Her eyes narrowed and her chest lifted, distracting him with a glimpse of flawless flesh. “Cain is loyal to his family before all else.”
“How noble.” He pressed his lips tight, unimpressed, and grabbed her thin wrist in an unbreakable grip. “Now, if you’ll come with me, we can be on our way.”
“No!” She jerked her arm and dug her bare feet into the ground.
He stilled, eyebrows slowly rising at her endless stubbornness. “No?”
“No.”
He shook his head. He’d thought to help her, but now she was simply behaving like a brat. “How disappointing. Very well.”
Eleazar shoved into her thoughts, intending to force her mind into an unconscious state. But the compulsion ricocheted and he staggered back, grunting at the force of energy pulsing between them.
His brow creased as he shook off the jab. A female her age should not have the power to block him. He had centuries over her.
He shoved into her mind again, forcing a command that she sleep, and she bared her teeth. “I said no!”
The compulsion to sleep catapulted back at him. A sudden fog of peace settled over him, cloaking all sound. A startled look of shock overtook Larissa’s face, and he reached for her with a sluggish hand, but she stepped out of his grip.
The world tilted off its axis and gravity pulled him down. His vision blurred and everything went dark.
Eleazar awoke as the doorman hauled him off the stage. Grunting, he jerked his arm free of the other man’s grip. “Take your hands off me.”
The large Englishman scoffed. “You’re out of here, bro—”
Before he could grab him again, Eleazar compelled the man to be silent. Eleazar’s head was ringing like a gong and the pressure was nauseating. He erased all memories of his presence from the man called Vito and shuffled out of the dingey club.
Sniffing his palm, he tracked Larissa’s scent into the night. She was nearby, but the overpopulated streets and housing complexes made her difficult to find—an infuriating and disobedient needle buried in a haystack of sin.
Hours later, he stood—irritatingly aroused—at the foot of Larissa’s bed, watching her sleep. His body was a mix of disapproval and desire. The hunt was over, but there would be no spoils. His disappointment surprised him, because, physically, she was not disappointing at all, and he couldn’t recall the last time his body responded to a female in such a manner.
Raven-colored hair fanned over the pillows. Her lithe body was tall for a female but still small in comparison to his size. Her scent filled him like an obsession, needling his soul and imprinting into his memory.
He pulled back the quilt draped over her body, revealing one inch of naked flesh at a time. Her breasts were full, her nipples the exact pink of her lush lips. While one arm curved up toward her face, the other gently rested over her narrow torso. He swallowed at the sight of her small belly button.
The quilt slithered lower, revealing the soft swell of her hips. She was built as a woman should be and would have good, healthy pregnancies.
A soft dusting of black hair covered the apex of her thighs. She shifted restlessly. A sigh escaped her lips, and he stilled.
Her lashes fluttered just above the high arch of her cheekbones and her eyes flashed open. A cold, ice-blue stare locking on him.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice was husky from sleep. She didn’t try to hide her body or jolt out of bed. She simply held his stare, cemented by her infuriating stubbornness.
“I told you I’d find you.”
“I’ll run again.”
“And I’ll find you again. There will be no escaping me, Larissa. I’m more powerful than you, more powerful than any male of The Order. And I’m used to getting what I want.”
“And what is it you want, Bishop?”
He released the quilt, letting it fall to the floor. Her beauty enraged him. “Your family misses you.”
“I’m not going back to Silus.”
On that, they agreed. “You’re not staying here.”
Slowly, she stretched before him. She was magnificent. Her arms extended above her head, lifting her breasts. Then, realizing he was watching her, her gaze shifted and any sense of warmth disappeared, replaced with an icy stare of contempt and deliberate disrespect.
“Do you think that look will work on me?” He snatched the sheet. His fingers curled around the delicate bones of her ankle, preventing her escape. Enough with the facades. “You’ve broken the rules, Larissa.”
The more she struggled to break his hold, the more she aroused him. Her body was a work of art and a dangerous distraction. His fingers itched to caress every secret inch of her flesh, despite her husband’s claim.
Rumpled and angry, she shot forward, overpowered by his unbreakable grip of her ankle. “I’m English now! There are no rules!”
“You are not English. You’re simply behaving like a belligerent child. You belong with The Order.”