Dark Magic (23 page)

Savannah tried to squirm away, wiggling and shoving at his chest, laughing in spite of the icy water cascading over her. "Gregori! You're so mean. I can't believe you did this."

"Well, I have poor judgment." He was grinning at her in mocking, male amusement. "Is that not what you said?"

"I take it back!" she moaned, clinging to him, burying her face on his shoulder as the chill rain pelted her bare breasts, making her nipples peak hard and fast.

"Run with me tonight," Gregori whispered against her neck. An enticement. Temptation. Drawing her to him, another tie to his dark world.

She lifted her head, looked into his silver eyes, and was lost. The rain poured over her, drenching her, but as Gregori slowly glided with her to the blanket of pine needles below the balcony, she couldn't look away from those hungry eyes. She nodded, accepting his will for them that night.

Following the desire in his mind, she focused on picturing the necessary image. And her body began to contort. There was a curious wrenching, a strange, disorienting feeling, and then her skin rippled with glossy blue-black fur as her body rapidly changed. Soon a small, blue-eyed wolf stood in the rain, watching as a huge black wolf nudged her, his tongue lapping a rough caress along her muzzle.

Savannah turned and trotted through the dense vegetation, exalting in the freedom of the wolf's body. Gregori glided beside her, close and protective. The wind sang, and the trees rustled. She could hear everything, feel everything, the night itself calling to her. She began to run as her body was meant to, with long, loping strides, her neck stretched forward.

She felt wild. No longer human. Free. She ran fast, swerving in and out through the trees. Gregori kept pace, occasionally touching her sleek body with his muzzle or nudging her flank or shoulder to turn her in the direction he wished to go. Savannah flushed out a rabbit, then chased it for the sheer joy of it before turning along a little-used path through heavy brush.

She scented others of her kind. Wolves running free. Several males, three females. The huge wolf at her side bared his fangs and nudged her away from the scent. Savannah resisted his efforts and trotted around him, lured by the wild call. Gregori growled, fangs exposed, his large body bumping, then blocking hers, effectively stopping her. He pushed her toward home.

She gave him one look that said it all. He had proposed the run, the shape-shifting; now she was demanding that he quit messing with her fun. He began nudging her harder. She would be exhausted with the night's activities. He wanted her to start back.

When she refused, he nipped her small flank, a reminder of who was in charge. She snapped at him but ultimately obeyed, and they loped back together through the forest.

Once at the house, they shimmered back into human form, and Gregori caught her hand and pulled her inside. Water streamed off her naked body and dripped from her hair. She glared at him. "You have to be bossy no matter what you are, don't you?"

He enveloped her in a towel and dried her off until her skin was rosy. "I take your health and safety seriously, Savannah." He was clearly unrepentant.

She shivered a little and pulled the towel around herself, suddenly unnerved by all the changes in herself. She was only twenty-three, not even a quarter of a century old. She had spent the last five years living exclusively in the human world. Now her wild nature was calling to her. Gregori was touching something untamed in her, something to which she had forbidden herself access. Something wild and uninhibited and incredibly sensuous.

Savannah looked up at his dark, handsome face. It was so male. So carnal. So powerful.
Gregori. The Dark One
. Just looking at him made her go weak with need. One glance from his slashing silver eyes could bring a rush of liquid heat, fire racing through her. She became soft and pliant. She became his.

Gregori's palm cupped her face. "Whatever you are thinking is making you fear me, Savannah," he said softly. "Stop it."

"You're making me into something I'm not," she whispered.

"You are Carpathian, my lifemate. You are Savannah Dubrinsky. I cannot take any of those things from you. I do not want a puppet, or a different woman. I want you as you are." His voice was soft and compelling. He lifted her in his arms, carried her to his bed and tucked the covers around her.

The storm lashed at the windows and whistled against the walls. Gregori wove the safeguards in preparation for their sleep. Savannah was exhausted, her eyes already trying to close. Then he slipped into the bed and gathered her into his arms. "I would never change anything about you,
ma petite
, not even your nasty little temper."

