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which eventually moved away.
    The French curse mumbled into her neck, and the
barely-controlled violence she sensed in the man crawling to the window to
stare across the night sky, his hands formed into claws, made her swallow
nervously. Another memory stirred, clambering to raise itself out of the
darkest recesses of her brain. Perspiration broke out across her top lip, as
she screwed up her nose in concentration, but it was useless. All she achieved
was giving herself the beginnings of a migraine, the tell-tale throbbing at her
temples making her feel sick and exhausted.
    “Here, at least have something to drink and
eat. I’m afraid I was a bit hard on you. I’m sorry, mon chere. I’ll be gentler
next time.” Lucas was next to her again, his face worried, a large pitcher of
glass in one hand and a platter of cold chicken and salad in the other.
    She couldn’t look at him as heat rose in her
cheeks, remembering exactly what she had let him to do to her. She grabbed the
water, gulping it down like a woman drowning.
    “Easy, chere. Easy. You don’t want to make
yourself sick.”
    His low voice washed over her, soothing and
arousing at the same time. Mortification at her traitorous body rose anew, her
gut churning as the smell of chicken assaulted her nose and she slapped the
hand offering the chicken leg away. “I...I can’t. Please, just leave.”
    The cool hand in her hair made her shiver with
fright, a vision of Ion’s face swimming in front of her eyes. God, what was
she doing? Pushing against the granite-like chest in front of her achieved
absolutely nothing and she growled in frustration at her weakness.
    “You need to leave, don’t you see? You can’t be
here. He’ll kill you, and me probably, if he finds out you’ve been here. Oh,
God, we should never have…what was I thinking? This isn’t me. I don’t do things
like this…I don’t even know you.”
    Lucas’s amused chuckle vibrated through her.
“Au contraire, mon chere, I would say you know me very well indeed after that
bath. And I’m not afraid of a little wolf.”
    “Then you’re a fool!”
    The whole bed shook with the force of his belly
laugh and Marnie could only stare up at him in wonder.
    “Chere, really it’s very sweet of you to worry,
but I’m over three thousand years old. Do you really think a little pack of
shifters is going to be able to put me down? Besides, I’m a friend of the pack.
It’s how I got here so easily.”
    “You’re how old?” Marnie could not have heard
him right; he did not look a day over thirty-five, if that.
    His eyes grew thoughtful as he studied her. “My
age isn’t really important here. The point is, no wolf is going to put me down,
especially when I’m this well fed.”
    The coldness of that last statement seeped into
her bones and she bit back the bile in her mouth.
    “Well fed? So, this is all I am to you? Fast
food?”
    “Chere, that’s not what I meant. You
misunderstand me.” Lucas’s immediate denial, coupled with a disarming smile as
he tried to reach for her, made her slap his face. The sound was loud and
violent in the stilled room.
    “Do that again and you’ll regret it!” he
growled.
    “Get out, NOW.” Adrenaline made her move fast
and she managed to scramble away off the bed, dragging the sheet with her. But
before she could head out onto the balcony, he was on top of her, spinning her
around and crowding her against the wall. He blocked her raised knee with a
small laugh and a shake of his head. The soft click of his fangs descending
made her screw her eyes shut, whilst still desperately struggling to free
herself of his grip. She froze at the scrape of his teeth against her neck,
tears falling freely now, her denial an agonised whisper. “Please, no.”
    He released her so abruptly she slid to the
floor, dimly aware of the blur of air, before he pulled her back to her feet.
He was dressed; his expression, murderous.
    “I told you I would never hurt you. I meant