Dark Melody (8 page)

"Something made me go into that bar tonight," he answered softly, his teeth teasing the pad of her thumb. She could feel each gentle scrape all the way down to her toes. "I dreamed you up. You're my fantasy come true."

She laughed then, the sound like music in his ears, a melody even his guitar couldn't match. "Complete with baby on the way, a broken-down heart, and killers stalking me. I'd say you need to try dreaming again, Dayan, you didn't do a very good job." She wanted to be his dream come true, wished she were the one he needed.

"You are the
only
one I need."

He was so certain, so intense. There was no hint of a smile in his black eyes, rather that strange look that reminded Corinne of a predatory animal. He looked dangerous. She changed the subject abruptly. Their relationship couldn't really go anywhere, so what was the use in speculation? "How did you find out the two men were in our house without their seeing you?"

Dayan turned on his side, propping his elbow on the bed so he could rest his head in his palm and gaze down at her face. He could see her clearly in the darkness. He was a night creature and his eyes took in everything. Right now his gaze was focused on her face. She looked beautiful to him, lying there, unaware in her innocence of what he was, what he was capable of. "I needed the information," he replied gently, one fingertip tracing her lush mouth because he couldn't stop himself.

"That isn't an answer," she told him firmly. "Don't avoid the question."

"I do not want you to be afraid, Corinne. I am not always the gentlest of men. Those two were lying in wait to attack you and your friend. One of them had certainly participated in killing your husband. If it is the same organization that attempted to wipe out my entire family in one evening, they would have killed both you and Lisa. They are hunting Cullen, whose only sin was to warn us. I did not feel particularly kindly toward these individuals."

"You confronted them," she guessed. What was he not telling her? Surely he couldn't have faced two armed men alone and bested them. "Do you carry a gun?" She hated guns, those cold metallic instruments of death.

His broad shoulders shrugged casually. "I do not need a gun to kill," he said honestly. "I do not need a gun for any reason whatsoever."

She let her breath out slowly. "I'm glad to hear that."

He knew Corinne said it because she didn't have any idea what he was. A predator, dangerous and powerful. He had no need of a gun; he commanded the earth, the sky. He could shower the land with fire or buckle the ground beneath their feet. His voice alone could rob others of their will. He was a Carpathian male, a hunter of the vampire, his strength enormous, his ability to shape-shift only one of his many gifts. His was a dying species, a race of men doomed to wander the earth endlessly in search of the light that complemented their darkness, the one woman who was the other half of them. Without that woman they lost their ability to feel, lost the ability to see in color, so that they inhabited a dark, shadow world with only memories of honor to keep them from choosing the way of the vampire.

The insidious whisper of power was always with them, eating at them, calling to them, crouching in them, a dark beast filled with blood lust and the need to kill just to feel that momentary rush. As the centuries passed, the dark stain grew and spread, filling the males, until there was no hope, only the dark, dangerous hunger.

For the first few centuries, Dayan had suppressed the beast with his music and the poetry he had loved, but his struggle had increased in the last two hundred years. "Very recently there has been a change in our lives. You know all the band members, right?"

"Desari, of course, your singer. Barack and Syndil and you." Corinne rubbed his arm, sensing his unhappiness.

"And Darius, head of our family and bodyguard. The change was good for my brothers and sisters, not so good for me. First Julian arrived and claimed Desari as his lifemate. Then Darius found Tempest. Barack claimed Syndil, and I was left alone. I felt isolated, Corinne. I cannot explain how difficult it was. How alone I was." The sight of all of them so happy together had left him terribly alone. It had been a kind of hell without them all. They had been together during the centuries of their existence, yet he could no longer face them. The sight and sounds and smells of the mingling couples had made his loneliness even more intolerable.

He was different. He was a danger to them, to the women as well as the men. He saw the wary way Syndil always looked at him. She had been attacked by one of their own, Savon, after Savon had turned vampire. Darius had destroyed the vampire, but it had been a close thing.

