"Velda, Inez, I know this is important, and I do believe you. I want to hear everything you have to say about what's happening, but unfortunately, I have to go right now." Her breath was rushing into her lungs.

Don't you touch her!

There was no pleading, just a very real threat in her sharp command. She leapt to her feet, began jogging toward the alley, blurring her figure so that she could put on a burst of speed and the sisters wouldn't be able to see. The wind picked up, rushed down the street in a gale, pushing loose paper, sticks and leaves ahead of it, swirling dust eddies into towers of turbulence.

Her body moved with grace, with power, a lethal machine rushing to stop the inevitable. She tried to use the blood bond between them, reaching for him, attempting to immobilize him. She should have known he would never have given her his blood if it would give her complete domination of him. He was a true ancient with more power and strength, more battle savvy than she could hope to muster in her short years as a hunter. It was too late to stop him; she knew exactly the moment his teeth sank deep into Mary Ann's vulnerable neck.

Destiny hissed softly, a promise of retaliation, the taste of betrayal bitter in her mouth. Why had she allowed his voice to deceive her into believing he was something different? She burst around the corner, skidding to a halt as she saw them. Mary Ann was turned toward her, a small frown on her face. Nicolae's arms were around the woman, holding her in front of him like a shield. He lifted his head slowly, almost lazily, his gaze drifting over Destiny in a kind of challenge.

Destiny halted a few feet from them. Mary Ann was in terrible danger. Nicolae might easily kill her. Destiny was very aware that one wrong move on her part could be the deciding factor. "What do you want?" She would give him almost anything for Mary Ann. She prayed she wouldn't have to kill Mary Ann to keep her from falling into his hands. "Tell me what you want." She was moving in a slow circle as she stalked him. The air between them vibrated with tension. Overhead the darker clouds began to boil. Small veins of lightning arced from cloud to cloud. The wind began an eerie moan, rising every now and then to a shriek of anger.

Nicolae smiled, revealing his immaculate white teeth. He looked the predator he was. "I am no fledgling to be tricked, Destiny. Back away and listen to reason."

"She is under my protection."

"And mine," he said gently, his gaze steady on hers.

Destiny's soft mouth firmed, formed a straight line. She inched closer, angling toward the left of the couple. She was on the balls of her feet, ready for his single mistake, a single opening.

Without warning, a shadow dropped from the sky. Silent. Deadly. A wicked beak and razor-sharp talons flew straight at Mary Ann's face. Destiny leapt to put herself between them, but the owl was already climbing, and Mary Ann looked terrified at the near miss. The beak had driven straight for her eyes.

"Don't move," Destiny cautioned Mary Ann. "Call him off, Nicolae. Call him off now."

"He is only protecting me," Nicolae explained gently. "He knows your intent and knows I will not hurt you. It is his warning to you. Should you harm me, he will kill her. I cannot stop him, and you know that, Destiny. He is my brother and seeks only to protect me. Think before you act." Nicolae kept Mary Ann firmly between them.

Mary Ann frowned. "Destiny, are you angry with Nicolae? I asked him to do this. I wanted him to take my blood."

Destiny winced visibly. "You have no idea what that means. You didn't want it. It isn't reasonable to think that you would. His voice is a weapon. It can deceive you into doing anything. His voice holds compulsion. Do you know what that is? It means you'll do anything he asks, anything he commands, anything he wishes. You think he gave you a choice, but he didn't. There was never a choice. You would have said yes to putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger."

Lightning slashed the skies, nearly striking the owl as it circled above them, but the raptor dissolved in midair, leaving behind a trail of vapor. A shower of sparks scattered like gems, seeking a target, but just as quickly a fine mist blanketed the night, snuffing out the hot points of light.

"Do not do that again, Destiny." The warning was a low growl. For the first time there was a distinct threat emanating from Nicolae.

"Wait, stop this right now!" Mary Ann shook her head decisively. "This was my idea, I reasoned it out every step of the way. Nicolae wanted to remove my memories, as a protection for you, for his people, and even for me. He said that my knowledge made me more vulnerable to a vampire."

