for those things.
Daringly, Rhys rested his mouth on hers lightly, testing his resolve and hers. He waited, expecting a slam of protective power from her in honor of his transgression. But nothing like that came.
Her lips were as cool as her fingertips, and soft. She didn’t encourage him. Nor did she pull away when he deepened the pressure, breathing her in, tasting the sweetness of what lay behind the lushness he was invading. She was so very appealing.
She leaned into him and made a sound that was part groan and part whisper. In that sound lay a silent command...not for release, but for more.
He gave her that. And when her lips parted, the uncanny sense of familiarity returned so strongly that Rhys echoed the sound she had made. He knew her, didn’t he?
As his mouth captured hers, his hunger raged. Her spirit seemed to capture his spirit. She bent him to her will, commanding him to forget that familiarity he sought and bury it deep.
But she kissed him back, and the intimacy of the physical connection spiraled Rhys into a world where nothing other than the two of them existed, and the past, present and future became one.
Hell, if she was a demon, someone on the other side knew too much about the longings of a Blood Knight.
A draft of cool air drifted over him when her lips left his. Rhys opened his eyes to find himself alone. In a totally unacceptable move that had to have involved some kind of mind trick, the woman whose lips had so moved him had, like liquid moonlight, just melted away.
He stood beneath the streetlight, looking around, surprised to have been bested by the pale stranger. That was a first.
“All right,” he said, retrieving the dagger from his boot. “This game point goes to you, but the game isn’t over.”
Then he turned to face the vampire watching him from the shadows.
Avery fled the scene without looking back.
Taking that Knight’s mind off her imminent escape had worked a little too well. With his lips on hers and his warm breath in her lungs, she’d almost forgotten what she had planned for these guys, and had escaped only in the nick of time.
Dreams of getting close to him had been with her for so long, remnants of those dreams had nearly been her downfall. By now, she knew him well, although he knew nothing of the woman he had kissed. Still, having the upper hand didn’t make her feel better about that kind of closeness, and what a mistake it had been to allow it.
Bad plan. Pitiful timing.
While distracting the Knight had seemed her best way to escape, she now felt a new need to go back to him, have more of him and indulge in the very thing she had always craved.
Hadn’t she always craved him?
The line between hate and love, two things seemingly so opposite, was blurring. That had always been the danger of her special bond with Perceval. She was already inside him in an intimate way. Her blood ran in his veins alongside another’s, and yet the immediacy of this attraction to him seemed like so much more than blood calling to blood.
But now...
Him...
That kiss.
Avery glanced up at the sky, questioning the heavens. But it had been a long time since she’d had any help from there.
She had heard something, though. The Knight had spoken to her telepathically. She’d heard him clearly because she had left a channel to her mind open. Another slip-up.
“Damn it,” she would have returned if she had been able to join in that conversation. “This is no game.”
They weren’t players on some gigantic chessboard. There was so much more at stake here than who might gain or lose a point. This was life. Hers. She’d been a fool to have been so intent on tattooed wings that she hadn’t done enough research about which of the Knights she’d potentially encounter if things went wrong in London. Being secretly attracted to this one should have kept her more aware of his travels, even though she’d been loath to remain so close.
It had to be you...
Swinging herself up the side of a building was just one of her many talents. Surprisingly, that also turned out to be a mistake, because the Knight’s scent lingered on the rooftop, preventing her from moving on. He must have watched her from here. Below this roof, the alley curved toward the tattoo parlor.
Some new stealth trick of your own, Knight?
Now, she had to regroup. He had threatened to find her, and would if she remained in this city. Leaving London, however, was not an option. A culmination of the search that had tied up her whole earthly life lay within her grasp. The importance of that could not be forsaken because a Blood Knight was on her trail.
Leave here. Leave him, her instincts warned. Before...
Before what? Before she forgot her early hatred for the Seven and their Makers who had caused her so much agony? This Knight was one of them, even if the way things had gone down at that blasted castle wasn’t his fault. Still, the beautiful bastard she’d kissed was guilty by association.
Mixed feelings were scary, and she was experiencing plenty of them. Without old hatreds to guide her, what was left? Which direction would she take? She wanted so badly to trust someone, but could not confess her secrets to one of the seven golden Knights.
Leave him.
Must stay away.
“You will never find me,” she whispered to her glorious Blood Knight. But those words made her heart ache. They made her feel sick. She added soberly, “Not without an invitation.”
Possibly she liked him too much to share the hurt she had suffered. Even more telling than her new turn of conscience was how desperately she longed to have another shot at that kiss—an action that had apparently changed everything after so many years of avoiding him.
* * *
Hissing sounds, like static coming over the airwaves, forced Rhys to address the next untimely distraction. There was no mistaking the stink of stale blood permeating the area. Over the years, he’d grown sick of the stench.
“It’s rather early for you to be partying, isn’t it?” he said to the bloodsucker tucked into a dark corner behind him.
Guttural noises accompanied the vamp’s rebuttal, as if the creature wasn’t used to speaking through its fangs. “You do not own this city, freak.”
Rhys grinned dangerously. “Freak, is it? Me? That’s rich.”
“I do not fear you.”
“You haven’t heard the rumors?”
“I have heard them,” the vamp snarled.
“Maybe you missed the fight minutes ago?”
“I
