Dark Magic (Dark Series - book 4) Read online

  “I think Savannah is upset.”

  There was no answer. Gregori continued to follow Savannah.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, sometimes women just need to cry it out,” Gary ventured.

  Savannah went straight to their house. Once she was within the safety of the four walls, Gregori broke off to take Gary to a new rooming house. “You know that you cannot leave until we come for you tomorrow,” he advised. He was a shadow in Savannah’s mind. He could see her clearly, running through the front room to the spiral staircase, toward the precious treasure Julian had left for them.

  Savannah tore open the door to the basement, then waved her hand across the hidden door to the chamber. She crawled into the healing soil and sank deep, then curled up and cried as though her heart was breaking. So many deaths. Peter. And what if they had lost Gary tonight? They could have lost him, and she would have been helpless to aid him, because Gregori would not allow it.

  After leaving Gary, Gregori came to her in gentleness, with tenderness. His hands were caressing as he undressed her unresisting body. He made no attempt to arouse her, to persuade her to join with him. Instead he crushed herbs, soothing, healing herbs that carried the scents of their homeland to them. He joined her in the sleeping chamber, burrowing deep into the rich soil, taking her slender body into his arms, pulling her close.

  Savannah pillowed her head on his broad shoulder, her eyes closed tightly. Her clenched fist was at her mouth, and he could feel the sobs wracking her frame. Gregori murmured to her in French and stroked her hair, his arms protective as he waited for her to cry out the storm of sorrow.

  He knew how to hunt and kill the most vicious and cunning of all creatures, the vampire. He could create storms and bring lightning from the sky. He could make the earth move. He had absolutely no idea how to stop a flood of tears. He held her in his arms, and when he could no longer stand it, he issued a sharp command and sent them both to sleep.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The storm moved in from the sea in the gathering darkness, blowing fast and furious over the canal and into New Orleans. It was wild and uninhibited, slamming rain into the streets with such force that it pooled inches deep immediately, the city’s massive pumps unable to keep up with the load. Bolts of lightning streaked and sizzled across the sky and danced in the air, displaying the raw magnificence of nature. Thunder cracked loudly, drums filling the sky, breaking free to shake the very foundations of the buildings.

  Gregori padded through the house on bare feet, suddenly worried about Savannah. She was out in the courtyard, alone, quiet, not sharing her thoughts with him. He had merged his mind with hers twice since rising, and both times she was confused, sad, chaotic. He had backed off to allow her space. She wanted the one thing he knew he would never be able to give her: the freedom to join him in his battles. The thought of Savannah in any kind of danger robbed him of the very air he breathed. Gregori was at a loss. For all his knowledge, all his power, he was unable to say the right thing to make it better for her.

  Savannah had wandered silently out into the courtyard as the wind had risen, watching the clouds darken, swirl, and boil against the night sky, heralding the coming gale. The sky had opened up, dousing the earth. Savannah simply curled up in a chair and watched with shadowed eyes.

  Gregori paused in the open doorway, his eyes molten mercury, watchful and careful. She was staring up at the dancing whips of lightning, uncaring that three inches of water had pooled on the patio, that her long hair was drenched and that the thin shirt she wore clung to her like a second skin. She was so beautiful, she took his breath away. All around her nature was erupting, wild and untamed. In the middle of it all, she sat as if she belonged. The white silk of his shirt, soaked in the rain, was transparent, hugging her high, firm breasts so that she looked like a pagan offering.

  She was deep in thought, far away. Gregori touched her mind with his because he needed the contact. She seemed so distant, and he no longer could bear the separation from her. Despite her outward appearance of serenity, her mind was as wild as the storm. She was soaring above the earth, no longer anchored by skin and bone. The fury of the impending gale was in her, turbulent, untamed.

  He could find no condemnation in her for his failures, no blame for the sorrow in her. There was only a fierce need to find a way to understand and accept those things she could not change. She felt the shortcomings were her own youth and lack of experience. She was particularly distressed that she had inadvertently placed him in danger because she didn’t have the knowledge to shield her presence from their enemies. Gregori nearly groaned aloud. He didn’t deserve her; he never would.

