Dark Nights Page 13

  He grinned at her, his teeth flashing in the light of her lantern. “Well, yes. I have lived for centuries. I barely remember my parents anymore.” His smile slipped away. “The memory of my childhood days has faded. I catch glimpses at times. I do recall the years just before leaving my homeland. The way the prince looked at us all. I saw it in his eyes. His own death, the decline of our people, his dread for all of the warriors he was sending away from home. Our women were so few, even then the numbers were declining. Back then we had alliances with humans. Now we keep to ourselves and just do our best to blend in.”

  She listened to the sound of his voice and heard the sorrow that ran deep. In his mind she saw the battles, sometimes with childhood friends. She saw his inner demons, the insidious whispers of power, the dark stain that slowly spread over him, calling to him. And he was always alone. In every memory, he was always alone. Joie wanted to comfort him. She caught his hand, tangled her fingers with his. She meant it to be a brief gesture, but he tightened his grip.

  “I grew up very differently,” she said, ducking her head to avoid a large crystal formation. “My family is very close and very loving. We all talk at the same time and give each other all sorts of unwanted advice. My dad tells outrageous stories. He used to sneak into our bedroom at night with a flashlight shining on his face and tell scary stories until we screamed and laughed and Mom came running in to chastise him. Once, after he read us Stephen King’s Cujo, he put whipped cream on the muzzle of our huge mutt and shoved him into the bedroom. It’s a wonder we all survived his sense of humor.”

  She laughed at the memory, deliberately sharing with Traian the warmth of her childhood, the love in her family. “We’re all a little bit crazy, but it’s okay with us.”

  “Do you think I will fit in?” He brought her hand to his chest and held it against his heart. “I would not mind having a family after all this time.”

  He was a tall man with wide shoulders and eyes that had seen far too much, yet the lost note in his voice turned her heart over. Joie smiled at him. “I can’t wait for you to meet my mother. She does not like men, other than my father, and she can be very intimidating. You’re an alpha male and she will definitely have an opinion. We’ll see how well you can stand up to her. She ran off every boy who wanted to date my sister or me.”

  He smiled at her, rather like a wolf smiling at a lamb. “I will have to thank her.”

  Chapter Seven

  The night air was crisp and clean and so fresh, Joie gratefully dragged it deep into her lungs. Fear was dissipating now that she was out in the open and she knew her siblings were safe. She pulled her helmet from her head to allow the wind to comb through her hair. Stretching her arms toward the moon, she laughed softly. “I love the night. I love everything about it. It doesn’t matter if it’s stormy or not.”

  She turned her head to look at Traian. His face was beautiful in the moonlight. “Worthy of a Greek god,” she murmured, astonished that she felt so much for him, that her emotions were so strong and connected with his. His hair fell like black silk around his face to his shoulders. There wasn’t so much as a smear of mud on his face. All traces of blood were gone from his chest, leaving only the raw gashes on his flesh.

  Joie shook her head, stepping away from him, putting distance between them. She needed space, needed to find balance. “Thanks a lot for leaving me standing filthy and wet all by myself while you’re all shined up and looking good. I’m not even going to ask how you did that.”

  His teeth gleamed at her, more the smile of a wolf than a man. “I have my little secrets. You are shivering. Hand me your harness and pack and take this jacket.” He enfolded her in the warmth of a suit jacket.

  Joie decided not to ask him where he found the jacket either, or how he got clean. “How did you find the way out? I couldn’t see a thing.” She sank down because all at once she was tired and she wanted to feel the ground under her. Traian had changed her entire life in the blink of an eye, and she didn’t want to think too much about the bizarre world he lived in.

  “There were signs if you knew what to look for. In the old times, Carpathians and mages were not enemies. We lived side by side and enjoyed the benefits of both races. We often used the same glyphs. I saw them as we moved through the halls. Mages and Carpathians actually worked and studied together, were friends and allies. We shared knowledge with one another.”

