Dark Destiny (22 page)

You summoned me
? The words were bit out. Destiny wasn't happy with the way he had drawn her to him. Or the fact that he could draw her.
His
blood ran in her body, yet he was the one who commanded her.

"Excellent idea, Martin." Nicolae lifted a hand in farewell and sauntered around the corner out of sight. He knew exactly where she waited for him, seething and determined to pick a fight.

Destiny glared at him when Nicolae appeared next to her, shimmering into solid form on the highest rooftop above the neighborhood. "Would you like to explain your arrogant behavior to me?"

Her eyes were smoky green, with turbulence swirling in their depths. She looked wild and unpredictable. Her body was poised and ready to fight, coiled like a spring, yet as still and as watchful as a tigress. The wind was ruffling her hair like the touch of fingers and her mouth was… tempting. His gaze dropped to her full lower lip. Its slight pout didn't mean she was sulking. It meant trouble for someone.

His entire being reacted to the sight of that pouty lower lip. His arousal was swift and hard, accompanied by a punishing ache that wouldn't quite leave him even when he was away from her.

Destiny was furious. Not just furious. She was frustrated and restless and strung tighter than a bow. Anger roiled in the pit of her stomach, mixed with an age-old excitement she couldn't contain. It was a reaction to the way he was looking at her, his hooded gaze hot with desire and an intensity of need and hunger he didn't bother to try to hide.

"Was my behavior arrogant?" His gaze never lifted from her mouth.

The power of his voice sizzled in her stomach, throbbed lower. She recognized need for what it was, and it frightened her that she could be so caught up in the force of his power. His voice stroked her skin like a velvet glove, making her intensely aware of every inch of her skin.

"Are we going to talk about this?" Her own voice sounded husky, strangled, as if she couldn't catch her breath. "You used your power against me. That's entirely unacceptable." She had to look away from him. Up close he was stealing her very reason, putting erotic ideas in her mind that should never have been there. Destiny closed her eyes and inhaled, hoping the cool, crisp air would clear her head.

"Is that what you think I did? Used my power
against
you? When has anything I have ever done been against you? I have lived for you for more years than I care to consider, Destiny. You have to meet me somewhere, if not halfway then at least make a few concessions, take a few steps toward me."

She inhaled his scent. The beckoning call of male to female. Her breath exploded out of her. "Nicolae." His name came out an aching whisper. "I have tried. I swear to you, I have tried."

He reached for her, unable to prevent himself when there was raw pain etched into her face and such urgent need in her eyes. "Come here to me. Nothing can be done until we resolve what is between us." His hands settled around her, gathered her into the shelter of his body, and he took to the air.

She knew she should protest. Wherever he was taking her was a place in which they would be alone. She couldn't afford to be alone with him and the temptation he represented. Her hand was already splayed over his chest, feeling the heat of his skin through his thin silk shirt. She reached around his neck to loosen the mass of his long, thick hair so that strands blew around her face and over her arms.

Nicolae felt the shiver that ran through Destiny as he took them far out away from the city to one of the larger underground chambers he had found in his explorations of the area. His lips skimmed her throat, lingered for a moment over her frantically beating pulse, feathered up her neck to press against her ear.

"We need a private place to speak on this matter. I do not altogether trust what is happening within the neighborhood. Anything could be listening to us."

He placed her on her feet, waving his hand so that flames leapt to life in the carved urn he had left behind days earlier. Golden light flickered and danced on the walls of the cave, illuminating gems buried in the rock so that the chamber seemed to sparkle. A ring of boulders captured a pool of shimmering water that bubbled up from the ground and fizzed like a Jacuzzi.

Destiny moved away from the sheer potency of his larger, masculine frame. "What happened back there with Velda? Is she like me?"

Her eyes were begging him to give her the right answer. Nicolae touched her mind very gently as she shared with him that first dangerous memory. The little girl with a mass of ringlets falling around her shoulders and eyes too big for her face smiling up at a handsome man. The stranger bent down to her level, speaking softly, and her smile widened. She nodded her head several times, took his hand and walked him back to a small house. A woman stood on the porch, frowning a little as she watched her daughter speaking animatedly to a tall, rather beautiful man who slowly took on the form of a monster. His perfect skin became gray. His thick dark hair grew white and hung in strings. The slash of his mouth revealed jagged teeth stained black with blood, and long, sharp talons bit into the child's arm.

