Dark Challenge (35 page)

Desari closed the tiny pinpricks in his chest with a slow, leisurely lap of her tongue clearly designed to drive him to madness. She threw her head back, exposing her throat in a clear invitation to him. Her arms circled his neck, and she began to move her hips, riding
him almost helplessly with the same fast pace he had set. She looked beautiful, her dark eyes glazed with passion and her mouth a lush enticement impossible to ignore.

Julian’s mouth wandered down her satin skin, between the soft swell of her breasts, his breath catching in his throat, in her throat, so that she gasped with pleasure. A small sound escaped, a low cry of need. Desari arced into him even as her hips matched his frantic rhythm. She wanted the whip of lightning flashing through her body, burning her with leaping flames. His tongue stroked her skin, the curve of her breast; his teeth teased her erect nipple gently while his body claimed hers with a fierce possessiveness he had never known he could feel.

“Julian,” Desari whispered in an agony of anticipation, a siren’s temptation, her melodious voice sending feathers of pleasure down his spine. “I may burn up before we have finished.”

He answered her as only a lifemate could, sinking his teeth into the pulse beating so frantically over her breast. She cried out and clutched him tighter as white-hot heat pierced her skin. Incredibly his hips thrust harder into her, his hands holding her still while he drank deeply. The sensation of her body spiraling, gripping him tighter and tighter, went on and on until he could no longer think. There was only feeling, only pleasure, only the erotic taste of her. One skin, one heart and soul. They were soaring together through time and space, and it went on for eternity. How he loved her! How he needed her! She made him alive after centuries of such a bleak emptiness, and he could barely believe his happiness would last. He felt that at any moment it might be wrenched away from him. And he knew he would be far more dangerous than he had ever been in his life.
Savoring the taste of her, their combined scents, he was drowning in ecstasy.

He could feel her surrounding him, her velvet muscles rippling with strength, while she cried out to the very top of the mountain. The intensity of their shared climax rocketed them through the passageway, over cliffs and boundaries of time and space. She clung to him while he feasted, while his body remained locked to hers. De-sari’s soft little sigh of total acceptance brought him out of his daze, where there was only pleasure, only senses reeling out of control. That sigh brought him back to the here and now. Desari’s head was pillowed on his shoulder, her long lashes fanning her cheeks. She looked pale beyond belief, her skin nearly translucent.

Julian swore as he impatiently closed the tiny wounds over her breast. His palm swept back the long hair from her face. “Desari. Look at me,
piccola
. Open your eyes.” It was a clear order, delivered in a voice filled with compulsion, filled with naked worry.

She smiled drowsily, leaning into him so that he was bearing her weight. “You must feed,
cara
. I have taken far too much blood from you in my insatiable hunger. It is unforgivable that I would not see to your care even in the midst of such passion. I have no excuse, my love, but you must drink.” He pressed her mouth to his bare chest.

Desari’s head lolled back on her neck. She murmured something unintelligible, a sound of love. Julian took them both safely to earth and gently untwined their bodies. Her protest was more a slight frown passing across her dark winged brows, a faint pout to her lips, than anything verbal. Julian cursed himself and his utter lack of control once again. There was no censure in her mind or heart. She was as accepting of the animal side of his nature as she was of the Carpathian male side. He had
taken far more blood than he should have, indulging his passion at the price of her strength.

Julian cradled her in his strong arms, bending to kiss the corner of her mouth.
Hear me
, piccola,
love of my life. I have taken far too much from you. You must replenish yourself with what I provide
. This was no soft plea; it was a strong and deliberate command, a compulsion sent mind to mind by a male of their species with tremendous powers. He gave no thought to it, simply issuing the order to ensure her health and safety. Julian slashed a line over the heavy muscles of his chest and pressed her mouth firmly to him.