  “What happened to change everything?”

  Traian sighed. “Mages have great longevity, but they are not immortal. We can be killed, but it is not easy to do. The great mage, Xavier, we all trusted and believed in—he often taught our more gifted children in the arts . . .”

  “More gifted than you are?” Joie raised an eyebrow. “You can do just about anything. How much more gifted are your children?”

  Instead of smiling he looked sad. “We do not have children any longer. Ours is a dying species. Few women are born, and our children are not surviving. Such treasures are lost to us.” He shook his head. “This network of caves could very well have belonged to Xavier at one time and it is possible one of his descendents is using it now—unless he still lives.”

  “I can hear the distaste and contempt in your voice.”

  “He betrayed the friendship of our people and began a war that has been waged for centuries, devastating both of our peoples.”

  Joie looked up at his face. There was no hatred, only a sorrow that filled him with sadness. To her, Traian was a handsome man, timeless and even elegant in an honorable warrior sort of way. The lines in his face only served to make him more attractive to her. “I’m so sorry, Traian.” She couldn’t imagine what his life had been like.

  Traian crouched down beside her, touched her chin with gentle fingers. “Let me take you back to the inn where you are staying. You are tired and hungry and want a shower. You are also very worried about your brother and sister. You needn’t be. I’ve assured your brother that we are safe and they are waiting at the inn, already warm.”

  “Thank you, I know you told me they were safe, but it’s difficult with everything that’s happened not to want to touch them physically to reassure myself. I know they’re both experienced climbers and neither panic, but we’ve never had to face . . .” She broke off and waved her hands. “Vampires and traps.” She covered her face for a moment. “That sounds so insane. The world has no idea those things actually exist. It’s crazy.”

  “And they can’t know. Every now and then, down through the ages, a society raises the alarm and there is a massive witch hunt. They kill everyone they suspect, human, Carpathian, and just people who they don’t like. As far as I know they’ve never managed to actually kill a vampire.”

  She shot him a confused look. “You don’t want us to say anything.”

  “We handle it,” he said. “Just as we’ve been doing for centuries.”

  Joie swept a hand through her hair, pushing it back from her face. “I am tired, Traian. I feel as if I could sleep for a month.”

  He drew her to her feet, and then simply lifted her into his arms as if she was no more than a child, cradling her against his chest.

  Joie burst out laughing. “This is so medieval. Male carries little woman over mountain. Oh, the utter humiliation of it all.” She wrapped her arms more tightly around his neck in case he thought to put her down. Joie allowed her head to drop back as she scanned the heavens. “If you ever tell a single soul I let you do this, I’ll have to hurt you. I just want to be very clear on this. Not one single word.”

  Traian looked down into her upturned face. She was trying to be courageous when she was obviously exhausted. He wanted to kiss her. More than anything, it seemed necessary to bend his head and find her mouth with his. Just taste her. Put in his claim. “What is your position on kissing?”

  Joie’s gaze jumped to his mouth. The wicked, sinful temptation of it. “I’m thinking it over,” she conceded. “If I let you kiss me, I’ll melt on the spot. That’s a given. I already know that, and it’s so very humiliating. Worse than being carried around like I’m a fainting, weak bundle of femininity.”

  “True, but it would be worth it,” he pointed out seriously.

  She sighed and lifted her hand to his face, her fingertips tracing his sinful mouth. “Yes. But there’s another consideration, Traian.” Her voice turned very somber. Her gaze went to his. “You’re going to be addicting. And then I won’t be able to get you out of my system and I’ll get all weepy when we have to part, and that’s just more than I can bear, crying over some idiot man. Do you see the complications I’m facing here?”

  His heart twisted inside his chest. “I do see that might be a problem if we were ever to part, but since we are truly lifemates and have no choice but to be together, I do not really think it is of much importance. In fact, under the circumstance, being addicted to my kisses would be an asset.” He couldn’t resist turning his head to capture her finger in the warmth of his mouth.

