Dark Legend (42 page)

"First I will take care of your doctor friend. You cannot do so." Lucian made it a decree. His black eyes glittered for a moment, sheer ice and menace.

Francesca glared at him, her black eyes sparkling. "I will do what is necessary.
You
have no say in it."

Lucian's empty eyes turned on his brother, one eyebrow arched.
"You will allow this lunacy?"

"These things are difficult."
Gabriel shrugged his broad shoulders as if to say Lucian didn't know anything about women.

Francesca tossed her thick braid over her left shoulder. "I realize you were born many centuries ago, Lucian. I should have not shown such impatience. Women no longer do whatever a man decrees." Her voice held a faintly haughty tone.

"Francesca!"
The look in Gabriel's black eyes was something between laughter and censure. He could not remember anyone ever speaking to Lucian in such a way.

She turned away from her lifemate, trying desperately not to laugh. The two men were very old-fashioned in their manners. Courtly. Elegant.
Sexy.
That thought crept in unbidden and was hastily censored. She shared Gabriel's thoughts, knew it was in his mind to prevent her healing Brice until he had removed all traces of the tainted blood himself. Right now, Gabriel needed the healing earth, as did Lucian. Both ancients were wounded and weak.

"I have noticed for some centuries now, it is the women who take care of all the little details. I will ensure that Brice sleeps this day until the new rising. It is necessary to prepare the earth for your brother. He is in great need, despite his belief in his own omnipotence. Do not worry, I do have brains and have managed quite well without guidance of any kind for centuries. I will be able to handle all the details by my little lonesome while you poor boys rest."

"But you will not go near Brice,"
Gabriel said, trying to make it more of a statement than a command.

Francesca swept past her lifemate and glided down the hall toward the kitchen and the underground chambers. Of course she wouldn't risk her unborn child trying to heal Brice without aid. Did they think she was a dolt? The two of them could sleep in the underground chamber together!

"
I will not be sleeping with my brother, woman, believe me. I will be sleeping right alongside you where I belong."
This time there was distinct laughter, a drawling male amusement in the deep timbre of Gabriel's voice. His voice always held that lazy, sexy note she couldn't ignore.

"Do not count on your charm to get you out of this one."
Francesca opened the earth, a section of deep rich soil large enough to accommodate Lucian's powerful frame.

"
I am much gratified to know you find me charming
."

"Was I thinking that? I do not think so. I believe what I was thinking was how irritating the males of our race are and I am certain I had good cause to hide my existence from them all these centuries."
Deliberately Francesca kept her voice as haughty as ever. Teasing him. Loving him. Wanting to be alone with him. Gabriel.

"You were thinking about making love to me, not sentencing me to a lonely bed."

"You think much of yourself, sir."

"Only by reading your thoughts. I find I like the way you view me far better than the view I have of myself."

Francesca scattered healing herbs across the dirt floor and added precious soil from her homeland from the small treasure box she had guarded over the centuries. The soil was what Lucian needed more than anything else.
"It is ready."

Gabriel reached for his twin, helping him to his feet. It felt right to be with Lucian again. They moved the same way; their expressions were totally alike. It suddenly occurred to Gabriel that perhaps Francesca couldn't tell them apart.

"Do not be so silly. You are part of me, the other half of my heart. You think the silliest things, Gabriel."
The whisper of her voice was an invitation. It heated his blood as nothing else ever could.

Gabriel guided Lucian past the chamber containing Brice. The twins touched the mind of the sleeping human at the exact same time, sharing the knowledge without thinking about it, a well-rehearsed action.

Francesca stepped to one side to allow Lucian into the narrow opening leading to his sleeping area. "Sleep well, brother."

Lucian looked down at her with his empty black eyes. "I thank you for your kindness to me, sister, but most of all for the way you care for my brother." He said it sincerely.

There was pure magic in his voice. Francesca found herself smiling up at her lifemate's twin. She believed him far too powerful for his own good, but she knew he loved his brother, and that reassured her as nothing else could have.

