Dark Fire (19 page)

Without a word, Darius scooped Tempest into his arms and covered the distance to his waiting family using his preternatural speed, blurring their images as he did so. Tempest lay against the solid wall of his chest, cradled in his arms, peeking out at the group suddenly crowding close around her.

"Are you all right?" Desari asked gently.

"She is fine," Darius answered before Tempest could speak. "We will join you on the next rising."

"We haven't many more days before our next concert," Dayan reminded. "We will need you there."

The black eyes flamed. "Have I ever failed to be where I was needed?" It was a clear reprimand.

Tempest curled her fingers in the lapels of Darius's overcoat. "You're angry with me, Darius, not with them." She whispered the words, forgetting they all had his incredible hearing.

Do not say anything more, Tempest. I am more than angry with you. I am furious.

"That's a big surprise," Tempest muttered resentfully under her breath.

You are not nearly as afraid as you should be right now,
Darius rebuked her, his voice soft yet intimidating.

Tempest wasn't impressed by his posturing. Intuitively she knew he would never harm her. She probably really was the safest person on earth. She simply settled closer against him, her arms circling his neck trustingly. He might hold her captive, but she couldn't find it in herself to be afraid. Not of him. Maybe of his possession of her. Of his intentions, perhaps. But not of Darius as a man. He would never hurt her.

Do not be so sure I might not spank you for your childish defiance,
he said severely, sounding tough. He swung around and carried her into the dark night.

"I hurt," she announced quietly against his throat.

"You think I do not feel your pain beating at me?" he demanded. "Worsened because I could not help you as I should have?"

"I'm not dead," she pointed out.

He swore eloquently, switching from English to an ancient tongue. "You came close, honey. Brodrick had every intention of killing you. Why do you insist on leaving the areas of safety I provide for you?"

"I told you," she said honestly, "I have trouble with authority figures."

"Get over it," Darius ordered firmly, meaning it this time. She was driving him to the brink of insanity. "Do you have any idea what it is like to wake when I an bound to the earth, feeling your fear, knowing my strength is at its lowest ebb and I am unable to aid you?

He was striding across a field filled with flower crushed by the barrage of hail. Rain poured over them Above their heads, lightning flashed from cloud to cloud, and thunder roared ominously.

"You came to my aid," she reminded him staunchly.

"I had to use an animal that unintentionally hurt you in the process, though I thank God it was there to use Why do you do these things?"

"It isn't as if I go out and look for things to happen Darius," she objected. "I had no idea Brodrick was any where around." She glanced up at his set features, then touched a fingertip to the hard edge of his perfect mouth in an attempt to soothe him. She was catching a glimpse into his mind, into the red haze of fear and rage.

"This cannot continue, Tempest. It is dangerous, no only for the two of us but for all mortals and immortal: alike. You cannot leave me. What made you do such ; foolish thing?"

Was there a note of hurt mixed in with the beautiful if severe tone of his voice? She hadn't wanted to hurt him. "We're too different, Darius. I don't understand your world. I don't even know what you mean by being bound to the earth, and you never explain these matter! to me. I don't know all you are capable of doing whether, say, you can actually kill someone from a distance. All of it is… unnerving, to put it mildly."

Tempest shivered in his arms, drawing his attention to the driving rain. Darius inhaled deeply to center himself and to calm the fury of the storm he had used to regain her. At once the rain slackened to a light drizzle. Overhead the towering cloud began to break apart. The wind rose to help push the mist away.

"You are hurt, Tempest. Instead of waiting for me- and you knew I would come to you the instant I rose- you ran from me." He took a running leap in the air effortlessly, shape-shifting as he did so.

Tempest gasped and clutched at the leathery scales rippling over his body. She closed her eyes against the earth falling away from her, against the wind rushing around her. She felt safe and protected in his arms, as strange as those two appendages now appeared. It was amazing to her that he could do that-shape-shift, fly through the air, and expect her to accept it as an everyday occurrence.

