"He didn't stop there," Reichen said, his voice tight. "While I was away on another matter, Helene showed up at my Darkhaven. Someone let her in, not realizing it was an ambush. Helene had been made a Minion since I'd last seen her. Her master sent her to my home with a unit of armed assassins--an Enforcement Agency death squad. They killed everyone inside. They shot all of them in cold blood, Claire. Even the children." She gaped up at him aghast, slowly shaking her head. "No, there was an explosion. A terrible fire--" "Yes, there was," Reichen admitted, taking her by the arms as his anger began to roil in remembrance. "I set the house ablaze, but not until after I arrived and saw the slaughter inside. And not until after I found Helene waiting for me, covered in my family's blood. She told me who made her, Claire...just before I ended her misery then burned my home and all the souls in it to the ground." Claire's tender brown eyes swam with a sudden rise of tears, but she said nothing. Not a word of denial or disbelief.
Not a single syllable in defense of her mate. "Andre..." She shouldn't have touched him. The warm feel of her palm coming up to rest gently on his cheek sent him over an edge he'd been teetering on since the moment he laid eyes on her again. A hell of a lot longer than that, if he was being honest. Reichen brought his hand around to the soft arch of her nape and pulled her close. He bent his head and pressed his mouth to hers. There was no tentativeness, no meek beginnings, as their lips came together and meshed in a fevered kiss that was as familiar and righteous as it was forbidden. Claire. Ah, Christ. He'd nearly forgotten what it felt like to hold her, to kiss her. To want her with a need that scorched as hot as lava in his belly. His body remembered all the ways she'd once made him burn. Arousal surged through him, turning his blood to fire and his c**k to hard-forged steel. In that instant, he didn't care that he was injured and bleeding and hellbent on vengeance. He didn't care that she belonged to another--his most treacherous enemy. All he knew was the heat of Claire's mouth on his. The warm press of her curves against him. He wanted more. He wanted all of her, and now the hunger that had been clinging to him so relentlessly was wrapping its tendrils around him even tighter. His stomach twisted, burning. His fangs ripped farther out of his gums, the sharp points throbbing with every moist brush of her lips against his.
He wanted to taste her. God help him, he wanted to drown in her, right here and now. She should be his. This kiss told him she was his, still, even if Breed law and the blood bond she'd given to another male forbade it. She would always be his ... No. Reichen growled as he tore his mouth away from hers and set her away from him with rough, unsteady hands. His chest was heaving, breath sawing through his teeth and fangs. The bullet wound in his upper chest screamed with renewed pain, all the worse for the way his veins were pounding with hunger. The room felt too hot, stifling. He needed to cool down before his threadbare restraint got any thinner. Claire was staring at him with her fingers pressed to her kiss-swollen mouth, as if she didn't know whether to scream or cry. "I need some air," he muttered. "Jesus Christ, this was a f**king mistake coming here with you. I need to get the hell out of here." "Andreas." He pivoted to head for the door, but before he could take more than a couple of steps, Claire was right behind him. "Where are you going? Talk to me, please." He kept walking, hoping like hell she would just let him go. He wanted Roth to pay for what he'd done, but did he really have a right to take Claire down in the process? Some selfish part of him reasoned that it would only be fair if Roth's mate was part of his price. What better vengeance than to ruin the corrupt son of a bitch and claim his woman for his own? Jesus. He didn't want to go there.
As tempting as it was, that wasn't what this was about. He'd gone to great lengths decades ago to shield Claire from the deadly monster he had become. He hadn't done that only to come back and destroy her now... had he? "Andreas, please don't walk away from me." Her voice trailed him as he reached to open the door. She let out a choked, humorless laugh, full of pain and raw contempt. When she finally found her voice again, it was soft with condemnation. "Goddamn you. How can you still make me feel this way after all these years? Damn you for leaving me! And damn you for coming back like this, just when I thought you were gone forever and I might finally be able to forget you." In spite of every instinct that shouted for him to put one foot in front of the other and take his deadly business with Roth far away from Claire, Reichen paused. She didn't know how dangerous he was right now. Or maybe she did, but was too confused and pissed off to care. She drew in an audible breath, then blew it out on a defeated-sounding sigh.
"Goddamn you, Andre, for standing here and making me doubt every choice I've ever made." He turned to face her justifiable outrage. Blood thirst swamped him as he looked at her, his physical need for sustenance warring with the carnal desire that no amount of chill night air would be able to cool. She was so beautiful and strong. So good and honest. And she was furious with him now; the frantic ticking of her pulse at the base of her buttery light brown throat was testament to that. Reichen couldn't look away from the steady pound of her heartbeat. The fire had taken its toll on him as much as the hit he took to the chest earlier tonight. He was no longer in control of his thirst; it had overthrown his will now. It was all he knew as he moved toward Claire, everything about him that was Breed and male trained wholly on this woman. "Why did you leave me?" she asked as he neared her. He grunted, savoring the vanilla sweet scent of her blood as it raced beneath the surface of her delicate skin. "To protect you." She frowned, dubious.