Mostly, Lucian didn’t want to be separated from her for any longer than was strictly necessary. He couldn’t be separated from her. He found he needed to be with her. He, who had never needed anyone. He needed to touch her, to know she was all right. Now that she was in his care, he intended to bind her to him so that neither humans nor other Carpathians could possibly take her from him. Jaxon would not escape him. He had given her his blood and had taken a minute amount of hers, just enough to be able to merge their minds at will.
He returned to her, once again at full strength. And his strength was enormous. He would have to be gentle with her. If there was any gentleness left in him, if there had ever been any gentleness in him, he intended to utilize it for Jaxon. If anyone deserved it, she did.
He sat down on the edge of her bed, removed the command to stay asleep, and gathered her into his arms. “I am your lifemate, young one. You have no idea what that means, and you are not Carpathian, so I expect a certain amount of resistance from you.” Lucian rubbed his chin over the top of her head. “I promise you I will be as gentle and as patient as I can, but I cannot wait long for you. The emotions I am feeling do not tame the wild beast within me.”
Jaxon’s eyelashes fluttered open. She felt confused, hazy, as if she were in a dream. The soothing voice she heard was so beautiful and familiar. It kept the demons at bay and allowed her to feel a measure of safety. “Who are you? How do I know you?”
“Your mind knows me. Your heart and soul recognize me.” His thumb caressed the perfect line of her cheekbone tenderly just because he loved the feel of her skin beneath his. “I must bind us together, Jaxon, I have no other choice. It would be dangerous to wait. I am sorry that I cannot give you more time.”
“I don’t understand.” She looked up into his black eyes and should have felt fear at what she saw there. He was looking at her possessively, something no man had ever dared to do. Jaxon didn’t encourage such feelings in men. Yet for some strange reason, this dangerous stranger made her feel cared for. Wanted.
“I know you do not understand at this moment, Jaxon, but you will in time.” Lucian caught her chin in firm fingers so that his dark eyes captured her gaze.
It was like falling into a black, bottomless pool. Endless. Timeless.
Lucian murmured her name softly and bent his head to the softness of her throat. He inhaled her scent. There was nowhere she could go that he could not find her. His arms tightened possessively until he reminded himself that she was very fragile. She felt incredibly small and light in his arms but also warm and enticing. She was stirring things in him best left alone. The sudden, urgent demands were shocking to him. She was young and vulnerable, and at that moment he should want only to protect her.
His mouth touched her skin gently, tenderly, a small caress. At once need slammed into him, hard and imperative. He could hear her heart beating to the rhythm of his. He could hear her blood run in her veins, an enticing heat that beckoned to him, that triggered a tremendous physical hunger for her body. Closing his eyes, he savored his ability to feel, no matter that it was terribly uncomfortable and his body was screaming for relief. His tongue found her pulse, bathed the area once, twice. His teeth scraped gently over the vein, then sank deeply into it.
At once she moved restlessly in his arms and moaned, a soft whisper of intimacy that tightened his body even more. She was sweet and spicy, a taste indescribable and one he had never before encountered. She was addicting, as if she had been designed precisely to please his every need. He would never get enough of her. Discipline overcame his hunger for the ecstasy her body promised. With a sweep of his tongue, he closed the tiny pinpricks his teeth had made, leaving no signs for a doctor to discover.
Careful to keep her deep within his enthrallment, Lucian opened his shirt and shifted her in his arms so that he could palm the back of her head. His body was raging with need, and her natural sensuality was emerging under his sorcerery. One of his fingernails lengthened into a razor-sharp talon. He sliced a line over his heart and pressed her mouth to his chest that he might continue the ritual of binding her to him.
