Salem was up and in Elijah’s face in a split-second. “You’re pissing me off, dog. Vash doesn’t sleep.”
“She does when she’s tired.”
Amber eyes glowing, Salem’s voice lowered ominously. “What did you do to her?”
“Real y?” Elijah asked drily. “That’s none of your damn business.”
“If you hurt her—”
Elijah laughed at that, a sound with little humor in it. He’d been chained and assaulted, and the vamp was worried about Vash. “She can take of herself.”
Salem stared him down. Elijah yawned.
“She hasn’t slept in decades,” the vamp said final y.
“Wel , that might explain why she’s so bitchy.” Elijah’s voice changed, lowered. “But then bitchy is preferable to broken.”
The vamp’s jaw tightened.
“What happened to her, Salem?”
“Ask her yourself, lycan.” Salem’s mouth curved with mocking cruelty. “Until she tel s you that, you’ve got nothing but sex with her. You’re just a dick with stamina.”
Elijah was a second away from slamming his fist in the vamp’s taunting face when Salem turned and stepped back into the room he’d crashed into, lifting the warped door off the ground and popping it into the frame with himself inside.
It took Elijah a few minutes and several deep breaths to rein in his volatile mood enough to return to the room he shared with Vash. He pushed the door open slowly and just wide enough for him to slide in. What he saw inside froze him.
Vashti sat on the edge of the mattress, his shirt in her fisted hands and pressed to her nose. She jerked guiltily when he came in, as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t. Her hands dropped into her lap, baring her gorgeous tits.
She stood in an agitated rush. “What time is it? We should get going.”
“It’s a little after seven.” He didn’t need a watch to tel him that. His circadian rhythm was instinctively set by the moon, wherever in the world he was, courtesy of the werewolf blood in his lineage. He approached her cautiously, as if nearing a skittish animal.
Her eyes were huge in her face, and even in the dark room they were shadowed. The stench of fear and pain stil clung to her skin, which might have been why she’d buried her nose in his scent instead. Or maybe she just craved it, as he craved hers. He could struggle with that craving, even hate himself for it, but he’d learned that ignoring it was too dangerous, leaving him too off-balance and unstable to control himself as he needed to.
He was a creature of instinct and she cal ed to that primal part of him in a way he couldn’t afford to ignore or marginalize.
“We’re already late getting back,” she said, attempting to turn away as if to reach for her clothes.
He caught her with a gentle but firm grip on her elbow. The feel of her skin against his fingertips was like satin, and a powerful jolt shot through him. “Come here.”
“Elijah—”
Tugging her closer, he gripped her nape and pul ed her face into the crook of his neck, where he knew his scent would be concentrated. She inhaled sharply, then sighed. A heartbeat later she was nuzzling her face into his skin, her lips feathering over his rapidly elevating pulse. He wondered if she knew how much pleasure her gesture gave a lycan, then decided she didn’t, which was for the best. She didn’t need to have any more ammunition to use against him.
Closing his eyes, he absorbed the feeling of her lushness pressed against him and the blessed lack of tension between them. Her height was just right and her curves molded into his harder frame as if they were two halves of a whole. A perfect fit…with the absolute wrong woman. “What do you dream about, Vashti?”
She stiffened and tried to pul away, but he’d anticipated that and held tight.
“Let me go,” she said crossly.
“Not gonna happen.”
“I could make you.”
His hand fisted in her hair, pul ing her head back to look into his eyes. “You can ask me nicely and I’l think about it.”
“Fuck you.”