Eternal Rider - Larissa Ione [52]
“Are you completely delusional?” She wriggled, but she might as well have been trying to move a boulder. “You want me to be grateful? Okay, how’s this? I’d be grateful if you’d find someone else to transfer this… this… agiwhatever to. I’d have been grateful if you had protected the fallen angel who had it so he didn’t need to give it to me. And I’d be really grateful if you released me.” She struggled more, and this time, his big arms bucked under her struggles, and after a brief flash of surprise in his expression, his grip grew firmer.
“Listen to me carefully, Cara.” His voice had gone quiet. Chillingly quiet. “Don’t ever use violence against me. Violence… excites me. You do not want to be part of that.”
His dark gaze narrowed, his jaw tightened, and for a moment, she thought she’d gone too far. After all, she didn’t know anything about the Horsemen beyond what she’d seen in the movies, read in books, or heard in Bible school so many years ago, and none of it was very flattering. Her heart pounded as her anxiety level rose, and then a subtle shift in his expression made her heart pound for a different reason.
He’d softened. Even his grip had loosened, and yet, he somehow had gotten closer. The brand between her breasts drummed, and as she studied the pulsing vein in his temple, it occurred to her that the rhythm was the same as her own.
She became achingly aware of a dozen different sensations, including erotic energy radiating off him, and though the room was already warm, his weight, his heat… sent a fluid surge of lust to her very center.
And his mouth… she remembered putting her lips on him. Yes… when they’d been in the room with the ram-demon thing. They’d been talking, she’d had some water, and then… then she’d felt funny. A sudden clarity made her pulse roar in her ears.
“You said you put a sedative in the water!”
“I did.”
“Then why did it make me…” Heat blasted her cheeks.
“Horny?” he finished. “Orc-weed is an aphrodisiac for some species. For others, like humans, it’s a sedative. For you, apparently, it’s both.”
“Oh, isn’t that wonderful,” she snapped. “And you keep this date-rape drug handy… why?” Probably not the smartest thing to say to a man who was three times her size, and whose name was War, but she was tired of being a victim. Of being helpless. Helpless…“Oh, my God, you didn’t—”
“No, I didn’t,” he said, and was it wrong to notice again how good he smelled? Like leather and horse, warm sand and rich spice. “I wouldn’t have had to. You molested me on your own.”
“Because you drugged me!”
He shrugged, a slow roll of one massive shoulder. “Would have happened eventually. Females always yield to me.”
Yield? What. A. Jerk. “Female what? Demons?”
His thumb stroked her cheek, and she hated herself for liking it. “I prefer human females, but—” He gnashed his teeth so hard she heard the crack.
“But, what?” she pressed. “They’re too smart to put up with your crap?”
“I make them combative.”
“Well, gee, with your personality, I can’t imagine why that would be.”
Something sad flickered in his expression, but then it was gone, replaced by that ruthless cruelty again. “It’s my curse. When I’m around humans, they want to fight.”
She squirmed in his grip. “You think?”
His smile was both sensual and wicked. “This is normal fighting. You seem to be immune to my effect.”
“Really? Because you seriously piss me off.” He did other things to her, too, things he shouldn’t, but it seemed that when it came to him, her body and brain were divorced.
“Yeah. Really.” Amusement glittered in his eyes. “If you weren’t immune, you’d be insanely pissed for no reason, and you wouldn’t have any moments of rational thought.”
She wasn’t feeling very rational right now, that was for sure. “Am I the only human who isn’t affected? Is it because of the agimoney thing?” The mark grew hotter, and an intense energy spread over her skin and seeped into her veins, where it seemed to circulate through her entire body.