Jenner's eyes dropped as he lowered his head in a slight bow. "My apologies... master. But it is my job to remind you to think clearly, always. I would be a poor second if I didn't look out for you and your family."

Roman rolled his eyes as he turned away from Jenner. "You never do anything but the job, Jenner. I know exactly what you are thinking, and why. And while I appreciate the intent, it's not necessary. I know what I'm doing."

Julianna Capiet hadn't been lying. h.e.l.l, as innocent as she was, he suspected any lie she tried to tell would have her blushing like a virgin. An amused grin curved his mouth. A blushing virgin-h.e.l.l, were there any virgins left? He wouldn't deny the thought of an untouched woman held a great deal of appeal.

But he'd just be happy with one a little less... jaded. Somebody who didn't come to his bed expecting to get something in return. Who didn't f.u.c.k him just because of who he was.

Shoving those thoughts out of his mind, he focused on what was to come. No, she hadn't lied. He'd know. This wasn't some attempt to win her father's approval-h.e.l.l, all she needed to obtain that was to become the broodmare Eduard wanted her to be.

Besides, it was daylight. No full vampire could come into the sun, and the servants and slaves would be fodder before a werewolf. Not that it would stop Eduard. He would risk as many as he thought were needed to get him what he wanted.

But it would stop Julianna, even if she had considered it for a moment. The goodness he sensed within her would make anything that cost lives anathema.

And he suspected that when she realized what he was planning, she wouldn't be happy.

But she deserved to be away from her father, deserved some small chance at freedom. And once Roman had made his point, he would see that she had that.

Steven was whole, if not healthy. His eyes were sunken in his face, his skin sallow, body unwashed. He stank to high heaven, and they hadn't been feeding him enough to maintain the high metabolism all werewolves had.

His eyes looked at Roman blankly for the longest moment and then he stumbled forward, rasping out, "About d.a.m.n time."

Roman caught him and kept him upright as his legs started to buckle, fury ripping through him. "Taking good care of you, were they?" he snarled, his control falling to shreds as he felt the anguish in Steven's mind, anguish he was trying to hide.

"Well, you did warn me," Steven said, forcing a smile. His lips were dry and cracked, and blood welled as the skin split further.

A soft voice said, "Vampires are not known for their hospitality. Especially not Capiet. They consider him still alive and able to talk quite enough."

"He's been being starved." Roman's voice had deepened warningly, and he stared at the sky, trying to force his rabid anger under control. Jenner took Steven in his arms, sending Roman a warning glance.

He was failing, badly, to keep his anger in control. Sucking badly needed air into his lungs, he summoned every last bit of his willpower and throttled the rage into submission.

Turning his eyes to Julianna, he said, "Thank you for bringing Steven to me. I hope someday I can repay this."

She shook her head. "You don't need to. If Eduard wasn't who he was, this wouldn't have happened."

He arched a brow at her, closing the distance between them to cup her chin and lift her face to his. "Yes. And I hope you can keep in mind that if Eduard wasn't who he was, then neither would this have happened." The confusion darkened her eyes as she stared into his eyes, never down.

It wasn't until he took her hands that she glanced down. She was quick; he had to give her that. And if she was fully vampire, then he never would have been able to secure her wrists with the handcuffs. Spinning her around, he tied a gag around her face, slipping it between her lips as she opened her mouth to scream.

Lowering his head, he whispered, "I'm sorry. But know this. I'll take far better care of you than they took of my brother."

She turned slowly in his arms, and the fiery blue gaze she directed at him had him flinching inwardly. "I'm sorry," he repeated.

Sorry. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d was sorry?

Julianna struggled futilely against the steel cuffs, debating on whether she should try to jump from the moving car. It would hurt, yes. But it wouldn't kill her. She could die, sure enough, but it would take something solid to kill her. A broken neck, a bullet in the heart, having her head bashed in... or in time, old age.

Even a broken neck was pushing it-her bones were dense, much harder to break than the normal human's. She could survive this, if she jumped. From the corner of her eye, she studied the road speeding by and debated.

"I wouldn't."

Slowly, she raised her eyes and met the bland brown gaze of the man Roman had called Jenner. Those were the first words she had heard out of him. Arching a brow, she flatly asked, "Wouldn't what?"

He chuckled. "Your thoughts are written all over your face, Miss Capiet. Jumping out that window won't do you any good. Roman will come after you."

"If I make it out that door, I'm not going to be that easy to catch," she replied.

"You've never tried to outrun a werewolf." Jenner shrugged. "You may run fast, may hide very well. But you can't run fast enough from somebody who can hear your every heartbeat, who can smell the scent of your flesh on the tree you brushed against two days ago."

Julianna narrowed her eves at him and said pithily, "So I'd be trying to outrun a bloodhound? Wonderful."