  Savannah turned her head slowly toward him, her blue eyes dark with the wildness of the storm in their depths.

  He could feel it then, the heat and hunger. The raging storm. It moved through her blood the way it moved through the night sky. It called to something primitive and savage in him. He felt the beast roar, the hunger swamp him. Silver eyes glowed red in the dark night, ferocious, feral, more animal than man.

  Gregori would never forget that moment. Not in a century, not in an eternity. The night was theirs. In spite of everything between them, there was nothing that could keep them apart. They belonged together. They needed each other. Hearts and minds, bodies and souls. Trees swayed in the winds; plants nearly bent double under the onslaught. The humidity was high, the air filled with electricity arcing and snapping. Jagged bolts of white heat slammed into the ground, shaking the earth. Lightning hit the side of a building a few blocks away, charring the walls and sending bricks spilling to the sidewalk and street. It exploded a nearby telephone pole into a shower of fiery sparks.

  Savannah stood in the courtyard, the lightning arcing across the sky above her, the wind whipping her hair around her, the rain soaking her body, and she lifted her arms to embrace the raw power of nature. Her skin was creamy, flawless, wet. The silk shirt clung to her rib cage and emphasized the dark rose of her erect, beckoning nipples. Her legs were bare and slender, and the dark triangle of curls at their apex enticed and beckoned, mysteriously summoning him. Her long hair, unbound in the wind, was wet and wild, like the night itself.

  Gregori went to her because he had to; he had no other choice. Nothing, no obstacle could have prevented him from getting to her side. His arm snaked out and dragged her to him, his mouth meeting hers with the ferocious intensity of the storm. He couldn’t find the words, had no words to give her, only this, his fierce need to show her what she was to him. What she gave to him. Life. Everything.

  He wanted her just like that. Wet and wild, with lightning streaking across the sky and scorching their blood. His mouth took hers, feeding voraciously, devouring, claiming her for his own, branding her mouth, her skin with his mark.

  Fire raced across her neck as he kissed her, stroked her with his tongue, as his teeth sank deep. The pleasure and pain shook her, reduced her to a wild ecstasy, craving, forever craving more. He took her blood, the sweet, hot fluid filling him as he gorged himself, as he tasted her very essence.

  As he fed on her honeyed spice, his hands stripped the edges of the shirt aside so that he could cup the fullness of her breasts, reveling in her body, her softness. So perfect. He could feel what she wanted in her mind—the savage hunger, the need to match the fury of the storm, the need to feel alive in the midst of all the violence surrounding them.

  Her need was his. He stroked his tongue across the pinpricks so his mouth could wander down her throat, leaving fire in its wake. He found her breast through the thin, water-soaked transparency of her shirt and suckled wildly, a frantic frenzy of lust and love. His hands found her bare bottom, cupped her buttocks to drag her against his raging body. Need overcame sense; his fangs burst forth, and he pierced the creamy swell of her breast, so that she flowed into him like nectar.

  Savannah cradled his head with one arm, her other hand exploring his body, deliberately bringing him to a fever pitch. The storm crashed around t
hem, through them, pooling low in their bodies, demanding relief. He fed as was his right, hands claiming her, sliding down to her wet, hot, pulsing core. His fingers probed, caressed, tempted, teased. The combination of his mouth feeding and fingers stroking drove her wild, so that she moved against his hand, desperate for release.

  Savannah’s husky cries were lost in the crack of thunder as her body rippled with life and demanded more of him. Gregori lifted his head and watched with hungry eyes the thin trail of red mingling with the rain on her body. He stroked his tongue across her breast, then followed the trickling path of ruby to her belly, then lower, so that he found her hot and ready, crying out as she fragmented under his attack.

