Chapter Two

Byron heard Melissa crying in Kit’s office, and he fought the urge to break the door down and drag the little bitch out. She had been flaunting herself in Kit’s face for weeks. Had she thought he hadn’t seen it? The bitch went around whispering that ‘the little bitch dog was in love with the Master’ but that he only wanted her.

He had wanted her, for a little while.

But he craved Kit.

Kit thought he was blind as well. He knew how she thought she felt. She was still a child though, and she hadn’t really experienced life outside his territory. How could she know if she was in love with him? Even when he had sent her off to college, she had done it in her own way. She had completed in less than thirty months the courses it normally takes four years to do. She had stalked back up to the house one late summer night, on a full moon, wearing that beautiful wolven form. She had thrown back her head and bayed at the moon, and she had been laughing at him.

But he had made a promise that she would have what she wanted, and he wasn’t it. No matter how much he might want to be.

The tiny little dark-haired child had grown into a woman he wanted more than he wanted to see another sunrise. After more than a century of darkness, he would never have thought anything would beckon to him more than that. But if he could chose between being able to walk in daylight again without harm, or having one night with Kit?

No contest.

He forced himself to walk past Kit’s door.

She would handle it. She handled everything. Every fucking thing he threw at her. And he hated himself more each fucking day. He kept waiting for her to grow tired of the orders, the commands, but she never did. She never told him to shove it, never once threatened to walk. He kept waiting to hear that she had petitioned the council to revoke her pledge to him, kept waiting to see her walk out the door. He wouldn’t even be surprised to see an older Hunter come to claim her, even though he would fight to the death before he allowed it.

He kept waiting for her to leave him.

That was what he needed her to do.

He didn’t have the strength to make her leave.

And she was so fucking stubborn.

Byron remembered every challenge he had thrown at her, the most recent was when she had walked in knowing full well that he was fucking Melissa. He had expected her to rage and storm out, giving him reason to rant and rave at her for not following orders. Something to anger her, maybe drive her away. Instead she had settled down and started to masturbate, staring at him all the while. He drove himself harder into Melissa’s butt, imagined it was Kit’s and watched the movement of her fingers in her panties, smelling her arousal in the air over that of Melissa’s and Ben’s.

That had been a month ago.

And it had been that episode that had pushed Melissa over the edge. Melissa hadn’t realized Byron had sent for Kit just to taunt and torment her. She had rolled from the bed, furious as Kit hummed and pleasured herself. The ignorant little blonde had even tried to launch herself at Kit but Ben had caught her around the waist, while Byron flopped onto his back, still hard and aching, and watched Kit.

Melissa saw the look on his face and fumed.

Ben dragged her out of the room just as Kit erupted into her own hand with a cry. Byron slid from the bed, crossed the room and took her hand, unable to stop himself, lapping her sweet cream and burying his face between her thighs. Shoving her skirt high and ripping her panties away, he licked her folds, suckling her clit, and taking her into another orgasm before he moved to the fold between her groin and thigh and pierced her flesh to feed.

Her blood pooled in his belly, hot, potent and sweet, and he shuddered. Byron was ready to stand and take her there when she suddenly struck out, cuffing him across the head, and rolling away from him.

“Bastard,” she rasped out, her voice thick and husky.

“Kit, I—”

“You think I want you to touch me after you’ve just been fucking her?” she snarled, her dark gray eyes swirling like thunderheads in her dusky face. He moved toward her, the heady taste of her cream and blood lingering on his tongue, and he didn’t care about anything else. He couldn’t keep fighting this need he had for her—he just wanted to love her, to feed from her, to touch her.

She moved away, wolf-quick.

He shifted to mist and reformed just as she tried to leave the room and he grabbed her, pinned her by the door, catching her face and trying to kiss her. She jerked her face away and snarled at him, snapping at him with sharp teeth. She caught his chin hard enough to startle, and she used his surprise to move away.

She shifted, her clothes falling to shreds around her as she changed from human to full-wolf form, not the half-wolven, half-human form she sometimes chose. She chose the wolf—the better to run with, my dear.

And Byron had to watch as she ran away from him.

He had stopped taunting her after that.

Three days later, Melissa had started with her little petty tricks. It shouldn’t have angered him the way it did.

But it was one thing for him to try to drive Kit away before he lost it.

It was another for a woman he slept with to taunt her with that fact.

He ignored it for three days, thinking she would grow weary of it. She did not. Then he thought Kit would take care of it. She did not. After it had continued for a week, he stepped in and told her it would stop or she would be sorry for it.

Melissa had learned just how sorry when he had led her to her bedroom, tied her down, teased her to the point of excruciating pleasure, and then just walked away. It had been Kit who had dared to disobey him hours later by untying her. When Melissa had thrown herself at Byron, begging to know why he was angry, he had stared at her in dismay before he realized she was putting on a show, solely for Kit’s benefit.

He hadn’t touched her since.

Then last week she had placed her naked ass in his bed and now, a day before her time was up in his home, she was crying on Kit’s shoulder because she was getting kicked out. Byron was tired of her. And as always, Kit was handling the clean-up. He paused briefly, wondering if he should just take Melissa into town and give her some money and get her on a plane back to her hometown. But that would mean walking in and seeing Kit.

Kit.

Damn it. He was losing it.

He stalked out the door.

He had a fucking job to do, and it didn’t include mooning over a sweet little shifter with eyes like storm clouds.

By the time he returned that night, he had found the proof he needed to execute a feral vampire who had been running a human slavery ring. Well, slavery wasn’t a good word. What was? Fast food? Byron grimaced. His morbid sense of humor was growing worse the older he got.

He heard a soft gasping cry and his cock hardened with need, his fangs dropping down in rage. That was Kit. If one of his men had dared to touch her—

His ears pricked and he vaulted up the stairs before he realized he heard only one voice, one person breathing raggedly. His people were talking, some were sleeping, the low hum of conversation buzzing…but there was just one person in that room. Just one.

He felt like a fucking pervert, but he shifted to mist anyway and moved to hover outside her window, where she couldn’t see him. She lay on her bed, ass up, while she rode a thick vibrator, quick and hard. He groaned, glad he made no sound in this form unless he chose to. Then he heard her cry out his name and shove her hand between her thighs, probably to massage her clit.

Kit had never taken a lover while in his house. She most likely had in college…hell, she had been gone three years. And too many times, she had come home late from the few dates he had allowed her in high school, smelling of sweaty sex, semen, and teenage lust. The first time…he hadn’t been home, although he had earlier been pacing the porch and waiting. Benjamin had taken his stead and waited for her when one of the younger Hunters was hurt.

By the look in Benjamin’s eyes when Byron arrived home, Byron had known simply not to ask. It had happened that night, he suspected. Though she was washed and bathed by the time he saw her the following night, something that damn well hid the evidence, her eyes flashed and sparkled and she blushed at any mention of her date.

It had happened. She had given her virginity to some high school boy who had no idea what a precious female he held. And she had glowed with it.

It had been all he could stand not to kill the boy she had been dating then.

But there had been no lovers in his house. Not once.

He didn’t know if he could have allowed it, but she had never even tried.

He wasn’t being fair to her. She climaxed with a soft, muffled wail, while he stared hungrily at her sweet, exposed butt and watched as she rolled onto her back and continued to play with herself, obviously not satisfied. She took the vibrator in her hand and started to drive it deep, her eyes glassy and wild as she used her other hand to stroke her clit.

He tore himself away and reformed to his mortal self inside the hall and walked away.

He wasn’t being fair.