Amelia Elias - [Guardian's League 02] - Outcast Read online

  “Renee.” He pulled a hand away and tilted her chin up, clearly thinking she was hysterical. “Where are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” she told him, but abruptly she wasn’t. A shudder worked its way down her body as she remembered watching those daggers driving toward her, remembered the certainty of her impending death, and she slumped against the door with her arms wrapped around herself. She had almost died at the hands of another vampire—again! The realization squeezed her heart painfully and tears filled her eyes. She hadn’t done anything to anyone, and every vampire she’d ever met with the exception of Sian wanted her dead. Even Eli had threatened to slay her on her very first night as a vampire. “Why do you all want to kill me?”

  Eli sighed and drew her into his arms. “I don’t want to kill you, little one.”

  She shoved at his chest, suddenly furious. “Don’t give me another one of those vague answers. That’s not what I asked you and you know it. Diego and Ronin both tried to kill me on sight and I want to know why!”

  Eli released her and put his hands in his pockets. “Ronin must have felt you feeding. In truth, I think every vampire in a three block radius probably felt it. You need to ease up on the power a little, Renee.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to hide her trembling. She had never been more terrified in her life, and it had been completely unexpected. The pure hatred on Ronin’s face haunted her. “Stop trying to change the subject. You said Ronin felt me feeding. How does that translate into trying to kill me? And why did he call me Outcast?”

  Eli sighed but she didn’t let him off the hook. She wouldn’t be put off this time. “We’ll be more comfortable elsewhere,” he said. In the next moment, they were airborne.

  Renee yelped and grabbed him as the ground fell away beneath her feet. Eli wrapped his arms around her, grateful for the excuse to pull her near. When he’d seen Ronin drag her out the back door he’d felt something he’d never before experienced.

  Fear.

  He knew there was no way Renee would admit to needing comfort, but he needed to hold her. After she’d pushed him away, this was the only way he thought she’d let him do it. He didn’t want to look at the urge too closely, but he couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d tried.

  It was his fault she’d been in danger in the first place. When Renee had drawn her prey out onto the dance floor, Eli couldn’t force himself to watch. He’d slammed the doors to his mind, not wanting to touch her thoughts and find desire for another man there—and that was the ultimate insanity, because he was still trying to convince himself he didn’t want her to desire him, either.

  And while he’d been standing in the shadows wrestling with his thoughts, Ronin had crept up behind her and had almost dragged her out of the club before Eli had chanced to look up again. He’d barely gotten to her in time. Eli tightened his arms around her as they flew across the city, cloaking their passage in darkness, hardly aware of where he was going in his relief that she was all right.

  Finally he landed on the outskirts of town where the city ran into the wild woods. Renee pulled away from him as soon as their feet touched the ground and he let her go.

  “Nice flight, but I can tell you’re still trying to get out of answering me,” she accused him, trying to pace beneath the trees but swearing under her breath when her heels sank in the mossy ground.

  Eli took her arm to steady her as she pulled the heels off. “Truly, I’m not,” he said, adding another lie to his growing list. “But you complained earlier about how bad the winos smelled. I thought the aroma in the alley would probably be bothering you too.”

  She shot him a glare. “Give it a rest, Eli. I’m not stupid.”

  He led her to a fallen log but she only crossed her arms over her chest and waited for him to speak. He put his hands back in his pockets, fighting the urge to smooth her little frown away with his fingertip. The urge to touch her beat at him. What was this insanity? He hated that kind of contact, any kind of contact. He spent a great deal of time avoiding it. Why this sudden yearning for her touch?

  Eli brought his mind back to the present with an effort. Unfortunately, the best way to get his mind off touching her was to finally answer her questions. “You asked what the term Outcast means.”

  “And why Ronin called me one.”

  He nodded. “There are basically three groups of vampires, if you want to break it down into the most basic of terms,” he told her, choosing his words with care. “There are the Outcasts and the Guardians’ League, and there are also those who choose not to get involved in the war between us.”