  Lightning slashed and sizzled, whips of heat that seemed to lash them with their fury, seemed to dance through their bodies, feeding the storm in them, around them. Gregori propelled her backward until she came up against the iron lacework of the arbor. His hands turned her, so that her breasts were between the slats and she caught at the metal for support, her fists clenching as he lifted her lips. His palms caressed and stroked, the softness of her driving him mad with need. He pressed against her bottom with his own raging body, the hard length of him swelling even more. He had never needed anything more.

  Savannah made a sound, a little cry torn from her throat. The soft plea shattered his last control, and he surged into her sheath of hot velvet. He heard himself groan with pleasure, the wind taking the sound, wrenched from his deepest being, and sending it off into the turbulent night. His hands held her hips pinned as he buried himself deeper and deeper, hard and fast, as wild as the battering winds.

  Her back, so long and flawless, stretched out before him, and he bent his head to lap at the beads of water there. She was small, so delicate, yet strong and as wild as anything nature could conjure up. The insatiable heat of the Carpathian ritual was on them, but his heart was captured for all time, so that as wild as he was, he was equally tender.

  He felt her weaken, a momentary dizziness. He knew instantly what was wrong, although she tried to conceal it. He had taken too much blood. Without consent, without comment, he lifted her. Her small cry of bereavement was satisfying to his male ego as he took them across the patio to a lounge chair. Settling himself into the wet cushions, he pulled her onto him, so that she straddled him.

  Savannah cried out as she lowered her fiercely aroused body onto his. He filled her completely, white-hot friction, tight and erotic. Gregori caught the nape of her neck, forced her head toward his chest.

  You will feed now.

  She was like a wild thing, her body moving frantically over his, taking his iron control and reducing it to ashes. His hands spanned her waist, and he allowed himself the luxury of sheer pleasure, the lightning sizzling through his own body, flames consuming him. His hands moved up the perfect line of her back, found her hair, and forced her head to him.

  I need this from you. I need you to take me into your body.

  He clenched his teeth against the pleasure threatening to drive him mad.

  His command was really a plea, and Savannah leaned forward, her body riding his, her tongue lapping at the beads of water on his chest once, twice. His body clenched as fire streaked through him, pain and pleasure melting into one sensation. Her teeth bound them together as his body did. Body and soul. God, he loved her, felt whole, complete with her. The terrible emptiness, the black void, was pushed aside for all time by the beauty of her spirit, her soul.

  He whispered ancient words of love through clenched teeth, surging into her, filling her heart as he filled her body. When the explosion came, it was as turbulent as the slashing whips of lightning, as loud as the cracks of thunder, as wild as the winds ripping through the night.

  They clung to each other, exhausted, sated, awed at the beauty of their lovemaking, the beauty of the storm. Even as they sat welded together, her head over his pounding heart, his arms tight around her, the winds began to die down, nature easing its frantic force as their hearts slowly returned to a normal rhythm.

  Gregori kissed her temples, the line of her cheekbone, brushed his mouth along the corner of hers, nibbled his way down to her chin. “You are my world, Savannah. You must know it.”

  She held him, shocked at the intensity, the force of their need for each other. “If this thing between us grows stronger over the years, neither of us will live very long.”

  Gregori laughed softly. “You could be right,

  chйrie.

  You are a dangerous woman.”

  He flowed from the lounge chair, still holding her locked to him, and glided across the courtyard into the house. The shower was hot on their bodies after the cool rain, but they stayed there for some time, too spent to move. Savannah was grateful that he held her in his arms, afraid her legs would never support her again.

  Gregori dried her slender body with a towel before waving a hand to clothe himself. Savannah was wandering through the house back to the kitchen, with only another of his shirts to cover her. Her bare skin showed marks that hadn’t been there before, and he followed her, cursing his own roughness. He had left his brand on her breast deliberately, the mark of his possession, but the faint smudges elsewhere needed to be healed.

  Savannah laughed softly. “I don’t hurt anywhere, lifemate. I loved, it, and you know it.”

  “I can make you love it without marking you,” he corrected.

