Dark Predator

Inside the dark hacienda, beneath the heavy four-poster bed, buried deep in the rich soil, Zacarias’s eyes snapped open simultaneously with the first beat of his heart. A shadow passed over the house, barely there, but still, he was an ancient warrior and he felt that subtle disturbance. The sun had sunk from the sky and night had dropped like a heavy curtain over the ranch. The night had brought spies with her.

He normally would have welcomed the hunt. It was what he did. All he knew. He was comfortable in that role. He was a loner. He had no idea how humans lived or worked and he had never wanted to know. They were certainly fragile creatures. Now he had—her—the beautiful lunatic who had somehow crept into his life and had no idea how to even protect herself from an eagle’s claws.

He had known it was only a matter of time before his enemies would seek revenge. By the very swiftness of their search, he knew a master vampire directed them to each of the De La Cruz haciendas. He had been in existence for far too long to think it might simply be a coincidence. They were hunting him. Ordinarily he would let them know exactly where he was and he would have welcomed the battle—but this time there was too much at stake. He waited until the flock of shadowed birds had passed overhead, circling the ranch several times before moving on.

And then he reached out to touch—her. The woman. Marguarita Fernandez. He reached for her before he thought, before he could stop his mind. He wanted—her. She should have been sleeping peacefully in her bed waiting for him to wake her. But of course she wasn’t. He sighed, no longer surprised by anything she did.

He waved his hand to open the soil, clothing himself as he rose, careful not to disturb even the air so she would not know he had risen. Emni ku?enak ku assatotello—disobedient lunatic. Did she not realize he would kill for her? She didn’t seem capable of learning, no matter how hard the lesson. His enemies were already searching and if they found her, if they knew about her or even suspected . . . He closed his mind to what could happen and ignored that peculiar and very unfamiliar need to smile at the thought of her continual ignoring of his every wish. She really did have to be dim-witted, there was no other explanation.

How strange that this woman could arouse even a small interest on his part. His reaction to her enforced the nagging idea that she could be his lifemate. Before stopping his heart at dawn, he had gone carefully over the details each of his brothers had shared with him about the moment they had recognized their lifemate. They had known instantly on contact. There had been no doubt. Emotions had poured back into them. Colors blinded them.

Even after centuries of existence, Zacarias didn’t understand the key to unlocking the mystery of lifemates, but if Marguarita Fernandez was actually his, the universe was playing a joke on him. The woman was positively maddening.

He strode through the master bedroom out into the hall. The scent of her filled the house, an intensely feminine fragrance. He realized she had occupied his home for years, even as a child, her father had lived here, in the main house. The house wasn’t stark and bare as were most of his lairs. Marguarita lingered in every corner. She had made this dwelling her home. There was warmth here, the warmth of a woman who cared about her home and took care of it with loving attention to detail.

The rooms were gray and dull, yet he felt the richness of each in the hand-woven rugs and thick lap blankets obviously quilted by hand. He stopped by a heavy chair and rubbed the material of the blanket between his fingers. He felt Marguarita in each of those tiny stitches. She did far more than keep the house. She loved it.

She liked candles. They looked homemade as well. They had electricity and a backup generator but he was certain with the fierce storms they often got, downed trees often took out the electricity and all manner of things could happen to a generator. He had never had to think of such things, but clearly Marguarita did and she prepared for them.

She not only prepared her own home for emergencies, but he saw the list she’d been working on laid out on the coffee table, the name of each family housed on the De La Cruz lands, and what they needed. Lanterns and candles and canned food seemed to be the biggest items. He had never given much thought to how these people lived and worked, but he realized Marguarita took care of them in his name.

The door to the bathroom was open and steam mixed with perfume drifted into the living room. He inhaled deeply to bring her into his lungs. Anticipation stirred. He waited a few heartbeats, savoring that small ability just to look forward to seeing her and there was no doubt now, he was definitely feeling, although he couldn’t say it was anything like his brothers had described.

His fingers bunched in the quilt and he brought the soft fabric to his face. The material carried a hint of her intriguing fragrance. His body tightened. Not the savage reaction of the evening before, but still, it was a reaction. He breathed his way through shock. His little lunatic was almost assuredly his lifemate and, sun scorch the woman, she’d come along too late. That was just like her. Fate had certainly played a joke on him with its choice and timing.

Zacarias sighed and drew another deep, fragrance-filled breath into his lungs. It didn’t matter one way or the other, because he certainly couldn’t condemn her to a half-life with him. He was no prize, not with savagery and darkness bred into his very soul. He had been damned from birth and he had accepted that. This was a terrible blow, one completely unexpected. To be given a lifemate who would always remain just out of reach was the worst torture he could conceive.

Something soft and feminine tickled his mind. Amusement. No sound, just the impression of happiness—a warm glow. He absorbed her into his heart, allowed himself to indulge for just a brief moment. His mind, so obviously tuned to hers, refused to obey him when it came to Marguarita. It needed the contact, that warmth that infused his entire body.

Hunger swept through him, a gnawing, clawing need that beat in his veins and consumed him quickly. He tasted her in his mouth, that unique taste that was all Marguarita. He recognized that he was already obsessed with her, but after centuries of a barren existence, it wasn’t too high a price to pay for the ability to feel something.

He slipped further into her mind, craving the warmth of her. Deep laughter burst through his thoughts, an explosion of sound, all male, distinct and familiar to Marguarita. He felt her easy acceptance, the softness in her that wasn’t there when he was with her. She was amused by her companion. Accepting of him.

Zacarias moved so fast through the house he was merely a blur, literally bursting into her room. The door splintered with a crash, wood flying in all directions as he ripped it apart. Marguarita sat on the floor by her open window. A man stood on the other side, his head through the opening, his hand on Marguarita’s arm. Both turned simultaneously toward him at the sound of the door disintegrating. Zacarias was on the man in a split second in a violent explosive action, yanking him through the window with vicious strength and slamming him against the wall. He held him easily with one hand, legs dangling above the floor as he sank his teeth deep into the pulsing vein in the neck.

No! Stop! You have to stop!

The man gave no resistance after that first stiff struggle. Zacarias made no attempt to calm him, the offense was far too great. He heard a terrible roar and it took a moment to realize the sound emerged from his own throat. He gulped at the rich blood, even as Marguarita’s frantic plea burst into his mind.

She caught at his arm and tugged, tried to reach up to insert her hand between Zacarias and his prey. He could see her, far off, through the red haze in his mind, through the need to kill, through the strange animalistic roaring that crashed through his head, but nothing mattered to him but destroying this man who had dared to put his hands on Marguarita.

Zacarias felt Marguarita’s warm spirit moving through the ice in his mind and instantly saw himself through her eyes. She was close to panic. He had exploded into violence much like a large jungle cat bringing down prey and was completely and utterly a killer in that moment. On some vague level she realized she was the cause. She was terrified of him, reading his intent, knowing he was acting on instincts rather than intellect.

She flooded his mind with frantic impressions of a wolf pack, and then with dozens of babies as if he was the dim-witted one and couldn’t understand the concept of family. Finally she resorted to pushing an image of Cesaro into his mind in a frantic attempt to tell him this man was Julio, Cesaro’s son. As if he wouldn’t know that. The woman was a menace to herself and to everyone she knew. He swept his tongue across the puncture wounds to close them and dropped the man to the floor, holding him easily with his mind.