That revelation penetrated Destiny's red haze of anger. The terrible pain of betrayal. There was truth in what Mary Ann said. A vampire could easily scan Mary Ann's thoughts and learn she had knowledge she shouldn't possess. Destiny took a breath, let it out slowly, trying to be calm while the wind whipped at her and lightning split open the sky. The crash of thunder reverberated loudly, shaking the ground, shaking the buildings.

The owl had settled on the rooftop above their heads, its dark eyes fixed intently on Destiny's face. It was silent, watching with a predator's rapt attention.

The wounds in her heart felt fresh and jagged. She had allowed Nicolae to get too close to her. She had let him inside.

I did not betray you, Destiny. I did what had to be done, what I knew you could not do. She is unharmed and now protected. It was her choice alone. I give you my word of honor.

His voice was always the same. So perfect. She lowered her lashes, indecisive again. She had come to the alley to kill him, but hope was swirling in her stomach and crushing her heart at the same time. She loved his voice and she hated it.

"Destiny - " Mary Ann could see tiny beads of sweat on the young woman's forehead. Only it wasn't sweat, it was beads of blood. "Look at me. Please look at me. If you can do what you say you can, look into my mind and see what happened between us. I wanted this. I don't want to forget you. I'm your friend. That matters to me."

Destiny's fingers curled into tight fists. "I don't have friends."

"Yes, you do. It might be frightening to have friends, but they're there for you. You know how I feel; you know it's real. I care what happens to you."

"I don't want you to care." Destiny snapped the words, her vivid eyes glittering, picking up the veins of lightning so that she looked dangerous. "I don't want any of this." She swept her hand to encompass all of them. The neighborhood. Mary Ann. The silent sentinel on the roof. Nicolae. Especially Nicolae. She wanted nothing to do with him. She hated him, hated the way his hands curved over Mary Ann's shoulders.

Nicolae allowed his arms to drop to his sides. If Destiny made a threatening move toward him, he was certain he was fast enough to escape danger, but he couldn't control Vikirnoff's response to an attack on him.

Do not hurt her.

He couldn't stop himself from warning his brother.

I am fully aware that if I attack, you will be forced to protect her from me.

Vikirnoff was unshakable.

She will not be allowed to harm you. Should she attempt to do so, I will divert her by attacking the human woman.

Nicolae sighed softly. "Destiny, come with me." He held out his hand to her. "This situation is dangerous and belongs between us and no one else. Come with me now before something happens that neither of us can control."

Destiny went pale. Her teeth bit at her lower lip. She glanced up at the owl, looked at Mary Ann. Took a reluctant step toward Nicolae. Another. Nicolae felt as if he could breathe again. He had known what she would think when he had made the decision to take Mary Ann's blood, how Destiny would react, but he hadn't counted on how painful his apparent betrayal would be to her. Seeing her suffer shook him more than he had ever imagined anything could.

Destiny looked at his outstretched hand, wiped her palm on her thigh, as if she were afraid to be alone with him. "Mary Ann, will you be all right walking home alone?" She sounded as if she were pleading with Mary Ann to save her.

"Perfectly all right," Mary Ann said firmly. "You go with Nicolae and talk things out. I'm certain the very interesting bird will see me home safely." She grinned at Nicolae, waved daringly at the owl.

Nicolae couldn't help giving an answering grin. He liked Mary Ann. Who could not? There was something special about her. Her courage and loyalty set her apart. He could see why Destiny had settled in the neighborhood, drawn by this woman who worked so diligently for others; she was a woman of great compassion.

Nicolae took Destiny's hand. He couldn't say she held it out to him, or even met him halfway. He had to reach out, shackle her wrist and bring her hand to him. Lace his fingers through hers. But she didn't pull away from him. A small victory, but one that he treasured. Her fingers were ice-cold. And she was trembling.

He didn't make the mistake of tugging her to his side. He went to hers, standing close so that his larger frame sheltered her body from the wind. So that she could feel his body heat. So that electricity seemed to arc between them, crackling and snapping with a life of its own.

