Dark Predator (13 page)

Exactly. I am off duty. This is my time.

He was tempted to bite that sweet spot between her neck and shoulder as punishment for her continued defiance. “When a De La Cruz is in residence, you are on duty from sunset to dawn. Or whenever
I
tell you.
O jelä peje terád, emni
—sun scorch you, woman. Do not argue with me. Have you learned nothing in the last few hours? You will not go unescorted,
anywhere.
You are a woman. A single woman. And you will have a chaperone at all times.”

She made no sound, but he felt her absolute rejection of his decree. Deep inside, it came again, that strange sound that started in his belly and welled up like champagne bubbles. By all that was holy, she made him laugh. He
felt
amusement. This slight woman brought laughter into his life. Until he figured out why she had such power over him, he wasn’t about to leave her side. She could deny his authority all she wanted, but she was about to learn what and who was the dominant in her life.

He inhaled her scent and found himself fighting the call of her blood. He tasted her in his mouth. That exquisite, rare taste beyond anything he’d ever known bursting in his mouth, trickling down his throat to seep into his veins, pouring through his body like molten gold. Her skin was so warm and soft, her pulse calling to him. He closed his eyes and simply listened to the rhythm of her heart. He wasn’t hungry, yet he craved her, like an addiction, wanting to bite down, to feel her soft flesh . . .

His hands slid up over her wrists, stroking, his palms brushing her breasts. Her nipples were peaked with cold—or excitement. He couldn’t make his mind stop long enough to find out which. His every sense, his entire being focused on her body. The shape of her. The feel of her. Time slowed. Tunneled. There was only his hands sliding over her, cupping her breasts, his thumbs brushing those hard nipples. His heart hammering. Hers answering.

Heat rushed into him. Filled him. Blood pounded through his center, rushed into his cock, until he was hard and thick and aching—and shocked. His body burned from the inside out. There was a strange roaring in his head. He felt on fire, flames scorching his skin, racing through his veins. Erotic images filled his mind, her body writhing beneath his, a million things he’d seen in his existence, a million ways to make her his. He had seen such things, but never once thought of them. Never once in all his existence had he ever entertained the idea of taking a woman without consent. Never considered burying his body deep in a woman and doing whatever he wanted with her—until that moment. The images and his terrible, brutal need overwhelmed him. Tiny beads of blood dotted his skin, sweat as he’d never known it. He felt edgy, out of control, insane with the terrible craving that had spread from his need of her blood to his body’s need of hers.

He shoved her away from him, breathing deep, taking in great gulps of air to stop the madness burning through him. He had known his soul was in pieces, no more than a sieve held together with tiny, fragile threads, but this—this would destroy him—destroy his honor. He wiped the sweat from his face and stared at the blood smears on his hands. “What are you, woman? You have bewitched me.”

She shook her head mutely, so pale she nearly glowed there in the darkness.
I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. I don’t know why this is happening to you.

She’d felt him all right, felt the rising demand of his cock pushing against her body with urgent demand.

“You will not control me.”

I’m not trying to.

She took two steps away from him, staring at the large bulge in the front of his trousers. He saw the exact moment when her fear got the better of her and she turned and ran from him.

Zacarias took another deep slow breath and spread out his arms, welcoming another shape, needing the relief from his male human form. Feathers burst along his skin as he shifted. This time the harpy eagle was enormous. He took flight, staying low as he gave chase. The eagle twisted and turned, easily making his way through the trees, hunting his prey. He loomed over her. She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes wide with terror as he dove, his talons reaching for her, snagging her as she ran, and lifting her into the air, Zacarias’s enormous strength aiding the large harpy eagle.

Marguarita struggled, but as he took her higher, his giant wingspan beating to gain height, and the ground dropped away, she went utterly still, her hands wrapping around the bird’s legs. Once he gained altitude, he sped his way through the rain forest back toward the hacienda. Harpy eagles easily flew a good fifty miles per hour when they wanted, and with the ferocious wind at its back, the bird swiftly covered the distance, reaching the ranch in record time.

