“I should talk to him, explain,” Desari said.
“I did not hear him asking for explanations, did you?” Julian prompted, his arms gathering her close to him. “It is best—and safest—not to interfere in the process of joining lifemates.”
“Wait a minute.” Barack leaned his long frame against the red car. “You lost me somewhere. I know Darius took her blood; I could smell his scent on her. Are you telling me that he would use her body, too? Isn’t that combination strictly forbidden with mortals? Darius himself taught us this.”
“Tempest appears to be different,” Julian said. “She cannot be classified as a normal mortal; therefore, the rule does not apply.”
Syndil’s doe-eyes, normally soft and loving, were glinting fire at Barack. “You sought to feed on her? That is beneath you. She was under our protection. You are so insensitive, Barack. Always the playboy. You cannot leave women alone, not even those traveling with us practically as family. Rusti had a terrible experience yesterday. Did you give that a thought when you went to satisfy your own urges?”
“Syndil.” Barack looked hurt. Syndil had a sweet, loving nature and was never angry, never upset with any of them.
“Do not ‘Syndil’ me, Barack. Are you so lazy that you had to feed from a woman protected by our family? I suspect you think so much of your charm that you thought she would be grateful to provide for you.”
“It was not like that. I was merely overly hungry, having waited too long to feed. I would not have harmed the woman. And I had no idea she belonged to Darius. Hell, I never would have touched her had I known. He was going to rip my throat out, Syndil. You should be sympathizing with me. Look at my chest. He ripped open my skin. Won’t you come heal it for me?” Barack gave her his most imploring, boyish pout.
“Perhaps next time you will think twice before you go chasing after women,” Syndil replied and whirled away.
“Hey, wait a minute.” Barack trailed after her, desperately trying to get back into her good graces.
“Have we all lost our minds around here?” Dayan demanded. “Soft, sweet Syndil is acting the shrew. Desari is acting like a lovesick calf. I do not know you well, Julian, but you seem to be enjoying Darius’s discomfort far more than is seemly, and bad-boy Barack is chasing after Syndil like a lost puppy. What the hell is happening?”
“Your leader has found his lifemate, Dayan,” Julian said happily, “and is clueless, totally clueless, about how to deal with her. Finding your lifemate leaves you feeling as if someone punched you in the gut and stole your sanity. Your Darius is used to having his way in all things, simply commanding whatever he deems correct. But now I suspect he is in for the shock he so richly deserves.”
“He will simply force his will upon Tempest,” Dayan said confidently, “then everything will return to normal.”
“Forcing your will on your lifemate is in the same category as cutting your own throat. Not a wise idea. Still, watching will make for much fun,” Julian said smugly.
Chapter Six
Once in the thick shelter of the trees, the panther’s muscled form contorted and reshaped, shimmering in the blue darkness to become the solid frame of a man. Tempest watched, leaning for support against a tree trunk, wondering if she had somehow found Alice’s rabbit hole in the middle of a California state forest.
Darius noted her unnatural pallor, the shock in her enormous eyes. Her soft mouth trembled, and she was twisting her fingers together in agitation, her knuckles white. He knew that if he approached her, she would run. “You know you are not afraid of me, Tempest.” His voice was a whisper in the night, a part of the night.
Tempest looked around her. The color of night was deep blue, almost black, but mystical and beautiful. The trees rose as shadows toward the gem-scattered sky. Little tails of mist drifted slowly, lazily, knee-high along the forest floor. “Why do you seem as if you are such a part of all this?” she asked. “As if you belong to the night, but something beautiful, not dark and ugly? Why is that, Darius?” she asked again softly.
“I do belong to the night. I am not of the same race as you. I am not human yet not beast or vampire.”
“But you can become a leopard?” The incredible feat was nearly impossible to believe, even though she had witnessed it with her own eyes.
“I can become the mouse scampering across the field, the eagle soaring high in the sky. I can be the mist, the fog, lightning and thunder, a part of the atmosphere itself. But I am always Darius—the one who has vowed to protect you.”
Tempest shook her head. “This isn’t possible, Darius. Are you sure I didn’t fall and hit my head or something? Maybe we both ate a weird mushroom, and we’re on some psychedelic trip together. This isn’t possible.”
“I can assure you, I have done this all my life. And I have existed nearly a thousand years.”
She held up a hand to stop him. “One weird thing at a time. I’m hearing this stuff, but my brain is refusing to process it.”
“Do you know I would not harm you, Tempest? Do you know that much?” he asked insistently, his black gaze drifting over her face like fog.
In her deepest soul, beyond the human workings of her brain, Tempest knew it was the only certainty she had. Darius would not hurt her. She nodded slowly and saw relief light his eyes for a moment. Then he sobered again.
“I did not mean to expose you to the others’ appetites. In truth, it did not occur to me that any would use you for such a thing when you were under our protection. I inadvertently subjected you to a terrible moment, but in truth, you were not in any danger. In Barack’s defense, he likely thought he could manipulate your memories, as is generally easy to do with human prey, but he would not have harmed or killed you, simply fed, as, smelling my scent on you, he assumed I had. Please accept my apology.”
His voice wrapped itself around her and found its way into her heart.
She sighed softly and tried not to think too much about the word
prey.
“You know what, Darius? None of it matters. I don’t have to understand, because I can’t do this. You can see that now, can’t you? I have no way to deal with this. It’s better if I just get out now.”
His black eyes never once blinked, never left her face. She found her heart beating faster, threatened in some elemental way she didn’t understand. “It isn’t as if I would ever say anything to anyone. They’d lock me up if I did. You know you don’t have to worry.”
His black eyes were merciless, boring into her deeper and deeper until they penetrated her soul. She found it difficult to breathe. “Darius, you know I’m right. You have to know. We aren’t two different races trying to find some common ground. We’re two different species.”
“I need you.”
He said the words so quietly that she barely heard them. He made the statement starkly, utterly without embellishment. There was no mental push, no other form of persuasion. Still, the way he said it was like an arrow piercing her heart. She had no defense against those three words. No way to combat the truth of them. The truth she heard in his voice.
She stared at him for a long moment; then, without warning, she picked up and flung a handful of leaves at him. “You don’t play fair, Darius. You really don’t. You have those eyes and that voice, and now you go and say something like that.”
A slow smile softened the hard edge of his mouth. “I knew you liked my eyes.” He sounded immensely satisfied. He didn’t appear to move, but all at once he was towering over her, his body close enough to share its warmth. His hand found her throat, and his palm lay still so that her pulse beat into its center.