Dark Desire (11 page)

“My life,” she corrected bravely, needing all the pieces of the puzzle.

He stared relentlessly, the watchful eyes of a predator. Shea twisted her fingers together in agitation. He looked a stranger, an invincible being with no real emotion, only a
hard resolve and a killer's instincts. She cleared her throat. “You needed me.”

I had no thought but to feed. My body recognized yours before my mind did.

“I don't understand.”

Once I recognized you as my lifemate, my first thought was to punish you for leaving me in torment, then bind you to me for eternity.
There was no apology, only a waiting.

Shea sensed danger, but she did not back down. “How did you bind me to you?”

The exchange of our blood.

Her heart slammed painfully. “What does that mean, exactly?”

The blood bond is strong. I am in your mind, as you are in mine. It is impossible for us to lie to one another. I feel your emotions and know your thoughts as you do mine.

She shook her head in denial. “That may be true for you, but not for me. I feel your pain at times, but I never know your thoughts.”

That is because you choose not to merge with me. Your mind seeks the touch and reassurance of mine often, yet you refuse to allow it, so I merge with you to prevent your discomfort.

Shea could not deny the truth in his words. Often she felt her mind tuning itself to his, reaching out for him. Disturbed by the unwanted and unfamiliar need, she always imposed a strict discipline on herself. It was unconscious on her part, something she did automatically for self-protection. Jacques, within minutes of her need arising, always reached for her to merge them. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “You seem to know more about what is happening here than I do, Jacques. Tell me.”

Lifemates are bound together for all eternity. One cannot exist without the other. We balance one another. You
are the light to my darkness. We must share one another often.

Her face paled. Her legs weakened. She sat down abruptly on the floor.
Her mother. All of her life she had condemned her mother for living a shadow existence.
If Jacques was telling the truth, and something in her feared he was, had this happened to her mother? Had Jacques sentenced Shea to the same terrible fate?

Shea's hand found the wall. Using it as a support, she pulled herself up. “I refuse to buy into this. I am not your lifemate. I made no commitment, nor will I.” She began edging along the wall toward the door.

Shea, do not!
It was no plea, rather an imperious command, his harsh features an implacable mask.

“I won't let you do this to me. I don't care if you are a vampire. You can make the choice to kill me, Jacques, because there is no other way.”

You have no conception of power, Shea, its uses or misuses.
His voice was a soft menace, the tone sending a shiver down her spine.
Do not defy me.

Her chin lifted. “My mother's life was a waste and my childhood hell. If the man who was my father was like you and somehow bound her to him, then abandoned her—” She broke off, took a deep breath to regain control. “I'm strong, Jacques. No one is going to own me or control me or abuse me. I will not kill myself over a man's desertion. Nor would I ever leave my child alone in the world while I withdrew and became an empty shell.”

Jacques could feel the hurt she had suffered as a child. Her memories were stark and ugly. She had been utterly alone and in need of support and guidance. Like any child, she had blamed herself for her isolation. On some level she thought she was not lovable, too different to be loved. The child had retreated from her emotions—it was unsafe
there—and had trained her intellect to take over when she was frightened or threatened in any way.

She stepped backward out the door, her eyes still locked with his. Jacques made an effort to tamp down his dark fury, the promise of retaliation, but it was impossible to hide the swirling emotions from her. She was too close, too aware of him now. Jacques simply withdrew from her, silently. He turned his face away from her. Shea whirled and ran, tears for her mother, tears for herself, running down her face. She never cried, never. She had learned a long time ago that tears never helped. Why had she been so foolish as to think she could tamper with things she didn't understand?

She ran fast, her body sleek and streamlined, making a silent dash over rotting logs and moss-covered boulders. It took some time to realize she was barefoot, and never once had either foot come down on a dry branch or small rock. She seemed to skim over the ground rather than pound on it. Her lungs were fine, no fierce burning for oxygen. There was only hunger, sharp and gnawing, growing with each step she took.

Shea slowed to a steady lope, lifting her face to the stars. Everything was so intensely beautiful. The wind carried scents, stories. Fox kits in a den, two deer nearby, a rabbit in the brush. She stopped abruptly beside a small stream. She had to have a plan. Running away like a wild animal was totally ridiculous. Her hands found the trunk of a tree, fingertips feeling each whorl, hearing the sap running like blood, the very life of the tree. She knew each insect invading it, making its home in the wood.