  “Us,” she echoed. “I take it you’re one of these Guardians?”

  He nodded. “I was once the Head of the League’s Governing Council, and though I’ve stepped down from that position, I remain a Slayer.”

  Renee stepped back a little. She didn’t want to think of Eli as a Slayer. The term conjured up images of cold-blooded killings and sent shivers down her spine.

  “Why did you step down?” she asked, not sure if she really wanted to know.

  Eli shrugged. “I did something that some thought unethical. Diego demanded that I step down and I didn’t see any point in fighting. When I left, I gave the position to him.” He grinned at her, a trace of his wicked humor returning. “You could call it revenge.”

  “Diego’s in the League?”

  “Yes. Diego’s mate and Ronin are, as well. We patrol San Francisco for Outcasts. Other Slayers guard other places.”

  Why did it seem these Slayers were targeting her? She hardly dared to look at Eli. “Are you going to try to kill me now, too?”

  Eli shook his head at once. “No, of course not. You’ve done nothing wrong, Renee. You’ve broken none of our laws.”

  Which implied that if she did break one of these laws, whatever they were, he might very well kill her. His own threat to slay her if she killed echoed in her mind. She rubbed her arms and shivered from a chill which had nothing to do with the cold. “The Outcasts,” she said, striving to keep her voice level. “Why are you at war with them? What are they? A rival League or something?”

  “Nothing as simple as that,” Eli replied, his voice dark. He rubbed the back of his neck as if he was considering how to explain it to her. “They are the lawless ones, completely without conscience. They have no Clan, no code of honor. They prey on humans without mercy, not even bothering to try to hide what they are from them. They like the fear and the kick of adrenaline in the blood. The League is dedicated to protecting the world from the Outcasts.” He shrugged at her look of horror. “When we find one, we kill it.”

  She shivered at the calm way he spoke of killing another vampire. “Why would Ronin think I’m an Outcast?”

  Eli rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension setting in there. He had to be careful now. He had told her he was her sire. She didn’t need to know he’d lied. “He felt you feeding. He must have assumed—“

  “But I did hide what I was doing!”

  “I know,” Eli reassured her quickly. Heaven knew it had been hard enough to get her to feed at all, and now that she’d finally succeeded, he certainly didn’t want her thinking she’d done it wrong. “You did everything perfectly, Renee. You didn’t hurt anyone. Ronin was simply mistaken.”

  She didn’t look convinced. “He said he smelled it on me.” Her voice was soft, musing, almost as if she were talking to herself. She looked back up at him. “He seemed awfully sure of it, Eli. If I did something to provoke him, I need you to tell me what it was. I don’t want to have other vampires reacting this way to me for the rest of my life. What did I do?”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he repeated, wishing he knew how to convince her. Wishing he could tell her she wouldn’t face this reaction for the rest of her life and knowing she would. “You’re not an Outcast. Never that.”

  She shrugged. “Diego thought the same thing,” she murmured, turning her back on him and staring into the dark forest. El
i felt her fear and didn’t know how to comfort her.

  Finally she turned around and looked up at him. “You need to teach me to fight. Ronin’s right. You won’t always be there to save me. I need to know how to defend myself.”

  He nodded slowly even as the thought of her fighting for her life made something inside him rise up and howl in protest. “All right,” he agreed, reaching out and drawing her back to his side. She pressed her face against his shoulder as he stroked her hair. Touching her felt right, natural, and he knew he should avoid it. He didn’t have the will to push her away. “All right, little one. I will teach you.”

  “Tonight?”

  Eli considered for a moment before shaking his head. “I want you to feed a little more first. You haven’t been at full strength once since your conversion. Take what you need tonight and we’ll start your training tomorrow.”

  She sighed, clearly remembering Ronin’s reaction when he’d felt her controlling the human’s mind as she fed. “If I don’t get murdered in the meantime,” she sighed to herself as Eli launched them back toward the city.

