As she picked her way closer to the brook on silent feet, she couldn’t see them simply as mercenaries. Especially not after what she’d learned of them. Yes, they were killers. And possibly for hire by the highest bidder. But they were also men of the upper crust. Every one of them she’d met. She could tell in their mannerisms and speech. She also noticed they’d refused to drop her title, keeping formalities in place. Probably on orders by their captain. And that brought her to the train of thought that their alliance with the Black Lily had little to do with money and more to do with the cause.
Of course, the cause of the Black Lily was to bring the humans out of oppression, to do away with the tyrannous rule of Queen Morgrid, to offer humanity a chance at equality. That didn’t explain why a band of aristocratic vampire renegades were allying with them.
She stepped from behind a tree where Mikhail’s long, roughened leather coat hung on a branch. As she stepped clear of the overhanging flap, she froze.
Heaven above, Mikhail’s maker smiled the day he made him.
He crouched over the stream, naked from the waist up. Mina drank in the breathless sight. Lateral muscles bunched and flexed as he wrung his shirt with a tight twist of his hands over the brook. The lines of his muscled back were exquisite. She couldn’t imagine what the front of him would look like. She wouldn’t have to wait long.
“You’d make a terrible assassin, Your Highness.”
He stood and whipped out the excess water with a sharp smack of the shirt tail in the air as he turned toward her. It was his turn to freeze in place.
“Don’t do that,” he warned.
“Do what?” she asked, unable to keep from letting her gaze wander down the hard planes of his broad chest, along the sinuous line down the center of his chiseled abs, and to the top of a muscular V disappearing into his low-slung pants.
“You know damn well what. Don’t look at me that way.”
She shrugged, helplessly. “You’re…beautiful.”
He made no reply, firming his lips together, as if the compliment distressed him. Slinging his wet shirt over one shoulder, he marched toward her. “It’s best we get back to the others.”
Best for whom?
“No. I need to clean up. Some blood got on my hands as well.” She raised a palm to show him the faint blood spatter staining her palm and wrist where she’d held up a hand right before Dmitri had cut the vampire’s jugular. Funny how all that violence hadn’t unsettled her at all. If anything, her senses had heightened, relishing the fall of those brutal rogues. Nothing seemed to get her blood pumping hard like the man standing before her.
“Fine,” he growled. “Go wash.”
She untied her cloak and hung it over the branch next to his coat. Stepping toward the edge of the brook, she kneeled on the earthy bank. She caught her unbound hair as it slid over one shoulder toward the water. Irena’s maid had woven tiny braids along her temples but had left the rest in its natural waves. She couldn’t keep her hair from trailing into the stream while washing.
“Captain? Will you help me?” She gestured toward her hair.
He didn’t move at first, staring as he contemplated the request. Finally, he blew out a heavy breath and strode to her side. Kneeling on one knee next to her left hip, his other leg cocked up at her back, he pulled her hair back with one hand, his fist resting between her shoulder blades.
She said not a word but pushed up her sleeves near to her elbows and set to cleaning her hands thoroughly. She then leaned farther over. He anchored her, pressing the fist still holding her hair farther down her back. She splashed the cold water on her face, sucking in a breath at the refreshing chill. Cupping her hands, she drank from the clear-running stream.
Their long run had caused her to sweat, despite the cold. And while she knew what she did next would rouse the man at her back, that was precisely what she wanted.
Slowly, she pulled one sleeve off her shoulder, then the other. Scooping the cold water with her cupped hands, she splashed her neck and chest. A deep growl reverberated from the vampire behind her. The sound hummed up her spine and tingled along her skin till her nipples peaked under her gown. Instantly, electric warmth coiled low in her belly. Her breath quickening, she leaned forward and did it again, splashing even more water up and over her bare shoulders, over the top of her small breasts.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” his words grated like gravel over stone.
She brought another scoop of water to drink and to moisten her lips before twisting her head over her shoulder, meeting his dark, hungry gaze. She said not a word, her thoughts surely evident in her eyes as she flicked her tongue over her lips. Then she let her gown slip farther down one shoulder.
“I take that back.” His expression hardened, his voice husky and smooth. “You know exactly what you’re doing. Don’t you?”
“I told you last night. There’s something between us. I’m not going to pretend it’s not there. That would be a lie.”
“So you tempt me on purpose?”
“Yes,” she answered, unashamedly. “If I must.”
He pulled back on her hair gently, arching her neck and clenching his jaw as he leaned his head closer. “This is dangerous.”
Rather than cower or succumb to his stormy countenance and menacing voice, she read his true emotions beating a steady drum in the air—fear and potent, hard lust. Empowered by her own instinct, she turned and lifted up onto her knees, facing him, his hand still clutching her hair. She brought her wet forefinger to his parted lips. Tracing gently till he opened wider, she slipped her finger inside and glided the pad along his teeth till she found his protruding canines. Purposefully, she held his darkening gaze and pricked her finger on a sharpened fang. A drop of her blood pearled, but he’d not moved. She stroked the blood onto his tongue, the soft warmth pulling a moan from her throat. He sealed his lips at once around her finger and sucked deep.
The sensation of one drop of his elixir flowed through her body like welcome wildfire, licking flames in all the right places. Slowly, she slid her finger from between his lips. His breath was ragged, like hers, as she trailed her bloody fingertip along his lower lip, watching with heart-pounding fascination, till finally her eyes lifted to his.
Oh, God.
Fierce desire and hot need had never pounded against her this hard. He stared at her with such dark hunger, heat seared through her blood. Inching closer, their breaths mingled and eyes locked.
“Just a kiss, Captain.” The heat of him radiated onto her face, cheeks, lips, breasts, belly, like a raging inferno. Yes, his pulse pumped hard as his panting attested. And his desire whipped against her with lashes of aching intensity. “I want to feel it again. Now that I’m awake.”
She meant more than having her eyes opened from the bloodless sleep. She was awake like she’d never been before. Awake to her own heart’s desires. And to her body’s as well.