“Don’t wake him.” He glared at her warningly. “Don’t force me to hurt him—I sense you don’t desire that, though it’s no more than he deserves after servicing you so shamefully tonight.”
“How do you know about that?” Alli suddenly felt horribly guilty. Had she somehow been projecting her feelings of sexual frustration and unfulfillment out into the universe? Had she really drawn the shadow man to her?
“You did,” he answered simply. “You called and I came. Now you’re coming with me, Allisandra.”
“But…but I don’t want to.” Her voice was a tight, frightened whisper. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Nothing you don’t want me to do.” But somehow the promise wasn’t very reassuring. Especially when Alli looked in his mirrored eyes and saw herself tied up…tied down…put into all kinds of frighteningly erotic positions…
“Come, Allisandra. We’re going now.” The shadow man released her from the blue ray that had frozen her legs and Alli felt her feet touch the carpet of the bedroom floor again.
She started to run but the man caught her eyes and held them.
“You can come with me quietly and leave that sorry excuse for a male sleeping peacefully,” he growled. “Or you can wake him and make me hurt him. Which will it be, Allisandra? How much do you love him?”
Alli had no answer to that—not for him or herself. Honestly, she didn’t think she loved Douglas at all—but she didn’t want to be alone and he was mostly okay to be around. Still, just because she wasn’t passionately in love with him didn’t mean she wanted to see him hurt or killed.
“I…I’ll come with you,” she whispered at last. “But…are you going to kill me?”
“Kill you?” His black brows rose in surprise. “I won’t even keep you that long, Allisandra. Come with me now, and you’ll be back here in time for your Joining ceremony in a solar month’s time.”
“A…a month?” Alli’s voice trembled. “But…what are you going to do to me?”
“What you’ve always wanted done.” His gravelly voice was almost silky. “Now come on, baby—it’s time to go.”
Alli snatched one last look at Douglas, sprawled in the bed with no idea that she was being kidnapped and taken God knew where. Then she allowed the man with silver eyes to take her hand in his big, warm one and lead her out of her bedroom, out of the townhouse, and out of the life she’d always known.
She had no idea what was about to happen next but she had a feeling everything was going to change.
Six
Kane nodded with satisfaction as she strapped herself in to the passenger seat of his shuttle. Truly, he had made a good choice. He hadn’t taken a concubine in ages because he had been searching for just the right one. In Allisandra, he sensed he had the perfect blend of defiance, obedience, and deeply repressed, incredibly passionate desires. She would do as he said to a certain point and then balk when he reached her limits.
It would be up to Kane to find those limits and push them—to bring her to the breaking point and fulfill the needs and dreams she’d hidden, even from herself, for so long.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered as he reached over and checked the buckles, making certain she was secure before they took off.
“Why am I doing what?” Kane smiled at her, relishing her uncertainty. Already he could tell that the flavor of her feelings would be unsurpassed. His tongue ached to inject her sensitive areas with his lust-honey but he refrained—for now.
“This.” She made a gesture with one hand, indicating their situation. “Kidnapping me and taking…taking me away.” Her voice broke a little on the last words and Kane tasted fear in her.
He frowned. Some fear was good—the fearful anticipation before the paddle or whip fell was quite tasty because it was mixed with lust and need. But, unlike many of his kind, he didn’t like to feed on purely negative emotions.
“Allisandra,” he murmured. “Look at me.”
When she wouldn’t, he took her chin firmly between fingers and thumb, and tilted her head to face him.
“I won’t hurt you,” he told her softly, watching her eyes to see if his words were sinking in. “Even in your deepest desires, you don’t want to be hurt—really hurt—now do you?”
“I…I don’t know. I don’t think so. But you claim to know more about what I want than I do.” Her voice trembled but she kept her chin up, her eyes locked with his.
Her defiance was delicious.
“I do,” Kane told her. “I know what you have kept hidden for years and I will never go outside your desires. You’ll come and stay with me in my Palace of Shadows for a month—just one solar month—and then I’ll bring you home again. At the end of that time you might be changed, but you won’t be hurt. Do you understand?”