Hot Decadent Rising (Breath of Darkness) Read Free Page A

trouble.” 
    “Huh?” She looked extremely
uncomfortable.
    Satisfied, he laughed. It was about time
something rattled her. Recovering way too quickly for his liking, she attempted
to pull her hand away, but he wasn’t ready to let go just yet.
    “Very funny. Woof. Woof. I think you’re
a man whose inner child needs a little creative discipline.”
    “I wasn’t attempting to be humorous. And
I’m not afraid of being disciplined. Not at all. Do your worst. To be entirely
honest, I like it rough.”
    Cheeks flushing, her blazing eyes
narrowed. She wasn’t embarrassed. She was mad as hell. Rather than lose control
of her emotions, she used them for her benefit. “Let go.” He felt her harness
her anger and use its power to attempt to control him, to force him to release
her hand.
    In a display of dominance he held firm.
“You’re the one who wanted to play.” Though it was gone in a flash, he saw a
shadow of fear in her eyes. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like that he was the
cause of it, but he refused to feel bad. She’d forced him to push her to get
rid of her. Convinced it had worked, he released her hand.
    She gestured toward the building.
“Personally, I think the broken card machines and the prepay rule is a scam to
force us to go inside in hopes of enticing us to make more purchases. Like
chocolate.” Frowning, she nervously glanced around and took a step back. “Sorry
for taking up so much of your time.” She turned and walked away.
    Suddenly, he didn’t want to her leave.
He took a few steps. He started to reach out to stop her. That’s when he felt
it. The atmosphere had changed. He stopped abruptly. A predator. A corrupted
vampire. It was close. Watching them. Waiting to attack her. Searching for it,
a low growl escaped his throat as he watched her walk away. Obviously hearing
it, she whirled around. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but she
didn’t utter a sound. They stared at each other for several seconds. He needed
to grab onto her. He needed to take her away to safety, but he couldn’t. He
wouldn’t. He didn’t even know her. She was a human. Turning away from him she
opened the door and walked inside.     
    He’d stood there for few minutes. How
the hell had he failed to sense the cold, dark presence of utter evil earlier?
It was the cause of the fear in her eyes. It had nothing to do with him acting
like a bully. Physic or not, how could she, a human, sense the presence of the
undead hunting her before he’d sensed it? He laughed at himself. As pathetic as
it was, the answer was painfully obvious. She’d distracted him naturally with
her sensuality.
    Eli probed deeper into the creature’s
mind. It was a young male, obviously unlearned in the techniques, a pure blood
ancient would have used to better masked his presence. At that moment reality
struck hard. It was Kara’s doing. He looked at the door she’d entered. It
wasn’t a matter of her distracting him with her sexy feminine wiles. Feeling a
mixture of amusement and awe, he smiled. She’d used her mind to block him in an
attempt to protect him from the vampire.
    Careful to avoid allowing it to feel his
intrusion, he slowly pushed his way into the vampire’s mind. To his surprise,
it wasn’t planning to kill her. It was tracking her for someone else. A human.
It didn’t make sense. Vampires, not even pure blood ancients, were ever known
to do tracking jobs or any other jobs for humans. For that reason alone he
should investigate the situation, but he decided to leave it alone. It wasn’t
his problem. It didn’t matter to him. She didn’t matter to him.
    His breath came out in a groan. It was
going to be a hell of a long day. Even as he told himself that it wasn’t his
problem, his alpha instincts to protect her had been kicked into high gear the
first moment he’d realized she’d perceived a threat. He walked toward the
entrance hoping he would, but knowing he wouldn’t overcome his wolf’s