21. Chapter Twenty-One

Cortana's legs pumped, carrying her further into the sparsely forested grove. Her smile widened, exhilaration racing through her blood. She was playing hide and seek with a scrumptious beast—and she'd never had so much fun.

The way Riaz had looked at the funeral had broken her heart. When he'd confessed the guilt he was carrying for Benny's death, she decided she was going to do everything in her power to distract him, even just for tonight. It had gotten her into a world of sensuous, exciting trouble and for once, she was going to throw caution to the wind.

Deciding to make things more difficult, she circled back on her track, then leapt across a stream onto the bark of a tree. Shooting up the trunk, Cortana went supernaturally still.

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

By the second hand on her watch, two minutes had passed. A smug chuckle threatened to give away her position, but she held back her amusement. Riaz would never find her. Vampires were far quicker than their wolfy counterparts, and with her split trail, there was no possible way that—

A blur of mahogany fur darted by below.

Cortana froze. The wolf had found her—but he'd bypassed her position in the tree and hadn't realized she had doubled back. She remained where she was, confident and content. Thirty seconds passed, and her excitement at winning their game went into overdrive.

A soft bark from below made her stomach drop.

At the base of the tree, his wolf scratched his nails against the bark. His tongue lolled out of his mouth in that goofy wolfy smile, and Cortana couldn't help herself any longer.

She laughed.

Mission completed, Riaz's beast cocked his head as if waiting for her to admit defeat. In her defense, she hadn't tapped out, and wolves couldn't climb trees. So technically, she was still unbeaten.

Huffing a sigh as if understanding her resistance, Riaz lowered himself to the ground, belly against the earth and stretched his massive, white-kissed paws out in front of him. Then, as if knowing how cute it was, he laid his snout between said paws, his beautiful orange eyes blinking up at her sadly.

Even Cortana had to confess: the wolf was adorable.

Not that she'd admit it out loud. "I can smell you from here. Eau de Wet Dog is not my favorite cologne."

A wolfy whine earned a giggle from the vampire. Shaking her head, she leapt from the branches that were supposed to have concealed her and met the earth below.

Now, face to face with Riaz's huge wolf, she smiled shyly. All her attention was focused on his silken coat. She tentatively extended her fingers toward him.

When he happily bumped his nose against her hand, she sunk her fingers into his fur. A noise of excitement involuntarily left her, delirious with the fluffiness that kissed her skin and left her wanting more.

Without asking, she moved closer, lowering herself to her knees and wrapping her arms around his scruff. Downy fur tickled against her cheek, and as she inhaled, the cedar scent that she associated with the man assaulted her senses.

The wolf was unquestioningly Riaz.

It didn't stop her from sighing in contentment, continuing her leisurely caress. He stood, still panting a wolfy-smile, as she took her fill and nuzzled her face against his soft ears.

Then he was backing away, out of her grip. A question in her eyes, the wolf lowered his head and forelegs, his tail wagging wildly in the air as he assumed a playful stance.

"What's wrong, Lassie? Did Timmy fall down the well?"

He leapt back to his feet and spun before pinning her with an inquisitive gaze. He clearly wanted to be chased, and she should stop torturing him pretending she didn't understand.

"Ok, Mister Wolf. Go hide and I'll start the count."

Sixty seconds was an excruciatingly long time to wait. He'd bounded off happily, all wags, with a taunting bark or two thrown in for effect. But then he was gone.

Fangs extended with the thrill of the chase, Cortana's inner huntress waited in fervent anticipation. Shifting back and forth on her feet, she opened her senses, using her keen hearing to track the wolf through the brush.

Three. Two. One.

Zero.

She shot off like a rocket, following his trail and the distant sound of four paws sprinting over dry earth. Closer and closer she drew, her heart kicking in her chest with a kind of thrill she always denied herself. In her eagerness, she'd forgotten why.

Icy blue eyes, dilated with hunger and lust for the chase, targeted her prey as he raced ahead of her. Riaz was a blur, a ruthless hunter built for agility, but he was no match for a vampire.

He heard her coming, pivoting on four legs before shifting seamlessly to two, and caught her against his chest as she collided with him.

