Over the past centuries he’d allowed himself to believe that those days were behind him. He’d buried his rage deep, and carefully honed his control. Oh, he would always possess a dangerous temper and a ready willingness to use violence when necessary. But he never unleashed his full fury.
Not until tonight.
Again the image of Regan, her eyes wide and her lips parted as he crushed her throat, seared through his mind.
No.
He would never, ever take such a risk again.
Ignoring the unexpected wrench of agony at the mere thought of walking away from Regan, Jagr forced himself to leave the bathroom and returned to the connecting bedroom.
He tossed his satchel on the bed, digging out his remaining daggers before shoving his used clothes into the bag.
He was reaching for the clean shirt he’d left on a side table when the unmistakable scent of jasmine had him spinning toward the door.
Stepping into the bedroom, Regan allowed her gaze to skim over the open satchel on the bed before returning to linger on his still bare chest.
A heat flushed through Jagr as her emerald eyes flared with awareness, tracing the scars that ran the length of his stomach.
Before Regan, he’d always kept his scars well hidden. They were a badge of shame that no one was allowed to witness. But standing before this beautiful Were, he felt nothing but searing pleasure as she studied his hard body. There was no disgust, no pity, no aversion.
Just pure appreciation.
Wanting nothing more than to yank off the jeans that were the only thing covering him, Jagr instead forced himself to turn back toward the bag.
His desire for Regan might be a brutal force, but it was nothing in comparison to his driving need to keep her safe.
For the first time in centuries, someone else’s existence mattered more than his.
With an impatient click of her tongue, Regan moved to perch on the end of the bed, her expression impossible to read, though there was no missing the anger that snapped in the air around her.
“I thought I would find you here, you big lummox.”
He didn’t look up. It was bad enough to have her so close. To be wrapped in her exotic scent and feel the heat of her body.
To actually see her on the bed where he’d so recently spread her legs and plunged into her damp heat…damn, it was enough to snap what little control he had left.
“Lummox?” he muttered.
“It’s a word.” He sensed her shift on the bed. Gods. His jeans tightened painfully over his growing erection. “What are you doing?”
Don’t look. Do. Not. Look.
“I would think it’s rather self-evident.”
“I guess it is. Hard to miss a six-foot-plus sulking vampire. Or is it pouting? Difficult to tell,” she taunted. “I assume you’re leaving?”
“First I intend to go imp hunting.”
“And then?”
Pain ripped through his chest, nearly sending him to his knees. “Then I will return to Chicago.”
She breathed a shockingly vile curse. “So, you’re fleeing back to your prison…oh, I mean lair. It’s so much safer to watch the world through MTV and YouTube, isn’t it, chief?”
His hands clenched into fists at her accusation, refusing to consider the bitter truth of her words.
“Return to Styx, Regan. He’ll be able to track Culligan.”
“I don’t need him or you or anyone else to track Culligan,” she gritted. “I already found him.”
The defenses he’d been struggling to build were shattered as Jagr jerked his head around to stab her with a shocked gaze.
“What?”
Her eyes flashed, as if pleased at by his sharp reaction. “Where do you think I picked up that handy-dandy little amulet?” Her brows abruptly drew together. “An amulet, I might add, that was confiscated by your friend Tane before he would let me come down here.”
Jagr shook his head. Later he would thank Tane for ensuring that Regan couldn’t slip up on him unaware, but for now he could think of nothing but the realization that she’d found the imp who had tormented her for thirty years.
“He’s dead?”
She shrugged. “He was alive when I left the cabin, but his odds of living through the night are about zero to none. Not once the curs realize he’s just as pathetic at being bait as he is at being an imp.”
He stepped toward her, his bare feet sinking into the thick carpet, his damp braid brushing across his back. Not that he noticed. He was utterly consumed by the tiny female perched on the end of the bed.
“You found the imp and…walked away?”
“I had other things on my mind, as I have mentioned more than once,” she said.
Jagr frowned. She was behaving as if finding the demon responsible for her years of misery, a demon who she had risked her life to kill, was nothing more than a trivial encounter.
“Dammit, Regan, you’ve waited your entire life to have your revenge.”
The emerald gaze never wavered. “I’m well aware of that.”
“Then why didn’t you take it?”
“I told you.”
He growled low in his throat as he studied her stubborn expression.
Okay, it was official.
The woman was going to drive him right over the edge.
“There had to be more than just a need to find me, little one.” He folded his arms over his chest, refusing to back down. He didn’t understand why he had to know. Only that he did. “Killing him would have taken you less than a heartbeat. Tell me the truth.”
She abruptly rose to her feet, standing so close to him that his entire body was bathed in sweet jasmine heat.
“Christ, I don’t know,” she rasped. “I suppose a part of it was the fact that he looked so incredibly pathetic chained in that cabin. For so many years he was my personal boogeyman. He brutalized me for so long I began to think of him as invincible.” Her lips twisted as she gave a shake of her head. “But then I saw him as he truly is. A weak, cowardly idiot who crawled through the sewers because he didn’t have the talent or intelligence or spine to be a decent man. He just wasn’t worth the effort of killing.”
He trembled with the need to pull her into his arms as her eyes darkened with a vulnerability that cut through his very soul.
This was more than lust. More than an instinctive need to protect.
This was…
Gods, he didn’t know what to call it.
He only knew that it had buried so deep inside him that he’d never be rid of it.
“And the other part?” he demanded, his voice thick.