An Unwanted Hunger by Ciana Stone Read Free Book Online Page B

for agreement. He would be obeyed. Pushing aside thoughts of enemies, plots and strategies, he hurried toward his bedchamber.
    * * * * *
    Resa’s sleep was troubled. She could feel Bram reaching out mentally for her, trying to find her. The part of her that had been a child at his feet, hanging on his every word and idolizing him, wanted to reach out to him. But the woman who’d been betrayed fought the child within, erecting a barrier of darkness, shielding herself from his questing mind.
    She tossed and turned, coming out of sleep feeling angry and out of sorts. In the kind of mood that could only be dispelled by one of two things. Battle or sex.
    As if in answer to her thought the door opened. Constantine stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind him. Something in the way he moved, the tension in his body and hard glint in his eyes, made the hair on the back of her neck stand up and her nipples tighten.
    He stalked over to the bed, stripping off his silk jacket and tossing it carelessly to the floor. “You should be sleeping.”
    “I’m not sleepy,” she replied as casually as possible considering the tension pouring off him in waves and the hot need that burned inside her.
    His brow furrowed and suddenly it dawned on her. He’d used his ability to make her sleep. “Oh I get it. I shouldn’t have been able to overcome your sleep suggestion? Sorry, I guess the Vamp—oops, D’Harahn powers aren’t one hundred percent effective on me.”
    His jaw tightened at the taunt but he smiled coldly. “We have unfinished business, Dhampir.”
    Annoyance flared at the scorn he placed in the word. “Careful, Vampyre. As your own people said, we’re more alike than not.”
    “You enjoy inciting anger, don’t you, huntress?” He reached out and grabbed her by the hair, hauling her to her knees on the bed.
    She paid no mind to the sheets sliding down her body, revealing her nudity. Her rage broke through the surface, fueling her with energy. “Hands off!” She grabbed his wrist, digging her fingertips into the vulnerable pressure points hard enough to break his grip, and rolling away to come to a standing position on the opposite side of the bed as he made another grab for her.
    “As I told you, there’s a price for knowledge,” he said in a voice that was a heady mixture of seduction and danger.
    “And as I recall, I saved your hide, so I’d say I’m paid in full,” she taunted. “So why don’t we get back to where you left off in your story before we were interrupted.”
    He started around the bed toward her, his steps smooth and sure, like a great cat on the prowl, stalking its prey. “I think not. First you submit then you learn the truths you seek.”
    Resa despised the burst of hunger his words precipitated inside her. Hated the way she longed to give in to him, submit to whatever he wanted from her. She did not submit. To anyone. No matter how much she might want it. It just wasn’t in her nature.
    “Sorry, baby,” she crooned in a seductive tone, watching him move around the corner of the bed. “Submission isn’t my style.”
    “You lie,” he said with a knowing smile. “You long for it, Resa. Even now your body burns for it. See how your nipples pucker with anticipation and your sex weeps?”
    She snorted and dove across the bed as he suddenly lunged at her. “Like I said, submission isn’t my style.”
    Constantine growled. Actually growled as she backed away from the bed. He leapt across it as easily as a child playing hopscotch, landing lightly on his feet in front of her. “Then perhaps it is time you were taught a new style.”
    She laughed in his face, thrilling to the danger that shimmered around him. “You think you’re man enough? Then bring it on.”
    One quick hiss was all the warning she received before he attacked, the back of his hand impacting the side of her face hard enough to send her reeling sideways.
    She recovered faster than he anticipated, based on the