The owl flapped its wings, took flight overhead. The movement seemed to calm the wild winds. Even the white-hot whips of lightning faded from the dark clouds as Destiny began to relax.

Mary Ann reached out and, to Destiny's horror, hugged her briefly before walking determinedly away. Destiny simply stood frozen in place, as still as a statue, unaware her hand was gripping Nicolae's so hard that he was afraid she would pulverize his bones. She watched Mary Ann walk out of the alley with the owl flying just above her as if guarding her. Or stalking her. "He won't hurt her," Nicolae said. It was in her mind to try another attack on the owl. Knock it from the sky so she could be sure Mary Ann was safe.

"He only threatened her to stop you from attacking me."

Nicolae stepped closer to her. "You have not fed." It was an invitation.

"I don't trust myself yet." She looked up at him then. Studied his face with its dark sensuality, its sharp angles and planes. The eyes had seen too many centuries. Faced too many battles. He was a man who had been alone for far too long. "I can't be what you want me to be." She had touched his mind often. She knew his thoughts.

Lifemate. She understood all the word implied. Everything.

Lifemate. Something she could never be.

His hand framed her face. Exquisitely gentle, his fingers trailed over her cheekbones, lingering with tenderness. "You are everything I want you to be. There is no need to worry about such things. You do not know me. How can you decide?"

His touch wreaked havoc with every cell in her body, caused a small rebellion of her senses. A mutiny of blood and bone and nerve endings. He confused her. Every time he came near her, she felt different from normal. Restless. Needy. His voice found its way into her body, wrapped itself tightly around her heart and lungs, so that each time he spoke, he robbed her of breath. Of life. Of the ability to hate. Him. Herself. What she was.

"It was easier without you."

"You have never been without me," he pointed out. He curled his fingers around hers, brought her knuckles to his mouth.

Her heart jumped at the touch of his lips against her skin. A whisper of velvet. A stroke of heat. He was so beautiful there in the night. Tall and strong and alive. Too real. Too masculine. Too strong. There was a lump in her throat that made it almost impossible to speak. "You are, you know. Too strong for me." Her voice came out husky, strangled, so unlike her.

His thumb feathered along her cheek, traced the path of an imaginary tear. His palm cupped her forehead, removed every trace of the tiny beads of blood. "You were honed in the fires of hell, Destiny. No one will ever be as strong as you are. I know you fear you will lose yourself by being with me, but that would be impossible. I am not asking you to join with me. I am not asking anything of you other than for you to grow accustomed to my presence. I have shared your mind for many years, shared your fears and every unspeakable evil that was done to you. I shared your battles and I know your every secret. It is my physical presence that is unsettling to you."

He leaned closer, so close that his lips skimmed over the corner of her mouth. Her blood heated and her stomach clenched. "I need you. To live. To save my soul. I am willing to wait as long as it takes."

Her eyes met his. She flinched away from the dark sensuality she saw there. From the tremendous intensity. "I know that you're willing to wait. But you can't really wait, can you? I've read your mind. I know that this thing you call lifemate is essential to keep you from turning vampire."

He didn't even blink at the accusation. He nodded, his gaze drifting possessively over her face. "I can

wait, Destiny. If it is difficult, that is not your failing but mine. Let me worry about how I will manage it."

"I can't be intimate with you." Her chin rose slightly; her soft mouth trembled. "I could never be intimate with you, and that's a big part of what you want from me."

"We are already intimate, Destiny. Sex is not necessarily intimacy. We have shared far more than other couples, shared intimate details of our lives." He tilted her chin, studied her vivid eyes. "Come with me. Let me show you what you are, not what you imagine yourself to be."

"Why does everything you say sound like a temptation?" A faint smile gleamed for a brief moment in the depths of her eyes. "Can't you just be dull and uninteresting?"

He laughed softly, brought her hand once more to his astonishing mouth. His teeth teased the pads of her fingers. "At least that is a start. I would much rather be a temptation than dull and uninteresting."

"Where are we going?" She moved backward, a subtle retreat. "I haven't spent so much time with people in my entire life. It's" - she searched for the right word - "uncomfortable."