Immediately, Nicolae realized he was looking at the vampire through the eyes of the child Destiny had once been. "How could a child of six recognize a vampire? How could she know that one even existed? A child is innocent of such things."

"I drew him to my family. You can't say different. Velda is in her seventies. In all this time, why hasn't she drawn a vampire to her or her family? And what of MaryAnn? She is also psychic. We've destroyed several vampires in this area, yet none of them were drawn to these women."

Nicolae could feel the tears burning behind her eyes, although she held her chin up and her blue-green gaze was as steady as ever. "A better question might be why are all the vampires congregating here? That disturbs me immensely. Three women with varying psychic talents are here together. Is that really a coincidence? And Father Mulligan knows about our people, and he just happens to be here too. In this city of so many, we just happen to meet him and become involved in his life. Does that not disturb you? And we have two men, John Paul and Martin, behaving in a manner totally out of character for either one of them. I examined Martin. He has no darkness in him at all. He is incapable of harming another human being, yet he must have assaulted the priest. Or someone pretending to be him did so. How could one person play the part of John Paul, a large, muscular man, as well as Martin Wright, a slender, much shorter man?"

"A vampire could. He could assume any shape, any role," Destiny pointed out.

"And play the part well enough to fool Father Mulligan?" Nicolae's eyebrow shot up. "A man of the church? A man of such wisdom?"

"Of course, a vampire could fool Father Mulligan. I could do it. I could take your shape and make anyone believe I was you." She shrugged her shoulders with casual disdain. "Well, almost anyone. Maybe not Vikirnoff."

There was a small silence while Nicolae watched her closely with his unblinking stare. He saw the moment she understood what he was getting at. A vampire could fool any human. There was no way that she, an innocent child of six, could have recognized the monster who'd destroyed her family.

"I see what you're saying, Nicolae, and I know you're right. In my head I know you're right. I tell myself to stop placing the blame for my parents' deaths on my shoulders, but my heart doesn't listen."

"At least you are hearing me," he said quietly. "It was not a vampire that entered the church. No vampire would do so, nor would one of their ghouls. They are unclean and would not dare to enter a sanctified place."

"I know that." He had trapped her very neatly into admitting to herself that she was not unclean, for she had entered the church. She wanted that truth to sink into her heart and soul and live there, freeing her from the weight of guilt and self-hatred. She lived. It mattered little that her life had been a form of hell. She was alive, and the vampire who had murdered her family and countless others was dead at her hand.

Nicolae's face was hidden by the shadows recess of the cave, but she could see his eyes. Hungry. Intense. Needful. Burning with desire. He robbed her of every protest. Robbed her even of self-preservation. She tasted his desire in her mouth. It spread through her bloodstream and pooled into molten liquid, pulsing and throbbing for release. Her body felt strange, not her own. Heavy and aching.

Nicolae's gaze locked on hers. He could smell her beckoning scent. He could read the confusion in her eyes. It didn't matter how much his body was screaming at him. His heart was melting, even as his body craved hers with an obsession he couldn't overcome. "You have not fed, Destiny. Why is that?" His voice was a whisper of sound in the confines of their underground chamber. A husky invitation that nearly brought her to her knees.

Destiny went weak at the sound of his voice. She watched his fingers slip the buttons of his shirt loose. Watched in complete fascination as he tossed the silk aside to reveal his powerful chest. His muscles were subtle, but well defined. She couldn't tear her gaze from the wide expanse of skin. The breadth of his shoulders. The thickness of his chest. His narrow waist. The strength in his arms.

"I can't breathe." She lifted her gaze to his face. "I can't breathe, Nicolae."

Destiny looked so fragile, so vulnerable, so lost. Nicolae stepped toward her and caught her face in his hands. He bent his head to hers, taking possession of her mouth, breathing for her, sharing his air. Sharing his strength.