Darius whisked them across the glittering sky, needing the feel of her close to him. He took her over a mountain and back toward high ground near a waterfall. It seemed as if they hovered there alone on top of the world. Below, the mist rose to meet them, vapors from the waterfall rising to encompass them, to surround them in a cloud.

As the huge dragon's clawed feet touched down, Darius was shape-shifting again. One moment Tempest was staring up at a wedge-shaped head bending toward her, recognizing only the familiar hunger burning in its black eyes. Then, as the head moved closer, the dragon became Darius, his perfect mouth hovering inches above hers. Her breath caught in her throat, and her heart slammed alarmingly.

"You can't," she breathed against his lips.

"I have to," he countered, meaning it. There was no other choice for him. He had to taste her, hold her possess her totally. His fear had been so great that, on his rising, his mind and body could accept no other than completing the ritual, making her irrevocably his. It no longer mattered to him that it was against his law against everything he believed in. He had to have her have the right to keep her safe at all times.

His lips moved over hers, gently at first, a sweet coaxing that rapidly changed as he fastened his mouth to hers hungrily. Tempest felt flames rushing throughout her body. He had started a fire there was no way to quench. A fire that would consume them both. Yet Tern pest didn't care. Her heart might pound with a mixture of fear and excitement, but nothing would change what would be. And she knew it would be. She would belongs to Darius for all time. Once he possessed her, he would never let her go.

"I would never have let you go anyway, honey," he murmured against her throat. "Never." He was carrying her with his usual casual strength up the faint trail lead ing to the top of the falls.

"Are you planning to throw me over?" she asked, be mused by the intensity in the depths of his eyes, by the fire racing through their bodies.

"If I had any sense, I would," he replied gruffly.

There was a cavern behind the falls, and he carried her right through the mist and moisture to it. The cave was narrow, sloping downward into the mountain itself

"Have I mentioned to you that I have a problem with small spaces?" she asked, trying not to put a stranglehold on his neck.

"Have I mentioned to you that I have a problem with anyone who disobeys me?" he countered, stopping in the narrow tunnel to find her mouth once again.

Perhaps he intended the hard kiss as a punishment, or a distraction, but the earth was already moving under their feet, the world tilting and spinning crazily the moment he touched his lips to hers. Hunger was a craving they fed one another. When he lifted his head, his dark eyes were blazing at her. "If I do not have you soon, baby, the world itself will go up in flames."

"It isn't my fault," Tempest absolved herself, touching a finger to her mouth in awe. "It's you. You're lethal, Darius."

He found he could smile then. In spite of the urgent, painful demands of his body and the fear she had put him through, even his anger that she had tried to leave him, she could make him smile. She could melt his heart. Here he was, the leader of his people, an ancient, one with enormous strength and tremendous knowledge, his word law, his commands obeyed without question. She was a small, fragile, human female, and he was putty in her hands.

The tunnel led deep within the bowels of the earth itself. It was warm and moist, the sound of water ever present. It seeped from the sides of the tunnel and trickled from the curved ceiling above their heads. Tempest inspected her surroundings warily, not liking the fact that they were in a volcanic range of mountains and it was decidedly warm. "Have you ever been here before?"

He heard the note of nervousness in her voice. "Of course I have, many times. We spend a great deal of our time below ground. The earth speaks to us of its secret places and shares its healing strength and great beauty with us."

"Did it happen to mention this was a volcano while it was whispering to you?" she asked, her green eyes searching the tunnel frantically for signs of running lava. She could smell sulfur.

"You have a mean mouth on you, woman," Darius observed, taking a fork to the right that led deeper into the mountain.

At once the faint light creeping in from the cave's entrance disappeared, plunging them into complete darkness. "I thought you liked my mouth," Tempest retorted, doing her best not to scream hysterically at being in this dark, sulfurous, underground hole. "In case you haven't noticed, Darius, it feels as if we're entering hell. Since I already have this faint notion that you could be the devil tempting me, this isn't the best choice of hotels." The humidity was thick, nearly choking her, and she felt as if she couldn't breathe. The inky black interior pressed down on her, suffocating her.

