NocC 007 - Stephanie Draven - Mythica 6 - The Fever and the Fury - Harlequin 2012-01 by Nocturne Page A

the conflagration on the bed extinguished itself and a burst of air dusted her with Luke’s charred human remains. A bit of stagecraft on his part.
    Of course, she’d seen him do this before—rise from the ashes as a new man, his dark curly hair cut in sharp military style, his name and blood type displayed upon frayed patches on his desert fatigues. A backpack full of cash in his right hand.
    This was how he looked the moment he was war-forged. The instant he stopped being an ordinary mortal man and became a monster. But as many times as she watched him die, she couldn’t enjoy it. Watching him now, she took no satisfaction in his shudder of revulsion at the feel of a new body that wasn’t his own. Nor did it encourage her to see the half hostile, half haunted look in his eyes as he tried to remember himself. Shaking his head as if to fasten upon his old memories, he caught her look of dismay and gave a dark smile-that-was-not-a-smile.
    “What’s the matter?” Luke asked. “Didn’t expect me to be so hot in bed?”
    Given that she was clutching the burned and blackened remains of her clothing against her body, Phaedra didn’t appreciate the sexual innuendo. It didn’t surprise her though. Every time the lieutenant was reborn, he battled overwhelming hunger. He’d be ravenous now, for food, drink…sex.
    Still, he grabbed one of his white dress shirts from a drawer and tossed it to her. “Here. You can wear this.”
    The gallant gesture was starkly out of place considering their situation. Phaedra eyed her nemesis as she fastened the buttons, disconcerted by his scent on the shirt and how it mingled with the perfume of her newly healed skin. “Does this mean you’re ready to be redeemed, Luke Lazaros?”
    “Just means I was brought up right,” Luke said through his teeth. “And that an officer falls back on his training in a crisis. Or maybe I’ve just always fantasized about a leggy woman wearing nothing but my shirt. Until I get rid of you, I might as well improve the scenery.”
    “How many times must we go through this?” Phaedra asked, ignoring the predatory glare in his eyes. She rose to her feet. She was tall, but he was taller. She was hard-bodied and imposing; even before they felt the torture of her touch, most men had the sense to cower. But not this man. “There is no getting rid of me, Lieutenant. Once a fury is unleashed upon a criminal, she’s unbreakably bound to him until he atones or is driven to insanity.”
    “I’m not a criminal, ” Luke snapped. “And I will find a way to be rid of you.”
    I hope you do find a way, Phaedra thought. Because she was every bit as stuck with him as he was with her.
     
    Hunger hollowed out Luke’s stomach. He was thirsty too, having gulped down only a few swallows of water before the fury tried to drive the drinking glass into his face. Now he was also shaking with need: a desire for food and a more primal need to bury himself deeply inside a woman, to work his aching hands over mounds of soft skin and to tease quivering flesh beneath his lips. To find, in someone else’s body, some sweet relief from the strange torments of being reborn…
    But there would be no relief for him until he could get rid of the fury; the needs of his new body would have to wait. At least, that’s what he told himself, again and again, as he packed his bag, making ready to go. He abandoned the burned villa, leaving enough cash for the landlord to make repairs, then headed for the coast, where he knew there was a witch that the locals swore would help anyone get rid of a hex.
    And if the fury wasn’t a hex, what was she?
    The old-fashioned door of the shop in Budva announced his presence with a bell. At the counter, a bored-looking beauty with bleached hair looked up at him from under thick mascara and smiled.
    “I—I’m…I’m looking for a witch,” he said, taking in the leather-bound volumes scattered amidst ancient trinkets. Cobwebs draped the corners of the