At the first touch of her lips, fire raged through him, a need so intense, so deep, Lucian, who was noted for his rigid control, nearly gave in to the temptation to take what was rightfully his. He found he was trembling, his body covered with a fine sheen of sweat. Bending close to her ear, he breathed the words into the night, into her mind, that no one could ever separate them again, that she could not be apart from him for more than a few scant hours. “I claim you as my lifemate. I belong to you. I offer my life for you. I give you my protection, my allegiance, my heart, my soul, and my body. I take into my keeping the same that is yours. Your life, happiness, and welfare will be cherished and placed above my own for all time. You are my lifemate, bound to me for all eternity and always in my care.”
The relief he experienced was tremendous and occurred despite the fact that his body had not merged with hers. His heart and hers were one, bound together, two halves of the same whole. Their souls merged so that her feminine light shone brightly within him, alleviating the terrible darkness that had threatened him for centuries. At that moment he realized that when one had lived in darkness nearly all of his life, in a bleak, ugly hell of an existence, finding a lifemate was beyond any dream he could imagine.
Jaxon Montgomery was literally his heart and soul. Without her there was no reason to continue existing. He could never go back to the emptiness and darkness he had lived in for so long. The ritual words bound them together so that neither could ever escape the other.
Lucian didn’t fool himself. He needed her far more than she could ever need him, though, from his point of view, she needed him a great deal. He had to stop and think before he pushed his claim any further. Very gently he stopped her feeding, closing the wound himself. His blood would both tie them together and aid her healing. It would also work on her human body to convert her to his race. Conversion was risky, hard on the body and mind. And once done, there was no going back. Jaxon would be as he was, needing blood to survive, seeking relief from the sun in the welcoming arms of the earth. If she was not a true psychic—the only kind of human female to successfully convert to Carpathian—the experiment would push her over the edge into madness, and Jaxon would have to be destroyed. Lucian sat back, releasing her from his dark spell.
Her eyelashes fluttered as he slipped her back onto the pillows. Lucian knew that very few humans could be converted successfully. But he also believed she must belong within those ranks, as she was his true lifemate. Her heart matched his. He knew that. When he uttered the ritual words, he felt the threads binding them together. Even so, knowing something intellectually didn’t make his heart believe it. He wanted to take no chances with her safety. Three exchanges of blood were necessary for complete conversion. Already her hearing and eyesight were more acute, more like those of Carpathians. She would soon have trouble consuming meat products and most other foods. She would need him near. He had changed her life as much as he dared to at this time.
“I still don’t know who you are.” Beneath the covers of the bed, Jaxon’s fingers wrapped securely around the butt of her gun. She was very drowsy, and this stranger was far too familiar. She didn’t like puzzles. She had no idea where she was, only that she was ill and had strange dreams of a dark prince taking her blood and tying her to him for all time. There was something exotic and different about the stranger she found hovering over her bed.
Something elegant and courtly yet wild and untamed. Jaxon found the dangerous combination sensual and difficult to resist.
Lucian smiled at her, a flash of even white teeth that softened the hard lines of his shadowed features. “I am Lucian Daratrazanoff. A very old and respected name but difficult in this country to pronounce correctly. Lucian is fine.”
“Do I know you?” Jaxon wished she wasn’t so weak. She wished she hadn’t had such erotic and peculiar dreams about this man. It made her feel strange to be
in his presence, especially when nothing was making sense to her. “Why am I here instead of a hospital?”
“You needed extraordinary care,” he answered truthfully. “You came very close to dying, Jaxon, and I could not afford to take any chances with your life.”
“My partner, Barry Radcliff, was shot. I remember, he came back for me.” Everything else was a blur to her. She had no idea how she had gotten out of the warehouse, since Barry had not been in any shape to carry her.
“He is in the hospital and doing better than expected. He is a tough man and very courageous.” Lucian gave her partner his just due, although he didn’t add that the man was in love with her.
“I thought I was going to die. I should have died.” She murmured the words softly almost to herself.
She had wanted to die. The terrible responsibility that weighed on her slender shoulders was far more of a burden than she wanted to carry for all time. She forced her lashes open so that she could look at him. “You’re in terrible danger. You can’t be with me. Wherever we are, it isn’t safe. You’re not safe.”
