“I realized I didn’t need to kill him.” She held her arms wide. “The chains are already gone.”
A combination of emotions warred through him. Pride, relief, astonishment, and a treacherous sense of regret at the knowledge she no longer had need of him.
Unable to battle his need, he reached up to lightly stroke his fingers down her cheek.
“Regan.”
She stepped even closer, sending jolts of agonizing need through his body.
“I understand now,” she said, softly. “He wasn’t holding me in the past. I was. It’s time to let it go.”
He shuddered at the feel of her soft skin beneath his finger tips. A warm, satin temptation. His thighs clenched in response, his erection painfully hard.
“So you’re free,” he whispered, ignoring the desire clamoring through him. It was something he was going to have to get used to.
“No, I’ll never be completely free. The memories will always haunt me.” Her hand reached up to cover his fingers, pressing them against her cheek. “Just as they haunt you.”
Feeling as if he’d just been singed, Jagr yanked his hand away and stepped back.
“They do a great deal more than haunt me,” he pointed out, his voice harsh.
Her lips thinned with annoyance. “You reacted to your situation. Just like any other human or demon or fey would.”
“A blind, killing rage?”
“If it had been a blind, killing rage, you wouldn’t have stopped with the curs holding you captive. All of Hannibal would be dead.”
Jagr shifted. It was true. In his early days, the rage would consume him to the point he couldn’t halt. Only the threat of dawn could end the rampage and drive him back to his lair.
Still, he’d lost enough control to strangle Regan. And that was unacceptable.
His gaze lowered to her throat that was once again smooth and unmarred.
“I hurt you.”
She rolled her eyes. “For God’s sake, I’ve tripped over my damned feet and done more damage.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand that everyone has moments of insanity.” She deliberately moved forward, perhaps knowing he couldn’t form a coherent thought when she was so near. “Salvatore told me that Styx nearly destroyed the entire vampire race because he protected some crazed vampire he was sworn to, and your own clan chief tried to kill your precious king. Should they be locked up in their lairs?”
Again he couldn’t refute her words. Styx had protected the previous Anasso even when it was obvious the vampire was threatening to rip apart the peace they’d struggled for centuries to achieve. And Viper had been willing to sacrifice his own king to save Shay from death.
It was even rumored that Styx had been lost in bloodlust when he’d been attacked by a band of renegade vampires intent on taking his crown.
“Nothing you say will change my mind,” he forced himself to say, although the words didn’t ring quite true in his heart.
No doubt because he wanted his mind changed.
“Fine.”
Obviously wearied of his stubborn refusal to dismiss the dark fever that lurked deep inside him, Regan took matters into her own hands.
Literally.
Keeping her gaze locked on his tight expression, she grasped the hem of her too-tight shirt, and with one smooth motion had it yanked over her head and tossed on the floor.
Jagr grunted, feeling as if he’d just been hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer.
Against his will his eyes lowered, feasting on the slender limbs that were toned with muscle and covered with flawless ivory skin. She wore a flimsy bit of lace that covered her br**sts, but it was no barrier to his greedy gaze. Not when the rosy ni**les hardened beneath his hot gaze.
A roaring need to tumble her onto the nearby bed instead had Jagr backing away until he banged into the wall.
“Regan, what the hell are you doing?”
With a wicked smile, Regan casually reached up to snap the tiny clip of her bra, dropping it on top of her shirt.
“You said I couldn’t change your mind,” she purred. “At least not with words.”
His mouth went dry, his brain shutting down as his desire settled into the driver’s seat.
“So you think you can manipulate me with…”
The words lodged in his throat as she slid down the zipper on her jeans and shimmied them down her body. There was a moment as she halted to kick off her shoes, then the jeans were gone and she was standing there in nothing more than a pair of white panties.
Holy hell.
The things he could do to that exquisite, ivory body. Delicious, sinful, perhaps even illegal things that would include his lips and tongue and throbbing fangs.
As if fearing it might have been forgotten, his c**k gave a painful jerk against his jeans, reminding Jagr of just how good it felt to be buried deep inside Regan’s heat.
“Is it working?” she murmured, running hands up his bare chest.
Working? He was on fire, being consumed by flames that raged through his body like an inferno. And worse, he was beginning to forget why he shouldn’t have her beneath him as he explored every inch of her delectable body.
He squeezed his eyes shut as his muscles clenched with desperate hunger.
“Gods,” he breathed, his stomach cramping as he tried to deny the furious instinct to take this woman to his bed and never let her go.
Her soft chuckle feathered over his chest, her fingers skimming down to tease at the waistband of his jeans.
“You’re showing your fangs, vampire.”
His eyes snapped open as he reached out to grasp her shoulders, careful not to dig into her tender flesh.
“And you’re playing a perilous game, Were.”
“Should I be afraid?”
“Yes,” he growled, although he knew with perfect clarity that there was no genuine danger.
At least not to Regan.
He, on the other hand, was in very serious danger of imploding if he didn’t ease the savage need to be inside her.
Soon.
She deliberately licked her lips. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“Keep it up, and I’ll devour you.”
The green eyes glittered with invitation. “You promise?”
He smacked his hands against the wall behind him, barely noticing the large holes he punched into the paneling. Screw it. Tane could send him a bill.
“Regan, I want you too much and my control is too unpredictable,” he gritted, his body trembling. “If I start this, I won’t be able to stop.”