At once the fire raged. Deep. Hot. Elemental. It flashed between them, in them, burning from the inside out. She simply surrendered to his dominance, her tongue dueling with his, a wild tango of mating. Of its own accord, her body went soft and pliant, molding itself to his, her breasts pressed tight to his chest. Her hands moved over him almost helplessly, as though moved by a compulsion to feel his skin beneath her fingers. The kiss went on and on. Neither could get enough; each wanted to crawl into the other's soul, into the other's skin, into the other's body.

It was sheer possession. A wild branding. Lust and love rising up swift and fast, intertwining, spinning out of control to create a firestorm, turbulent and white-hot. A soft sound escaped her throat, a keening mixture of fear and need. When he heard, Nicolae reluctantly began to exert his control, pulling back slightly to allow her to escape.

Her arms circled his neck and brought him back to her hungry mouth. He had been alone so many centuries, searching, waiting, needing her. She had been cut off from the world. Yearning for him. Clinging to him. Pushing him away at the same time to protect him. To save him. Her mouth was wild, fanning the heat up another notch. There was no saving either of them. She was helpless under the onslaught of his mouth, needing to be closer, demanding to be closer.

I am not going to be able to stop
. There was a plea for mercy in his voice. His hunger for her consumed him. He fed on the honey of her mouth, taking rather than asking, a dominant male in the full grip of passion, yet there was a tenderness in the way he held her that only added to his appeal.

Don't stop, then
. "Never stop." She whispered the words into his mouth. "I don't want you to stop." And she didn't. She was beyond being afraid. She was terrified. But that was nothing to her in the firestorm of her need. It consumed her, this obsession for him. Her body burned and throbbed and pulsed for his. Pleaded for his. And when he was kissing her, there was nothing else in her mind. No monsters. No deaths. No guilt or memories of wailing victims. There was only pure feeling. There was only Nicolae.

His hands slipped from her face to follow the smooth line of her neck. "Are you afraid of me, Destiny?" His teeth tugged at her lower lip, the one he found so intriguing, so impossible to resist. "I feel your heart slamming so hard." His hand lay over her heart, fingers splayed wide so that her breast ached and her heart pounded into the very center of his palm, as if he were holding it. "I do not want you to fear me, or to fear our joining. Coming together in love is a beautiful thing, not an act of despicable violence, but something unbelievably wondrous. Do you trust me enough to join your body with mine?"

Before she could answer, his mouth took hers again, his hunger ravenous. His hands slid lower, cupped the weight of her breasts, his thumbs caressing her nipples into hard peaks right through the material of her shirt. Destiny gasped as the sensations plunged her body into a volcano of need. Her legs threatened to give out. Her clothes were too tight, too heavy on her body. "Nicolae." Raw sensual hunger was in her voice. She opened her eyes to look at him, to search his dark gaze.

Passion stamped an erotic sensuality into the perfection of his masculine features. He was no boy, but a dangerous, powerful being, yet she saw his vulnerability.

"Say yes to me, Destiny. Let me make you mine." She was drowning in need. In hunger. In what had to be love. If it wasn't love, why were tears shimmering in her eyes and clogging her throat? Why was she fighting to save him? "You know what will happen. You know, Nicolae. You'll want to take my blood, and I would let you. I would never be able to find the strength to stop you." She whispered the words while his hands slid over her ribcage to find her waist. His hands tugged at the hem of her shirt, his knuckles skimming bare flesh. She burned and pulsed and waited for his rejection. It was the only answer for them. His enduring strength.

Chapter Ten

The sound of water dripping mingled with the accelerated rhythm of their hearts. The flickering flames in the stone urn danced over their bodies and bathed them in mystical light. There was a heartbeat, two, while his eyes locked with hers. His fingers bunched the hem of her shirt into his fists and he drew the light material over her head in one swift motion.

Destiny heard the hitch in his breath as his gaze dropped to her body. His hands went to her waist, a burning brand that seemed to melt through her skin. She reveled in the intensity of his gaze, the way it moved over her body, hot, possessive, claiming her very soul. She knew his mind was firmly entrenched within hers, allowing her to experience the extent of his hunger for her. He hid nothing from her—not the way she made his body feel and not the way he wanted to touch her. Not the way he needed her so desperately. So urgently.