Dayan knew the others worried about him, and it had disturbed him that he felt nothing at all. Just alone. Always and forever alone. He was not afraid of Darius and his power, as he should have been. He was Darius's second-in-command. Darius felt tremendous loyalty to him, and they had exchanged blood on more than one occasion when one or the other had been wounded. It enabled them to communicate privately; it also enabled them to track one another at will, no matter how great the distance.

"You aren't alone, Dayan; never think that," Corinne whispered, aching for him. She heard the loneliness in his voice and she wanted desperately to comfort him. Dayan brought Corinne's fingers to his mouth once more, kissing them gently instead of crushing her to him as he wanted. She had changed his life for all time. He could return to his family now without worry, without the threat that he might turn vampire and have to be hunted and destroyed. He would never have to read in their minds their worry over him, sense their pity and sorrow, their fears. He could feel the love he held for them all, instead of just remembering it. Corinne had done that just by being in the world for him to find. All the long centuries had been worth the wait. All the loneliness, all the terrible emptiness.

Corinne filled him with hope again. No one would be completely safe until she was bound to him, until the ritual had been completed, but Dayan could breathe easier. He had found her at long last, his Corinne. She would save him, and with him, any that he might have endangered.

"I wish I could read minds," Corinne teased. "You go very quiet and you never exactly answer my questions. What happened to our conversation regarding those men in my house? It seemed very important to me."

"Was it?" His voice was that perfect whisper of sound. "I find you the most important thing in my life. It is difficult to keep my mind on anything else, but since it is of such importance to you, I will try."

He was staring down at her as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world. His black gaze drifted over her face, possessive, hungry, aching with need… with some inner torment she didn't understand. He was looking at her the way a man looks at a woman he wants to spend the entire night making love with.

"Eternity making love," he corrected, proving he really could read her mind.

Her eyes widened in astonishment. A blush worked its way up her neck to her face, putting color into her cheeks. She realized it could be embarrassing having Dayan read her mind. She thought about him way too much. Thought about every detail of his appearance – his long, thick hair as shiny as a raven's wing, his black eyes, so intense and needy, his sculpted mouth, perfectly chiseled, molded and shaped into a sensual masterpiece. Half laughing, embarrassed that she couldn't control her wayward thoughts, she put her hand over her eyes to block him out.

"Do not do that, honey," he reprimanded softly. "Do not ever do that. I would not be happy if you did not find me attractive."

"You're too attractive," she confessed. "Not real. I don't exactly have these kinds of feelings every day."

His perfect white teeth flashed at her. "That is a relief."

"Now you're laughing at me." She tried to stifle the yawn welling up. "It's almost morning and we haven't gotten anywhere with this. Did you call the police? Is it safe to go back into our house?"

Dayan shook his head. "Maybe to get a few things, but you cannot stay there. When those two men do not return to their people, others will be sent after you. The first place they will look is your home."

"You didn't call the police, did you?"

"Why would we want to do that? The police cannot do anything to these people; they cannot touch them."

"What did you do with the two in my home? Why aren't they going to return to their people?"

"They had orders to kill you, honey. You did not expect me to allow them to walk away." He made it a statement. "It was fair enough – they had guns."

She tangled her fingers in the silky mass of his hair because she had wanted to do that from the first moment she laid eyes on him. "You don't make sense, Dayan. You answer me, but not so I can understand anything. I'm tired." Her long lashes were continually fluttering down despite her efforts to stay awake. "I'm too tired to figure out your sentences with all the holes in them. But don't worry, I'm fairly good at things like that when I'm fully awake."

Dayan stroked the hair from her forehead, his fingertips lingering in a gentle caress. "You can go to sleep, Corinne. You will be safe here and we can finish this conversation when you are not so tired. The baby needs to sleep too. A little girl." There was the slightest of "pushes" in his voice, a hidden compulsion to give in to her desire to sleep.

She smiled up at him, at his strong, sensual features. That's right, a girl. How did you know?" Corinne found herself suppressing a yawn.

