midnight blue. 'I asked you if you wanted me to carry you, but you said you'd rather die first.'
'Yeah, but I didn't mean it literally! Death by blisters, what an ignominious way to go.' I rubbed my arms to keep the circulation going, wincing as I stepped on yet another rock.
'You have absolutely no respect for me, do you?' he asked, shooting me an annoyed look. 'You have no idea how powerful and dangerous I can be. I am feared and loathed by all of my people, hunted like an animal by those who would destroy me, but you aren't the least bit in awe of me, are you? You should be terrified of me, and all you do is complain.'
'Well, I'm a bit in awe of those fangs,' I said, trying to make him feel better, although I honestly didn't know why I cared if his feelings were hurt or not. 'Aren't they in the way like that? You must have to mumble a lot when you're in public, so people won't see them. And don't your lips get snagged on them? I had braces when I was in my teens, and I tore my lips on them something terrible. I'd offer you some lip balm, but my purse was left behind when you abducted me. I hope the real Christian gives it back. All my money and my passport are in it.'
'Dark Ones do
I shrugged and amused myself for a few minutes by trying to make the white puffs of breath that hung briefly in the air before me into a bat shape.
'No,' Adrian said before I could ask the question. 'I can't change into a bat.'
I stopped in the middle of the road, a feeble moon casting light down upon us from between suitably dramatic wisps of cloud. 'Stop. Reading. My. Mind!'
His fingers clamped around my wrist as he hauled my protesting feet forward. 'I can't help it. You're projecting.'
'Oh,' I gasped, outraged. 'I am not! I never project!'
'You are. You don't put up the slightest barrier to your thoughts. All I have to do is…' A warm presence touched my mind. I sucked in a deep breath of icy air at the feel of him merging with my thoughts. It was the most intimate touch I'd ever felt, far more intimate than just the joining of bodies.
Smug male satisfaction filled my mind.
'Stop it,' I said, pushing him out of my mind. 'It's not polite to wander around in someone's head without them knowing.'
'You know,' he grumbled. 'You have to know. You also know you can read me just as easily as I can read you.'
'Why would you think that?' I looked at the tall, dark figure next to me. 'I've never been any good at guessing what people were thinking, let alone able to read minds.'
'I've marked you,' he said grimly. 'It's the first step of Joining.'
'Marked me? You haven't even touched me. I know you're the big bad wolf and all—'
'The Betrayer,' he interrupted. 'I am the Betrayer. I am hated and feared—'
'—by all your people, and hunted down like the dog you are, yadda yadda. Yeah, I know, you told me. I guess that's why I'm not afraid of you anymore, Adrian the Betrayer. You didn't hurt me when you could have.'
'That's not the reason,' he said shortly. I couldn't see his face because a cloud had drifted across the moon's face, but we were coming into town, which meant I should soon be able to see if his expression was as grim as his voice. 'It's something much worse.'
'Worse? What are you talking about?'
He refused to answer. Our conversation—sporadic at best—dried up into nothing as we started up a short hill into the town of Blansko.
'Nell,' he said a little while later as we passed through a dark square. 'You—'
'Oh, look, a train station! I bet you could hire a car there or something. And they probably have food, too. I'm starving. Come on.'
'Nell.' He grabbed my arm in his steel-fingered shackle grip and pulled me up so his mouth was next to my ear. To any of the few people driving through the square, we probably looked like lovers who couldn't wait to get home. 'You will remember that you are my prisoner. You will keep uppermost in your mind at all times the fact that I'm a dangerous creature of darkness. I am a killer, a betrayer, a man without a soul who will not hesitate to destroy anyone who stands in his way.'
I looked up at his face, visible in the bluish-white glow of a lamppost. A little ripple of fear skimmed down my back at the expression in his eyes. They were ice blue, and utterly hopeless. Without thinking of the folly of what I was doing, I turned so I faced him fully, gently touching the side of his face. Darkness, deep and all-consuming and endless, raged within him, a gaping hole inside him where his soul should have been. I wanted to fill the emptiness, to change the darkness to hope, and love, and happiness. I knew instinctively that I could lift the curse that bound him so tightly, easing the torment that had him within its twisted grip, but to do so would mean I had to open up that part of my mind that I had all but destroyed ten years ago.
The part of my mind that had killed an innocent woman.
'I'm sorry,' I said, my voice a thin ribbon of sound on the cold night air as I lowered my hand. 'I can't. I can't ever do that again.'
His eyes went dark as I felt the soft brush of him against my mind. I turned away, as if that would keep him from seeing the truth about me. I had not thought for one moment that he hadn't noticed the slackness in the left side of my face, or the weakness in my left hand and leg, but he had not asked about it, and I hadn't offered an explanation.
'What do you hide from me?'
I stilled, clutching my guilt to myself. He turned me so I was facing him. Suspicion filled his face as he narrowed his eyes. 'I cannot read what you hide. What secret do you have that fills you with so much horror?'
I took a deep breath, trying desperately to calm my suddenly racing heart. His thumb brushed over the pulse in my neck in a gesture so gentle, I almost melted at his feet. 'You're not the only one who has betrayed people,' I said finally.
'Who…' he started to say, then stopped abruptly, lifting his head as if scenting the night air. '
I glanced around to see what had startled him, but saw nothing. We were in a dark square, the houses facing us dimly lit or dark already, even though it was only a little after nine at night. A few cars had zipped by us, but no walkers passed, and nothing nearby seemed to pose a threat.
'What's wrong?'
'Go.' He shoved me forward. Beyond the square was a pink stone building that I recognized from the drive in with Melissande as the train station.
Melissande! I hadn't thought of her after wondering whether she would know I had been abducted. Surely she would count on my lust for the breastplate, at least, to keep me from walking out on her as it may have seemed I'd done. Had Melissande tracked us? Was I going to be rescued?
More importantly, why did I feel a distinct sadness at the thought of leaving Adrian?
'Quickly, go to the train station. Buy two tickets for Prague. The train leaves in less than twenty minutes. I will meet you at the platform.'
'Wait a minute!' I grabbed at a lamppost as he pushed me down the sidewalk.
'You will do as I command,' he snarled, spinning around to glare in the direction we had just come from.
I smacked him on the arm. 'First of all, I don't take well to commands without an explanation. If you want me to do something, tell me why. And second of all…' I took a couple of steps back when he whirled toward me, his eyes all but spitting blue flames into the night. The words Id been about to utter, telling him he could stuff his Mr. Macho attitude, died on my lips. 'Uh… I don't have any money. You hustled me out of the library so fast, my purse was left with Melissande, remember?' I held up my empty hands.
He swore again in Czech, thrusting his hand in his inner jacket pocket before shoving a wad of bills at me. 'Go!'
Before I could protest, he was off, slipping into the shadows as if he'd been made of them.
'Which,' I said to myself as I peered down the length of the square trying to follow him, 'is just about as apt a simile as I'll ever find. All right, Nell, what are you going to do?'
I looked down at the money in my hand. I could take it and buy myself a ticket to Prague, where I could throw myself on Melissande's mercy. I could hire a taxi to take me back to Drahanska Castle, where I could recover