  “The lifemate thing—see? That’s part of the problem. I have this overwhelming need to be mistress of my own fate. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a lifemate if it entails a have to sort of relationship. I’m a want to sort of woman. There is a difference.”

  “That is good, Joie. I do not foresee any problems whatsoever, because it is clear we think so much alike. I am definitely a want to sort of man—and I want to kiss you.”

  There was a devilish smirk on his face, one she couldn’t possibly resist. And who wanted to anyway? His mouth descended toward hers, and Joie lifted her face to meet him halfway—because this kiss was her choice, and he needed to know it.

  Joie’s lips were soft, yielding, welcoming even. After all the long centuries, Traian felt like he had come home. It didn’t matter where they were, whose world they were in, she would always be home to him. The Earth stopped spinning, just as he knew it would. Bursts of star fire rained down around them. The embers smoldering deep in his belly burst into flame and raged through his bloodstream. His body knew her almost as intimately as his soul, though he hadn’t even really touched her yet.

  Joie couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, forgot whether it was night or day. It was impossible to get her brain to function. She could only feel. Nothing had prepared her for the unrelenting pressure building so swiftly in her body, the heat rising, flames dancing along her skin, creating an inferno deep inside. Passion coiled tighter and tighter, a spring threatening to explode. Her breasts ached. Her fingers found the silk of his hair, and crushed the thick mass in her palm.

  “You shouldn’t be able to do this to me,” she whispered into his mouth. Into his heart. “I don’t let anyone inside.”

  “I am already inside you.” His lips took hers again, over and over, long, drugging kisses that shook them both.

  “It has to be the danger factor,” she said. “It’s the only logical explanation.”

  “Is there logic? I cannot remember.” He couldn’t get enough of her. Mud from her face smeared his. Her clothes were wet, soaking his. His wounds burned, but he couldn’t feel the discomfort when his body was so heavy and hard with need.

  His voice shook her. It was possessive. Husky. Perfect. A seduction in itself. It was Joie who pulled away, framing his face with her hands. She rested her forehead against his. “I need a minute here to come up for air. I can’t breathe, or think, or want anything but you.”

  His mouth curved into a smile. “Is that supposed to stop me?”

  Her gray eyes studied every inch of his face. He could see her confusion. “Why do I feel like this? Does this make sense to you, Traian? I don’t jump into relationships. All I can think about is having sex with you. Not just sex—wild, uninhibited sex. I’m muddy, exhausted, scared to death and worried about my family, but I want—no need—to feel your body inside mine.”

  His smile widened. “I think kissing you is the best idea I have ever had.”

  She couldn’t help smiling back. He made her happy in a way she never had been—complete when she hadn’t known a part of her was missing. “Why you? You aren’t even human.” She made a little face at him. “You know you’re complicating my life.”

  “Your entire family has telepathic abilities. Are you certain you are human?”

  Laughter spilled over. “Please don’t ever ask my father that. He’s outrageous, and he’ll tell you some absolutely horrible and untrue tall tale, and we’ll all be mortified.”

  The raw affection in her voice told him her father’s outrageous stories never really mortified her and she loved the man very much. “That gives me hope. At least I know you plan on introducing me to your parents, but the list of dos and don’ts is growing. Just out of curiosity, do his outrageous tales ever have to do with dragons and mages?”

  “Of course. When we were children, he told us fairy tales all the time, but the mages were wizards in tall hats concocting all sorts of magical spells.”

  “Good wizards or bad?” he prompted.

  “Both, of course. What’s a good fairy tale without both?” She turned her face up to his again. “You think I don’t know where you’re going with this? Every parent tells their children fairy tales. My father is an undisputed genius, tremendously talented, as is Jubal, with numbers and patterns. Gabrielle inherited a lot of that as well. She works as a researcher for hot viruses and she’s really done a lot of good, unlocking strands and finding potential ways to combat them. But we’re human through and through. We were born in hospitals, go to doctors for regular check-ups, pay taxes, and eat real food.”