"When I attempted to heal you, I checked to make sure she was in good health. She is beautiful, and very aware of you already." He lowered his head, his heated gaze moving over her face, dropping to her mouth. It moved even lower to brush the slender column of her neck, rested on the pulse beating there.

Embarrassed again by the molten heat spreading through her body, Corinne tried to look away. Dayan's hand spanned her throat. "I want you to want me. Just for this one moment in time." He bent his dark head toward hers, slowly, relentlessly, his black gaze mesmerizing her so she couldn't breathe. Her lashes fluttered in anticipation, her lips parting slightly.

He took his time, in no hurry to end the moment, inhaling her fragrance, gathering her close to him, his body slanting protectively, possessively over hers. He could feel her body, soft and pliant, every curve pressed snugly into the hardness of his own powerful frame, and he savored the differences between a man and a woman. He could feel his blood heat, and he allowed himself the luxury.

Corinne watched the expression in his eyes change from black, sensual possession to a strange, almost predatory stare. Red flames seemed to dance in the very depths of his gaze, and he looked fiercely hungry and all at once threatening. Before she could react, before she could think to protect herself, Dayan's mouth found hers and time simply stopped for both of them.

His mouth was gentle, even tender, a direct contrast to the strength of his arms and the powerful muscles of his body. An electrical jolt flashed through her, through him, and a thousand tiny tongues of flame began to lick along every square inch of her skin. There was so much sensation, she could only cling to him, her mouth taking on a life of its own, matching the hunger in him as he fed on her. The long, drugging kisses made her feel as if the bed was spinning out of control beneath her and her body was no longer her own. She was drenched in hot fire, filled with aching need. She made a small sound of protest, yet her hands sought his back to hold him to her.

Nothing in her life had prepared her for such a firestorm of need. She
had
to have him right at that moment. She wanted him to possess her for all time. Her body seemed empty without him, every cell crying out for him. If she hadn't been pregnant, if it hadn't been risky, she would have become his entirely.

He was everywhere around her, blocking out the room, the world, narrowing her vision until only Dayan existed with his perfect mouth taking hers, his hands moving over her in a gentle exploration. Corinne closed her eyes as he deepened the kiss, as his hand shaped her breast, pushing aside the neckline of her blouse to explore the vulnerable line of her throat.

His mouth drifted to the corner of hers, moved along the curve of her chin to her soft throat. He murmured something soothing as if to quiet her, as if she might struggle. On some level her brain was protesting her behavior, but she couldn't move, couldn't lift her lashes, and self-preservation didn't seem to be so very important in that moment. She felt his tongue sweep over the pulse beating in her neck; his strong hands gathered her closer still. Her body clenched and pulsed with need, with anticipation. His teeth scraped gently, teasingly over the throbbing spot, drenching her with hot answering liquid. She felt she might be drowning, yet she couldn't move, so mesmerized was she by his black-magic spell.

White-hot heat flashed through her, a pleasure so intense it bordered on pain. For a moment she couldn't tell the difference. Then she was drifting in a dream world as Dayan indulged his erotic hunger, his mouth moving over her pulse, feeding on her until she thought she might die of pleasure. Her arms crept up to cradle his head to her, to hold his mouth against her skin.

Dayan heard his own heartbeat pounding in his head, roaring like the beast inside him trying to break free. The ritual words beat in his brain like a drum, filled his mind and heart and soul as he drank. Her blood was sweet, intoxicating, the pleasure coursing through him like wildfire. Fiery hot. The roar increased until his body was going up in flames, urgent, demanding, painful with need. He whispered her name like the talisman it was, forced himself to breathe, to hang on to his sanity, to fight the raging beast and its demands. His tongue stroked across the two tiny wounds, closing them with the healing agent in his saliva, resting his forehead against hers while he fought for total control.

Corinne felt drowsy, and yet her body was on fire, filled with an aching hunger that reduced her mind to erotic images which flared up like dancing flames. She didn't want him to leave her like this, her body throbbing and crying out for his, yet she couldn't summon the energy to move her arms. They felt like lead, sliding from him to lie uselessly on the sheets beside her.