She settled against his body as if she was made for it. He felt the brush of her lips against his chest and the last sigh of air as it escaped from her lungs.

Gregori lay awake for a long time, watching as the dawn crept forward, pushing away the night. One wave of his hand closed and locked the heavy shutters over the windows. Still he lay awake, holding Savannah close.

Because he had always known he was dangerous, he had feared for mortals and immortals alike at his hand. But somehow, perhaps naively, he had thought that once he was bound to his lifemate, he would become tamer, more domesticated. His fingers bunched in her hair. But Savannah made him wild. She made him far more dangerous than he had ever been. Before Savannah, he had had no emotions. He had killed when it was necessary because it was necessary. He had feared nothing because he loved nothing and had nothing to lose. Now he had everything to lose. And so he was more dangerous. For no one, nothing, would ever threaten Savannah and live.

Chapter Ten

Gregori stared with dismay at the small, two-story house enclosed in wrought-iron latticework and sandwiched between two smaller, rather rundown properties in the crowded French Quarter of New Orleans. He inserted the key in the lock and turned to look at Savannah's face. It was lit up with expectation, her blue eyes shining.

"I have definitely lost all good sense," he muttered as he pushed open the door.

The interior was dark, but he could see everything easily. The room was layered with dust, old sheets covered the furniture, and the wallpaper was peeling in small curls from the walls.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Savannah flung out her hands and turned in a circle. Jumping into Gregori's arms, she hugged him tightly. "It's so perfect!"

He couldn't help himself; he kissed her inviting mouth. "Perfect for torching. Savannah, did you even look at this place before you bought it?"

She laughed and ruffled his thick mane of hair. "Don't be such a pessimist. Can't you see its potential?"

"It is a firetrap," he groused, but he was studying the heavy draperies and the narrow staircase leading both upstairs and to some lower sanctuary.

"Come with me." Savannah was already hastening toward the stairs. "Let me show you the big surprise, Gregori. This is why I bought it. It isn't just a fantastic house with a great garden."

"Garden?" he echoed. But he followed her. How could he not? She was radiating joy. He found himself just watching her, every movement she made, the way her head turned, the way her eyes danced. She was so beautiful. If she wanted a claustrophobic little house in the middle of the French Quarter, if that made her happy, he would not deny her.

The stairs, very narrow and steep, wound downward in a spiral to an unexpected basement that ran the length of the house. New Orleans was built on water-logged ground below sea level. Even the dead had to be entombed above ground. New Orleans made him edgy. There was no earth to burrow into in an emergency. No easy, natural escape. New Orleans presented problems he didn't want at this time.

Gregori peered at the basement's cement walls, its solid floor. He paced the length of the room, circled the perimeter, moved to the center, and closed his eyes. He inhaled deeply. There were shadows of others in this room, of those who had come before.

"Do you feel it?" Savannah asked softly. She placed a hand on his arm, her fingers curling halfway around his wrist.

He stared down at her small hand. He could feel that touch through his entire body. Yet her fingers couldn't even circle the thickness of his wrist. He found himself aware that she did that often, wrap her fingers around his wrist, connecting them. And that little gesture seemed to melt his heart.

Gregori forced his attention back to the present. So Savannah felt the presence, too. One who had been here before them.
Julian
. Julian Savage had lived in this house. Why? What kind of security had he established here? For Julian must have steered Savannah toward this house when he had become aware of her desire to come to New Orleans.

Gregori slipped an arm around her shoulders. "What do you know about the former owner?"

"Just that he wasn't here for long periods at a time. The real estate agent told me that the house had been in the man's family for nearly two hundred years, that it's actually one of the oldest homes in the Quarter."

"But you never actually met him?" Gregori prompted.

"No," Savannah replied.

"Julian Savage was the former owner, though it is hard to imagine him ever living here. He is a loner, as untamed as the wind." He paced the room again. "If Julian gave up this sanctuary, one he had for nearly two centuries, it can mean only one thing. He is choosing the dawn." He said the words dispassionately, without expression, but inside he felt that curious tearing he was becoming so familiar with. Emotion. Sorrow. So many of his kind gone forever. Julian was stronger than most, more knowledgeable. He hated losing Julian.