Lucian smiled and reached down to brush at the hair tumbling down around her face. His touch was incredibly tender and gave her that strange sense of security. His voice was so beautiful and pure, she wanted him to go on talking forever. His accent was sexy, sending a wave of longing through her she hardly recognized for what it was.
“Do not worry about me, young one. I am able to protect both of us. I know of the man you fear, and as long as you are in this house, you are safe. He is well trained, but it would be impossible for him to enter these grounds undetected.”
“You don’t know him. He will kill anyone without remorse or thought. Even though you’re only helping me, he’ll interpret it as a threat to him.” She was becoming agitated, her eyes enormous with concern for him.
“If you believe nothing else of me, Jaxon, believe this. There is no other in this world as dangerous as the man in this room with you. Tyler Drake cannot reach you. He can no longer dictate your life, as you are under my protection now.” He sounded matter-of-fact, not arrogant, not a braggart.
She was falling into his dark eyes again. His beautiful, very unusual eyes. Jaxon felt a little lost, and she blinked rapidly to break away from his mesmerizing spell. “I know you think that. My father was a Navy SEAL, and so was my foster father, Russell Andrews. Tyler Drake managed to murder both of them. You can’t think you’re safe as long as you’re with me.” Her lashes were far too heavy to keep up. They drifted down in spite of her intention to convince him. She didn’t have the strength to guard him. That frightened her, and her heart slammed painfully against her chest.
“Be calm, Jaxon. Take a breath and relax. I am the one taking care of you, not the other way around, although I greatly appreciate that you would want to protect me. In any case, no one knows where you are. I have kept you entirely secure. Just sleep, honey, and heal.”
His voice was so soothing and persuasive, she soon found her breathing regulating itself exactly to his. Why she wanted to do as he commanded, she didn’t know, but the urge to obey was far too strong to ignore. She allowed her eyes to close. “I hope you’re as good as you think you are. It would be safer for you if you called my boss and had him station a couple of the guys to watch over you.” Her voice was trailing off to a soft slur. “Better yet, it would be safer if you just walked away from me and never looked back.”
Once more Lucian’s fingers tangled in her soft hair. “You think I would be safer, do you?”
There was a tinge of amusement in his voice. For some reason it made Jaxon’s heart turn over. He was so familiar, as if she knew him intimately, when she didn’t recognize him at all. Except his touch. She knew his touch. And the sound of his voice. She knew his voice. The accent, the velvet seduction of it, the way he turned his phrases. The way it seemed to belong in her mind. The really crazy part was, Jaxon was beginning to believe in him.
Lucian watched her go under without so much as a fight. She hadn’t wanted her life to be saved, but she had picked up the torch of being his guardian, worried for his safety. She was ready to protect him without even knowing who he was. He had spent a good deal of time now with his mind merged firmly with hers. It had been necessary at first just to keep her alive. Later, he did it because he wanted to know her, her memories, how she thought, what she dreamed of, the things that were important to her. She had far more compassion in her than was good for her. She needed him to balance her out.
He was amazed at how powerful the sexual urges he was experiencing for her were. That it had never happened to him before. He had seldom looked at a woman for other than satisfying hunger. Now his hunger was different and far stronger than anything he had ever imagined. For the sake of knowledge Lucian had sometimes shared the minds of humans to see what sex felt like. This urgent demand raging throughout his body was completely different from even that. It seemed to take over his mind, driving out every sane thought.
Protective. Lucian knew every Carpathian male was born with the tremendous duty of protecting the women and children of their race. This protectiveness he felt toward Jaxon was also different. Lucian had dedicated his life to guarding humans and Carpathians alike, yet again, the intensity of his emotions toward Jaxon was so much stronger. He was unprepared for how powerful his attachment to her would really be. He had lived nearly all his life in darkness and shadow, was comfortable and familiar with violence. He was wholly dark and dangerous. Now he wanted to know tenderness, gentleness. He knew himself as most men never did. He knew he was powerful and dangerous, and he accepted it in himself. Now, however, with Jaxon lying so vulnerable and fragile in his bed, he was even more so.