He was angry with himself, angry that he had been so selfish in his passion. Had he spent so much time with animals that he had forgotten how to behave as a man? He was more beast than civilized. His newfound emotions were far more difficult to deal with than the most powerful of the undead he had ever vanquished. The lines in battle were always so clear to him, yet now his emotions rendered his unshakable control dust. He found himself tied up in knots, not wanting to hurt her feelings or do the wrong thing, that she might think less of him. He found himself constantly at war with his own instincts. He wanted to carry her off and keep her safe for all time and eternity.

Julian lay his head over hers. “It seems I need to keep you safe from your own lifemate.”

Desari stirred in his arms even as she fed under his hypnotic command. Deep within the layers of compulsion she felt his fierce anger at himself for what he considered his abusive nature. She sent him her warmest love. She managed to project the gentle smile forming in her mind to share it with him, the deep feelings she had already developed for him. It was astonishing to Julian that she was already so much a part of him that
she could feel the depths of his rage at himself and seek to soothe him.

And she had somehow managed to do so. He became more calm and accepting of his nature. He was what he was; he could never change that. He wasn’t even certain he would want to if he could. Desari saw his strengths and allowed him to view himself through her eyes. It was another priceless gift she offered him, and he would treasure it always. He was finding out quickly why the male of their race so desperately needed the balance of their lifemates. Their women brought light and compassion to their inner darkness.

Julian lifted his head and regarded her carefully, searching her face for signs of recovery. Color ran under her skin, a much healthier glow. Breathing a sigh of relief, he allowed her to awaken slowly. His arms cradled her protectively. “I am sorry,
cara
. I should have been far more restrained in possessing you.”

Her hand brushed his throat, sending heat coursing through him, a sense of belonging and acceptance he had never known. Her smile tugged at his heart. “You are my love, Julian. You would never harm me. I know that as surely as I know I would be incapable of harming you. I was quite satisfied, if you must hear me say it, although I suspect you know that you provided me with pleasure such as I could not have imagined before.”

He stroked her hair, his eyes like molten gold. “It is more than giving you pleasure that I want, it is sharing something beautiful beyond compare, and that I cannot do if I cannot control my desire for you.” His expression held infinite tenderness as he watched her face.

Desari found she couldn’t breathe for a moment. Julian Savage was a beautiful male of their species, but he always looked so remote and rather harsh. She could not believe she was now seeing such tenderness in the
depths of his eyes, in the curve of his mouth, in the touch of his hand. “Do you think that I would trade you for someone gentler?” she asked very softly.

He closed his eyes for a moment to hide the pain those words caused. “You have no choice who your lifemate is; we both know that, Desari. If you had, perhaps you would have wanted someone far different than me.”

Her smile robbed him of air. “I believe in God, Julian. I always have. Living through the centuries as we have, I have witnessed many wonderful, miraculous things he has wrought. I believe we were created two halves of the same whole. I had no idea this was so until I met you, but I am now convinced. I would never want another, never fit with another. I can feel that we are right together, and I do not believe God would put together two creatures who did not suit one another.” She rubbed at the frown on his face with the pad of her thumb. “I find your enthusiasm for me very sexy, Julian. You can want me like that anytime.” Her smile was a siren’s teasing enticement.

Effortlessly he shifted her in his arms so that he could press her against his heart, and he found himself breathing again after holding his breath. “I do not ever want to be without you, Desari,” he admitted softly. The words were torn from his heart; he felt them leave his body, felt the truth in them.

She wound her arms around his neck, liking the feel of his long hair against her skin. “I do not expect you to ever allow us to be apart. I am counting on that, lifemate. Now stop talking so much and find us a place to rest this night. Tomorrow we will proceed to Konocti in the bus with the others. They will remain at the campsite we have established this night.” A faint grin curved her soft mouth. “That is, if the bus will actually run. It is a disgrace that none of us have mechanical abilities.
Even I read the owner’s manual, and found it too boring.”

“We do not need mechanical abilities,” Julian reminded her as he spun around, taking her with him as if she weighed no more than a feather. “We were meant to travel differently, under our own power.”

“If we want to blend in with the rest of the world,” she pointed out, “we can do no other than travel in the mortals’ machines.”

“It is much faster to travel our way through time and space.”