Zacarias dropped Marguarita gently in the grass just outside the front door. He shifted as his feet touched the ground beside her. She didn’t attempt to run again, but lay quietly, her hands pressed tightly over her waist where the talons had clutched her so tightly. Zacarias bent down and caught her up in his arms, cradling her to his chest.

Her eyes took up half her face and the fear was back, all traces of temper gone. She couldn’t scream and her mouth wasn’t open to try to call for aid, and that upset him more than it should have.

“Do not look at me that way,” he snapped. “Had you simply come with me without a fuss, I would not have had to drag you back in such a manner. Has no one ever taught you consequences?”

She looked away from, shifting her gaze to somewhere over his shoulder, but she couldn’t contain the shudder that went through her. Perhaps his voice had been too harsh. He had to remember her infirmity. Her father certainly should have addressed her need to flout authority, but he was there now, and he had no doubt he could get the job done.

He waved his hand at the door and it opened for him. He swept through with Marguarita in his arms and placed her on the sofa while he turned back to employ safeguards. He wove intricate, very strong guards around the entire structure, taking his time, determined no one would enter—and no one would leave while he slept. The workers on his properties knew when a De La Cruz was in residence, they were not to be disturbed during daylight hours. When he was satisfied no one—not even one of his brothers—could get through his weave, he turned back to study the woman who embodied the word
mystery
.

Marguarita sat up slowly. He saw her catch her breath and pain flashed across her face. He frowned and stepped close to her. The scent of blood hit him. Zacarias pulled her to her feet. She kept her hands pressed tightly to her waist. He could see small red droplets trickling through her fingers. Humans didn’t heal themselves. He hadn’t spent time around humans in years. He’d fed and was gone, a ghost in the night no one ever saw—or remembered.

“Let me see.” He softened his voice when her gaze jumped to his. “Take your hands away, woman. I need to see the damage done.”

Apparently he sounded just as menacing when he used a low tone because she shivered, but couldn’t seem to move.

Very gently he gripped her wrists and moved her hands. The puncture wounds from the grizzly-sized talons of the harpy eagle wrapped around her, front to back on either side. He should have thought about what those talons would do to human flesh, not about her defiance. Watching her face, he spit into his hands. His saliva would not only help mend the punctures, but he had numbing agent that would stop the pain as he healed her. He fit his palms easily over the marks, pressing into her, his hands nearly spanning her midsection.

“You will feel warm, but it should not hurt you,” he assured her.

She was trembling so hard he wasn’t certain she could remain standing. Her eyes stared into his with the exact look he’d seen on the prey of cobras. She looked mesmerized and terrified, unable to look away from him.

“Stop fearing me.” He had wanted her to be afraid, now he wished he could take it back. She looked very fragile, vulnerable, and so very alone. “I will not allow anything to happen to you. It is my duty to look after you.” He was telling the truth to her. Nothing would take this woman from him—certainly not death. By some miracle or some devilish trick, he was at long last coming to life, his body reborn, his mind once again intrigued.

He looked around the room and everything in it remained a dull gray. When he looked back at her, he could see emerging color, faint, but there. Her eyelashes were that same amazing black as the rope of her hair. Enormous eyes of deep dark chocolate stared back at him. Her eyebrows were black. Her lips were definitely pink. Colors could only be restored by a lifemate. Emotions—and he was having unfamiliar reactions to her—could only be restored by a lifemate. The fact that his body had reacted physically to her was astonishing, problematic and yet exhilarating—if he could feel exhilaration. But a lifemate would have restored those things instantly.

Mages had infiltrated, occupying the neighboring ranch only a few months earlier, biding their time in hopes of destroying the De La Cruz family. Dominic and Zacarias had stopped them, but there was a slight chance the alliance between the master vampires and the mages had held and mages had found their way back for another attempt. If Marguarita was shadowed by a mage spell—he would have known. As much as he kept coming back to that explanation, a dread was growing in him that he knew the real explanation.