With a sigh he sank down on the bed beside her. While she remained human and needed to stay above ground to survive, he would be unable to fully protect her during the day, when sunlight diminished Carpathian powers. Normally he would take to the earth until nightfall. Which posed a problem for both of them. She could not be separated from him for that many hours without suffering tremendously. He stretched out on the bed beside her. He would command her to sleep until the next sunset. Meanwhile, the safeguards he would weave around them and the wolves he would release would keep them safe from any creature, human or otherwise, that might seek to harm them. He gathered her small body into the shelter of his larger frame and buried his face in the silky fragrance of her hair.
Chapter Two
Jaxon smelled him first. Clean. Fresh. Sexy. She inwardly shook her head at herself in reprimand. She knew him now. Knew his touch, his voice, his scent. Even in sleep her hand had been curled around the familiar butt of her gun. Now she relaxed her hold on it and actually allowed it to drop to the sheet beside her. She felt safe. She lay with her eyes closed, contemplating that. The feeling of safety. She didn’t remember ever having experienced such a thing before. It interested her that, although she was weak and injured, alone with a complete stranger and with no idea of where she was, she felt safe.
She opened her eyes and found him looming above her, exactly where she knew he would be. She felt him inside her mind, knew she could find him in a crowd without looking. The very sight of him stole her breath. He was so tall, and he wore power like a second skin No. That wasn’t exactly right. He was power personified. She waited for him to speak, needing to hear his voice. She loved the sound of his voice. It frightened her, her tremendous reaction to him. She had trained herself not to feel anything for anyone, particularly a man. She was convinced Tyler Drake would resurface if she were to show interest in a man.
“Are you feeling any better this evening?” Lucian’s hand brushed her forehead.
Jaxon felt the warmth of his touch like a rush of lava through her body. “You look tired.” She frowned. “Have you been taking care of me nonstop without sleeping?” The thought of having a stranger tend to her while she slept should be disconcerting, yet she didn’t really mind it so much with him. Jaxon studied him. Physically he was
beautiful, much like the mythical Greek gods. But his weary eyes had seen far too much, and she was definitely worried that he wasn’t getting enough sleep. She had an unexpected urge to reach up and touch his beard-shadowed jaw.
“I am the one taking care of
you
, honey.” A faint smile curved his perfectly sculpted mouth. “You do not need to think of anyone else but yourself. Your wounds are healing nicely. Another day and we can return you to the hospital, so your friends can see for themselves that you are alive and recovering. I have reassured them, but they need to see you with their own eyes.”
Lucian controlled human minds easily without giving it much thought. He had done so for many centuries. But this was a little more wearing, controlling so many different humans and at such a distance. He was not ready to relinquish his care of Jaxon to hospital workers until he was certain they would immediately release her to come home. He wanted no blood tests performed on her, and he knew she would be very vulnerable in a hospital should Tyler Drake or any of the enemies she had acquired through her work decide to finish the job someone had clearly started.
“I want to sit up.” She attempted to do so, surprised she still felt so weak.
At once Lucian caught her slight body in his hands and easily lifted her into a sitting position. He carefully tucked the pillows behind her and the blankets around her. She was even paler than usual. “Breathe deeply, and you will not faint.” He made it a decree.
She found herself smiling. “Do you have any idea how bizarre this is? I know this is no hospital. It isn’t even some kind of sanitarium, is it? And you’re no doctor.”
He moved across the room with swift, fluid, totally silent steps. She couldn’t help comparing the way he moved to that of a large jungle cat. There was something menacing about him, yet at the same time something quite sensual. He made her feel secure and safe, yet threatened in a way she had never been before. Which was it? Safe or in danger? If he was such a predator, why wasn’t her inner warning system shrieking at her? She let her breath out slowly, carefully. She felt threatened as a woman, not as a law enforcement officer, she realized.
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