Dark Predator

imagining.

She smiled up at him, noting his eyes were midnight black. He looked so larger than life, his body hard and scarred, well muscled. He flowed across the room, his shoulders filling the space, his eyes penetrating, his mouth sensual.

I like looking at you. She admitted it shyly. She wanted him to know she was in his world, however he wanted her—that he wasn’t alone and that she had chosen of her own free will to be with him.

“That’s a good thing, my beautiful lunatic, because you will be doing so for a very long time.”

She noticed the indentations around his mouth. At first she thought them lines, but they were far more and she smiled to herself. Her tough man had a softer side after all. She didn’t mind being his lunatic. Quite possibly, she was one. She hadn’t looked at every aspect of her decision before making it. She’d jumped in with both feet and damned the consequences, but right now, as she pulled a thin tank over her head, her stomach cramped.

She actually bent over to ease the pain. Instantly Zacarias’s hand went to the small of her back and she felt him moving through her. He did it so quickly, so easily, Marguarita was a little shocked. She lifted an eyebrow at him in inquiry.

He rubbed her back gently. “We have had two blood exchanges, Marguarita. As a rule, it wouldn’t matter how much blood I gave you, such as I gave Ricco, but if we make an exchange, that will begin to work on your organs and the inside of your body, reshaping you in the way of the Carpathian people.”

She slowly straightened up and looked him in the eye. You knew this?

He shrugged. “Of course. It is the way of lifemates.”

She heard her own heartbeat, its pounding rhythm. The hum of voices outside the house. The stamp of horses and low murmur of the cattle. Insects drowned out everything, the volume of noise horrendous. Marguarita pressed her hands to her ears, her gaze jumping to his for an explanation.

“I have been careful to keep the volume turned down for you, because we were otherwise occupied, but you can do this yourself. Think about it. Think how soft you want the background noises. Humans do this automatically. Your refrigerators run and you no longer hear them, but the noise is present. Your vision and hearing will be far more acute. You have to control it consciously and eventually it will become subconscious.”

Marguarita reached behind her to find something to hold on to. It had not occurred to her that her world would change so drastically. She’d given herself into Zacarias’s keeping, but her physical body was human.

Zacarias wrapped his arm around her waist. Solid. An anchor. “Breathe, sivamet, as frightening as this all sounds, I am with you always. I will not allow anything to harm you.”

She took a deep breath. Tell me what this means to me. She would not regret her decision. She had known all along it would take sacrifices. Physical sacrifices hadn’t occurred to her, but she could deal with it.

“You will need to drink water and juice, Marguarita,” he instructed.

Her stomach lurched at the idea of putting anything into it. She pushed her hand against her belly and shook her head. I cannot. The thought makes me feel sick.

“Nevertheless, it will be necessary. No meat, of course. The thought of eating meat is repugnant to us.”

And yet you own a cattle ranch. She sent him a faint smile, desperately trying to find a balance. She accepted the responsibility of what she’d done, and had known there would be consequences. She could live without meat. Millions of people did so every day, but the thought of taking blood as sustenance was disturbing to her.

“I will help you when you need to eat or drink something.”

She couldn’t imagine doing either at that moment so she simply nodded her head. She moistened her lips, rubbing her arms a little. What else did having his blood mean to her? She had to be able to go out into the sun, but her skin felt strange at the thought. She was certain it was her imagination, but earlier, with Julio, her skin had been sensitive and her eyes really hurt. With a second blood exchange, would that grow worse? What had he meant when he said she was becoming like him? Panic began to edge her thoughts.

I’m changing inside my body? Becoming like you? She rubbed her hands up and down her arms more vigorously as if she could change her skin’s composition. If I am like you, will the sun harm me?

He nodded his head slowly. “The sun will burn you. Not in the way it does me, but you cannot go out in it without great peril. You would blister, and the burn would be severe. It will not kill you as it would me. You will need to cover your skin and eyes all the time.”

Her heart nearly stopped beating. She actually felt faint. She loved horses. Loved the Peruvian Paso breed. They’d been her obsession before Zacarias and she couldn’t imagine never flying over the ground, jumping fences and feeling one with the horses. She enjoyed their personalities, their quirks and the gentle temperaments. She loved every single thing about them. Just watching them filled her with joy. She couldn’t imagine not caring for them, riding them, spending her time with them.

The Paso retained its natural, inherited gait, when so many other breeds had been diluted. It had been kept true to its lineage. In her experience, her horses had passed their gait to one hundred percent of their offspring. The breed’s center of gravity remained nearly immobile. Paso Ilano, a broken gait that was a rhythmic and harmonic tapping, was very gentle, pleasing and extremely comfortable. She could ride her horse for hours, moving in harmony across the land never tiring or getting sore.

She hadn’t considered that she might become sensitive to the sun. Her breath felt trapped in her lungs. Her throat clogged with tears. Never to ride again. Never to feel that amazing experience, the sharing between horse and rider. The Paso also possessed a unique pace aptly named termino. To Marguarita, nothing was more graceful. The movement was flowing, the forelegs rolling from the shoulder toward the outside as the horse strode forward. She was part of the horses and they were a huge part of her.

Zacarias studied her averted face. Deep inside her mind she’d gone suddenly quiet and then she’d completely withdrawn from him. The world around him instantly dulled to barely-there color, pale and drab. Ice poured into his veins, into his heart. Her sudden exit left him more alone than he’d ever been—ever conceived. She filled his body with warmth and light, with color and emotions and the moment she was gone, so was her radiant heat. Once able to see vivid colors and experience real feelings, the warmth and brightness of her filling every broken, jagged, shadowed, space, thrown back into that ugly, stark, bleak existence, made it utterly unbearable.

He realized what his father had lived with. His mother had filled up those broken spaces with her warmth and bright light. Without her always residing within, the color and emotion within his father had faded just as it had done with Zacarias. The contrast was sharp and ugly and impossible to bear—not after so much joy. He stepped toward her, unable to resist that bright beacon when his world had gone so cold. His soul actually shuddered.

“Do not seek to leave me.” He said it sharply, much harsher than he intended. His fingers bit down like a vise on her wrist, shackling her to him. He jerked her body close to his. The scent of a predator prowling for prey permeated the room. She tensed, looking as if he’d struck her.

I don’t know why you would doubt me. I am adjusting to the things you’re revealing to me and I’ll admit they frighten me, but I am a woman of my word. I gave myself to you freely and I meant it. Whatever the future holds for me, I will find a way to deal with it and be happy.

He felt her determination, but still, he was alone. Sun scorch the woman, she didn’t get it. He wasn’t about to plead with her, or take what she refused him. Would he stoop that low? He jerked her even closer, forcing her chin up so that her eyes met his.

“You will not leave me again.” He gave her a little shake. He let her see the killer in him, that dark force that was more of his soul than any other part of him. “Do you understand me?”

Marguarita looked confused. He had to give her credit; she was courageous when most men would have gone to their knees. She met his gaze without flinching. He felt that first, almost tentative reach for him and the relief was overwhelming, almost driving him to his knees. Her warmth slipped into his mind, seeking answers. He felt that hot flow filling him up, bridging those broken circuits, restoring vivid color. Emotions poured in. Fear amounting to terror. Hers? It had to be her fear of him. He didn’t know fear.

The taste of terror was in his mouth. The horrifying emotion beat at his heart, and invaded his lungs so that his breath was trapped there.

“You are all right. Take a breath.” He could barely get the words out.