"Oh no," Amanda said, rising on her tiptoes to stand nose to nose with Kyrian. She arched a brow and dared him with her eyes to deny her words. As she spoke, each word was short and clipped. "You are so wrong. I want my life back. I want it boring and I want it long."
Her spirit amused him as she emphasized the last word. She was spectacular when riled and he wondered just how long he could keep that color high in her cheeks. The fire in those lush blue eyes.
Better still, as her breasts rose and fell with the weight of her conviction, images of other things that would make her breathless flashed though his mind.
He wanted to keep her breathless. Wanted to taste her passion fully.
Kyrian's lips itched to kiss hers, his hands ached to touch her body until she cried out with pleasure.
Gods, but this woman tempted him as he'd never been tempted before. And he had once loved temptation in a way that defied explanation. Over the centuries, he'd forgotten that small personality flaw, but ever since he had awakened with her next to him, he had been painfully reminded of the mortal man he used to be.
Slowly, bit by bit, he could feel her breaking down the barriers he had built around himself, the numbness. He had distanced himself from his feelings for centuries. And though he'd had mortals he cared about during that time, none of them had ever touched him as she did.
It was so strange to him.
Why her?
Why now? Now when he needed clarity of thought to deal with Desiderius.
The Fates were once again toying with him and he didn't like it in the least.
He could feel his blood pounding through his veins as he stared at those moist, full lips. Already he could taste them. Feel her. Dear gods, how he craved her.
She, alone, awoke the hungry beast in him. The part of him that wanted to growl and devour her body inch by slow, studied inch, all night long.
But Amanda was human and he could offer her nothing of himself. His soul and loyalty belonged to Artemis.
Besides, Amanda had a right to her dream of normality. Her dreams of a home and family with an average man.
After having his own dreams so cruelly, vengefully stripped from him, he refused to do that to her now.
She deserved to have her long, full, and boring life. Everyone deserved a chance to obtain their heart's wishes.
He swallowed the lump in his throat that ached with desire for her and knew, in that moment, he had to banish her from his thoughts.
She could never be his.
Her destiny was to return to a family who loved her and to find a mortal man who could...
He didn't finish that thought. It was too painful to even contemplate.
"For your sake," he whispered, resisting the urge to touch her hair, "I hope that's true, but I'm afraid with the raw, untapped powers you have and with the vampire-hunting Tabitha does, it's not going to be possible to live your boring life for the next few days."
She broke eye contact with him. "I have no powers." Her voice was sharp, yet it lacked her earlier conviction.
He reached out and fingered her chin, seeking to comfort the trouble he saw on her face, the fears he didn't understand. Why wouldn't she acknowledge the gifts she had been given?
"You might not claim them, Amanda, but they're there. You have premonitions and telepathy. Projection and empathy. They're similar in many ways to Tabitha's, but your powers are a lot stronger than hers."
The vivid sapphire returned to her eyes. "You're lying to me."
Her accusation surprised him. "Why would I do that?"
She swallowed. "I don't know. I just know that I have no powers."
"Why are you so afraid of them?"
"Because..."
He cocked his head as her voice trailed off and she didn't finish her sentence.
"Because?" he prompted.
She looked up at him and the grief in her eyes took his breath. "When I was fifteen," she said in a hushed tone, "I had a dream." She blinked back tears as she gripped the counter beside her. "I used to have a lot of them back then. They always came true. In this one, my best friend was killed in a car wreck. I saw her. I felt her panic and I heard the last thoughts that went through her mind before she died."
Kyrian clenched his teeth at the pain he heard in her voice. Reaching out, he took her hand in his. Her icy fingers were shaking.
"When I saw her at school, I did everything I could to keep her from going home that day with Bobby Thibideaux. I even told her about my dream." Tears fell again. "She didn't listen. She told me I was stupid and mean and jealous because he liked her and not me."
She shook her head as she relived that day. "I wasn't jealous, Hunter, I just didn't want her to die."
He stroked her fingers, trying to warm her hand. "I know, Amanda."
"She got in the car with me screaming at her to get out. Everyone at school was staring at me, but I didn't care. Tabitha pulled me away so they could leave and everyone was laughing."
She licked her dry lips. "They weren't laughing the next morning when they found out the two of them had died on the way home. They called me a freak. For the next three years, no one wanted to be near me. I was that weirdo girl who saw things."
Anger flashed in her eyes as she looked up at him. "Tell me, what good are these so-called powers when they make people afraid of me? Why can I see things I can't change? What good is that?"
Kyrian had no answer for her. All he could do was feel her inner pain and turmoil.
"Don't you understand?" she continued. "I don't want to know the future when I can't stop it. I want to be normal," she insisted, her voice cracking on the last word. "I don't want to be like Talon or my grandmother and have dead people talking to me. I don't want to know what you're feeling. I just want to live my life like other people. Don't you ever want that?"
Closing his eyes against the unfounded agony that clenched his heart, Kyrian let go of the softness of her skin and stepped back from her. "It wouldn't matter if I did."
Amanda started at the look on his face. She'd wounded him somehow. "I'm sorry, Hunter, I didn't mean-"
"It's okay," he said slowly. He moved to stand by a chair and she watched the way he gripped the edge of it. Though he was trying hard to hide it, she could sense his pain.
"You're right," he said at last. "There are times when I do miss being able to feel the sunshine on my face. I miss so many things that I can't even begin to count them all. I have learned the best thing to do is to not torture myself with the memory of it." He looked up at her and the heat in his eyes scorched her. "But people like us have special gifts. We can't be normal."
Amanda didn't want to hear that. Her heart couldn't take that news. "Maybe you can't. But I can. I don't let myself feel those powers anymore. They are dead to me."
He laughed bitterly. "And you think I'm stubborn."
"Hunter, please," she said, hating the agony she heard in her tone. "I just wish it were the day before yesterday. I wish I could wake up and have all this be a nightmare."
In that moment, she felt something that scared her. It was just a quick twinge of the powers he referred to. And the sensation of it sliced through her as she heard his thoughts.
Wish you had never met me, you mean.
She moved toward him. "Hunter..."
He dodged her touch and went to the counter where the phone was. He picked the phone up and handed it to her. "Call Tabitha and tell her to stay at your mother's until Friday. She can come and go in the daytime, but after dark it is imperative that she stay indoors."
"She won't like that."
Aggravated fury smoldered in his midnight eyes. "Then have your mother tie her down. We're not dealing with regular vampires here. These Daimons have unlocked some exceedingly dangerous powers, and until Talon and I figure out what we're dealing with, she needs to lie low."
"Okay. I'll do my best."
He nodded. "While you talk to her, I'm going to change clothes."
Amanda watched as he walked out of the kitchen, her heart heavy. She didn't want him to leave her even long enough to change. She felt a peculiar urge to follow after him and help him shed those clothes...
Instead, she dialed Tabitha's cell phone.
"Oh, thank God you're all right," Tabitha said, her voice filled with tears. "The police just told me about the houses and I knew it was past time for you to be home."
Amanda's own eyes teared up, but she forced them back. Crying wouldn't accomplish anything. The houses were gone and all the tears in the world wouldn't bring them back. What she needed to focus on now was for all of them to survive Desiderius's wrath.
"How's Allison?" she asked, trying to distract herself from the fear.
"She's fine. Her mother's already at the hospital. I'm in the car on my way to see her even as we speak. No one knows what happened to Terminator."
"I have him."
Tabitha breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, sis. I owe you big time. So, where are you now?"
It was the question Amanda dreaded answering. Tabitha was bound to go ballistic when she found out. "I'd rather not say," she hedged.
Silence.