Darius could feel her slight body trembling against the hardness of his. A fierce, protective instinct rose in him, swamping him with the sheer force of it. He wanted to carry her off to his lair, keep her safe from the everyday dangers of the world around them, keep her close and protected at all times. But he realized that, no matter how strong his feelings, she was mortal, and she had grown up in a different world, one he could never go back and change for her. It had shaped her character as surely as the ages and dangers he had faced had shaped his. He could not move her too fast. The demands of his body and soul had to take second place to her fears, groundless though they might be.
“If you merge your mind fully with mine, will you be able to read my every thought?” she asked anxiously.
He ruffled her hair, affection in the caress. “You mean as I already do?”
Her emerald eyes flashed at him. “You can’t read
every
thought I have,” she said decisively.
There was a short, telling silence. She tilted her head back to look at him. “Can you?” This time her voice definitely wobbled.
Darius wanted to kiss that worried look right off her face. “Of course I can.”
Her teeth tugged at her lower lip. “You couldn’t before. I don’t think you can, Darius.”
“You merge with me every time you communicate mentally with me. It may have taken me a few times to figure out your differences from others, but once I did, it allowed me to slip in and out of your mind at will.” His fingers curled lovingly around the nape of her neck. “If you like, I could share some of your memories with you. The little alley you favored behind a Chinese restaurant. You were fond of its unusual cobblestones.”
This time Tempest made a lunge to break free, but Darius caught her firmly, imprisoning her within the circle of his arms. “Not so fast, honey. You were the one implying I was telling you falsehoods.”
She stood stiffly. “Nobody says
falsehoods
anymore. Your age is showing.”
He laughed again, amazed that after centuries of loneliness and utter lack of emotion, he could find himself laughing so readily. There was joy in the night itself, joy in the world, in the very act of living. “That was not nice, Tempest,” he scolded her, but his voice was so gentle, it turned her heart over.
“No merging, Darius. I think we should do something semi-normal. Say, just talking. Talking is good. Not anything strange, just the usual. Tell me about your childhood. What were your parents like?”
“My father was a very powerful man. He was often referred to as the Dark One. He was a great healer among our people. I understand that my elder brother has since taken his place among our kind. My mother was gentle and loving. I remember her smile. She had a spectacular smile.” The words conjured up the memory for him, the rush of warmth.
“She must have been wonderful.”
“Yes. I was only six when she was killed.”
Her fingers tightened on his arm in sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Darius. I didn’t mean to bring up a sad memory.”
“No memory of my mother could be bad, Tempest. When I was six, the Ottoman Turks overran the village near our home and murdered nearly everyone. I was able to get out”—he gestured in the general direction of the campsite—”with a few others. My sister, Desari, along with Syndil, Barack, Dayan, and one other. After that, we were cut off from the rest of our people.”
“At six years of age? Darius, what did you do? How did you survive?”
“I learned to hunt from the animals around me. I learned to feed the others. It was a time of great hardship. I made so many mistakes, yet every day was a new, exciting experience.”
“How did you get separated from your parents, your people?”
“There was a war. Human villages were being wiped out—people our families considered friends. Our adults decided to stand with the humans. But the soldiers attacked after the sun had risen, when Carpathians are at their most vulnerable, when they need to go to ground. And there were so many soldiers, vicious and cruel, determined to wipe out the entire region, to rid themselves of all of us, as they considered us vermin, vampires. Unfortunately, adults of our species have no power, no strength, when the sun is high, so it was a slaughter, a useless waste of lives. So many died that day, humans and Carpathians alike, women and children. Many of our race were subjected to ritual ‘vampire’ killings—beheaded and staked through the heart, my parents among them.”
Darius’s voice was soft, melancholy, distant, as if part of him was centuries away from her. In his arms, Tempest turned to reach up and touch his mouth with her fingertips. “I’m so sorry, Darius. How terrible for you.” Tears were glistening on her long lashes, making her eyes luminous. Sorrow for him, for his lost parents, for the boy he had been, throbbed in her heart.
Darius touched a teardrop, catching it on the end of his finger. “Do not weep for me, Tempest. I never want to bring tears to your heart. Your life has been a hard one, too. At least before I lost emotion and color, mine was filled with the love of my old family, and then of my new family for hundreds of years. The boat I and the others escaped our war-torn homeland in took us across the ocean before going down in a violent storm. We were on our own, I the oldest, but we made it to the shores of Africa, and we had great adventures in those years and since—before the darkness gathered in me and spread across my soul.”
She watched him bring his finger to his mouth to taste her shimmering teardrop, his black eyes sensual, his perfect lips alarmingly enticing. She swallowed convulsively, afraid she might fling herself into his arms just to taste his mouth again and be forever lost in the burning intensity of his eyes. “What darkness, Darius? What are you talking about?”
“I have felt nothing these last long centuries. After a certain point, evidently a Carpathian male loses his emotions and is in danger of turning vampire. Because I had others depending on me, I fought off the beast within me. But for eons now I have seen no colors, felt no joy, no need for a woman, no laughter, and no love. I have not even felt guilt over necessary killing. Only my hunger was in me. Strong and terrible and always upon me. The beast in me grew until he was always fighting for freedom, raging for release. Then, into that darkness, you came, bringing me color and light and life.” Darius said it softly, honestly, meaning every word. His hand came up to capture her mass of red-gold hair, to crush it to his face so that he might inhale the fragrance of her. “I have more need of you than does any other in this world. My body claims yours as its own. My heart recognizes yours. My soul cries out for yours, and my mind seeks the touch of your mind. You are the only woman who can tame the beast and hold me to this earth, to the path of goodness and light. The only one who can keep me from destroying mortals and immortals alike.”
Tempest bit at her lower lip again. The things he said to her were almost more than she could comprehend. They made her nervous, even as he made her more aware of herself as a desirable woman than anyone ever had. “Let’s not get carried away, Darius. I’ve agreed to travel with the band for a while, but saving the world is a little beyond my specialties. I wield a mean wrench and all, but relationships totally elude me.”
She could be flippant with her answers, but her heart had melted at his every word. His Old-World elegance and charm somehow seemed to provide a balance to the danger clinging to him like a second skin. Sexual magnetism was also second nature to Darius, and Tempest didn’t try to delude herself into thinking she was immune.
“It will be in the best interests of all concerned that you remain free from any other relationships,” he said softly.
Her emerald eyes flashed a brilliant green before she turned away from him again, too tempted by his perfect mouth to stare at it for long. “Let’s walk, Darius. I think it’s safer than standing here on a log over looking a cliff. Much safer.”