Not that knowing it would be futile stopped her. She bided her time. She wanted to be far outside her father's territory, which meant she couldn't try anything while she was within Louisiana.

But once they stopped around three in the afternoon, she figured she wasn't going to have a better chance. If she waited too long, they'd be in Montgomery lands. No thanks.

While she had visited the Smokys before and knew the area was lovely, she had no desire to try to run from a werewolf in his territory. She sipped at her tea while she watched Steven devour a rare steak. His third that day-he looked a lot better, actually. Barely even like the same person she'd rescued. All from three rather large meals.

Amazing.

Touching her tongue to her lip, she lifted her eyes and pasted a somewhat pained expression on her face. If nothing else, as her father's daughter, she had refined her acting skills to an art. Clearing her throat, she waited until the men were looking at her and said in a low voice, "I need to use the restroom... sir." She let some of her anger slide into that "sir," imbuing as much sarcasm into it as she could.

Her anger alone would increase her heart rate and explain why she was so tense, so agitated. And besides, she did have to pee. Arching a brow, she met Roman's stare as he studied her face. When he didn't respond, she sniffed and added, "Or are you going to insist I refer to you as Master?"

Unless she was mistaken, Roman flushed just a bit. "How about just Roman?" he said, lifting a golden brow at her, his pale green eyes looking a bit sheepish, she thought.

Smiling sweetly, she said, "How about jacka.s.s, if we're going to be informal?"

Jenner's eyes narrowed on her face-a sliver of fear settled in her belly. She really hoped, if they decided to chase her, Jenner wasn't the one who came after her. She'd rather not risk him catching her. There was something very deadly about him.

Roman laughed softly while Steven chuckled, wiping his mouth with a napkin and settling back in his chair to study her with intense eyes. "She hit the nail on the head with that one, bro. You're better looking than a jacka.s.s, but you're just as stubborn." Steven's mild brown eyes caught hers, and he shrugged. "I tried to tell them both this was stupid. You didn't do a d.a.m.n thing to me, but they don't listen."

"Sure we do. And if this was about her, that might matter," Roman said, keeping his voice low, too low for any human to hear. "But it's not about her."

"Well, her has to go to the restroom," she said shortly, standing up abruptly and stalking out from behind the table.

As she had expected, Roman fell into step behind her, several feet back. d.a.m.n, this would have been easier at the lunchtime or dinner crowd, she thought, searching for a throng of people. No such luck. As she finished up in the bathroom, however, a frisson of hope darted through her. Voices. Lots of them. She could hear them, low, high, young, old... lots of voices.

Julianna strode out the door, brushing her damp hands on the hips of her jeans, as she stared into the crowd, ignoring Roman. She worked through several gaps between bodies that were too big for him, and as he started to go around, she ducked, reversed her steps, and hit the exit that opened into the mail. And there were some of the crowds she was hoping for.

Speeding down the corridor, she dodged speed walkers and parents with kids in strollers, her eyes scanning the interior. She caught the scent of fresh air and veered left, running into a major department store, gracefully maneuvering her way through the shoppers, her eyes on the door.

No footsteps yet... as she hit the door, though, she heard them-light, purposeful, fast. Roman had entered the mall. She could feel the pulse of anger roll from him as she ducked behind a tour bus, hoping some of the smelly exhaust would help mask her scent. Weaving between the buses, she thanked G.o.d for coach tours like this one. The sudden rush of people into the mall must have come from here.

She grinned with glee as she saw the line of trees-not a forest or anything, just a small stand, someplace where she could unleash the power in her body completely and run like the wind. Julianna hit them just as she sensed Roman coming outside. He wouldn't have seen her; she had ducked behind a bus that had parked at this very edge. Of course, he wouldn't have much trouble tracking her, but if she got enough distance between him and her...

The wind slapped stray tendrils of hair into her face and stung her eyes. Leaping over a narrow ditch, she broke through the tree line and found another parking lot in front of her. Another shopping center. She ran for the entrance, shifting her path as much as she could to keep large vehicles between her and the trees.

No sounds of his approach yet. It couldn't be this easy.

Roman fought the urge to groan as she slipped away-a lot faster than he had expected her to be. Now he was going to have to hunt her down-that wasn't good. Hunting her would do the exact opposite of what he wanted. He was trying to push her out of his mind, trying to lash a growing hunger under control. He went hunting her, and all he would want to do when he found her was take.

Take and tear those clothes from her lovely body, take her to the ground and f.u.c.k, until she wrapped her legs around his hips and screamed as he pushed her into climax. And then he'd be ready to do it over again, pushing her onto her hands and knees so that round little a.s.s faced him and he took her from behind. What did she taste like? As sweet as she smelled? Did she like it rough? Slow?

Clenching his jaw, he focused and called out to Jenner. She took off.

