I’m sorry. Truly.
The suspicion in his eyes was so like a wary wild creature that she couldn’t stop that flow of compassion and warmth from her mind into his. She felt as if she needed to calm him. He didn’t belong inside a house. There was no way four walls could contain his power or his savage nature. She couldn’t imagine anything or anybody being at ease around him. He was too dominant, taking over the room, his aristocratic ways and hard authority adding to the terrifying aura surrounding him.
“Were you planning on petting me?”
There was no sarcasm in his tone, but his question hurt. She licked her suddenly dry lips and shook her head. She didn’t know what she had been doing. If she had her pen and paper—maybe she could try to express herself, but she felt cut off from the world most of the time, like this moment. How did she try with mere impressions to convey the way her strange gift manifested?
She wasn’t even certain how her gift worked. She only knew that everything in her reached out to the wildness in him, to the tortured soul, stark and lonely and in need. He didn’t even know he was in need. How could she explain when she didn’t have a voice?
I’m sorry, she repeated, unable to think what else to do.
Zacarias’s expression remained absolute stone as he brought her fingertips to his face and held them there. “Do not be sorry. I am not.”
Her stomach performed some weird acrobatic somersault at the touch of his skin beneath the pads of her fingers.
“If you wish to touch me, you have my permission.”
For the first time since the vampire had attacked her, she was glad she couldn’t speak. There were no words. Nothing. She should have been irritated by his aristocratic condescension, but instead she wanted to smile.
She had no excuses. Whatever compulsion he seemed so worried about was obviously working on her as well. And without her pen and paper she felt vulnerable, stripped naked, unable to communicate. She swallowed hard and nodded, wondering a little hysterically if he thought she should thank him for his consent.
He dropped his hand, leaving hers against his shadowed jaw. She pressed her palm into that dark scruff and felt her heart reach out to his. The sensation was so strong it scared her. She dropped her hand abruptly and stepped back, confused at her reactions to him. She was very afraid of him, yet the sadness in him weighed so heavily on her she couldn’t stop herself from feeling compassion.
She’d done this to him. She was guilty and there was no getting around that. He had come here to end his life honorably, and she had stopped him, leaving him once more in the loneliness of his bleak world. If there was truly a man who was an island unto himself, it was Zacarias De La Cruz. She couldn’t see his entire lonely world, but she felt the tip of it and that was enough to make her want to weep forever. She owed him and a Fernandez always paid their debts.
I didn’t know what I was doing when I stopped you from ending your burdens. If I could go back and undo it . . . Would she? Could she stand by and let him die? Her shoulders slumped. She couldn’t lie to him. She would never be able to just stand there while he burned in the sun. It was beyond her ability. She raised unhappy eyes to his. I’m sorry. Was there nothing else she could say to him?
Zacarias studied her face for so long she began to think he wouldn’t speak again. Then his gaze dropped, drifting over her body, studying her feminine form much like one of the ranchers assessing stock. She bit her lip hard to keep from shoving him away from her. She wasn’t a horse. She owed him, yes, but she’d apologized more than once. And he didn’t have to look at her as if she was a germ.
His gaze jumped back to her face, locking with hers. “I am reading your thoughts.” His hand dropped to hers. He lifted her clenched fist to his chest and one by one pried open her fingers. “You are a bad-tempered little thing, aren’t you? And very confused. One moment you feel remorse and think to offer me your services and the next you think to strike me. You already serve me. I have only to order and you will provide whatever I require. As for striking me, it is not advisable or permitted.”
Talking to him was much like having fur rubbed the wrong way, she decided. It mattered little that everything he said was true. She had been about to call a truce with him, to offer her services willingly—not grudgingly. That man was so arrogant he didn’t seem to know the difference. And as for striking him—it might not matter whether or not it was permitted if he kept talking like that to her.
A slow, rusty smile, very faint, but real, softened the hard line of his mouth. It was brief, she barely caught it, but his smile was—incredible.
“I am still reading your thoughts.”
She frowned at him. That isn’t polite. I can’t help what I’m thinking. Maybe she’d conjured up that smile, it had disappeared so fast—more like ice cracking.
“Of course you can. You will sleep during the daylight hours as I do. You will not, under any circumstances, leave the hacienda without my permission. You will provide for all my needs until I leave. And most of all, you will obey me instantly, without question.”
What he needed was a robot, not a woman. She fought not to roll her eyes. How long will you stay? God help her if it was longer than another night.
His eyebrow shot up. “You have no need of that information. You will be happy to serve me as long as I choose to be in residence.”
He was serious. She could see that he was totally serious. He expected her to be happy—even grateful to serve him—the arrogant, impossible, dominant royal pain in the neck. Should I curtsey, your majesty?
His brows drew together. The silence grew until the very walls seemed to expand with the tension. His gaze remained locked on hers, unblinking and menacing. She fought not to look away—not to be totally cowed by him. He appeared enormous. He dominated the entire room, his shoulders blocking out everything behind him, making her aware of his power—and her vulnerability.
“Perhaps the alliance between our families has come to an end. If that is what you wish, you have only to say you will not honor our agreement.”
Her breath caught in her throat. He wouldn’t allow her to leave. She could feel the need in him. He couldn’t. He didn’t recognize that he had emotions boiling deep below the surface. She tapped into them through their primitive animal connection, but not only didn’t he recognize his own feelings, he had no idea they were there. Even if she allowed her fear of him to ruin the alliances between the De La Cruz family and her large extended family, it wouldn’t save her.
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. I wish to serve you.
“Without question.”
She gritted her teeth. He wanted his pound of flesh for her sins. Or maybe she was reading him wrong. He didn’t seem to have the least idea how to deal with humans. He probably hadn’t been in polite society for hundreds of years.
“Nor did I care to do so,” he said, obviously still reading her mind.
She considered taking great delight in stitching his mouth closed while he slept in his chamber. The moment she began to think there was a remote possibility that he could have excuses for his imperious and crass behavior, he opened his mouth and ruined everything.