“Desari said I can sleep in here,” she found herself answering. She didn’t know what she was going to do. Down to her last twenty dollars, she had been certain this was the perfect job for her. She was an excellent auto mechanic, she enjoyed traveling, she liked being alone, and she loved animals. And something about this particular help-wanted ad had jumped out at her, drawn her to this place, these people, as if it was meant to be. It had been strange, almost a compulsion she couldn’t resist to find these people, so sure was she that the job was meant for her. She should have known it was too perfect. Without thinking, she sighed softly.
Darius’s thumb feathered lightly over her chin. He felt her tremble, but she stood her ground. “There is always a price to pay,” he observed, as if reading her mind. His hand moved to her hair, and he fingered the red-gold strands as if he couldn’t help himself.
Rusti stood very still, like a small animal caught out in the open by a stalking panther. She knew he was extremely dangerous to her, yet she could only stare up at him helplessly. He was doing something to her, mesmerizing her, hypnotizing her with his burning black eyes. She couldn’t look away from him. She couldn’t move. “How high is the price?” Her words came out strangled—sounding and husky. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from his no matter how much her mind screamed at her to do so.
His body moved close, closer still, until his hard frame seemed to imprint itself on the softness of hers.
He was everywhere, surrounding her, enveloping her until she was a part of him. She knew she should try to move, to break the spell he was weaving around her, but she couldn’t find the strength. Then his arms closed around her, drew her into him, and her heart turned over at the gentleness in a man of such power and enormous strength. He whispered something soft and soothing. Something compelling. A sorcerer’s seduction.
She closed her eyes, the world suddenly hazy and dreamlike. She felt as if she couldn’t move, as if she didn’t want to move. She waited almost breathlessly. His mouth brushed her right temple, moved across her ear, feathered across her cheek to the corner of her lips, breathing warmth, leaving little dancing flames wherever he touched. She felt torn in two. One part of her knew it was so perfect, so right; the other urged her to run as fast and as far as she could. His tongue stroked across her neck, a velvet, rasping caress that curled her toes and sent heat pooling deep within her. His fingers curved around her nape, drawing her even closer. His tongue stroked a second time. A white-hot sensation pierced her skin exactly over her frantically beating pulse. Pain sliced through her, then gave way instantly to erotic pleasure.
Rusti gasped, found some deep reservoir of self-preservation, and squirmed, pushing at the muscles of his chest. Darius shifted subtly, but his arms remained tight and unyielding. Drowsiness slipped over her, a willingness to give him whatever he wanted.
She felt divided into two selves, one locked helplessly in the dark embrace, the other looking on in shock and horror. Her body was hot. Burning. Needing. Her mind accepted him and what he was doing. Taking her blood, staking his claim on her. Somehow she knew that he was not trying to kill her but possess her. Knew also that he was not anything human. Her eyelashes swept down, and her legs buckled.
Darius slipped one arm under Tempest’s knees and lifted her, cradling her against his chest as he fed. She was hot and sweet and unlike anything he had ever tasted. His body was on fire for her. Still feeding, he carried her to the couch, savoring the essence of her, unable to stop himself from taking what was rightfully his. And she
was
his. He felt it, knew it, would accept nothing less.
Only when her head lolled back on her slender neck did he realize what was happening. Swearing eloquently to himself, he closed the wound in her neck with a sweep of his tongue and bent to check her pulse. He had taken far more blood than she could afford to give. And his body still throbbed with a relentless, savage demand. But Tempest Trine was a small woman and not of their race; she could not afford such a blood loss.
Worse, what he was doing was strictly forbidden, breaking every code, every law he knew. Every law he himself had taught to the others and demanded they follow. Yet he couldn’t stop himself. He had to have this woman. True, a mortal female could be used for sex, a simple pleasure of the body, if one could still feel such things. And as long as one did not drain the life from her entirely, a mortal female could also be used for sustenance, to feed upon. But not both, and never at the same time. It was taboo. Darius knew that if she hadn’t fainted from the blood loss, he would have taken her body with his. Not once but again and again. And he would have killed anyone who tried to stop him, who tried to take her from him.
Had it happened, then? Was he turning vampire? The one thing every Carpathian male feared—was it happening to him? He didn’t care. He only knew that Tempest Trine was of the utmost importance to him, the only woman he had ever wanted in centuries of a lonely, barren existence. She made him feel. She made him see. She brought life and color into his bleak world, and now that he had seen it, felt it, he would never go back to total emptiness.
Cradling her on his lap, he started to tear open his wrist with his teeth. But something stopped him. It didn’t seem right to feed her that way. Instead, he slowly opened his immaculate silk shirt, his body unexpectedly tightening even more in anticipation. One fingernail lengthened into a razor-sharp talon and sliced a thin line across his chest. Then he pressed her mouth to the wound. His blood was ancient and powerful and would replenish her quickly.
At the same time he reached for her mind. In her unconscious state, it was relatively easy to take control, to command her to do his bidding. Still, he was astonished at what he discovered. Desari was right. Tempest’s mind did not follow the usual human pattern. It was more like that of the cunningly intelligent leopards he often ran with. Not exactly the same, but definitely different from the normal human brain. For the moment it didn’t matter; he easily controlled her, demanding that she drink to replenish what he had taken from her.
Out of nowhere an ancient chant came into his mind. He found himself saying the words of a ritual, uncertain where they came from, knowing only that they must be said. He murmured them in the ancient tongue of his people, then repeated them in English. Bending over Tempest protectively, stroking her hair, he breathed the words softly into her ear. “I claim you as my lifemate. I belong to you. I offer my life for you. I give you my protection, my allegiance, my heart, my soul, and my body. I take into my keeping the same that is yours. Your life, happiness, and welfare will be cherished and placed above my own for all time. You are my lifemate, bound to me for all eternity and always in my care.” As he uttered the words, he felt a curious shifting in his body, a release of a terrible tension. He also felt the words weaving tiny threads between her soul and his, his heart and hers. She belonged to him. He belonged to her.
But it wasn’t right. She was a mortal. He was Carpathian. She would grow old; he never would. Still, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered to him except that she was in his world, that she was beside him. That it felt right to him. She fit with him as if she had been fashioned only for him.
Darius closed his eyes and held her to him, savoring the feel of her in his arms. He closed his wound himself and laid her among the pillows lining the couch. Very gently, almost reverently, he cleaned the dirt and grime from her face. You
will not remember this when you awaken.
You
will know only that you took this job and are now part of our crew. You know nothing of what I am or that we exchanged blood.