At least she was willing to come with him. He couldn't ask for more than that. When he was near her, his pulse pounded and his head throbbed. His body was hard and full, aching for her. The ritual words beat in his mind, and deep within, the crouching beast lifted its head and roared for release. Nicolae didn't flinch from the knowledge in her eyes. He had deliberately given her an advantage. She needed to be able to touch his mind at will. To feel she could know his true intent. He had no intention of hiding his difficulties from her. It was the Carpathian way of life, the male struggling to keep darkness at bay. It was a fact, and finding his lifemate created its own complications.

Nicolae dissolved without another word, streaking through the dark clouds, a heavy mist mixing with the fog and moving determinedly over the city. He didn't hesitate, once again giving Destiny a choice. She had to want to take the steps, want to give them a chance.

That's not what I'm doing, she replied, responding to his last thought. There was no chance of their being a couple. Together. Lifemates. Destiny leapt into the air, bursting into the sky like a rocket. Her body dissolved into a prism of colored molecules, tiny drops that slipped lightly through the veils of fog.

She knew what his response would be and she braced herself. His laughter slipped into her mind. Nothing could rob her of breath the way the sound of his laughter did. There was something incredibly sexy about his laugh. Destiny followed the streaking comet through the sky, away from the city, toward the mountains and the forest some distance away.

She allowed the joy of flying to absorb her completely, to block out her every worry. There were certain undeniable pleasures the dark gift had given her.

More than a few, Nicolae pointed out.

Each species has its drawbacks and incredible wonders. I do not think you have fully appreciated what you are.

Destiny tried not to flinch away from his words. She knew what she was, what she had worked to become. She hunted the undead and she was becoming very good at killing them.

How is it you can read my mind when my blood does not call you? I'm not in pain; I didn't connect with you. We've created a path over the years. That is my best answer. We are two halves of the same whole. I think we would be able to find each other however far apart we are, no matter what the circumstances.

The answer both pleased and frightened her. Even without the ritual words that were always in Nicolae's mind, they were already sealed to one another. She could not imagine her existence without him. There would be no sanity. There would be no reality. Her mind would fragment and crumble until there was no substance, no thought. The idea terrified her. It terrified her even more that she relied on him for her sanity.

Nicolae's heart contracted as he read her thoughts. He stayed a quiet shadow in her mind, just as she was a shadow in his. She clung to him without being aware of it. He was very much aware that he clung to her.

He found what he wanted, a small secluded spot in the heart of the forest. The richness of the trees and foliage beckoned. He settled to earth, taking his true form, a tall, wide-shouldered man with a wealth of rich black hair, a dangerous mouth and compelling eyes. He leaned lazily against a broad tree trunk, watching intently as the colored molecules began to mesh together to form Destiny's curvaceous figure.

She remained some distance from him, a lost, wary look on her face. Her vulnerable mouth was very much at odds with the warning in her vivid eyes. She paced back and forth with quick, restless steps. "Why am I here?"

Nicolae regarded her with his cool, serene gaze. He could feel the need for solitude beating at her. "Have you scanned this place?"

She looked at him, impatience swirling in the turbulent blue-green of her eyes. "Of course I scanned. Did you think I would allow you to lead me into a trap?"

He could see that she was ready, expectant, her body in a good defensive position. He had taught her well. "What do you find here?"

Destiny glared at him. As the fog swirled in long white streamers, darker clouds drifted across the moon to obscure its radiance. Heat and fire glowed and reflected red and orange in her eyes. Tiny flames seemed to burn there. She blinked and the illusion was gone. Keeping her wary gaze on him, Destiny inhaled slowly. Deeply. Taking the crisp, clean air into her lungs. Wind rushed through the trees, rustled the leaves and whispered to her.

"What do you hear?"

"So much. You know that. I hear animals and the stories of their lives. There are no humans close, not even in camps."

"This part of the forest is little traveled," he agreed. "Carpathians are a species of people in harmony with the earth. The soil here is rich, and when it embraces you, its healing properties rejuvenate you. The healing soil of our homeland is beyond anything you can imagine. Like this, but a thousand times richer. I miss it." His white teeth flashed briefly in the night. "Especially after a particularly long battle."

