J. Ward - Dark Lover

She was the docile one. The lovely one. All female perfection and gentleness. Anger went totally against her nature.

Except the more she thought of Wrath, the more she wanted to punch something.

Assuming she could make a fist.

She glanced down at her hand. Yup, she could. Though it was pathetically small.

Especially compared to his.

God, she'd endured so much. And he had no appreciation of how difficult her life had been.

Being the untouched spinster shellan of the most powerful vampire of them all was hell on earth. Her failures as a female had burned out any sense of self-worth she'd had. The isolation had preyed on her sanity. The embarrassment at living with her brother because she had no home of her own had stung.

And she'd been horrified to be stared at by others and talked about behind her back. She was very aware that she was a constant topic of conversation, envied, pitied, spied upon, the stuff of fable. She knew young females were told of her story, although whether it was as warning or inducement, she didn't want to know.

Wrath was totally unaware of how she'd suffered.

Part of that fault she had to lay at her own feet. Playing the good little female had felt like the right thing to do, the only way to be worthy, the only chance at finally sharing a life with him.

Except how had it turned out?

With him finding a dark-haired human he cared about more.

God, the payoff for all her efforts went beyond not fair and right into cruel.

And she wasn't the only one who'd suffered. Havers had been worried sick about her for centuries.

Wrath, on the other hand, had always been just fine. And he was no doubt doing just fine right now. In all likelihood he was. at this very moment, lying naked with that female. Putting that hard length at his hips to good use.

Marissa closed her eyes.

She thought about being pulled against his body, held in those crushing arms, consumed by him. She'd been too shocked to feel much heat. There'd been so much of him, all over her, his hands tangling in her hair, his mouth sucking hard at her throat. And that thick rod of his had scared her a little.

Which was ironic.

She'd dreamed about what it would be like for so long. To be taken by him. To leave her virginal state behind and know what it was to have a male inside.

Whenever she'd imagined them together, her body had always warmed, her skin had tingled. But the reality had been overwhelming. She'd been totally unprepared, and she wished it had lasted longer and been a little less intense. She had a feeling she would have liked it if he'd gone more slowly.

But then, he hadn't been thinking of her.

Marissa recurled her hand, making that fist again.

She didn't want him back. What she wanted was for him to have a taste of the pain she'd been through.

Wrath put his arms around Beth and drew her close, looking at Rhage over the top of her head. Watching her ease the male's suffering had broken down all sorts of barriers.

Care for his brothers, care for him, he thought. It was the oldest code in the warrior class.

"Come to my bed," he whispered in her ear.

She let him take her hand and lead her to his room. Once inside, he shut and locked the door and extinguished all the candles but one. Then he pulled the sash of the robe she wore free and stripped the satin from her shoulders. Her naked skin gleamed in the light of the single wick that burned.

He took his leather pants off. And then they were lying together.

He didn't want sex from her. Not now. He just wanted to share some comfort. He wanted her warm skin against his, her breath brushing lightly over his chest, her heart beating mere inches from his own. And he wanted to give her the same kind of peace back.

He stroked her long, silky hair and breathed deeply.

"Wrath?" Her voice was lovely in the dim quiet, and he liked the vibration of her throat against his pecs.

"Yeah." He kissed the top of her head.

"Who did you lose?" She shifted, putting her chin on his chest.

"Lose?"

"Who did the lessers take from you?"

The question seemed out of the blue. And then it didn't. She'd seen the aftereffects of a fight. Somehow knew that he fought not only for his race, but for himself.

It was a long time before he could answer. "My parents."

He felt her emotions shift from curiosity to sorrow. "I'm sorry."

There was a long silence.

"What happened?"

Now that was an interesting question, he thought. Because there were two versions. In vampire lore, that bloody night had taken on all sorts of heroic implications, being heralded as the birth of a great warrior. The fiction wasn't his doing. His people needed to believe in him, so they created that which sustained their misplaced faith.

He alone knew the truth.

"Wrath?"

His eyes went to the hazy beauty of her face. It was difficult to deny the gentle tone she used. She wanted to offer him compassion, and for some godforsaken reason, he wanted it from her.

"It was before my transition," he murmured. "A long time ago."

His hand paused on her hair, the memories coming back gruesome and vivid.

"We thought as the First Family we were safe from the lessers . Our homes were well defended, well hidden in the forests, and we moved all the time."

He found that if he continued to smooth her hair, he could keep talking.

"It was winter. A cold night in February. One of our servants betrayed our location. The lessers came in a pack of fifteen or twenty and slaughtered their way through our estate before breaching our stone battlements. I'll never forget the sound when they pounded on the door to our private quarters. My father shouted for his weapons while forcing me into a crawl space. He locked me inside just before they broke through the door with a battering ram. He was good with a sword, but there were so many of them."

Beth's hands came to his face. He dimly heard soft words falling from her lips.

Wrath closed his eyes, seeing the ghastly images that still had the power to rip him from sleep. "They massacred the servants before killing my parents. I saw it all through a knothole in the wood. As I said, my eyes were better back then."

"Wrath-"

"While it was happening, they made so much noise, no one heard me screaming." He shuddered. "And I fought to get free. I pushed against the latch, but it was solid and I was weak. I tore at the wood, scratched at it until my fingernails splintered and bled. I kicked with my feet…" His body responded to the remembered horror of being confined, his breath growing ragged, his skin breaking out in a cold sweat. "After they left, my father tried to drag himself over to me. They had stabbed him in the heart, and he was… He gave out two feet from the crawl space, reaching for me. I kept calling his name over and over again until I lost my voice. I begged for him to live even as I watched the light in his eyes dim and then go out. I was trapped there for hours with their bodies, watching the pools of blood get bigger. Some civilian vampires came the following night and let me out."

He felt a soothing stroke down his shoulder, and he brought Beth's hand to his mouth, kissing the skin of her palm.

"Before the lessers left, they pulled back all the tapestries from the windows. The moment the sun rose and came into the room, all the bodies burned up. I had nothing to bury."

He felt something hit his face. A tear. Beth's.

He reached out and stroked her cheek. "No crying."

Though he cherished her for her sympathy.

"Why not?"

"It changes nothing. I cried while I watched, and still they all died." He turned on his side and gathered her close. "If only I could have… I still have dreams about that night. I was such a coward. I should have been out there with my father, fighting."