Born of Night (The League #1)(33)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Nykyrian couldn’t breathe as he heard words he’d never thought to hear. And when combined with her embrace . . .

It shattered his defenses.

Leave. Now. Before it’s too late.

But he didn’t want to. He wanted to be held. Just once. To make love to a woman who didn’t stare at him like he was a foreign species. To have a woman see him as he was.

Acceptance.

Was that too much to ask?

Nykyrian turned around slowly as he ignored every single piece of common sense he had. He cupped her face in his hand as he tried to discern the truth in her eyes.

Will you betray me, too?

How could she not?

He was so battered from his life. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to take another blow.

Dare he take the chance?

Kiara struggled to breathe as she realized her words had somehow made it through his defensive core. He was standing his ground.

Reaching up, she touched his shades.

He didn’t move away.

Her hand trembling, she pulled them off so that she could stare into those beautiful, green, human eyes that laid bare his own fears and uncertainties. The soul she saw there wasn’t frightening or cruel. It was the soul of a man who’d been thrown away one time too many.

She cupped his face in her hand and offered him the smile he deserved.

Nykyrian drew her into his arms, crushing her against him as he kissed her breathless. She could feel the pounding beat of his heart against her chest while his warmth surrounded her. And she never wanted to leave this spot of paradise. Here, in the arms of the most dangerous being in the universe, she was safe.

She nipped at his lips and smiled up at him. “Let me love you, Nykyrian. Let me prove to you that I’m not one of the monsters in this world.”

Nykyrian couldn’t breathe as she whispered those precious words to him. No one had ever offered him such kindness before. Scared and unsure, he saw the sincerity in her amber eyes.

Please don’t be lying to me . . .

Before he could stop himself, he tightened his arms around her, picked her up from the floor, and headed for the stairs.

Kiara gasped in terror at what he was doing. “Your wound. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Believe me, princess, right now the only pain I feel is the one in my groin.”

As soon as they were in his room, he tossed her on the huge black bed. Kiara barely had time to blink before he stretched out on top of her, pinning her to the mattress. As he stared into her eyes, she realized just how heavy he was.

She wrinkled her nose as she struggled to breathe. “No offense, sweetie, but you weigh a ton . . . And you’re crushing me.”

He hissed as he pulled away from her. “It’s the coat. Sorry. I forget how heavy it is.” He shrugged it off and it landed on the floor with a most disconcerting thud.

Her eyes widened at the sound. How did he wear that thing without being hunchback from the weight? “Should I even ask?”

He stepped back, his face instantly apprehensive as if she’d struck a sour chord.

Kiara tsked at him as she rose up on her knees and reached for his belt. Pulling him closer to her, she removed it and tried not to think about the weapons fastened to it. “I know what you do, Nykyrian. I saw it today and I’m not afraid now.” She let the belt and holsters fall to the floor.

That made him step back. “I don’t like being unarmed.”

She scoffed at him. “You think I can hurt you?”

He swallowed as he placed one hand on her shoulder so that he could play with her earlobe. He stared at her as if he were searching her soul to find the truth of her character. “If we go through with this, Kiara, you will live in a place inside me where only you can do me harm. And if you plan to savage me the same way Mara did Syn, then I hope you’re woman enough to kill me instead of leaving me like him.”

She took his hand into hers and placed a kiss on his gloved knuckles. “I won’t do that to you. I swear.”

Nykyrian flinched as she started tugging at his glove. He balled his hand into a fist. “Don’t. I’ll take them off later.”

But she didn’t listen. Instead, she uncurled his fingers one by one. “I want to see.”

He ground his teeth as he forced himself to endure this. It’d been almost twenty years since he last touched a woman. Twenty long, hard years.

Please don’t reject me.

He held his breath, waiting for her to cringe as she uncovered his scarred hands and laid them bare. His hands were hideous and no woman wanted him to touch her once she saw them. Not that he blamed them for that. He couldn’t stand to look at his hands either. It was why he always wore gloves.

But for her curiosity, he endured this humiliation.

Kiara forced herself not to react as she saw what had been done to him. Each fingernail had been torn out, leaving behind a twisted nail bed that looked as if someone had fused or cauterized it to keep the nail from growing back. The two middle fingers were twisted from all the injuries that had been done to them and his entire hand was scarred from wounds she could only guess at.

Meeting his gaze, she brought his hand to her lips and kissed each scar.

Nykyrian shook as she did what no one ever had. And when she kissed his palm . . . He was lost to her now. He would never again have any power over her.

She owned a part of him that he hadn’t even known he possessed any longer.

His bloody heart.

She reached for his other hand and repeated the same slow, methodical torture. How was she able to do it? To touch and kiss something so sickening?

Hands that had taken so many lives . . .

Surely if she could ignore that, there was hope that she could . . .

Don’t even go there.

But he couldn’t help himself. She awakened things within him that he’d buried so long ago he’d forgotten about them. Needs that he wanted to deny.

She was beauty personified and he was all that was ugly in the universe.

When she got to the sheaths on his arms, she hesitated. “Are these spring-loaded?”

Nodding, he pulled them off so that they wouldn’t accidentally hurt her. Next he removed the ones on his biceps.

She laughed. “It’s like disarming the entire League West Fleet.”

One corner of his mouth twitched. Until she started unbuttoning his shirt.

Kiara licked her lips as she uncovered more and more of his deep, tawny flesh. Scars sliced through every part of him.

How had he withstood it all? His strength amazed her, especially when she pulled the shirt off and saw the whole of his League tattoo. Bright ink covered his arm from wrist to shoulder. Black, burgundy, dark green, white, and yellow. The colors of the skull, daggers, and bone blended together in a work of art. Grisly and harsh, it was designed to inspire fear.