Jenner's amus.e.m.e.nt was heavy in his mental voice as he replied, Told you she would. You want me to get her?

No. Stay with Steve. He's still too weak. Don't you leave him unprotected, jenner. I mean that.

Jenner solemnly said, I take my job seriously, sir. Steven will be fine. Go get the girl. Shouldn't be hard. She's still human.

Still human-well, she had never been completely human, and that was what they had forgotten. Roman expected it to be much easier than it was. That was where both he and Jenner were wrong.

It took more than an hour of running before he finally ran her down, through most of the mid-size city, through several shopping centers, and into the dense mountainous forests that made up most of Tennessee. No human could run like that: unceasingly and at the speeds she had used when she was outside. No human could run like she did in ma.s.ses of people and manage to totally avoid so much as touching anybody. Running in crowded places generally involved collisions, stumbling into people, things.

Not her, though. On the few glimpses he caught of her, she moved, graceful as a gazelle, weaving in and out of people and cars and trees.

But she was tiring. Though he couldn't see her dashing through the forest just now, he could hear her breathing, harsh and rasping. Anger and frustration flooded her; he could sense it in the erratic heartbeat, hear it in the occasional soft curse that drifted through the trees.

He caught up with her just as he caught the scent of civilization-the smell of exhaust fumes and fast food. She had nearly hit the I-40 with her furious run. He might have been p.i.s.sed, if he hadn't been so astounded. Once he broke through the final barrier separating them, she slowed to a halt and stopped, just standing there, staring up at the sky, sweat darkening the black tank she wore. "Can't you just go away?" she said tiredly.

Roman smiled, raising one shoulder in a shrug. "Of course, I could. I just won't." He had to wonder, though, if anybody else had offered to help Steven, would he have taken such drastic measures?

Crossing the distance between them, he studied her profile and decided, No, probably not. He had wanted her from the second he had seen her, and he'd be d.a.m.ned if he would just let her walk away.

He closed his hand around the thick skein of her braid as he moved around her, staring down into her face. His mouth curved upward slightly as her eyes met his, and he found himself staring into pools of blue ice. "Don't you know better than to run from a wolf?" he whispered.

Succinctly, she said, "Bite me."

Chapter Four.

Roman chuckled, feeling the hunger rip through him with vicious intensity as he stared down at her. "Don't mind if I do," he murmured, lowering his head and nipping at the full curve of her lower lip.

Her hands slammed against his chest, trying to push him back. If he hadn't had a tight hold on her braid, she might have slipped away. She was fast and strong. A shadow moved through those pretty eyes, and he smiled himself as he heard the rapid change in her heartbeat. Once she had accepted the inevitable and stopped running, it had started to slow immediately, but now it was pounding, hard and steady. Covering her mouth with his, he licked at her lips, nuzzling, while he cupped her hip in his free hand and brought her against him. She gasped as his c.o.c.k pressed against her belly, and he swallowed the soft little breath, pushing his tongue into her mouth and groaning as her taste exploded inside him like dynamite.

Holy h.e.l.l, she was hot-sweet like molten honey on his tongue-the taste of woman and something indefinable he knew came from her mixed ancestry. Life and death flowed inside her-he had known that, but he hadn't expected the touch of her, the taste of her, to be so addictive.

She moaned into his mouth, her fingers curling into the soft cotton of his shirt. He guided one hand up and then the other until she had her arms curled around his neck. Roman crushed her against him then, growling roughly as her b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed against his chest, letting him feel the tight little buds of her nipples. He caught her braid again, pulling his mouth free of hers and tugging her head back, sc.r.a.ping his teeth down her neck. She shuddered against him, whimpering low in her throat. Dipping his head, he sank his teeth into the taut flesh of her neck. She cried out, her nails biting through his shirt to sink into his skin.

"Roman," she gasped as he spun them around, pressing her back against a tree.

"You taste so good." His voice was low, a hoa.r.s.e growl that was barely distinguishable. "So d.a.m.ned hot and sweet." He pushed his knee between her thighs, sliding his hands down to cup her hips, pulling her astride his leg. Through the layers of their clothing, he felt the blistering heat of her p.u.s.s.y, the dampness of her panties and jeans soaking through to his.

He straightened, gripping the straps of her tank and jerking them down, totally focused on tasting more of her. All of her. The straps of her tank stopped at her elbows, the lace of her bra covering her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. With a rough snap, he unlatched her bra's front clasp, fire leaping through him as her b.r.e.a.s.t.s swung free, tipped by diamond-hard little nipples. With a hungry growl, he boosted her higher, bracing her against the tree as he caught one plump, deep pink nipple in his mouth, sucking hard, pressing it against the roof of his mouth as he tasted her.

