The Darkling's Desire Read Free Page B

enough to draw blood. It was a kiss full of
wanting, a wanting he hadn’t felt for years.
    She cursed into his open mouth, then ground her hips upward
against his own. He swallowed her small cry when his cock rubbed insistently
against her cleft, and when she tugged to release one of her hands, he let it
go. She worked the hand between their bodies, dipped it just beneath the
waistband of his pants, where it circled the silky head of his shaft.
    Releasing her other hand, he filled both of his with her
breasts. She moaned and kissed her way wetly to his ear, which she nipped. He
turned his head to give her better access to the tender flesh, and as he did,
his razor-sharp sight zeroed in on the silver of her blade, glinting in the
fading afternoon sunlight from where it lay abandoned on the floor.
    What was he doing? He was a Darkling, a soldier. She was a
Carpathian Amazon. Though each knew of the other’s existence, they never
mingled, not like this. It was for the good of the species, something that had
been ingrained in him for decades, and for good reason. He had a job to do here,
and instead of following hot on the tail of Aubrey Hart and her Witchling, he
was tangling with this woman who had the potential to mess up everything.
    He had broken this rule once before. The Council had allowed
him to live because he had tried to rectify the mistake as soon as he could, but
he had no illusions that they would do so a second time.
    Closing his eyes in acceptance, Jasper reached into his back
pocket, withdrawing the handcuffs that the Karpaty had given him. They were
specially made, forged from titanium rather than silver or iron—ones that would
not harm his skin.
    Before Anastasia’s mouth had even left his own, he had her
wrist circled with the cuff, and its twin attached to the iron table leg. The
table was bolted to the floor—perhaps Madame Esme had seen more supernatural
tussles in here than he’d imagined—and Jasper knew that Anastasia wouldn’t be
able to get free.
    At least, not until after he had learned what he could about
Gavin Thibodeau, the Witchling. Not until he was on a flight back to Lviv, back
to his life, in which he gathered intel, nothing more, nothing less.
    He knew that, though the Amazons lived somewhere near the
Coucil’s headquarters—his home—they rarely ventured out of their compound. The
chances that he would again see this tantalizing and infuriating creature were
next to none.
    “What…” Slowly, as if his kisses had drugged her, Anastasia sat
up on the table, pulling short when her shackled arm would go no farther.
Narrowing her eyes in his direction as he inhaled deeply, more to burn her scent
into memory than for any other reason, she nearly spat at him when she realized
what had happened.
    “Bastard.” It wasn’t the worst word that she could have called
him, but the tone beneath the two syllables made him wince. He wanted to
apologize, and that made him want to run.
    There was something about this mysterious, somewhat clumsy
Amazon that could be very, very dangerous to him.
    “I’ll send someone when I’m done. Then you can fulfill your own
mission.” He started for the door, feeling terrible but knowing that he was
doing what he had to do, when he was pulled up short by a small, choked cry-one
that would be inaudible to the ears of a human.
    Slowly, feeling as if he would regret it, he turned around.
Anastasia was kneeling on the table, defiance in her eyes, but he knew what he
had heard.
    “You’re going to just leave me here, alone and unarmed?” He
sensed rather than saw fear skitter through eyes, though she very nearly
succeeded in burying it under bravado.
    Slowly, because he now had a healthy respect for what this
woman could do—was doing—to him, he crossed the room and picked up her blade. It
burned his fingers, and he quickly moved his grip to the hilt, which was made
not of the same silver as the blade, but from what looked to be carved onyx.