  She idly picked up a packet of papers and sifted through them, then dropped them onto the counter. “If you ever hurt me, Gregori, I promise you, I’ll tell you immediately.”

  He sensed the return of her restlessness. “What is it?”

  “Let’s do something, Gregori. Something that has nothing to do with the hunt. Something different. Something touristy.”

  “The streets are flooded tonight,” he pointed out.

  She shrugged. “I know. I was just looking at some pamphlets earlier, on all the tourist attractions here,” Savannah said nonchalantly.

  Gregori looked up alertly at the carefully calculated disinterest in her voice. “Did any of them seem appealing to you?”

  She shrugged again very casually. “Most of the more interesting ones are the day trips. Like the bayous. There’s one you can go on with someone who grew up in the bayou.” She shrugged again. “I like learning local history. I wouldn’t mind a tour of the bayou with someone who grew up there.”

  “You have the brochure handy?” he asked.

  “It isn’t important,” Savannah said with a little sigh. Tossing the packet of pamphlets onto the table, she picked up her hairbrush.

  Gregori took it out of her hand. “If you want a proper tour of the bayou, Savannah, then we will go.”

  “I like to do the tourist thing,” Savannah admitted with a slight smile. “It’s kind of fun to ask questions and learn new things.”

  “I bet you are very good at it,” he answered her, slowly running the brush through the blue-black length of her hair. It crackled with a life of its own, refusing to be tamed. He gathered it into his hands just to feel how soft and silky it was. Over her shoulder, his pale gaze rested on the brochure she had put to one side. If Savannah wanted a tour, he would move heaven and earth to get her one. “We do not always go chasing after vampires and the mortal assassins plaguing our people,” he began diplomatically.

  “I know. They turn up everywhere we go,” she agreed.

  He tugged at a tangle in her glossy hair. “When you first proposed to come to New Orleans, we had hoped the society members would follow us and leave Aidan and his people in peace. Is that not what you wanted?”

  “Not particularly,” she admitted with a flash of her blue eyes. “I was only trying to get you to come here. You know, classic honeymoon. Sweet young wife teaches wizened old grouch how to have fun. That sort of thing.”

  “Wizened old grouch?” he echoed in astonishment. “The old part I can accept, even the grouch. But I am definitely not wizened.” In punishment he tugged her hair.
/>   “Ow!” She swung around and glared indignantly at him. “

  Wizened

  sort of seemed to fit. You know,

  wizard, wizened.

  ”

  Gregori crushed her hair to his face to hide the sudden emotion overwhelming him. The fragrance of flowers and fresh air surrounded him. So this was what he had sought all those long centuries. Fun. Belonging. Someone with whom to share laughter and teasing and to make even the difficult moments in life beautiful. She was so much a part of him, he couldn’t return to a barren existence again. He would never choose to stay in the world without her.

  “Do you think I am too old, Savannah?” he asked softly, taking strands of her hair into his mouth. So soft. So much like silk but even better.

  “Not old, Gregori,” she corrected gently. “Just old-fashioned. You have a tendency to believe women should always do as they’re told.”

  He found himself laughing. “Not that you do.”

  She tilted her head back, a not-so-subtle hint for him to resume brushing. “I wish you would understand that I can’t stand by and watch someone get hurt because of me.”

  He sighed audibly and allowed several heartbeats to go by before replying. “I should never have taken you with me and placed you in such a position,

  ma chйrie.

  For that I apologize.”

  “I want to discuss this,” she insisted, clenching her fist.

  He pushed aside the thin shirt, bent his head, and touched his mouth to her bare shoulder. The sensation was as intimate as sin. “There can be no discussion. We put this to rest last night. I will not do this, not even for you. You must understand who I am. You are in me, as I am in you. You know how I feel. I can do no other than to protect you. That is who I am.”

  “Do you have to be so inflexible about this, Gregori?” Savannah complained. But he was right; she already knew the answer. It was impossible to be in his head and not feel his implacable resolve.