Gabriel locked his arm around her waist the moment Lucian had floated to earth and the soil had closed over his head. "Alone at last. I did not think it would ever happen."

She gave him her snootiest look. "You seem to forget poor Brasilia and Santino. They deserve an explanation of tonight's events. I protected them as best I could and I suspect Lucian probably did also, but Santino is not one we control. We gave our word to Aidan. Besides, you went out and got yourself hurt. That was uncalled for."

He leaned down to nuzzle her neck, inhale her fragrance. "I love the way you smell. The moment I entered our house, it was filled with your presence and I knew I was home."

Francesca's hand crept up to his face. "I love you very much, Gabriel. I do not appreciate gray hair at this stage in my life when I am about to become a mother."

"You would look very sexy with gray hair," Gabriel replied, holding her hand to him so that he could turn his face and press a kiss into the center of her palm. "And I would like to go upstairs and see young Skyler before the night is gone. You can see Santino without me."

She bit his palm, a little nip of reprimand. "You will not go without me, and you will not leave all the tiny details of our life to me."

He managed to look innocent. "Was I doing that?"

Francesca laughed, her heart light and happy now that he was beside her and they were safe within the walls of their home.

Chapter Eighteen

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Francesca woke in Gabriel's arms. Gabriel had remained below the earth for two days, but now his wounds were completely healed and Francesca felt safe calling him to her. She felt she had been patient long enough when everything in her cried out for him. Above them the night was stirring to life and the comforting sounds of her household were settling into the rhythm of the night.

Skyler was laughing in the kitchen with Drusilla. Francesca lay for a moment savoring the wonder of that. Skyler didn't laugh often, and when she did it was brief, but the sound was incredibly beautiful. Francesca was already becoming fond of Drusilla. She was a motherly woman who ran the house very efficiently. She had an open, loving personality. There was ample room in her heart for young Skyler.

Santino was a miracle. He had immediately set to work with the bodyguard to ensure the house was protected inside and out. It would be necessary to change Francesca's manner of living to accommodate a high fence around the grounds now that there were humans to protect also. Santino was quick to find a design that fit the old-fashioned architecture. He had incorporated the safeguards Francesca had chosen to build into the fence itself.

It was already well under construction; Santino didn't believe in procrastinating. Francesca was certain Gabriel and Santino would become good friends in time.

"You are certainly accurate in your thinking," Gabriel murmured, his heart already finding the perfect rhythm of hers. She was his world and he loved waking up with the knowledge that she was there, waiting for him, so cool and serene and beautiful.

Francesca smiled as she turned in his arms, her body molding itself to his, already soft and pliant, her skin warming as his blood thickened and heated. She reveled in the feel of his body; how different he was from her, his muscles so defined and hard. With her hands she sought his hips, the columns of his thighs, smoothed over his chest, lingered over the area where he had been wounded. "You hunger." She made it a statement. She had known he would awaken ravenous, and she was more than willing to provide for her lifemate. She could feel the hunger in him, a growing, living thing.

Gabriel buried his face in the hollow of her shoulders, his mouth moving over her scented skin. His hands shaped her slender body, tracing her perfect form, her lush breasts and rounded hips, her small tucked-in waist. Their child lay beneath his palm and it excited him to think of it growing there, another binding tie between them. A rush of heat hit him with the speed of a fireball, exploding in his lower belly as her fingers danced over him.

"Francesca." He breathed her name against the creamy mound of her breast, his warm breath teasing her nipple into an answering erotic peak. His lips kissed the vulnerable line of her throat, found her mouth, fastened there, his mouth dominating and very male. She was everything to him. "Everything." He whispered it into her mouth, sliding his tongue along hers in a fiery tango.