"What are you trying to tell me?" She ran her hand over the bark of a small branch. She could hear the sap running in the tree. Insects swarmed over her head in the canopy above. An occasional owl flitted to branches near them out of idle curiosity. A few miles away, a cougar hunted with hunger rumbling in its belly.

"I want you to know our world. It is not the depraved world of the vampire. We are not all evil any more than every human is evil. We have wonderful gifts and many problems to overcome. We have longevity, yes. We appear immortal, yet we can be killed. Not easily; a wound that should be fatal can be healed with our saliva and good rich soil. The blood of an ancient has healing properties. We use the herbs and plants that abound in our world. We can command the weather should we have need. But we must rest in the hours of the sun. We have limitations."

Destiny regarded him carefully. "Tell me more."

"I have told you these things often, Destiny. Are you finally ready to listen?"

"I thought they were fairy tales. I needed something to live for, and you gave it to me. You turned me into a hunter of the undead."

For the first time he looked sad. Nicolae raked a hand through the dark silk of his hair so that it spilled around him like a halo. "I know I did, Destiny. I could not think of another way to stop the things the vampire was doing to you. I could not find you. You would not speak to me. I had to use you to kill him."

She lifted her chin, her eyes stormy. "Don't you dare feel sorry for that. It's the one thing I don't feel sorry for, and I don't ever want to. He did things - things I still can't face. With your help, I found the strength to defeat him. Don't you take that away from me. I deceived him and I managed to rid the world of something evil. I was only fourteen when I did it." She averted her face, but he caught a glimpse of hell in her mind.

"I did not want death ever to touch you. I never wanted that for you."

"It touched me the day I first heard his voice." She turned back to him, her gaze moving moodily over his face. Studying him. Looking to see beyond the mask he wore. "A voice like yours. Beautiful beyond belief, but so dangerous. Compelling and intense and filled with promises. You have that same danger in you. The power to crush another with your voice. To lure someone to you and compel him to do your bidding."

He nodded slowly. "That is so; it is a two-edged gift that can be used for good or evil. You have that same gift now. You have employed it, Destiny." His gut clenched. "On the young man you used for sustenance. You called him to you, kept him calm with promises of paradise."

Destiny couldn't deny his charge. She knew her voice held enthrallment. It was easy to lure men to her, to hold them compliant while she fed. It was easy to leave them with pleasant memories, and somehow that lessened the guilt she felt.

Nicolae stirred, a rippling of muscle, of menace, instantly drawing her full attention back to him. He struggled to keep the demon leashed and under control. Jealousy was an ugly emotion. It had no place in his life, in his relationship with Destiny. She feared intimacy and the sharing of her body, and he knew why. He knew her darkest secrets. Jealousy was beneath him, and he refused to allow it to grow into a cancer when they already had so many obstacles to overcome.

"Thank you," she said simply, watching him with her careful eyes.

His grin was sheepish. "It is a male thing."

Her eyebrow shot up. "I thought jealousy was universal. I didn't like seeing your arms around Mary Ann, but I thought it was because I was afraid for her." She shrugged her shoulders, the movement strangely elegant.

Nicolae found everything about her intriguing and tempting. She touched him on so many levels, not the least of which was his instinct to protect. Destiny did not want a protector, didn't believe she needed one.

But he saw the vulnerability around her soft mouth, saw so clearly the torment in her eyes. He could see the terrible struggle for sanity that she endured at each rising. Every cell in his body roared at him to take her into the shelter of his arms, to shield her with his body from every hurt. She stood there so bravely, admitting to him that it had bothered her when she saw him with Mary Ann in his arms. And she had confessed in order to make him feel better.

His grin widened foolishly before he could resume his customary mask. Warmth spread through his body and tugged at his heartstrings.

"Mary Ann is quite a woman. She has a gift or two of her own." He was careful in choosing his words.