  “I am certain that is the case. It does not, however, prove your father is not mage. We blend into society very well, and mages, far better than Carpathians. They do not sleep in the ground or sustain life on blood.”

  Joie blinked up at him. “You sleep in the ground?”

  “In the soil. It rejuvenates us.”

  She closed her eyes. “Oh, God. I don’t even know what to say to you.”

  He bent his head to steal another kiss. “Hang on. I am about to take you flying.”

  She made a noise somewhere between laughter and choking, but her mouth responded, soft and firm and very pliant. He indulged himself for a few more moments, kissing her again and again, finding her mouth a sweet, hot haven he could lose himself in. When he lifted his head, she looked a little dazed.

  Traian smiled down at her. “You’re being very brave.”

  “You’re cheating. And I’m not being brave. Has it occurred to you I might be afraid of flying?”

  “You were engaged in astral projection the first time I laid eyes on you,” he pointed out.

  “I thought you were drug-induced,” she confessed. “I’d been experimenting, but I didn’t really believe I was actually accomplishing it. I thought I just sort of hypnotized myself. I would never have been so open with you had I thought you were real.” Joie turned her face up to the sky, her head cradled on his shoulder.

  “Then I am glad you thought you made me up. I think I will like your family very much, mage or not.”

  “I wouldn’t jump to conclusions until you’ve met my mother. She’s absolutely devoted to us and to our father, but she doesn’t welcome others at all. My teachers frankly detested to have her come to school for conferences—especially the male teachers.”

  “Nevertheless, I intend to win her over. I have not had a family in so many years, the idea of one did not occur to me. Yet now, when I watch you with your brother and sister and feel the love you have for them, it makes me envious.”

  Her heart turned over at the longing in his voice. Joie had never thought she would feel so intensely about a man. The mere tone he used could make her shiver like the caress of fingers, or wrap around her heart like a fist.

  “Did you have siblings? Were you close?”

  He rubbed his chin on the top of her head just to feel the silky strands of her hair against his skin. “Actually yes. I had a sister, Elisabeta. She, of course, was much younger than I was. Carpathian children, as a rule, are born fifty to a hundred years apart, but not always. She was very young when I was sent away from the Carpathian Mountains. I have searched for news of her, but no one seems to know what happened to her. I remember her running barefoot, her long hair streaming out behind her, and it seemed as if every plant turned their head to watch her pass. Our gardens were crazy after she was born. She had a free soul.” He closed his eyes, savoring the memory of a little girl, not more than six summers, her laughter making his heart sing when he shouldn’t have felt a thing. He had stayed longer than a warrior should, basking in the child’s presence.

  “Most of the ancient warriors, those that had already lost their emotions and had fought too long and taken too many lives, gravitated toward our home just to be around her. She could make emotions appear when they were long lost. A little miracle really.”

  He shook his head, blinking down at Joie’s upturned face. “I have not thought of her in centuries. Far too long. I accepted that she was lost to our people.”

  “And to you,” Joie said softly. “I’m so sorry, Traian. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost my brother and sister. I really don’t.”

  “It was many years ago, Joie, although in truth, I lost my emotions, and sorrows were much easier to bear. They are fresh again with memories returning now that my lifemate has provided a way for me to feel again.”

  “That’s such a difficult concept for me,” Joie admitted. “I’ve never wanted to give myself to anyone, not wholly,” she admitted, looking up at him. “Not all of me. I didn’t want anyone to see inside me. But you already do, don’t you?” Her eyes met his. “You do see me like no one else ever has.”

  “Yes.” Holding her close, protectively, Traian took to the air.

  They soared across a night sky so dark it was nearly purple. A blanket of stars sparkled overhead. The few remaining storm clouds drifted rather than spun. Far below them the ground dropped away—mountains and valleys, forests and lakes hiding secrets best kept hidden for all time. The scene below them was a mixture of old world and new.