper lines. “Oh, honey,” he sighed, “I know you don’t believe me. To you I must seem like just one more in a long line of con artists. I’ve just got a better line right? More creative?”

  Corrine didn’t acknowledge him. Her brain was churning out other information. I heard his thoughts! she realized with no little sense of awe. She realized by his spoken words that he had not meant for her to hear what had rung like a conversation in her head. It had been loud and then soft, fading in and out of clarity, different from when he spoke directly into her thoughts in a clear and distinct manner. What was most telling was the sheer emotion behind his thoughts. When he’d spoken into her mind before, it had only been his voice she’d experienced. But this time she felt everything. She felt his frustration and his desperation. She felt, once again, that ring of utter truthfulness. He wasn’t lying to her. She could tell. She could read his thoughts!

  As well as his starkest emotions. His rawest needs.

  They came barreling forward, rushing into her inexperienced, awakening mind like a defensive line of burly ball players. Crashing into her hard and fast, screaming his agonizing physical need.

  “Oh my God!” she gasped, suddenly doubling over and reaching to clutch at the bed sheets. It flooded over her whole body, a tension of constant readiness and endless craving. Her heart began to race as fast as his was, her breasts filled heavily with a rushing heat of blood and awareness until her body shivered and her nipples came to painfully erect attention. Liquid fire melted through her every bone, hunger raged and clenched through every muscle.

  This, she realized, was what he had been struggling with all this time. Corrine looked up at Kane with shock and dismay flashing briefly in her eyes just before savage appetite and need overran it.

  “Corrine?” Kane was almost afraid of the look she was running over him, but it didn’t keep his aching body from reacting eagerly to it. The fresh rush of blood into his alread
y swollen penis hurt incredibly, but it was quickly forgotten as she slowly sat back on her heels, her hands releasing the bedclothes to run up her body. Thighs to hips, her palms slowly turning and fingers spreading as they coasted into the bend of her waist and over her belly. She rushed abruptly upward to cup her breasts, each hand kneading fiercely for a moment as she made a soft noise of frustration mixed with pleasure. Her eyes had long since slid closed, but now they opened so she could stare steadily into him.

  “You didn’t tell me how much this hurts,” she whispered, a soulful groan coming out of her as she curved her spine against the rush of heated feedback coming from his reaction to watching her touch her own bare body. “You didn’t make me understand the way it hurts! The way I make you hurt.” She exhaled sharply and then reached out for him, her hair falling all around him in a curling auburn curtain as she leaned far enough forward to grasp his forearms just before that spot where the shackles bound him. “You didn’t explain that you let them do this to you to protect me from you.”

  In truth he had shown very little to her. All he had given her so far was words and an underhanded trick to trigger her moon-fed libido. That realization reminded him that there was much more to him and his powers than telepathy and his currently thwarted ability to teleport. He needed to do something to distract her from what she was feeling. He didn’t think he could man up twice in such a short period of time and pull away from the fire he saw burning in her liquid green eyes.

  “I am not human,” Kane reminded her, knowing she wasn’t quite absorbing the truth of it. “I am not without power. Right now my Siddah, my mentor, keeps me from teleporting, which is my most significant power, but there is much more to the power of Mind than that. I may be young by my people’s standards, but I have mastered much in my time.”