Destiny nodded. "I think that's what drew me to her. Mary Ann isn't even aware of her psychic ability. I felt the small surge of power each time she connected with a woman to counsel her. I spent a lot of time standing on the balcony of her office listening to her. Even her group sessions touched me." She was admitting something to him she hoped he would comprehend. She recognized she couldn't live a normal life and had tried to find a way to heal herself.

"You are not a monster, Destiny. Our people face many problems. Our men lose their ability to see in color, to feel emotion after two hundred years. Everything fades. In the old days, when our people were plentiful and our lifemates were close, it wasn't so. Now we feel the scarcity of lifemates acutely. With no women to give us children, there was no hope for our dying race. Many of our males have chosen the momentary rush of power, the high of a kill over honor and a barren existence. That forces us to hunt them despite the fact that they are often family and friends. Each kill we make spreads the darkness until it consumes us. It is not an easy life, tormented by fading memories of color and laughter and what it was like to have genuine emotion."

Destiny rubbed her temples. She didn't like to think about his life, or touch on his memories. A barren life of gray and white, an endless desert stretching out in front of him. Until she had connected with him. She saw clearly his worry for Vikirnoff. She saw clearly his need of her.

"Some human women with psychic abilities are capable of being converted to our species. You are obviously one of those women. We need children. Our women, our children, are precious to us, true treasures. We protect them with everything in us. Our women and children are our only hope."

"And that's what the vampire did to me, right? He converted me. How?"

"It takes three blood exchanges, but with a lifemate, it's not painful or terrible in the way you experienced. When we make love, it's natural to share each other's essence. To want our blood to flow in each other's veins. It's almost a compulsion. When we are with our lifemates, kissing them, skin against skin, exchanging blood is a beautiful need."

His voice seemed to whisper over her, a soft temptation she couldn't think about. "I see what you're trying to say to me. I look into your mind and heart and I can see that you mean what you're saying. I only wish this were all true, Nicolae, but it can never be for me. I believe that what you say about Carpathians is fact. I sense goodness in you, along with the crouching beast. But you and I both know I wasn't converted by you. Or by a Carpathian male. I can smell tainted blood miles away. The stench is disgusting. Do you believe I can't smell it on myself? In the cave, they called me to join them. You heard them calling me. Even the undead recognize what I am. Perhaps if one of your kind had converted me, I'd be all that you say, but it was a vampire, and his blood runs in my veins."

"You can be healed."

"Can you heal my memories? Can you remove the things that were done to me? You think you made me into a killer; Nicolae, but it wasn't you. It was never you."

"I taught you to kill, Destiny. No matter how necessary I deemed it, killing was foreign to your nature. It is not to mine." He was not going to allow her to feel as if she were born a monster. "

I touched your mind with mine. I still do. The shadows there are of a vampire's making, not yours. Already my blood has lessened the burning in your veins. With time we can overcome what he has wrought."

Destiny shook her head. "I've lived with this forever. If there had been a way to fix it, I would have done so already. I may be partially in your world, but I'm also in the world of the undead. I'm unclean. I know it before I open my eyes, before I take my first breath on rising. I've killed so many times, I can never remove the blood from my hands." She looked at him, unaware of the terrible sorrow on her face.

Nicolae saw it and it turned him inside out.

"I examined your memories, Nicolae. I've had so many years of studying your mind, the battles and techniques used to kill. You don't feel anything when you attack. You don't know hatred. And you don't know rage. You don't know satisfaction and joy in killing. I do. Is that what you want in the mother of your children?" She turned away from him, hating him for making her confess her failings aloud. Making her see herself so clearly. "You never felt; I felt too much. I wanted to kill. You had no choice."

He glided closer, his heart breaking for her. "You didn't have a choice either, Destiny," he reminded. "He didn't give you choices."

"There's always a choice. You said yourself that the males can give up their lives rather than become vampire. I see in your mind the steadfast resolve to do so if it becomes necessary... and yet I didn't make that choice."

His hand swept down the line of her hair, caught the nape of neck and held her still. "You were not made vampire, Destiny. You are Carpathian."

