For the first time since meeting his aggravating female, Tiege truly considered the price she’d paid for leaving the temple.
Only a select few Nephilim were chosen to train as Blades. It was a position of honor that very few would have been willing to abandon, no matter the cost of staying. And now she was a lowly House guard, knowing that her job had been given to her out of a sense of pity.
Maybe it wasn’t any wonder she was so prickly.
He grimaced, a rare sense of regret tightening his chest. “We should have paid closer attention.”
“I…” She licked her lips, regarding him with a wary suspicion. It was the first time he’d offered her the respect she deserved for her painful decision. “Anyway, most Nephilim accept the priestesses’ commands. Not one of them would agree to travel with me to aid in your efforts.”
He shook his head. “Impossible,” he growled. “There has to be a female who isn’t frightened of the bitches.”
Her lips flattened. “I’m telling you the truth. I used every contact I have, trying to find a willing companion.”
Muttering a curse, he crossed the room to grab his phone off the desk. Then, punching in a number, he paced to stare out the glass wall that overlooked the Strip.
Twenty minutes later, he tossed the phone back on the desk.
“Dammit,” he snarled, frustration thundering through him.
He’d called over a dozen of his most trusted contacts only to have them refuse to answer, or give him some lame excuse of why they couldn’t travel to Vegas to be his companion.
“Not as irresistible as you believed?” Sloane drawled in sweet tones.
Tiege whirled, intending to snap back a reply. This was serious. More than serious.
If he didn’t get a Nephilim to feed on…
His thoughts shattered as his gaze landed on her slender body and defensive expression as she prepared for his usual mockery. Abruptly he was struck by a thought.
A hideous, gloriously irresistible thought.
“You find this amusing?” he murmured, strolling back across the room.
“Why would I?” she demanded, making a half-assed effort to disguise her pleasure at the thought of him being turned down by the females.
“Because you love the thought of my arrogance being smashed?”
She snorted. “I sincerely doubt that anything could smash your arrogance. It’s titanium plated.”
His brooding gaze swept over her upturned face, lingering on her delicate features. He’d already had a sip of her energy. What would those lush lips taste like?
He was betting on honeysuckle.
Warm, sweet honeysuckle.
His cock stiffened, his balls tight as he envisioned those lips wrapping around the head of his erection to give him a slow, thorough suck.
“Perhaps,” he said, his voice low and rough. “But just in case you’re tempted to gloat, you should consider what this means.”
She shivered, unconsciously reacting to the power of his sex pheromones. Sloane might have demon blood flowing through her veins, but she wasn’t entirely impervious to his powers. A fact he fully intended to use to his advantage.
“I assume you’ll have to feed on humans.” She waved a hand toward the closed door, trying to disguise the delectable heat that was staining her cheeks. “Luckily you have a few dozen Thralls who are ready and eager to provide your dinner.”
He stepped closer. It was his turn to shiver.
Now that he’d at last lowered his defenses, he could feel that raw, natural power pulse against him.
Goddamn. She would have been a favorite in the Harem.
“A human can’t provide the energy I need for the ceremony,” he said, his voice threaded with a golden power.
Not that he needed it.
The rich scent of her deepening arousal had far more to do with a female intrigued by a male than a Nephilim in the thrall of an Incubus.
“As I said, there’s dozens of them out there,” she stubbornly muttered.
A step closer. Close enough that the supple leather of her jacket brushed against his bare skin.
“It’s not quantity, it’s quality.” His gaze lowered to where her pulse pounded at the base of her throat. “I need the power of a Nephilim.”
She instinctively tried to back away only to jerk to a halt when her legs hit the edge of the bed. Tiege ground his teeth. Dammit. After tonight she wouldn’t be so eager to try and avoid his touch.
He’d make damned sure of that.
“They refused to travel here. Maybe if you performed the ceremony near the temple you could feed—”
“It has to be here,” he interrupted.
The hazel eyes smoldered with flecks of gold. “Surely your orgy isn’t as important as the need to discover the truth about the pendant?”
“An orgy is always more important,” he assured her, pressing a finger against her lips as she prepared to slay him with her tongue. “But I wasn’t referring to being in Vegas. I need to perform the ceremony in the Mojave Desert.”
She jerked her head, knocking away his finger. “Why?”
Again Tiege felt that intense annoyance at her rejection of his touch. He forced himself not to wrap his arms around her and jerk her against his body.