She took a half step back, but she never looked away from him. “Because I asked.”
Kiril chuckled wryly. Mainly because he was screwed two ways from Friday. His attempt to get away from Shara had been taken out of his hands. He dropped his arms and faced her before yanking her against him, ignoring how good her arms felt as they rested on his shoulders.
He leaned down until his mouth was by her ear and whispered, “Was seducing me your idea? Or did Farrell send you?”
The slight stiffening of her body was her only response.
“I’ve known from the first instant I saw you. I can see through your glamour.”
She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. Anger sparkled in her eyes. “Why did you take me to dinner then?”
“Because you intrigued me.” He ran his hand down her back to rest on the spot above her ass.
“Intrigued?” she repeated, confusion causing her brow to pucker.
Did he hear a tremor in her voice? He splayed his other hand on her back and held her tighter. “Aye, lass. You can tell Farrell that, but the Dark willna capture me.”
“You should never have come here,” she said and leaned back to look at him.
“Do you even know what’s going on? Do you know that the Dark has aligned with MI5 and someone else? The Dark are no’ in control. They answer to others.”
“You’re wrong. The Dark are powerful.”
He shifted his hand from her back around to her side. She winced slightly, and he hated the concern that flared. His hand paused for a fraction as it came to rest on her abdomen. Then slowly, leisurely he moved his hand upward, over her breasts, feeling her nipple harden as he did, to her chest until his fingers wrapped around her neck.
“I could kill you right now, snapping your neck in two.”
“Do it.”
There was no fear in her red eyes, only … acceptance. He leaned close until their lips were breaths apart. “You willna beg for your life?”
“No.”
He wasn’t sure whether to run from her or to her. How odd to encounter a Dark Fae who didn’t beg to live or barter with information to prolong their life.
“Take me for a drive.”
Her whispered words, and the way she seductively twisted her hips reminded Kiril that they were being watched. “Why?”
“Because I asked.”
“Drop your glamour.”
“I can’t.”
“I can see through it.”
“So you already said. We can’t continue to stand here like this. Are you going to take me for a ride or kiss me?”
He was going to do both, but the ride wasn’t going to be in his car. Kiril released her. “Get in.”
Shara was shaking as she walked around the car. She was so rattled that she didn’t even realize Kiril was behind her until he opened the car door for her. She met his green gaze, but the anger she saw earlier was gone, hidden once more. He waited until she was seated in the leather seat before he closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side.
He moved as fluidly as a lion, as stealthily as a tiger, and anyone who didn’t see the primal beast held tightly within was a fool.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him as he slid behind the wheel and started the car with a push of a button. It was a chance she was taking going off with him. He recognized she was Dark Fae, and worse, he discerned she had been sent to seduce him.
For all she knew, he could take her somewhere he planned to shift into a dragon and take her to Scotland. Odd how that didn’t bother her as it should. Family meant everything. Right?
She had thought being released and being allowed to join her family would sort out the conflicting thoughts that had plagued her all those centuries of her confinement. Sadly, it was only getting worse now that she had met Kiril.
He drove them easily through the city streets until they reached a main road to take them out of town over one of the many bridges.
“Are you new to the Dark ways, or are you just young?” he asked in a bored tone.
Shara fingered the stripe of silver in her hair. “Neither.”
“It doesna take that long for silver to show up in a Dark’s hair. The first use of evil magic does it. You just have the one stripe, although it is thick. That tells me you have no’ been at this long.”
She didn’t owe him an explanation, and yet she found herself saying, “I was the last of nine children between my parents. They concentrated on turning my siblings into what a perfect Dark Fae should be while advancing the family socially and politically. I was born a century after Farrell, and my parents didn’t have time for a baby. I was left with a nanny and tutors and allowed to do what I wanted.”
The lights from a passing car glanced off his face showing her a stony visage.
She took a breath and continued. “I was but a small child when the Fae Wars occurred, but I still recall how others spoke of the Dragon Kings and how they shifted into fierce and impossibly large dragons.”