He watched her take a breath, the action lifting her br**sts temptingly. She didn’t realize how intimate, how possessive her touch was. Long ago she had become his, her heart, her soul and her mind. She loved him with every fiber of her being. He belonged to her, body and soul, and she was very comfortable with him, even skin to skin, whether she knew it or not.

He uncurled her fingers one by one from around the thick length of his shaft, pulled her hand very gently back to his chest, and placed her fingertips in the bands of chain. He needed a respite almost as much as she did. His body was on fire. He needed just a few moments to breathe his way through the danger zone.

“You cannot disappoint me. You cannot. It is an impossibility.”

“How do you know?” Skyler asked. “I feel like such a coward. There’s more than just the physical relationship, Dimitri. Knowing the Carpathian ways and living them are two distinctly different things. When I first wake beneath the ground, I feel as if I’m buried alive. Intellectually, I know better. I know it’s natural for us, but I can’t control my reaction, that horrible moment when I feel I can’t breathe and I’m being smothered.”

“That is easily solved, Skyler. I can wake first and open the earth . . .”

“No. No. I don’t want you to do everything for me. I refuse to be a burden to you. I want to be your partner. I need to come to terms with all of this.”

He tugged her braid very gently. “Sívamet, it has been less than a week since your conversion. You were shot numerous times and died, were brought back to life. I am not expecting that you’ll know everything and be comfortable with it. Isn’t that too much to ask even of a woman as powerful as you?”

“No, not when I know what you’ve been through, what you sacrificed.”

Dimitri brushed kisses along her temples, his heart nearly melting in that ridiculous way it had when she was concerned for him.

“I didn’t do anything special, Skyler, although I’m grateful you think I did. Stop worrying so much about being young, or finding new things difficult. Carpathians age differently than humans. At fifty I might be considered your human age or Paul’s human age. We don’t mature fully until we’ve seen two centuries. After that, there is no real aging. Time goes by but we don’t mark it with age. When one has such longevity, age ceases to mean anything. Humans mark time because they have a cycle of life and they become caught up in that and measure all things by it.”

“I didn’t think about that,” Skyler admitted. “Francesca tried to explain it to me when I asked why Josef was treated like such a child when he’s so brilliant. No one takes him seriously, but he actually is a real asset to the Carpathian community if they would just listen to him and utilize his talents.”

“I think Josef will be seen in a different light after your daring rescue. Without the three of you, Skyler, you know I’d be dead. You proved yourself as well.”

She sighed. “I don’t know why I suddenly began feeling so inadequate, Dimitri. Just knowing the things you’ve had to face in your life . . . ” She broke off again, shaking her head.

He shrugged his shoulders. Her fingers were already working their nightly magic, smoothing the burned flesh, easing the tight bands around his chest. The reminder of that agony of silver wrapped around his body like a boa constrictor would always be physically present. Skyler and Mother Earth did their best—and he was certain no skilled healer could do more—but the scars were too deep.

Sometimes, when he first woke, he could feel the bite of the silver burning into his skin, in a hundred places, surrounding his body, slowly, like a snake, penetrating his skin to slither inside him, burning long worm holes through every organ. He knew the memory would stay with him, century after century, right along with the scars.

“I told you everything, my love,” she said. “What are you keeping from me?”

Her fingers traced the burns around his ribs. His left side in particular had been excruciatingly painful, digging deep until he was certain the chain had wrapped around bone, leaving its mark there.

He was branded forever by the Lycans. He was mixed blood, part of the Lycan world, yet half wolf and half Carpathian. Like Skyler with her mage blood, he would have to come to terms with what the Lycans did to him and how he felt about them.

“Mikhail wants me to go before the Lycan council and show them what was done to me.”

Skyler frowned. Dimitri sounded as he always did—matter-of-fact, very steady and calm. But she felt a ripple beneath the surface. She was always tuned to him. He had become her world and she knew the very number of breaths he took at times.

She splayed her fingers over his belly, feeling the tension in him—not sexual as there had been only moments earlier. She felt humiliation and anger. Not anger. Rage. She took a breath, inhaling his scent, wrapping herself in him for a moment while she considered how to best come to his aid. She understood the way Ivory touched Razvan or stood close to him in moments of distress. She wanted to ease any burden, but wasn’t certain how.

“You don’t want them to see these scars?” she prompted. It would be easy enough to slip inside his mind and see for herself what battle he engaged in, but like Dimitri had done earlier with her, she wanted him to tell her himself—to trust his partner.

She loved touching him. It was that simple. Every stroke of her fingers along those terrible burns made her feel closer to him. She tried not to be intimate in her touch, but she couldn’t help the possessive feeling she had when her fingers moved over his body. Dimitri belonged to her alone and so did his magnificent body.

Each time she found herself skin to skin with him, legs tangled together, his palm sometimes cupping her breast while they slept, her body reacted, coming to life when she’d thought that part of her would always be dead. She hadn’t known she could want a man. She’d never felt that tension building in her, the electrical shock running from breast to thighs as fingers of desire pulsed through her, until Dimitri. Sometimes just his scent triggered her body’s reaction.

She was terrified, and yet she was also equally as mesmerized by him. When she’d wrapped her fingers around his thick shaft, her first reaction had been panic, but Dimitri never forced anything on her—certainly not intimacy. She felt safe with him, safe to do some of the things she wanted to do—like explore his entire body. She didn’t want to be a tease—she knew it was difficult for him, that she was lucky he had such control, but she had to know how she would react to him.