She sank down in the soft soil, guilt washing over her. She had left him alone, unprotected. She had not fed him. Her forehead slipped into her open palms. Everything was so crazy. Nothing added up. Hunger ate at her like an in
sidious monster, and she could hear the heartbeats of the animals in the forest beckoning.

Vampire.
Was there such a creature? Was she such a creature? Jacques took blood from her so easily, in so practiced a manner. She knew what was in him; he could be utterly cold and merciless, raging with venomous fury. It never showed on his face or in the way he talked to her, but it was there, seething below the surface. Shea picked up a stone and threw it toward the bubbling stream.

Jacques. What was she going to do about him? Her body rippled with discomfort, her mind with unease. She had an overwhelming urge to reach out to him, to assure herself he was all right. Her mind was trying to comprehend, to believe the impossible. He was a creature far different from a human being. She wasn't like him, but her father must have been.

“What are you thinking, Shea?” she whispered. “A vampire? You think this man is an honest-to-God vampire? You're losing your mind.”

A shudder shook her slender frame. Jacques had said blood exchanges bound them together. Had he somehow managed to make her completely like him? Shea's tongue ran along the inside of her mouth, explored her teeth. They seemed the same, small and straight. Hunger burned, rose sharp and voracious.

At once she could hear the heartbeat of a small rabbit. Her heart sang with exultation. A fierce, predatory joy rushed through her, and she turned toward her prey. Against her tongue, fangs exploded, sharp incisors, hungry and waiting.

Jacques knew the precise moment Shea discovered the truth. Her heart beat frantically; her silent cry of denial echoed through his mind. She believed herself to be vampire. She believed him vampire. What else could she possibly deduce with so little information? Her thoughts were desperate, even life-threatening. He lay very still, gathered his strength should it be needed to stop any foolish decision she might make. He simply waited, monitoring her thoughts and the telltale signs of her body.

To be alone was a kind of agony in itself. Jacques would not have been able to bear it if his mind was not a shadow dwelling in hers. Sweat broke out, bathing his skin in a fine film. His every instinct was to force her back to his side, and he was gaining strength daily now. But a part of him wanted her to return to him on her own.

What had she said to him? Her mother was Irish. Shea did not believe she was like him. What if she hadn't been? What if he had inadvertently turned her? Jacques had never considered that possibility. Their bond was strong. It had crossed man's boundaries. Jacques had assumed he had
known her all of his existence, long before the betrayer had delivered him into the hands of the two human butchers and into madness, into the absence of memory. His suffering, his agony, had been hers. He had felt her with him. He wasn't mistaken about that. He had been certain he had always known her, that she was his lifemate. When she did not come for him, his every waking moment had been spent gathering his strength to bend her will to his in his eternity of hell. What if she had been human? He had been carelessly cruel that first day, wanting her bound to him, under his domination.

Jacques called on his fragmented memories.
Three blood exchanges. Psychic ability
. A human possessing psychic ability might be converted under the right conditions if three blood exchanges were made. He closed his eyes against the guilt and remorse sweeping through his head. If she were human, that would explain her strange feeding habits, her human ways. She never took necessary precautions, never scanned before leaving the cabin.
She didn't know how.
She had said she could not shut down her heart and lungs. She never slept the rejuvenating sleep of a Carpathian.

He cursed himself eloquently. The night she had been so sick, her body had gone through the conversion. There was no other explanation. She had believed she'd contracted a very virulent strain of the flu. He loathed himself for his inability to remember important information. It came only in fragments, and she was suffering because of his ignorance.

Shea's bond with him had been so strong, it had never occurred to him that she was not Carpathian. He thought her courageous as a Carpathian woman to dare venture into his prison and save him. It was nearly impossible to believe a human female had been so compassionate and brave to return to his gravesite after the callous way he had treated her. She had been terrified, yet she had returned to him.

A scent drifted in with the night breeze. Game, fairly close. It wasn't human, but the fresh, living nourishment would help. If he could feed enough, he could safely make an exchange and try to keep Shea alive. She was refusing food. Or perhaps not refusing. Perhaps she was unable to feed. He focused, inhaled deeply, and sent forth a call. Closer, closer, on the porch, the first step into the cabin. First one, a doe, usually a shy and skittish animal, padded across the floor to the side of the bed, her dark, liquid eyes fixed on him. A second doe and then a third followed, bunched together, awaiting his attention.

Hunger rose. Sharp fangs exploded into his mouth, and he seized the first doe with his enormous strength, found the artery pulsing in the neck. The wildness grew in him, rushed through him, and he welcomed it. Hot blood, pulsing with life, sweet and powerful, poured into his depleted system, swelling shriveled cells. He drank greedily, his hunger insatiable, his mutilated body craving the dark liquid of life.