If Marguarita truly was his lifemate, then something had gone wrong, and he feared he knew the answer to what that was. He had not found her in time. His soul was in tatters, already beyond repair. His other half could not seal him to her, could not bring light to the utter darkness within him. It was no surprise that he was a lost cause. He had probably been born that way, but still, there was a time when he’d dreamed of this moment, when he’d envisioned a lifemate and even actively sought one.

His palms grew warm as he pushed heat through his body into hers. Her lungs fought for air and he purposely breathed for her, calming her, the air flowing naturally through his until her body followed the same even rhythm. Her heart pounded so hard he feared she would have a heart attack.

“Just breathe,
mića emni kuηenak minan
—my beautiful lunatic.” There was an inadvertent ache in his voice, a mourning for what he’d lost long before he’d ever found it.

Marguarita looked up at Zacarias De La Cruz’s strong face. It was a face carved from the very mountains, chiseled with battle and age, yet strangely handsome. This was not a man who had ever been a boy, he was all warrior. For the first time, deep in his eyes, she saw sorrow. The emotion was deep and real and when she touched his mind, she wanted to weep. He didn’t appear to realize the depths of his anguish, or maybe he simply didn’t acknowledge emotion, but it made her want to weep for him.

He was completely self-contained, not needing anyone. So powerful. And so utterly alone. He inflicted pain, terrified her and then so very gently healed her wounds. Perhaps he was a little mad from being alone for so long. Each time he called her something in his language, his voice softened almost to a caress, his words wrapping around her like strong arms. Sadly for her, that lonely, feral quality in him drew compassion from her. Already her mind reached for his, automatically soothing him, sending him warmth and understanding.

Without thought she lifted her hand to touch those deep lines carved into his face. He caught her wrist, startling her. She hadn’t been aware she was actually contemplating touching him. Her wrist ached from the force of his palm slapping her skin. He was as hard as a kapok tree, his flesh not giving at all. His fingers wrapped around her wrist easily, clamping down like a vise, making it impossible to pull away. Her heart slammed hard in her chest and she blinked up at him. Her breath exploded out of her lungs. She’d managed to stir the tiger again, without even thinking.

I’m sorry. Truly.

The suspicion in his eyes was so like a wary wild creature that she couldn’t stop that flow of compassion and warmth from her mind into his. She felt as if she needed to calm him. He didn’t belong inside a house. There was no way four walls could contain his power or his savage nature. She couldn’t imagine anything or anybody being at ease around him. He was too dominant, taking over the room, his aristocratic ways and hard authority adding to the terrifying aura surrounding him.

“Were you planning on petting me?”

There was no sarcasm in his tone, but his question hurt. She licked her suddenly dry lips and shook her head. She didn’t know what she had been doing. If she had her pen and paper—maybe she could try to express herself, but she felt cut off from the world most of the time, like this moment. How did she try with mere impressions to convey the way her strange gift manifested?

She wasn’t even certain how her gift worked. She only knew that everything in her reached out to the wildness in him, to the tortured soul, stark and lonely and in need. He didn’t even know he was in need. How could she explain when she didn’t have a voice?

I’m sorry,
she repeated, unable to think what else to do.

Zacarias’s expression remained absolute stone as he brought her fingertips to his face and held them there. “Do not be sorry. I am not.”

Her stomach performed some weird acrobatic somersault at the touch of his skin beneath the pads of her fingers.

“If you wish to touch me, you have my permission.”

For the first time since the vampire had attacked her, she was glad she couldn’t speak. There were no words. Nothing. She should have been irritated by his aristocratic condescension, but instead she wanted to smile.

She had no excuses. Whatever compulsion he seemed so worried about was obviously working on her as well. And without her pen and paper she felt vulnerable, stripped naked, unable to communicate. She swallowed hard and nodded, wondering a little hysterically if he thought she should thank him for his consent.

He dropped his hand, leaving hers against his shadowed jaw. She pressed her palm into that dark scruff and felt her heart reach out to his. The sensation was so strong it scared her. She dropped her hand abruptly and stepped back, confused at her reactions to him. She was very afraid of him, yet the sadness in him weighed so heavily on her she couldn’t stop herself from feeling compassion.