"It is your fear choking you," he said softly. "The air is perfectly breathable down here. The mountain is not crushing you. You fear what I will do once we are together." His thumb was feathering lightly over the pulse in her wrist, back and forth, a gentle stroke but eloquent.

Her green eyes were enormous in her pale face. "What
will
you do, Darius?" Her heart was pounding in the confined space, the rhythm frantic.

He bent his head to hers, his black eyes burning with possession, with intense hunger, with stark desire. "I will put your life and your happiness above my own. You have no need to fear for your life with me." His voice was black velvet, turning her heart over with tenderness.

Tempest tightened her hold around his neck, leaning more closely into him, uncertain whether from need or from fear. She was tying herself to a creature whose powers she had no real knowledge of. What precise code did he live by?

Darius's response was to swing down an even narrower tunnel and emerge at what appeared to be a solid dead end. She knew it was solid because she reached out and touched it with her palm. But Darius waved his hand, and the barrier simply parted. A single strangled sound escaped Tempest's throat. What couldn't he do? How could she tie herself to a creature who wielded so much power?

"It is easy, Tempest," he said softly, reading her mind, her doubts. "Like this, just like this." His mouth took hers again, hard and commanding, tempting and enticing, whirling her out of the dark cavern and into a world of colors and light. He took away her every sane thought until there was only him. Only Darius, with his blazing eyes and his perfect mouth and mesmerizing voice. His hard body and strong arms.

He lifted his head and once more waved a hand. At once hundreds of flames leapt, lighting candles around the huge underground chamber. "In these last centuries, we have all found our own retreats. This is one of mine. The candles are made from nature's most healing elements. The earth here is particularly welcoming to our kind."

Tempest stared around her at the beauty of the chamber. And it was beautiful, a room where the very walls were crafted of nature's art. Pools of water shimmered in the light from the candles. Crystals hung from the ceiling, and diamonds embedded in the walls glittered, reflecting the dancing flames.

Tempest began to struggle for air. Darius was too powerful, able to create and command forces she had no knowledge of. Terror took the place of dark sensuality.

Darius merely tightened his hold and gave her a small, gentle shake. "You still do not see, do you? Try to imagine what life is like with no feeling, Tempest. Nothing but raw, ugly hunger gnawing constantly. Hunger that can never be sated. Only the life in your prey's blood whispering to you of power. No color to brighten your life, everything in black or white or shades of gray. No textures or richness." His long fingers stroked her skin, lingering on the satin softness. "I have taken nothing in this life for myself. You are the light in my world of darkness. Richness when I had nothing. Joy where there was emptiness. I will not give you up because you cannot overcome your fear. Would you have us come together for the first time in a struggle, in violence? Trust me as your heart tells you you must."

In his arms her slight body was trembling uncontrollably. She buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder. "I'm sorry I'm such a coward, Darius. I don't want to be. Everything is so overwhelming. You are overwhelming. The intensity of your feelings is overwhelming. When I live alone, I know the rules, and I like it that way."

He was carrying her farther into the heart of the chamber toward the shimmering pools. "No, you do not, Tempest. I know your mind; I have traveled in it often. You want me."

"Sex isn't everything, Darius."

He set her gently on a flat, smooth rock near a steaming pool. "You want me, Tempest, and it has little to do with sex."

"You think," she muttered, while fire raced up her leg as he removed her shoes to inspect the soles of her feet. His fingers shackled her ankles, firm, strong, yet inevitably gentle. She felt that curious wrenching in the vicinity of her heart.

Darius was frowning as he examined the lacerations. "You should have taken better care, Tempest." His voice was dark and moody, his black eyes suddenly rising to meet her green ones.

Her tongue found her dry lower lip, and her pulse raced faster. With his hands so gentle on her, his gaze hungry and burning with stark desire, how did she know he was furious? Once the knowledge seeped into her, more pieces of the puzzle began to assemble themselves. The terrible fury of the storm had been his rage, volcanic rage seething just below the surface of what appeared to be perfect tranquility. She glimpsed it when her mind sought his, inadvertently touching without her intention or his consent.