 

Shea lifted her face to the stars, felt the tears on her cheeks. Her throat was raw and burning, her chest tight. If her father had been one such as Jacques, contaminating her blood, Jacques had finished what her parent had started. She hadn't mixed up her blood samples with Jacques' because she had been so tired. Her blood matched his exactly.

She made an effort to control her trembling. She needed to think; it was her only salvation. Her brain could overcome any problem. She breathed deeply, calming herself as she always did in any threatening situation. At once she thought of Jacques alone and helpless in the cabin. She couldn't desert him. She would never leave him when he was so helpless. She would set things up for him so he could survive on his own. She would no longer eat or drink any
thing other than water. She couldn't take any chances until she was certain what she was dealing with.

She wandered downstream, away from the cabin. She felt very alone. This time her mind insisted she had to reach out to him. She needed his warmth, the reassurance of his touch. Shea turned that thought over. Jacques obviously was telling her the truth. She had been alone her entire life. She had not needed anyone, least of all a creature whose mind was shattered, whose nature was that of a killer. Yet she had to know he was not suffering, that nothing had happened to him while she was gone.

Deliberately she waded into the stream, the ice-cold water shocking her, numbing her body but not her mind. Imposing her will, strong and disciplined through a childhood of isolation, Shea resisted merging with him. The water was so cold, she could no longer feel her feet, but it helped to clear her head somewhat.

 

Jacques released the third deer and inhaled sharply. Shea was strong-willed. He knew she would try her best to resist their bond. Her childhood had been hell, yet she had survived, and it had shaped her into a strong, brilliant, courageous woman. He longed to calm her, to reassure her, but knew she would not welcome his intrusion. She had reason to fear him. He remembered so few things. Betrayal. Pain. Rage. He had been so clumsy in his handling of her conversion, in his handling of everything.

The deer stirred, stumbled to their feet, and, wobbling unsteadily, plodded out to the freedom of the forest. Jacques would have finished them off, utilized every drop of life-giving nourishment he could, but Shea would have thought him a monster. His body tuned itself to hers, craved the sight and scent of her, the touch of her. Perhaps he was a monster. He really didn't know anything other than that he needed Shea.

 

Shea wandered aimlessly until she could no longer think of anything but Jacques. The emptiness inside her yawned like a enormous black void. Her skin crawled with need, her mind was chaos, reaching, always reaching, so that she was worn out with fighting herself.

What if something had happened to him? Again the thought crept in unbidden, unwanted, and her sense of isolation increased, threatened to become a terrible thing. Grief welled up, enveloping her, driving away her logic and reason, leaving raw, gaping emotions. Shea could no longer function properly, and she knew it. Whether or not her pride allowed, she had no choice but to go back. It was not only humiliating but frightening, too. Jacques had acquired more power over her in a short time than she had ever thought possible. She had no choice but to accept it for the moment.

She walked slowly, reluctantly, dread filling her, yet with every step back toward the cabin, toward Jacques, the heaviness of her heart lifted. At the edge of the clearing before the cottage, three large deer rested beneath the swaying branches of a tree. She stood for a moment watching them, all too aware of what had transpired. Shea stepped onto the porch, hesitated, and went inside.

Jacques was lying motionless in the bed, his black eyes wide open, fixed unblinkingly on her face. Shea felt as if she were falling forward into those black, fathomless depths. He held out a hand to her. She didn't want to go to him; she went because she had to go. She needed to go to him. A part of her brain analyzed that, how it could possibly be, but she went without fighting the strong compulsion.

His fingers, unexpectedly warm, closed around the coolness of hers, his hand enveloping hers. He tugged at her gently until she had no choice but to sit, then lie beside him. His black eyes never once relinquished their hold on hers.
You are cold, little red hair
. His voice whispered over her skin, mesmerized her mind, dispelled the chaos to replace it with a soothing, tranquil calm.
Allow me to warm you
.

His hand shaped her face, traced each delicate bone, stroked down her throat. Shea blinked, confused, unsure whether she was awake or dreaming. Her body moved restlessly. Again her brain attempted to sort things out for her, but she could not pull away from his hypnotic eyes. Part of her didn't want to. She wanted to be trapped there for all time, sheltered by him, belonging to him.