They ended up tangled together on the ground, their lips connecting with a savagery Cortana had never experienced in her entire immortal life. Each kiss was a bruising connection, deliberate and wanting, a necessity to quell the powerful urges within. Her mind was driven by the chase, her higher reasoning gone as her baser nature took over.

Together they tumbled, their momentum catapulting them over the dry earth, their lips never separating. His arms caged her body, taking every hit of the rocks and flora that scratched over their forms. The scent of his alluring blood punched through the air when they came to a stop.

As though a switch had been flipped, the vampire became the apex predator. Her eyes caught his, pleading, and he understood. Nodding, he lifted his chin. Razor-sharp fangs extended to their full length, and in the next instant, they were buried in Riaz's neck.

Blood was life to a vampire. No matter if the game was pleasure, power or simple survival, blood won.

There were the unsatisfying cold bags of donor blood and the live veins that she'd taken before it'd been outlawed … and then there was liquid ambrosia. Riaz's blood stood alone, by far the most heady Cortana had ever sampled. Feeding in greedy, wild swallows, his blood gushed down her throat.

While many of the live veins she'd taken were lost in a sea of faceless feeds, some were stamped on the fabric of her mind. A memory took over, of fingers combing through her deep brunette hair, lightly at first, then tightened with building urgency. The fingers had tugged, getting more desperate as seconds ticked on, finally yanking backward on the tendrils of her hair, a formless groan the only sound that broke the ardor of her feed. That was the last sound Aeneas had ever made.

Lost to the past, Cortana's mind hit a wall the second Riaz's fingers reached her scalp. Her fangs were still lustfully attached to his carotid when her muscles locked.

She leapt from where she'd pinned him to the earth, withdrawing from his flesh without trusting herself to seal the wounds. Aghast, her hand slapped over her mouth, despair pooling in her gut.

Blinking up at her from where he lay beneath her, Riaz frowned. "Are you okay?"

"Am I okay?" Wincing, a sound of exasperation escaped her. "I just attacked you!"

"I don't know that ‘attack' is the right word." He sat up, forearms resting on his knees, and gave a casual shrug alongside an equally casual grin. "I thought it was quite pleasurable."

"Pleasurable?" Cortana's voice rose to a higher pitch. "I could've torn your throat out or drained you dry."

"Believe it or not, Pet, I think I can stand to lose a few drops of blood before I wither like a wilting flower."

Rising to his feet, he closed the distance between them, his massive body standing a foot taller. Riaz's russet brown eyes gazed down at her, but Cortana's attention was fixated on the throbbing pulse in his neck, the two puncture wounds which still wept blood following her hasty exit.

"I need to seal them."

"What now?"

A quick glance at his features revealed a genuine question, and she took pity on the poor wolf. "Where I … bit you. I need to seal the puncture wounds."

An all-male slant of his lips, masculinity personified. "As you wish, my friendly neighborhood vampire."

She threw him a cutting look before rising up on her tip toes, the pads of her fingers lightly settling on his broad shoulders to steady herself. Not risking a glance at his handsome features, she brushed her tongue over the twin puncture wounds.

The salty taste of his skin mingled with the sweet nectar of his blood, and it was everything Cortana could do to refrain from sinking her fangs back into him. Closing her eyes, she mentally recounted why she'd abstained from the chase all these years, remembering what it'd felt like when she took the lifeblood of the man she'd loved so many centuries ago.

"Cort?"

The note of anxiety in Riaz's voice had her eyes snapping open in the next instant, focusing on his face. Riaz was staring at the yellow-orange haze that flared over the mountains.

The wildfire, burning quickly and without inhibition, had drawn closer. From where they'd landed after their impromptu romp, Riaz and Cortana had a panoramic view of the surrounding area and the incoming devastation.

"Let's return to the den, Pet."

By the time they'd returned to the air-conditioned chill, Cortana's resolve was set. One, that she'd call a friend to see about preventing the wildfires from threatening the den; and two, that she'd never taste Riaz's blood again.

No matter how delectable she found it, it wasn't worth risking his life.