  Chapter Six

  Renee ground her teeth in frustration and fought the urge to throw the mother of all tantrums.

  It wasn’t fair. She had never been clumsy in the past. She’d always been athletic, had considered herself coordinated, a fast learner. Still, no matter how hard she tried, no matter what she did, every single time Renee sparred with Eli, she lost.

  Badly.

  But he was standing there watching and she refused to act even more childishly in front of him. It was bad enough to know he’d caught her fuming. “Again,” she snapped, falling back into the fighting stance he’d taught her and ignoring the aching of her muscles from the unaccustomed exertion. It took a lot to make her vampire body sore, but Eli’s workouts were brutal and every part of her hurt. She pushed the discomfort aside. She would keep trying until she succeeded, damn it. She wasn’t a quitter.

  They had been practicing every night for three weeks. Surely soon she would land a blow. Just one. That was all she asked.

  Eli kept his face perfectly neutral as she waited for him to move, her feet planted wide for stability, knees slightly bent, arms held ready before her. He felt her frustration and didn’t try to comfort her. He couldn’t comfort her because then she would know what he’d done. Why she failed.

  He was being a bastard and he knew it, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

  Without warning he lunged, grabbing her wrist and using his superior strength to resist her countering twist and pull, which would have broken anyone’s grip but his.

  She switched tactics, moving with him when he pulled her toward him. The move should’ve thrown him off-balance and left him open to the blow she aimed at his face. He simply threw his body in the same direction as hers, avoiding the palm-heel with ease. A quick jerk on her arm brought her hard against his chest again with her arm trapped behind her back.

  She tried to lunge away, to bend at the waist to release the pressure on her shoulder as she spun, but again he didn’t let her. Her other arm quickly joined the first behind her back. He held her effortlessly, not hard enough to hurt her but firmly enough to let her know she was trapped again.

  “Damn it!” Renee shouted, butting his chest with her forehead, hard. Eli winced. With her new vampire strength, it was a blow that could easily have broken ribs. Well, he supposed he deserved it.

  He held her an instant too long, then frowned. He’d been doing that a lot lately. He really needed to stop. “You will get better,” he murmured as he forced himself to release her and step away, his bare chest tingling from the contact with her skin. “You just need more practice.”

  It was the same thing he’d told her every night after he’d sabotaged her confidence a little more.

  Yes, he was being a bastard, Eli thought as he watched her turn to the punching bag hanging in the corner and pound it furiously. She was good. He wouldn’t let her know it. She had a natural flair for this, a grace and ease of movement which showed in every punch, every block, every trick he’d taught her to free herself from an attacker’s grasp.

  Yet he made sure she failed at every turn.

  Eli knew he was impossible to defeat. She didn’t. He’d been a warrior far too long, longer than she could possibly imagine, and his strength was insurmountable. She would never break his grip unless he allowed it and would never land even a fingertip on him unless he let her. He stole into her thoughts and read her intentions before she even moved. There was no way she would ever surprise him. He had every advantage and he used them. When they sparred, he didn’t hold back and engage her like an Outcast would. If he had, she might start to think it was time for her to leave, to start a life without him.

  And that was something he couldn’t allow. Not yet.

  Renee kicked the bag viciously, pouring all her anger into it, and it exploded into a thousand fragments of reinforced canvas and sand. She stood staring at it, breathing hard, fists clenched, and Eli fought down the guilt rising in his chest. Bastard, that small voice in the back of his head whispered again, and he sighed.

  She turned at his sigh and bit her lip when she looked at him. His disappointed sigh made her heart constrict. Renee took a deep breath, trying to calm her temper. She hated being so inept at this. He was trying hard to teach her and she couldn’t even do the simplest throw right. He must be every bit as frustrated as she was.

  And now she’d destroyed his punching bag. “Sorry.”

  He waved a hand. “Don’t be,” he replied with the sexy little smile she both loved and hated. “Besides, I can fix it.”