Ignoring the screaming protest of his body, Jacques shifted so that his large frame half pinned her smaller one to the bed. His hand continued to caress the soft, vulnerable line of her throat, moved to trace the neckline of her cotton top.
Feel the way our hearts beat together.
His hand pushed the concealing fabric aside so that her full breasts gleamed in the silver light of the moon.

His mind felt the protest of hers, his soft voice murmuring to weave her deeper under his spell. In the depths of his eyes was hunger, fire, need. He trapped the emerald green of her eyes in the intensity of his hot gaze. A slash of razor-sharp talons, and cotton floated to the floor. His hand found warm softness, and with his black stare still holding hers, he slowly lowered his head.

Shea's breath caught in her throat as his perfect mouth hovered a scant inch above hers. She burned for him. Burned. Her long lashes swept down as his mouth fastened on hers. She nearly cried out at the rush of liquid heat racing through her body at his touch. His mouth explored every inch of hers, caressing, demanding, gentle, and dominant, a sweet stroking along her incisors, a stark male possession.

His mouth left hers to trail kisses down her throat, her shoulder, lower to find the swell of her breast. Shea's hands found his hair, its rich softness bunched in her fists as his tongue traced a path over her pulse. Her body clenched,
waited in anticipation. His teeth nipped gently, moved again so that she shuddered with pleasure as his mouth drew her rich softness into its moist heat.
I want you, Shea. I need you.

And it was true. His body didn't seem to understand that claiming her was an impossibility. He hurt, a pain to rival all the others. His skin burned and was unbearably sensitive. Reluctantly he released her breast, moved once more to stroke his tongue over her pulse.
Shea
. He murmured her name, and his teeth sank deep.

She gasped at the white-hot lance of pain, the wave of intense pleasure washing over her. Her body arced upward, her arms cradling his head.

It was ecstasy, holding her like this, feeding on sweetness, exploring her softness with his hands. The pleasure was such that Jacques' battered body swelled, every muscle taut, rigid. She tasted hot, spicy, addicting. He needed to bury himself in her as he fed. Every natural instinct he possessed, as both man and beast, urgently demanded he unite them in the way of his people, sealing them together for all eternity. Her breasts were soft, perfect, driving him to the brink of madness. Did her ribcage have to be so small and delicate, her waist so tiny? He didn't just want. He needed. He lifted his head, his tongue stroking across the tiny wound, reluctantly closing it.

Shea's eyes were closed, her body soft and pliant.
You need, my love.
He kissed her gently.
Kiss me, my chest. Let me feel that your need is as great as my own.

It was sheer black magic, an erotic whisper of seduction she seemed helpless to resist. Her mouth tasted his skin, lingered, found his throat, the heavy muscles of his chest. Jacques knew he was playing with fire. His body could not take much more. His hand caught the nape of her neck, pressed her head to him.
You hunger, my love
.

Self-preservation interceded, and her body stiffened.

Jacques' voice was purity itself.
You will take what I freely offer. It is my right, and you cannot deny me.
The touch of her tongue sent fire racing through his blood. When her teeth pierced his skin, he cried out with the ecstasy of it. He gave himself up to the sensual pleasure, his hand stroking her hair, encouraging her feeding. He needed this closeness, this erotic intimacy. If he could not have all of her at this moment, he could at least ensure their bond.

He held her, blanketing her body in the age-old dominant way of his people, yet there was tenderness in his hands as they caressed her. Slowly his hand slid over her silky hair, stroked, lingered, moved around to trace the delicate lines of her face. Then carefully he began to insert his hand between her mouth and his chest.
Enough, Shea. Close the wound with your tongue.
His gut clenched hotly, his body shuddered as she obeyed him. He wanted her, needed, even hungered for their union. For a moment he felt that need was far more tormenting than wounds.

He caught her hair in both hands, dragged her head up to his, when everything in him screamed to push her down, to force her to give him some relief. Jacques felt as if he was in hell all over again. His mouth found hers, tasted his own blood. Something inside him raised its head and roared, wild, untamed, something close to breaking free of his tight control. Instinctively his mind sought hers.
Shea!

The summons was sharp, on the edge of desperation. Shea blinked, found herself tangled on the bed with Jacques, her skin rubbing against his, his arms tight, vise-like bands around her, his mouth taking hers with such expertise that her entire body raged for him. He was aggressive, dominant, the position he held her in one of submission. When she looked up at him, his eyes went from desperation, hungry desire, and tenderness to a bestial glow, that of a wild animal taking what belonged to it. She recognized those red flames leaping, betraying the violence
in him. When she stiffened, tried to struggle, a warning growl rumbled deep in his throat.