“Stil aware that the Sentinels serve a purpose,” he shot back. “They’re needed to keep the rogues in check. That’s why I think Adrian hasn’t fal en like you did, even though he’s crossed the same line. He’s the weight that balances the scale, which makes him too necessary to throw away.”
Her jaw clenched, pushing infuriating thoughts of the Sentinel leader aside because she needed to keep her head cool. “You also need money now that you’re al unemployed. The vampire nation has amassed considerable wealth.”
“You want me at a disadvantage. You want me grateful.” He unfolded his arms and stroked a hand down his chest, rubbing his palm over one beautiful y defined pectoral. Showing off his mouthwatering body. Playing her game. His voice was gravel y. Warm crushed velvet. It brushed over her like the stroke of a tongue. “I won’t subordinate the packs to anyone. We’re equals or we’re nothing.”
Her mouth curved. “You can’t afford to see this fal through.”
“I know what I can afford. And what I’m wil ing to pay. I’ve got nothing left to lose, but that doesn’t make me desperate. Take it or leave it.”
She started to turn away, hiding a smile. “I’l grab what I need and return tomorrow. Be ready to get down to business.”
“Vashti.”
Looking over her shoulder at him, she realized he could hold his own. Sandwiched between two powerhouses like Adrian and Syre, she felt little doubt that he could and would take on either side in battle if necessary. The submissive qualities she was so used to seeing—and disparaging—in other lycans were notably absent in the Alpha. Yet Adrian had kept him in service, a marked deviation from his usual practice of segregating Alphas from the others. Not only that, the Sentinel leader had trusted Elijah with Lindsay’s safety. “Yes?”
“Don’t play me.” His voice rumbled with warning, setting off a sweep of goose bumps over her skin. “I’ve admitted I want you, but I won’t be led around by my dick. Two can play the game. It won’t leave my mind that you want me, too. I don’t need to hear you say yes when I can smel it.”
“I hate lycans,” she said without heat. It was a simple fact, best laid out there in case he missed the memo. “The thought of f**king one makes my skin crawl.”
“But the thought of f**king me makes you wet.” His tone was as emotionless as hers had been. “Let’s put that on the table from the start. I’l wring you out and you’l milk my last drop, and we can stil hate each other in the morning. Nothing is going to change how this association wil play out.”
Genuine amusement slid through her. “Good to know.”
His gaze dropped to her throat. “And whoever’s been feeding off you is done. The only lips that wil be touching your skin are mine. I don’t share.”
Her fingers lifted involuntarily to the twin fang tears that were healing with unusual slowness. Lindsay had taken the bite out of her after Syre’s failed attempt to recover the soul of his daughter, Shadoe. Vash was reminded that the first time she had seen Elijah he’d been with Lindsay, protecting Adrian’s mate with his own life. “Not that it’s any of your business, but it won’t be happening again.”
She began the long walk back to the cave entrance, feeling unsettled in a way she hadn’t in…forever. Elijah was going to help her find the lycans she sought. As adversarial as their “association” was, she trusted that he’d fol ow through, if only to get his revenge at the end. That should make her feel good about working with him. Instead, she felt twitchy.
She was now dependent on the trustworthiness of a creature whose breed she’d long reviled for its treachery. The lycans had once been Watchers. Instead of taking the same punishment as the rest of their brethren and becoming vampires, they’d begged the Sentinels for leniency.
Adrian had given it in the form of indentured servitude as lycans. With transfused werewolf blood sliding through their veins, they’d lost their wings but retained their souls…and their mortality. They lived, they whelped, and they died as slaves, which is the least of what they deserved.
But now they’d betrayed the Sentinels—just as they had the Fal en—by switching al egiances again.
She’d be damned if the dogs would have the opportunity to be faithless to the Fal en a second time. Whatever she had to do, she’d make sure that if someone was going to get a knife in the back, it would be a lycan.
CHAPTER 3
“I have the right to kil her,” Rachel snapped, her eyes lit with a roiling fury. “You can’t take that from me.”
Elijah stood with his palms flat on his desktop. He kept his gaze on the schematics in front of him, fol owing the red lines that showed where electrical cables would transfer power from generators into various caverns. “I can delay that right and I am.”
Because they weren’t the only two people who had a claim to a piece of Vashti’s luscious hide. Lindsay, too, had lost a loved one to the vampress.
“Micah would have avenged you, El. Don’t forget he died protecting you. Vashti kil ed him trying to find out where you were.”
To avenge Nikki’s death, because his blood had been planted to frame him for the crime. It didn’t matter that he was innocent of Nikki’s abduction. He was nevertheless guilty of being the reason Micah died. “Micah didn’t have thousands of lycans depending on him, Rach. We need this al iance to keep us al alive.”
“Damn you. You want her.”
He lifted his head and looked at her.
“Don’t try to deny it.” She held his gaze. “It’s obvious.”
“He’s stil going to kil me,” Vashti interjected as she joined them.
Al eyes turned toward the arched entrance and the vampress who strode through it. In direct opposition to her appearance the day before, Vash had returned armed to the teeth. Katana scabbard straps crisscrossed between her lush tits, and two knife sheaths hugged her lithe thighs. She carried a smal navy duffel in her hand. Her stride was long and sure, her chin lifted high and proud. As usual, she wore black from head to toe, this time sporting skintight cotton pants topped with a leather vest that was secured with brass snaps down the front. Her hair was twisted atop her head into a bun that was secured with what he suspected were slender throwing knives.