Her breathy little moan sounded like hosanna to his ears. Switching his mouth to the other breast, he tugged on the damp nipple, tweaking it, milking it with certain, steady strokes of his fingers. Slowly, he lowered her to the ground, pulling her closer to him so the rough bark wouldn't sc.r.a.pe her skin. When her feet touched the ground, he dropped to his knees, pressing his mouth against the quivering muscles of her tummy. "I could eat you up," he said thickly, running a hand up the inside of one thigh, cupping her and then grinding his hand against her, pressing his fingers into the seam of her jeans until her flesh parted under the material.

Staring up at her, he whispered, "I've wanted to do nothing but this since I saw you."

The same slow flush colored her face again, starting at the smooth mounds of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and rising until it had covered her face. The pink tip of her tongue appeared as she licked her lips, her head falling back to rest against the tree. Roman gave in to the gentle urging from her fingers and leaned back against her, pressing hot little kisses where her skin disappeared inside the waistband of her jeans. He flicked open the b.u.t.ton that held her jeans closed, slowly lowering the zipper. As the material spread, he saw the black sheer cloth of her panties, and he grinned as he revealed more of the s.e.xy little swatch of cloth. Completely sheer, hiding nothing.

Lifting first one foot, then the other, he had her shoes off and slid her jeans down her hips. "d.a.m.n, you're s.e.xy," he muttered, staring at the sleek curve of hip, the trim little patch of silken hair visible under the see-through cloth of her panties. The crotch was wet-he could see the moisture gathering there, darkening the sheer material where it pressed against her p.u.s.s.y.

"Roman!"

She sobbed out his name as he leaned forward and kissed her mound through her panties, snaking his tongue out to stroke against her c.l.i.t. His c.o.c.k throbbed, aching within the tight confines of his jeans. Roman cupped her in his hand as he caught her c.l.i.t in his mouth, sucking on it until she was rocking against him. His finger pushed inside her, the thin cloth of her panties no barrier as he breeched the first inch of her tight, wet sheath.

When she clamped around him, coming in a rush that soaked her panties, Roman's control shattered. Rising, he jerked her against him, slanting his mouth across hers and feasting on her mouth, pushing his tongue into the honey-sweet cavern.

Her hands went to his waist, jerking at the b.u.t.ton fly with clumsy, eager fingers. Tearing his mouth from hers, Roman let his head fall back, sucking air into his lungs, trying to calm the ravenous animal that had risen inside him.

"Roman!"

His c.o.c.k jerked as she dipped her hand inside his shorts, her cool, slim fingers closing around the thick, steely length. He growled low in his throat, arching in her caress.

"Roman!"

His head whipped around, following the sound of the voice. Close, too d.a.m.ned close. d.a.m.n it all to h.e.l.l, he thought savagely as the sound of feet moving lightly over the forest floor penetrated the fog of l.u.s.t crowding his brain. Closing his hand around her wrist, he lowered his head, brushing his lips against hers and whispering, "We have company coming."

Julianna stared up at him, her eyes blank and uncomprehending as she stared at his mouth, wanting it back on her. He tasted so good... but then finally, his words penetrated. More, she heard the sounds of two people approaching from the west, and fast.

Her hands closed convulsively on his shoulders, fingers digging into the solid pad of muscle before she licked her lips, feeling the cool air stroke her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, raising gooseb.u.mps on her flesh. She searched the ground, looking for her clothes with eyes that saw very little.

His hands caught hers, and he bent down, pressing his lips to her brow in an oddly gentle manner. Then he stooped and picked up her shirt, tucking her inside it just as Jenner and Steven broke through the trees. Julianna's face flushed as she realized she was going to have to face those two men nearly naked. But Roman brought her body against his, shielding her. She rested her head on his chest, trying to calm her labored breathing and the fire that raged in her belly.

Over her head, she heard him growl, "Go away. Now."

A shiver raced down her spine at the sheer authority, the total possession she heard in his voice.

There was laughter in Steven's voice as he said, "Well, I guess we didn't need to come help, did we? Hey, Julianna, you okay over there?"

"Steve, you're going to be lucky if I don't bust your teeth out for that," Roman growled as he pulled her even tighter against him.

"Everything okay here, sir?" Jenner asked, his voice as flat and emotionless as always.

"It won't be, if you two don't turn around and walk away. Right now," he bellowed.

Julianna heard Steve snicker and the sound of footsteps moving away. Seconds later, she felt Roman's hand move through her hair and then he was tugging on her thick locks again, forcing her to lift her gaze. "We're going to finish this," he said, with a finality, a decisiveness in his voice that made her shudder.

She hadn't ever wanted anybody like this. Never had this hot, raging fire torn through her, making her want nothing more than to lose herself in him, in that hunger she saw blazing from his eyes.

But she hadn't ever tolerated people making her decisions for her. And the tone of his voice made it sound as though there would be no discussion, that he had made the decision for both of them. She'd had enough of that from her father.