Demon Moon

Pup stay, no one could protect you from the evil creatures stalking the night.”
    She had to smile. Such melodrama. “If he leaves, no one will protect me from you.”
    “Castleford believes you’ll be able to protect yourself after you’ve had enough lessons.” There was an edge of anger in his voice now, when it had only been soft.
    “You doubt him? You doubt I will?” She finally looked up at him. “Or are you here to teach him a lesson?”
    “No.” He watched her with shadowed eyes. “I’m here because he’s taught you well. Ask me why I can’t suggest you sleep, as I did Auntie.”
    “I already know. My psychic shields.”
    “Then why did you ask before?”
    Except for his hand against her chin he didn’t touch her, yet his gaze held her immobile. Another vampire trick? Why had Hugh not warned her? Was it something only Colin could do?
    “I didn’t know if you could overcome them.”
    “I see.” Sardonic amusement flirted with his lips as he tucked his fingers beneath her chenille scarf, slowly loosening it. Cool air wafted against her neck, sent prickles down her spine. “Because I once drank your blood, you thought I might have bound you to me. Like Dracula and Mina.”
    His lashes swept down as he dipped his head toward hers.
    Her breath hitched. “Yes.”
    “No, Savitri. Only when I drink does your mind open to me.” She began trembling as his mouth skimmed the side of her jaw. He spoke with his lips against her throat. “Invite me in.”
    “No.” She gasped the word.
    “I’ll make it good for you this time.” He dragged the inside of his bottom lip over her pulse. Hot. Wet. “Please invite me in.”
    She didn’t trust the pleading note in his voice; she couldn’t imagine him begging for anything. “No.”
    “Then lower your shields.” He raised his head when she stiffened. “That is not a threat. Only that I ask the lesser pleasure if you deny the greater.”
    “I have no reason to give you either, or to trust you. Particularly as I don’t know what you’ve done to me now.”
    As light and impenetrable as the fog, his gray eyes searched hers; then he tilted his head back, stared up at the sky. His laugh was pure frustration. “What I have done to you ? What of what you are doing to me? I am risking one of the few friendships I’ve known by standing here. I’ve never run after a woman, yet the moment I realized what that scent was, I abandoned my hunt and came for you. Do you know what it is, Savitri? Do you know what you are doing to me?”
    “It’s psychic,” she realized, shaking. “Not physical.” It meant that the changes in her had gone deeper than she’d known. Would they fade?
    Guardians who Fell retained some of their strength and speed, and aged slowly—though in all other ways they were human, with no psychic abilities. Once transformed, some things could not be undone—and the longer the transformation, the deeper the change. Would it be the same of a woman who accidentally ingested hellhound venom and nosferatu blood?
    “Yes. I mistook it for peach through a trick of memory. I made the easiest and most sensible conclusion given what I perceived, likened it to a familiar scent—but it was wrong.”
    The Gestalt effect. Like in Caelum.
    As if the same thought occurred to him, he tensed. “Do you deny me as punishment for Caelum? Is this a lesson?”
    “No.” She wrapped her arms around her chest. Small defense, but she still couldn’t find the strength to move away from him. “I returned that favor in Polidori’s.”
    He let go a shout of laughter. “With an orgasm? With the most bloody brilliant kiss I’ve ever received?”
    She forced the rush of pleasure away. It had been good, but so had Caelum until he’d decided to give her a lesson. “You taught me to be wary, and it was what I most needed to learn. I taught you that you’re no better than those you feed from, because that is what you most need to learn.” His amusement faded, his gaze hardened to iron, but she forged on, “I don’t deny you as punishment. I deny you because you taught me too well.”
    He stared at her, then lowered his head, his shoulders shaking. But there was little mirth in his voice as he said, “I am fortune’s buggered fool.”
    “That’s what Hugh told me, but he said you liked it.” Sir Pup nudged her knee, and she was grateful for an excuse to look away from Colin’s sudden grin.
    The baseball dropped at her feet. She threw it with all the