He closed his eyes to feel her with his body, his hands exploring while his mouth moved along her neck back to the deep valley between her breasts. His body was growing hard and uncomfortable with wanting her, his hunger rising sharply. She murmured something softly against his skin, a little endearment, an enticement even, while her hands moved over his hips and settled with teasing, dancing fingers along the hard evidence of his growing need. His breath seemed to explode out of his body as she moved over him, her breast an invitation beneath his seeking mouth.

Fangs lengthened, grew as his teeth teased and scraped her skin over her pounding, beckoning pulse. Her fingers were inflaming him, teasing and shaping, even as she arched her body closer to his. Fiery heat streaked through her, through him as his teeth sank deep. Whips of lightning danced over their skin as he fed voraciously, her blood, hot and sweet, flowing into the starved cells of his body.

His body. Wracked with fires. Flames that could never be put out. He was so hot he burned with need. Even as he fed, he caught her slender hips and pinned her beneath him so he could surge forward, a powerful thrust, burying himself deep in her tight sheath. She was hot and slick with need, with hunger. Colors whirled and danced and the fire raged out of control. Gabriel just let it happen, let it consume him. Her body was all that mattered in that moment. He would plumb every secret place, delve deeper and deeper until he found complete sanctuary from the host of demons forever haunting him.

He moved harder and faster, long sure strokes designed to inflame her, to bring her to the same burning fever he felt. He whispered her name as he stroked his tongue across the tiny pinpricks, closing the wound in her breast. He gathered her to him, reveling in the mysteries of her wondrous body. He was lost for all time; she was his world and everything good in it.

Francesca looked up at his face above her, etched in sensual beauty, his black eyes glittering with the intensity of his wild lovemaking, swimming in unexpected tears. She gasped, .touched a teardrop on his impossibly long eyelashes. His perfect mouth softened, curved in response. "You are just so beautiful, Francesca. I still cannot believe I am here with you, sharing your life, sharing your body. You have no idea what you mean to me."

She leaned up to capture his mouth with hers, merging her mind more fully, offering total acceptance of his wild nature, matching his fiery demands with her own. Long afterward they lay together, listening to their combined heartbeat, savoring the luxury of simply lying in each other's arms, in the differences of their bodies and their ability to be so entwined.

"I love you, Francesca," Gabriel told her solemnly. "I cannot express in words what you are to me."

She smiled up at him. "You do a fairly good job expressing yourself."

His eyebrow shot up. "Fairly good?"

"I think your ego is already far too large. I am not about to call you the greatest lover in the world."

His hand cupped her soft breast, his thumb stroking small caresses over her taut nipple. "But you would if it were not for fear of my ego?"

Each stroke of his thumb produced an answering rush of liquid heat and Francesca shifted, rising above him, flinging her abundance of hair over her shoulder as she slowly straddled him, lowering her body over his. He gasped aloud, his eyes closing for a moment in ecstasy, then opening to watch her body as she began to slowly move.

"I booked Brice in at a medical clinic in Milan. I have friends there who will back up my story. I told them he was recovering from an addiction and we were helping him here. They owe me a favor or two," Francesca added when Gabriel frowned. He wasn't used to relying on humans for aid but Francesca slipped easily between the two worlds. She knew the value of money and social position. She knew medical clinics relied heavily on wealthy benefactors. She was very generous in that regard and rarely asked anything in return. If she wanted one of her friends, particularly a great physician, to be booked in as recovering from a violent flu, the clinic was more than happy to help. "And yes, I know you and Lucian will aid in destroying the vampire's hold on him. I read your mind easily, my love; nothing will harm our daughter. Either of our daughters. I will wait until Brice is free of all shadowing before I aid in his healing."

"Yes, you will," he said softly, his hands going to her waist.

She moved her body a little faster to accommodate the sudden erotic picture in his mind. Francesca smiled, a slow seductive smile as she sensed the fire building in his body.

"You believe it is wise to involve another clinic?" Gabriel had to work at keeping his voice natural when she was tying him up in knots again. Her waist was so narrow and her breasts jutted so temptingly over him. "Surely he cannot simply pick up and leave his job when the whim comes upon him."