Midnight Mage

20

***

 “Nothing about me is warm. Little enough is human. I am going to use you to get what I want. And if you keep testing the boundaries between us, I’m going to use you in other ways. Ways that, from your scent even now, you will greatly enjoy. Do you understand?”

Animal arousal plummeted through me. Every nerve in my body went hyperaware, my senses unfurling, purring at his strength, his scent, his nearness.

Then my brain entered the battle ring and took out desire with a blinding right hook.

I was a fool.

A fool who’d fallen prey to the manufactured charm and predatory glamour of an ancient vampire. A fool who looked for him in every room I entered, who constantly sought his notice, and ways to make him smile and laugh.

Holy shit.

I had Stockholm syndrome.

“I understand that you’re a manipulative bastard,” I told him. My voice only shook a little. “I understand nothing about you is authentic. That you’re a machine with a dead heart.”

His fingers left my throat. “Machines don’t have hearts,” he said flatly. “Now use your anger to focus. Hit the targets.”

I didn’t hit them—I obliterated them, the wall they were painted on, and Adam’s ward. And as plaster dust rained down, and the mild autumn sunlight glinted through the hole blown in the side of the compound, the Prime laughed, his eyes twinkling and bright.

Grinning down at me, he said, “You are everything I hoped for and more, mo spréach.”

Panting and shaking from fatigue, I weighed the chances I might pass out if I tried for another bolt, this time aimed at him. “What does that mean?”

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Mo spréach is Gaelic for ‘my spark.’ Because you are both.”

A spark. And his.

I was mildly surprised to find that, indeed, I still had energy for anger.

“You and Samantha deserve each other.”

Nothing. Not even a flicker of eyelashes.

“I’ve never lied to you. Not once. Hate me if you will, but I’m the only chance you have to see your father again.”

“Fuck you.”

Between one blink and the next, his fingers gripped my jaw. My face was yanked upward, giving me no choice but to stare into glittering black eyes. For the very first time in his presence, I felt real fear.

His nostrils flared and his voice came as a hiss through fangs. “I see through you, Fiona Sullivan. I see every layer of your mind and heart. And yet, somehow, you confound me at every turn. Aggravate me. Challenge me. For all your resiliency, you lack basic instinct when it comes to me. Perhaps it is because I have withheld my aura from you. Or perhaps I have been too familiar. Too kind. There are compelling reasons why I’m respected and obeyed. Once, long ago, I was worshipped. You would do well to remember that.”

Against all my efforts, tears filled my eyes. “You’re scaring me,” I whispered. “Why are you doing this?”

The black in his eyes was swallowed by green. His expression was suddenly tortured, so much that I cried out softly. He swallowed hard, the grip on my face slackening.