  “I’ll just keep breaking it, so you don’t get bored,” Renee said, trying for humor.

  “Little one, I don’t think I could possibly get bored with you around.”

  She bit her lip at his solemn tone. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  Eli laughed and crossed his arms over his chest in a mouth-watering ripple of muscle. “When I figure out the answer to that, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  She had to turn away. His laugh was the final straw. It wasn’t fair. The more they sparred, the better Eli looked. Renee hadn’t perfected forcing a reflection yet, but she was pretty certain she knew what she looked like. Red-faced, hair escaping the braid meant to keep it out of her eyes, sweaty and generally nasty.

  But not Eli. The first day she’d met him in this work-out room she’d almost had a heart attack at the sight of him standing there in gray sweatpants riding low on his lean hips and a tank top which exposed a chest and arms too chiseled and perfect to possibly be real. How was she supposed to learn anything when confronted with over six and a half feet of mouth-watering masculine perfection? Every time he’d touched her it had sent her thoughts scattering. She’d barely been able to concentrate at all.

  Now he wore the same gray sweats, but tonight he’d dispensed with the tank top. It wasn’t fair, she thought again as she watched the punching bag reassemble itself before her eyes. Could he possibly be oblivious to the effect all that bare skin had on her? His body was golden, every inch of his smooth skin stretched taut over hard muscles which rippled with every movement. It was too hard to struggle free from his holds as it was, and now every time she looked at him she wanted to be pinned.

  When the bag swung back onto its hook and hung intact from the ceiling once more, Renee turned and faced him again.

  “All right.” She sighed, running a hand over her hair and trying without much hope to tuck the stray strands behind her ears. “Let’s go again.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to call it a night?”

  She shook her head firmly, even though she wasn’t relishing the thought of being defeated with such ease again. She sensed there were still several more hours until dawn.

  She straightened her shoulders determinedly. “I have to learn. And you said I needed more practice. So let’s practice.”

  He shook his head as she crossed
the room to stand before him. “No, I think that’s enough for tonight. I don’t—”

  Suddenly furious, Renee struck without warning. Her foot caught his ankle and pulled his leg out from under him as she jammed her hand in the center of his chest, shoving with all her strength. He toppled backward and she felt a brief surge of triumph before his other foot struck the back of her knee, sending her crashing down right on top of him. Still trying to maintain the upper hand, Renee caught his wrists and pinned them to the mat above his head. She grinned at him.

  “Finally got ya!” she crowed.

  Eli smiled as he looked up at her. “Do you?”

  It was all the warning she had. Eli flipped her onto her back, turning the tables completely. Where a heartbeat before she’d mistakenly thought she’d pinned him, now Eli loomed over her. His body pressed against hers from chest to knee as his fingers wrapped around her wrists and held them to the padded floor on either side of her head.

  “I win. Again.”

  But Renee had forgotten all about sparring. The feel of his body against hers was enough to drive every sane and rational thought from her head. Her breasts tightened and heat spread through her, quickening her pulse and stealing her breath. His hair was loose and the platinum strands tickled her throat and shoulders. She tried to raise a hand to thread through it before remembering he still held them to the floor.

  The reminder that she was helpless beneath him sent a shivery thrill through her entire body. She didn’t even try to get free. There was nowhere on Earth she would rather have been.

  The smile slowly melted from his lips and his eyes darkened. His muscles tensed against her and she fought not to moan. “Stop it,” he whispered.

  “Stop what?” Renee asked, unable to look away from those midnight eyes. God, she could drown in those eyes, get lost and never find her way free. Kiss me, she thought, but wasn’t brave enough to say the words aloud.

  His head lowered as if he’d heard her thought and she wished she dared to lean up and close the distance between their lips herself. He took a ragged breath and when he spoke again, the low rumble of his voice sent shivers through her. His heart pounded against her breast in a rapid pace which kept time with her own. “You can’t look at me like that.”