He wrapped his fingers around her wrist. Beneath his grip, her skin tingled, but she was too busy reeling from the ferocity he displayed to pay much attention. He bared his teeth and said, “I’m going to fuck you.”

Shock rattled her for a moment, and she found her mind reeling to make sense of his words.

That wasn’t the way Nika would have worded it, but she found his harsh language didn’t put her off. In fact, that slow, simmering heat inside her that had started when she’d fondled him in his sleep was bubbling up again suddenly, making her feel warm and tingly.

He’d thought about making love to her, and that idea thrilled her to her toes.

“Okay,” said Nika, sounding breathless.

Madoc blinked. “Okay? I say I’m going to rape you and that’s all you have to say?”

“It wouldn’t be rape.”

“The hell it wouldn’t.”

Nika had never seduced a man before, but she had a few ideas about what might work.

She let go of his luceria, slid her hands over his shoulders, and straddled his lap. The hem of her nightgown slid up, revealing her thighs. Madoc looked at them, then shut his eyes tight.

He grabbed the couch cushions on either side of her, gripping the fabric as if it were the only thing keeping him from flying out into orbit.

“I’ve thought about being with you,” she admitted. “Not at first, when I was sick, but lately, I’d hear Paul and Andra going at it, or see another couple looking at each other in a certain way. It always made me think of you.”

“You’re just saying that so I won’t take you home, though God only knows why you want to be around me.”

“I’m saying that so you’ll get over yourself and realize that I have opinions of my own. I’m not that fragile shell of a woman you left behind last year.”

“This isn’t funny, Nika.”

“No, it’s not. It’s sad, because you’ve been afraid of something that wasn’t a problem.”

“The hell it’s not a problem. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I bet you’re still a virgin.”

“Yeah. So?”

He lurched up from the couch, set her down, and moved away from her so fast, she lost her grip on him. His gait was awkward, and he kept that sheet held in his fist so tight his knuckles turned white.

With his eyes wide and his jaw clenched, he said, “You need to leave.”

“I thought we’d just decided I didn’t need to. You don’t have to be afraid to hurt me anymore. I want to have sex with you.”

His whole body clenched like she’d hit him, and he spun around, giving her his back. “Leave. Before it’s too late.”

Instead, Nika walked up to him and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her chest against his wide back. Beneath her cheek, his whole body vibrated with tension. “I want to stay.”

“I’m not going to take any virgins.”

“If that’s really such a big problem for you, then I’ll go find one of the teenage boys downstairs, take care of the problem, and be back in ten minutes. I understand from gossip that they don’t take long to finish.”

He turned around, but she didn’t let him go. He spun inside her embrace until she could feel his erection pressing against her belly. Those tinglies started to expand into something more. Something needy and hard to ignore.

“You do that, and Joseph will have to execute me for murdering a kid.”

He wasn’t lying. She could see the fury in his face, feel it shimmering in his body. She remembered the black mass of his soul—saw it reflected in the ferocity in his eyes, and knew that she had to do something to fix it.

Unfortunately, she had no clue what that something might be.

“So what you’re saying is that you don’t want me, but I can’t be with anyone else? Should I stay a virgin forever?”

“Works for me.”

“Are you really that selfish?”

“I won’t be alive much longer. Just wait until I’m dead. That’s all I ask.”

“No. I’m not making you any stupid promises. I’ve wasted enough of my life locked in a hospital. I won’t let you or anyone else get in the way of me living.”

“What I’d do to you would not be something you’d remember fondly.”

“How do you know? What if you’re the only man who can ever touch me?”

His eyes squeezed shut as if he needed to block out the sight of her. “Please. Don’t let me hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. This feeling we have for each other, it proves I’m right. You and I belong together. You were looking for some kind of feeling when we touched. I’d say this counts.”

“Then why didn’t my luceria come off when you pulled on it?”

“I don’t know, but I have an idea.”

Madoc groaned and stared at her mouth. “Please, Nika. You’re killing me.”

She pushed him down to the couch, and like a fool, he let her.

“Maybe if you kiss me, it will come off.”

“That’s not the way it works.”

“Maybe you should kiss me anyway.”

If Madoc kissed her, he knew how it would end. He’d rip that flimsy bit of fabric from her body and take her right here on his living room floor. Despite her innocent protestations to the contrary, that was not what she wanted.

She deserved to be cherished and treated with care. Loved. He couldn’t give that to her. There wasn’t enough left of the man he used to be to give her anything that even approached love. The best he could even hope for was to fuck her fast enough that she wouldn’t suffer long.

