Darkest Temptation Read Online Free PDF Page B

many years ago. He resembled them, saw their faces in his own. The olive skin. Gypsy-dark looks with gold eyes. His mother. His grandparents. Aunts. Uncles. They were all there in his face. He could do without the reminder.
    Ivo had been his only true family… and even that relationship had not lasted. Not withstood the test of time. No relationship ever could. Not the endless stretch of time that faced him, anyway.
    He eased the door open, wincing at the blacknessthat greeted him. His eyes adjusted to the dark, instantly finding the still shape lying on the mattress. He could see his way through a subterranean cave. It was part of his gift—his curse .
    A soft whimper scraped the air and he tensed, hearing the pain, sensing it, feeling its echo deep inside himself. Remembering his own time .
    Initiation had begun. Long, torturous hours in which her body… died. And her new self was born. A new Lily.
    Next moonrise, she would answer its call and shift into a beast that fed on mankind. If he did not stop her. If the hunter failed to find her alpha. Luc grimaced. He wasn’t holding much hope for that idiot. The guy had thought Luc a lycan—the alpha of the pack devastating the area.
    His feet slid unerringly to a stop beside the mattress. She lay on her side, her manacled hands curled in front of her. Perspiration speckled her brow. Salty-sweat drops he could smell. Waves of heat emanated from her, like the warmth emitted from a fire.
    Crouching beside her, he touched her brow and winced at the fiery skin. She rolled to her back, crying out against the manacles impedingher movements. She struggled, possessed, desperate to be free.
    “Don’t,” he commanded, even as the manacles cut into her tender wrists. The skin already glowed raw, an angry red.
    The memory of his own Initiation rose up in his mind to torment him. His grandfather had locked him in the family crypt. In that dark prison, surrounded by the corpses of his ancestors, he had thrashed on the cold earth, only vermin for company as he’d suffered the bleeding-hot death of his humanity. He cast a quick glance around the dark cellar, not so different from his crypt.
    A low keening moan swelled from her lips. A death cry. This girl, Lily, was dying before his eyes. Something shivered through him, and his gut tightened.
    Standing, he turned, determined to walk away, determined to leave her alone to endure. There was nothing he could do to prevent it from happening. He’d endured Initiation without anyone being there for him. He’d suffered it alone. Why not her?
    He froze at the base of the stairs, hands flexing at his sides, stomach clenching at her pained whimpers. He jammed his eyes tight, as if hecould block them out. No use. He couldn’t ignore her. Couldn’t hide upstairs. Even in his room, he would still know she was down here. This strange girl who smelled of innocence dying.
    Cursing, he dug the key from his pocket and whirled around. Squatting, he unlocked the manacles and freed her. He rose, holding her close to his chest, adjusting her feverish body in his arms, his jaw set in a savage clench. Her cheek pressed against his chest so trustingly, defenseless, the heat of her burning through the fabric of his shirt.
    With hard strides, he carried her from the basement, taking the servants’ stairs to the second floor, passing countless empty rooms until he reached the master bedroom. He hesitated before entering, knowing he could drop her in one of the guest rooms and leave her there, in a comfortable bed, satisfied he had done the best he could to alleviate her pain.
    But then he remembered what regeneration had felt like. Like dying and being reborn at the same time. He simply couldn’t abandon her to the agony. Couldn’t let her suffer through it alone, as he had.
    She moaned, and the sound cut through him,reaching something buried deep… something forgotten, dark and untouched. Striding into his room, he yanked back the comforter and lowered