And that it did to anyone who saw it. The mark of a Command Assassin of the First Order.

The deadliest of them all.

Her heart breaking, she leaned forward to kiss the dagger’s hilt.

Nykyrian sucked his breath in sharply at the tenderness of her touch. Wanting to please her, he reached for her dress.

Her cheeks turned bright pink as if she were suddenly embarrassed and shy.

“Do you want me to darken the room?” he asked.

“Please.”

He reached for the control on the table next to his bed.

Kiara bit her lip as the lights went low and the ceiling above her head faded to transparency. A thousand stars twinkled brightly, their light bathing the room in a soft, white glow. “It looks like a dream,” she whispered, awed by the beauty. “No wonder you like it here.”

He sat down on the side of the bed and pulled his boots off. “They’re not half as beautiful as you are.”

His voice was so low, Kiara wondered if he’d said it, or if she’d imagined it. She leaned against his bare back. His sharp intake of breath brought a smile to her face. She ran her hands down his arms, delighting in the sensation of his muscles bunching and relaxing under her hands as she laid her cheek against the bones of his spine.

He smelled of leather and man. A heady concoction that made her want to breathe him in forever.

Suddenly, all four lorinas hit the bed at once. The biggest one butted at Kiara, trying to separate her from Nykyrian.

Nykyrian mumbled a curse. “Pixley, down!”

Kiara stroked the smallest one behind the ears as it nuzzled her. “What are their names?”

Nykyrian was trying to regain control of them. “The one you’re petting is Ilyse, Pixley is the biggest, Ulf is the one with the white patch and the other is Centara.” He wrestled them out of the room, then locked the door. “And stay out, you little beasts.”

Kiara laughed. “How long have you had them?”

“Eight years.” He started undoing his pants.

Shyness overcame her—she’d never seen a nak*d man in the flesh before. Her mouth dried at the expanse of tanned skin she wanted to run her hands and tongue across. He left his pants on and undone as he loosened his hair and shook it free to fall around his wide shoulders.

The bed dipped under his weight again as he returned to her side. He stretched out beside her, his head propped on his hand as he studied her with an intensity she found unsettling.

Kiara mimicked the gesture.

After several seconds, he reached his hand out and touched her hair, spreading it out along the black fur covers.

She reached out to finger the harsh scars on his face where the mask had been. She desperately wanted to ask him why they’d done that to him as a child, but didn’t want to bring up a topic she knew would only hurt him.

In spite of all the scars crossing his flesh, she thought Nykyrian had the best body she’d ever seen. She touched the deepest scar that ran along his collarbone, just above the tattoo. It looked as if something had dug a huge claw into his neck. Sadness welled up in her throat, choking her as she thought of all the pain he’d suffered in his life.

Nykyrian pulled his hand away from her hair. “You’ve changed your mind.”

The despondency in his voice wrenched her stomach. “No,” she whispered.

He frowned, smoothing a curl from her cheek, stroking her cheekbone with his thumb. “You look so sad.”

She held his hand to her cheek, reveling in the feel of his calloused palm against her skin. She moved his hand to her lips and kissed his scarred knuckles. “I wish I could take away your pain. I wish I could go back to when you were born and take you somewhere safe. Far away from all the people who’ve hurt you.”

His eyes were liquid emeralds. “You’re doing that now.” He leaned forward and kissed her lips.

Kiara welcomed the feel of him pressing her down on the mattress. He was still heavy, but this time the weight was not only tolerable, it was wonderful.

His lips traveled over her body, blazing a trail of fire everywhere they touched.

He lifted the hem of her dress and placed a kiss on her bared stomach. Kiara clutched his head to her in dizzy ecstasy that overrode her shyness as he scraped her skin with his fangs and whiskers. He removed her dress and let it fall to the floor. She watched him explore her body, each nerve alive and attuned to him. She laughed and jerked as his lips and whiskers tickled her flesh.

He locked gazes with her before leaving her and removing his pants.

She trailed her gaze down his magnificent body, warmth singing her cheeks. He was extremely large and frightening. Yet she knew he would never hurt her.

Not intentionally.

Curious about his body which was so different from her own, Kiara leaned over him and ran her hand down the scars of his chest to the small trail of hair below his navel. Smiling, she nipped at the skin of his hard stomach, taking care not to hurt the injury that was still heartbreakingly obvious.

She was the cause of that. For her, he’d been wounded . . .

He closed his eyes and drew a ragged breath. When her hand moved lower to touch his swollen shaft, he gasped.

“You’re mine now,” she said devilishly, nibbling his hipbone. “I’ll never let go of you.”

Nykyrian couldn’t think rationally as she hesitantly stroked and tongued him. It’d been so long since anyone other than him had touched his cock. He’d forgotten how good it felt. In The League, they were forbidden to take lovers—not that they always listened. But to be caught was to be punished severely.

He’d only been with two women before her and only one time each. Neither experience had gone well for him.

But they had never made him feel like Kiara did. Nor had they explored him so fully. A quick groping and a bungled coupling, then it was over and he was humiliated.

He’d been nothing to them except a passing curiosity. To Kiara, he was a man, and the care in her touch branded him. The difference was astounding.

Most of all, it was incredible.

Needing more of her, he reached around to open her bra.

Kiara’s breath caught as he moved his hands over her exposed br**sts. Sharp heat pulsed in her veins until she wanted to shout with the bittersweet ache.

His mouth replaced his hands on her br**sts and his warm breath drove her to an even dizzier height. She leaned her head back, surrendering herself to him completely. His strong, warm hands circled her waist and roamed up her spine.