N. Walters - Damek's Redemption

She wanted to pull away and at the same time she wanted to lean into his caress. The man was confusing the life out of her. She was always levelheaded and decisive, knowing what she wanted and not afraid to do whatever it took to get it. Around Damek, she felt out of step, as though she wasn’t quite herself, and she didn’t like it. “It’s nothing.”

“It is not nothing if it hurts you.” Damek rubbed his fingers over her forehead and Sonia could feel the heat growing there like a warm balm. It didn’t hurt, but felt good. Healing. When Damek withdrew his hand a moment later her headache was gone.

He was a healer of some sort. Perhaps he was a mage.

“What are you?” She asked the question she’d wanted to ask since she’d first met him. And she wasn’t going to go away until she got an answer.

Damek’s first instinct was to laugh off Sonia’s question. His second was to take control of her mind and manipulate her memories. He did neither. He couldn’t. Not if he wanted to live with himself. Sonia was different. Special. He would be truthful with her or he would walk away from her.

“What do you mean?” Better to see what she already knew. He’d already suspected there was more to her seeking him out than she’d revealed. He’d speculated that one of his competitors had sent her to see how much she could find out about his operation. The world of nightclub owners was cutthroat. But he’d quickly discarded that notion. She seemed interested in him in a more personal way. Maybe she was exactly what she said she was—a curious academic.

But that question spoke to more than idle curiosity. It spoke of knowledge, and that was not something he could overlook. Whoever she really was, she was dangerous to him and everything he’d built in this city.

She was also the most intriguing woman he’d met in hundreds of years. It was worth the risk to spend time with her. Besides, if she became a problem, he would take care of it. It would be easy enough to erase her memories of him, though he was reluctant to do such a thing.

Sonia ran her finger over the rim of her wineglass and Damek’s entire body clenched with desire. She affected him like no other woman had in centuries. His fingers curled into fists and he forced himself to release them slowly. Control. He had to maintain control, especially around so many others.

She shrugged and leaned forward slightly, and he wished she were wearing a low-cut top rather than a turtleneck sweater. Still, the color of the garment intensified the color of her eyes, luring him deeper into her sensual snare. “You healed my headache just now.”

It was his turn to shrug. “Nothing special there. All you needed to do was relax and let go of the tension you were carrying.”

She frowned at him and he could sense her disappointment. “So you’re denying you did anything out of the ordinary.”

“What is ordinary?” The light from a nearby sconce made her black curls shimmer and Damek wanted to fist his hands in the silky stuff, binding her physically to him while he made love to her.

He wanted far more than just sex from Sonia. He wanted her trust and, he realized, her love. There was something about her, something he couldn’t put his finger on, nor did he have a rational explanation for it, but he wanted her.

He tensed and felt as though he’d just taken a stake through his heart. Not that he was in love with her. Of course he wasn’t. He’d lost that capability hundreds of years ago. But he was coming to care for her. Deeply.

“Not you, that’s for sure,” she muttered. She tapped her toe against the floor and hunched her shoulders slightly.

Damek took a gamble and threw out a question, hoping for an honest response. He wanted her to tell him the truth freely, without him having to pry into her mind to get it. “Why do you have a vampire hunter trailing you?”

Her jaw fell open. “What? What do you mean?” She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes darting over the crowd. “Where?”

“Not here. You are safe here. But when you came to my club the first time.”

Her gaze narrowed. “How do you know?” Her voice got louder and slightly shriller with each word. “What is going on?”

Damek inwardly winced, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. He could easily have removed the threat to Sonia without her ever knowing about it, but he freely admitted he was driven by a need to discover as much about her as he could. Plus, he had no way of knowing who else knew about Sonia besides John Barnes and the man who’d sent him to watch her.

“I followed you when you left my nightclub last night.” No need to lie. After all, if he wished, he could simply remove her memories before the night was over. He winced at how easily he thought about manipulating someone’s mind. He really had turned into a monster, always weighing his actions in terms of what would suit him best, never considering anyone else’s needs or wants.

“Why?” She was totally perplexed, her forehead wrinkled with vexation. He wanted to kiss her until she was smiling at him again and all the tension had vanished.

“Because I was worried about you walking alone on the city streets at night.”

Sonia snorted. “You sound worse than my mother.”

“Obviously a wise woman.”

That got a smile from her. “She is that. Both she and my father worry. But that’s another topic. How do you know I was followed by a vampire hunter?”

Damek countered her question with one of his own. Dark suspicions began to grow within him. “You didn’t even blink when I mentioned vampire hunters. Why is that?”

She chewed on her bottom lip and Damek barely swallowed back a groan of desire. He wanted to soothe the small insult with his tongue and taste the champagne she’d drunk on the way over. His cock swelled, pressing against the zipper of his pants. His body, which was always under his control, ignored him, focusing only on Sonia’s every breath, every move.

“I’ve traveled all around the world seeking information about myths and legends. I’ve seen things, heard things.”

She wasn’t telling him the truth, at least, not the entire truth. He could sense her unease, the way she weighed each word before she spoke. She was holding back from him and it made his chest ache even as it angered him. “What kinds of things?”

She picked up her glass, took a sip of wine and pointed an accusing finger at him. “Tell me about last night. What did you see when you were following me?”

“A man started after you from an alleyway. I detained him and…spoke with him.” Better to say that than to admit he’d brutally dug into the other man’s brain, picking and prodding until he’d found what he’d needed. She would fear him if she had any grasp of his true power.

“And he admitted he was a vampire hunter?” Sonia snorted and set her glass back down on the table. “I don’t think so. I know of the Vampire Hunter Society and those guys are rabid. You have to torture them in order to get them to admit anything. You must be mistaken.”

There was no mistaking her relief, and he wished he didn’t have to be the one to bring the worry back to her face, but there was no choice. “He was a vampire hunter. Of that there is no doubt.”

“You didn’t torture him, did you?”

Damek smiled in spite of himself. It was a small one, but a smile nonetheless. “What a suspicious mind you have.”

“I don’t think so.” She wagged a finger at him and he was enthralled in spite of the seriousness of the situation. No one ever questioned him. Everyone jumped to do his bidding whenever he asked. The power surrounding him was such that none wanted to anger him. That is, everyone except Sonia. She blithely plowed forward with her inquisition, giving no thought to her precarious position with him, especially since she’d already admitted she thought he was something more than he seemed.