"Then why do I feel hatred and the desire to kill? Why am I like him and not like you, Nicolae? Do you think it makes it easier to have you near me, knowing what I am, what I've become?" She placed her palm on the wall of his chest, fingers splayed wide, and tried to push him away from her.

He was as solid as a rock, unmoving despite her insistence. "You are not like the monster who stole a child from the safe haven of her home. You are not like the creature who destroyed a young girl's right to a world of innocence. You are nothing like the depraved one who reveled in torturing and killing others. I see into your mind just as clearly as you see into mine. I know who you are, Destiny. I will always know."

"Intimacy." She murmured the word and there were tears in her eyes. "You look into my mind and call it intimate. I call it hell."

He drew her into his arms. "Your hunger is beating at me. I feel it deep inside me, an endless, empty ache." His fingers bunched in her hair and he turned her face into the hollow of his throat so that his pulse beat strongly beneath her lips. "I feel how his blood burns like acid in your veins. Let me replace it with my blood. Let me give you that small gift. That is true intimacy, Destiny, knowing what you need and providing it."

"And what of your needs?" Almost helplessly she rested her head there against his throat. Her mouth was already moving over his skin, the temptation far too great to resist. She could remember the exact taste of him. The feel of his arms, his skin. The power flowing into her body. "What if I can never provide you with what you need? The thought of a man touching me is..." She trailed off, inhaling his scent, taking it deep into her lungs. It could never be. It was too late for the things in his mind.

She didn't want a man touching her, yet every nerve ending was on fire for him. An unfamiliar heaviness had settled in her body. Her breasts felt swollen and ached for his touch. Not a man's touch. His touch. Only his touch. Tears burned, threatened to consume her. If she cried, she might never stop. She might drown the world with her tears. "I don't need pity. I never asked for pity." She said it with her lips tasting his skin, his heat. Absorbing him into her. She actually felt his body hardening, his muscles taut against her softness, his heavy erection pressed tightly against her.

"I am not giving you pity, Destiny. This is love." He said it tenderly. Coaxing her. "Yours for the taking. This is unconditional love. Nothing more, nothing less."

His arms were strong and warm; her body fit perfectly into his. "Your body wants my body," she whispered, the terrible sorrow welling up in her like a fountain. Her voice was husky and ragged. She was damaged for all time, a broken thing, forever contaminated by evil.

His hand clenched in her hair, pushed it aside to expose the vulnerable nape of her neck. He ached for her. For himself. "Of course my body wants you. That is only right and natural, Destiny. You are my true lifemate. There is no other for me, nor will there ever be. Look beyond my body to see into my heart and my soul. See yourself the way I see you. Courageous and beautiful. You are everything. Look into my mind and see that I want only to be what you need."

She couldn't look into his mind. Or his heart. Or his soul. She was afraid she would find just what he said. Happiness and hope. A glimpse of what might have been. She knew exactly what she was. She lived with her body and her mind and her scarred soul every rising. Dreams had no place in her world. Destiny closed her eyes and allowed her incisors to lengthen. She needed to feed. That was all. That was all there could ever be between them. He was prey like every other man. Nothing more. Never more than that. She meant to drive her teeth deep, hoping to hurt him, hoping to drive him away from her.

It was impossible to hurt him. She couldn't do it. Her tongue swirled over his pulse, her breath warm and soothing. Her body moved on its own, restless and with a sense of urgency, pushing close to his, her hands moving over his chest, his back, shaping the defined muscles while his skin grew hotter and his breath grew ragged.

Nicolae whispered her name softly, hoarsely, a plea for mercy, his body going up in flames. Destiny wrenched herself out of his arms. She was shaking, her expression a mixture of fear and anger. "Go away from me," she said. "Stay away from me. I'm afraid of what I'll do to you if you stay." She backed away from him. "Please, if you really care, just go to some other land where I know you'll be safe."

He watched her leave and made no move to follow her. The chaos of her mind was too turbulent. A boiling mass of violence and rage, hurt and fear. Nicolae remained where he was for a long time, his head down, breathing deeply to get through his sorrow. To get through her pain. When he touched his face he was shocked at the blood-red tears he wept.