Kiss Me Deadly Read Online Free Page B

Unable to lash out, to fight, to challenge him.
    This was the witch who had once injured him so badly he had touched death. His heart had stopped. He’d had to feed on a friend to survive.
    Heat flushed Nikolaus’s neck and shoulders, and filled him from skull to fingertips to heels. A storm of vengeance raged for release, but—
    This felt different. Unusual.
    For where the rage should have felt substantial and insistent and uncontrollable, it merely settled, and became an emotional reaction Nikolaus had not touched for what seemed like ages.
    Heartbeats quieted. Fisted fingers snapped open. Anxiety fled, softening the thick tension holding his neck stiff.
    He bent over the body sprawled across the bed, his palms sinking deep into the plush down quilt.
    This witch, this gorgeous woman, deserved—
    He swept his head lower, over her face, but stopped short of touching her mouth with his. Blood coated her neck. It smelled different. Not like mortal blood. There lingered an odd herbal aroma to it. Before, the scent of rosemary had come to him, but it had changed. This scent was organic. Cherry? Or musk and then…cloves? Nikolaus couldn’t place it.
    Curiosity held him over the bed, the tips of his dark hair sweeping across her bloodied neck and chest. Swiping a forefinger through the blood, he observed the crimson glisten near a lamp that glowed at the head of the bed.
    So deadly this small drop of life should be. It had once eaten through him, literally, to his heart. It had rendered dead six of the tribe Kila in less than five minutes.
    Death cocktail, this. Dangerous. To be avoided at all costs. It brings so much pain!
    Yet now…he wanted more.
    He did?
    “Not right,” he muttered, then licked his finger clean.
    The taste of her shimmered through him, warming his belly, and revisiting the earlier sexual desire. With the blood hunger always came the need for carnal satisfaction.
    “Not right,” he murmured again, “but not…wrong.”
    He glanced over the havoc marring the witch’s neck. He’d not taken much from her; she should be coming to soon.
    A tangle of wavy black hair scattered across the snow-clean quilt. A heart-shaped face finished at the sharp chin, and above that, a generous red mouth, partially open, hushed out soft breaths. A viscous brown liquid trailed down her forehead and across her cheeks and jaw.
    Dark brows arched a wicked slash above each closed eye. A sprinkle of pale freckles danced upon each cheek. Yet, there, at the corner of her mouth, a scar curled down toward her jaw.
    A tiny scar. Unlike mine , Nikolaus thought, with a stroke along his neck where the convoluted flesh ever reminded him of his survival.
    Even unconscious the witch looked imposing, ready to strike. Must be the black jeans jealously hugging her narrow hips, and the T-shirt stained with blood. No bra beneath, for the pebbled texture of her erect nipples formed clearly in the thin cotton shirt.
    Nikolaus licked his lips. The sight of her breasts, full and high, stirred a need that the taste of her blood had pushed to the surface. He hovered a palm over the points of her nipples. But not to touch.
    She is poison!
    No, he possessed immunity to her blood; in proof, he’d survived the extraction that now saw her unconscious.
    Tracing his lower lip with his tongue, Nikolaus scanned the room, lit by the white shadow beaming from a small halogen lamp. It had been just after midnight when he’d arrived. Less than an hour had passed. Safe yet, for the sun wouldn’t peek over the horizon until five-thirty. He’d walked here, but he may need to call his driver for a fast dash into a dark vehicle and a secure ride home.
    The room was large and stark. But the bed and a few pieces of clothing were scattered across the whitewashed hardwood floor. A huge plant with leaves the size of elephant’s ears sat near what must be the bathroom door.
    One entire wall was fashioned of bookshelves—also whitewashed—stuffed from ceiling to