Savannah stroked his arm. "We don't know that, Gregori. Maybe he just wanted to give us a wedding present. Don't assume the worst."

Gregori tried to shake off his melancholy, but he felt he would barely be able to breathe in this crowded, closed-in neighborhood. "Other people's houses are right on top of this one," he said. "I think they could take one step and be in our living room."

"You haven't seen the courtyard yet, Gregori. The house opens up to a courtyard in the back, and it's immense and in quite good shape." Savannah began heading up the stairs, ignoring his grousing.

"I hate to think what you would call bad shape," he muttered as he followed her upstairs.

"I wonder why everything is so dusty," Savannah said. "I had the real estate people come in and clean and get things ready for our arrival."

"Do not touch anything," Gregori hissed softly, and very gently he caught her shoulders to put her behind him.

"What is it?" Instinctively she lowered her voice and looked around, trying to see if there was some danger she had been unable to sense.

"If people came and made up the bed and prepared the house for your arrival, then they would have removed the dust too."

"Maybe they're incredibly incompetent," she suggested hopefully.

Gregori glanced at her and found the hard edge of his mouth softening. She was making him want to smile all the time, even in the most serious of situations. "I am certain any company would work overtime trying to make you happy,
ma petite
. I know I do."

She blushed at the memory of how he did so. "So why all the dust?" she asked, deliberately distracting him.

"I think Julian left us a message. You have remained with humans so long, you see only with your eyes."

Savannah rolled her eyes at the reprimand. "And you've lived in the hills so long, you've forgotten how to have fun."

The pale eyes slid over her, wrapping her in heat. "I have my own ideas of fun,
chérie
. I would be willing to show you if you like," he offered wickedly.

Her chin lifted, blue eyes challenging. "If you think you're scaring me with your big-bad-wolf routine, you're not," she said.

He could hear her heart beat. Smell her scent calling him. "Perhaps I will think of something to change that," he cautioned her. Gregori turned his attention back to the room. Dust was thick on the walls, the fireplace, the tiled floor. He hunkered down, touched the minute specks lightly, and studied the layout from all angles. His eyes glowed red in the darkened interior.

Savannah stepped backward until she was pressed against the wall. Her attention was on the man, not on what he was doing. She watched the way his body moved, the rippling of his muscles beneath the thin silk shirt, the fluid way he seemed to flow from one area to the other. The way he tilted his head, the way he raked a hand impatiently through his thick mane of hair. He was of another world. Elegant. Dangerous. Deadly. Yet when he turned his head and his perfect mouth smiled at her, he looked sensual instead of cruel. His eyes were cold and lethal, seeing everything, missing nothing, but when he turned his gaze on her, the cold steel warmed to molten mercury. Hot. Exciting. Sexy. Almost sinful.

She blinked to bring the room back into focus. There was a subtle change. The dust seemed to shift position under Gregori's hand. He moved his arm gracefully, as if he was conducting an orchestra, and patterns began to emerge on the walls and on the floor. Lines shimmered into ancient letters and symbols. Once Gregori unlocked the secret, the hieroglyphics took shape rapidly, fashioned with the dust particles.

"This is beautiful. It's in the ancient language, isn't it?" Savannah said softly in awe. She moved in a small semi-circle, not wanting to disturb the air. "How did you know to bring it to life?"

"The way the dust had settled was all too arranged. It lay in a design waiting for us. It is an art few are aware of. I had no idea Julian knew it." Gregori sounded pleased. "Your father is quite good at this, but I have seen few others who have mastered it."

"Is my father good at everything?"

Gregori glanced up at the odd note in her voice. "He is the Prince of our people. The oldest of our kind. Yes, he is good at everything he does."

Unlike her, Savannah thought. "And you've known him all your life."

Gregori turned the power of his silver eyes directly on her face. "Your father and I have lived over a thousand years,
bébé
. Why would you think you should have the knowledge of the ancients? You are a beautiful, intelligent fledgling, and you learn quickly."