She laughed softly, the sound a husky blend of velvet and wine pouring over him, into him, so that Julian knew the meaning of joy. It was a woman’s laughter, her smile, the glow in her dancing eyes. “It certainly is less frustrating to simply join the wind and go where we wish without following those endless ribbons of highway,” she agreed.

He took the right-hand tunnel entrance, drawing the directions from her mind. The path opened almost immediately into a wide chamber. At once he waved a hand to open the earth. “It is early dawn,
cara
, and I would spend more time enjoying your company, but you have performed in front of so many people, and you are tired.”

“I do not mind, Julian,” she told him. “I rather like the way you spend your time with me.” She pressed closer to him, her naked breasts against his bare chest.

His answering kiss was slow and tender, a gentle exploration. “In this one thing I will have to insist. Your health must come before all things, even our pleasure. On the next rising we will have more time together. This dawn you must rest.”

She tried to keep the amusement out of her mind. He was so positive he was giving her an order. “Of course,
Julian,” she murmured softly, her long lashes feathering down to cover her dark eyes. Her body moved restlessly against his, her full breasts pushing into the heavy muscles of his chest. “If you say we cannot, then I must agree with you, but I am sorry to hear that it is so.” Her hands were moving over his buttocks, her fingers tracing their defined muscles. Her fingers moved to his hips, caressed his thighs, worked their way to cup the weight of his rising desire in her palm. “I will do as you say, lifemate, if that is what truly pleases you.” Her mouth drifted down over his throat and chest, following the pattern of golden hair to the taut muscles of his belly.

Beneath her caressing fingers, his body thickened and hardened in response, his gut clenched hotly, and the breath seemed to slam out of him. “You are deliberately testing my resolve,
piccola
, and I am failing the test miserably.”

“That is exactly what I wanted to hear,” she answered complacently, her mind already occupied with much more interesting matters.

The bus limped along, the engine sputtering and coughing, growing louder and louder with each passing mile, leaving thin trails of dark smoke. Even the air inside the vehicle seemed thick, making it difficult to breathe. The two leopards growled uneasily from time to time, the tips of their tails twitching in protest.

The entire experience was making Julian wary. He was restless in such proximity to so many of his kind. The leopards had to be watched and controlled. They had quick, unreliable tempers and even among the Carpathians they were quite capable of doing great damage if riled within such close confines. In any case, Julian felt a disturbance in the balance of power around him and knew the other males were also aware of it. The crowded dimensions of the bus gave him the feeling of being trapped, although he could easily dissolve into molecules and flow through the open windows if he so desired. The edginess of the males was communicating
itself to the animals, making it all the more difficult to control their wild natures. Darius was wasting precious energy keeping the cats in check. Julian shook his head at the insanity of the way this family unit lived.

Desari drummed her fingers impatiently on the back of her seat, wanting to kick her brother. The entire mood inside the bus was one of intense frustration. Darius had insisted they travel together, leaving the other vehicles in a campground. It was uncomfortable to say the least. She wanted to be alone with Julian, and she knew he was unused to being so confined with others. He would be hating this.

Darius glanced at his sister just once, his black eyes empty. “I do not have to explain myself,” he reminded her quietly. He didn’t bother to point out the disturbance in the air. One of their kind was near, but one who had long ago chosen to trade honor, his very soul, for a few moments of high during a kill. Darius knew the enemy was far too close to avoid a confrontation, and the women were the target. All of them knew it. Desari also needed more time to be alone with Julian. The couple needed space to get to know one another. Darius watched Julian closely. He respected his sister’s life-mate, his casual strength, the way he chose to keep De-sari happy at the cost of his own comfort.

The troupe had taken so long trying to patch up their faltering vehicles again that they had little time to make their way to Konocti for their next concert appearance. Darius liked to get to concert sites a day ahead of time to scout around and be certain the security was to his liking. That balance of power was now gone, and the air was groaning with the presence of evil. All of them could smell the stench of a recent fire, the smoke and odor trapped in place by the absence of a breeze.