Nika stared into his eyes, looking like she meant what she said. He knew better, but he couldn’t blame her for her ignorance.

She was a virgin, and she was squirming on his lap like she didn’t even know what came next.

Holy hell. She was going to blow his mind if she didn’t stop moving. He’d just explode into a bloody mess and they’d be mopping what was left of him off the ceiling for a week.

He needed to get out of there. Put some distance between them. Go kill shit. Something.

Pretend you have honor.

It had never been harder to follow Iain’s teachings than it was now, with this willing woman so close and eager for him to kiss her.

An honorable man would have known that her kisses belonged to another and respected that. So that was what he was going to do. He was going to move away, walk out the door, and leave. Only this time, he wasn’t coming back. If he did, he knew what he’d do. He knew Nika would be the one to pay.

His time was up. He’d had a good run. Killed lots of snarlies. He’d even managed to kill enough sgath that Nika was no longer quite so fucked in the head. Sure, she wanted to screw him—which meant she was still crazy—and had a tendency to leave her body, but at least she didn’t spend all her time afraid anymore.

He’d done that for her. He could die knowing he’d accomplished at least that much.

He’d also die without knowing what it was like to kiss her—really kiss her. He’d die never getting to hear her cries of release, or feel her slick heat around him. But he’d also die never having caused her to scream in pain he caused. That was worth suffering through this nonstop erection he was sporting.

Madoc ignored the pain pounding in his body and slid out from under Nika, knocking her sideways onto the couch.

The look of hurt shining in her pale blue eyes made his stomach clench, but there was nothing he could do about that. He hoped that one day, when she finally found her Theronai, she’d look back on this and thank him for walking away.

Madoc grabbed the clothes he’d tossed onto the floor and left, shutting the door behind him. A few seconds later, he’d dressed in the hall and was headed for Tynan. He’d give the bloodsucker the blood Nika needed for her quest so she wouldn’t be forced to beg for help, then leave behind his death wish—a wish the Theronai would be honor-bound to carry out. Whatever the hell that might be.

The only thing he really wanted he couldn’t have.

Time to get over it already. Once he was dead, he wasn’t going to miss a single fucking thing.

He felt naked and off balance without his sword. It had been strapped around his hips for centuries, ready and willing to shed Synestryn blood. Without it, he hardly even felt like a Theronai at all.

Madoc had knocked on Tynan’s door three times before the leech finally answered. He shoved his way into the Sanguinar’s suite, held out his arm, and said, “Take what you need to help Nika.”

Tynan’s ice blue eyes flared with hunger, but he didn’t move. “This is becoming a habit with you—bleeding for that woman.”

“You complaining? I can find someone else to bleed me.”

“No. Not at all. Just an observation.” He waved to the couch. “Sit.”

Madoc sat and stared off into space. He didn’t want to see what the leech did to him. The idea of a guy sucking on his wrist was about more than he could stand. He wouldn’t have done it for anyone but Nika.

Nika.

He could have had her. She wanted him. Or at least she thought she did.

Maybe she did. Maybe she was one of those chicks who got off on the darker side of him. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d seen it. Now that he was away from her, he was more in control of himself. Maybe if he went back, he could find a way to be gentle. Sweet.

And then what? He’d fuck her, then go kill himself? Nika was already crazy. He wasn’t sure how that kind of thing would set her off. For all he knew, she’d blame herself—think she was so awful she had to commit suicide to fix it.

Best to leave well enough alone. He’d found the strength to walk away. He didn’t know if he could do it a second time.

Walking away was his last gift to her and he was determined to make it stick.

Chapter 8

Tynan willed Madoc to sleep with a single, powerful thought as he fed from the Theronai’s vein. Madoc drifted off easily, not even bothering to fight him, as Tynan had expected.

Something here was definitely not right.

Part of Tynan didn’t care. Power coursed through his body, making him feel strong and solid. He knew this heady rush wouldn’t last—that he had to share this power with others of his kind—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy it now, for the brief time it lasted.

Madoc’s blood was nearly as powerful as that of Lucien, one of the full-blooded princes of Athanasia—a distant world that was the source of the Sentinels’ magic. Lucien had come here last summer to see his daughters. Tynan had been weak then—too weak to keep going. He was ready to seek his rest in the chambers below Dabyr when Lucien had offered to feed him.

For those few, brief moments, Tynan had understood what his life would have been like had his kind not been banished, cursed, and cut off from the source of their power. Had his grandfather the Solarc not been a greedy, megalomaniacal bastard, none of Tynan’s kin would be starving or weak. They’d have more than enough blood to ensure their survival as well as that of their children.