I cannot allow the vampire to continue to prey upon my people whether my blood is Carpathian or human or jaguar. We are all the same, struggling to find a life and live it well. I choose life.
It will be painful. Very painful.
And MaryAnn would be witness. How could it not scare her to death? Everything in him ached to stop, to take his lifemate and leave, but there was no doing so, not after merging so deeply with Luiz, knowing what kind of man he was and the hard fight he’d waged to save his people, to honor his women. Manolito could not abandon him to
lamti ból jüti, kinta, ja szelem
, the meadow of night, mists and ghosts, nor could he wait much longer or the man would be half-dweller, as Manolito was certain he was.
I choose life.
Manolito put a restraining hand on MaryAnn’s shoulder to stop her from continuing CPR. He simply took over with his mind, keeping Luiz’s heart beating and the air moving through his lungs. “I cannot do this without blood.”
MaryAnn could see that Manolito had grown weak and pale, his skin nearly gray. He was swaying with weariness. It was a frightening thing to stretch out her arm and offer her wrist, but she trusted him; even with the red flames flickering in the depth of his dark eyes, she trusted him with her life.
Ignoring her wrist, he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. “I could never harm you,
sivamet.
”
The way the last word rolled off his tongue was sensual and alluring. More than that, she caught the meaning in his mind.
My love.
Was she his love? Did he already feel more than physical need for her? Having been in his mind, she realized that the sharing of memories and the inability to hide from each other made the relationship so much more intimate than she could ever have imagined. If he was courting her, he was doing a good job, simply by being himself.
She went into his arms willingly and nuzzled his throat. He tilted her chin so that her gaze met his, was captured by his, mesmerized and lost in the dark depths of his eyes. Lost in the seduction of stark need and raw hunger. He never tried to disguise or lessen the way he felt about her. Her breath caught in her throat. Her heart did a curious melting as her stomach flipped and her womb clenched.
This man could be hers—was hers. She hadn’t claimed him back. She didn’t even know if she could live with what and who he was, but she admired and respected him. She could feel the hunger beating at him. The weariness. He was torn between two worlds, and to stay in hers drained him. His sense of honor toward Solange, and to her, had only added to his burden.
“Take what you need.” Her lips whispered over his.
Temptation.
Oh, lord, the temptation she was inadvertently offering him. His tongue was a velvet rasp over her pulse. She was warm, living silk in his arms. No one had softer skin. His emotions had long been frozen in a place deep inside him, buried so deep he thought it impossible to taste or feel or know the pleasure a woman’s shape could bring to a man’s body. Her touch, the sound of her voice, her very breath had awakened him. She had given him life again. He wanted her with him for all time. He wanted to ensure she was always by his side.
Temptation.
He now knew what it felt and tasted like. He knew temptation was a woman and that he would have to use every ounce of control to keep from whisking her away to a place where they could be alone.
His teeth sank deep, and the taste and essence of her flowed from her to him, completing him body and soul. A sultry, smoky flavor and so MaryAnn. His arms tightened, and he closed his eyes to better savor her. At the same time, he allowed one hand to wander down the curves of her body to her leg. She was curled up in his arms, her legs in his lap, and he could easily find the tears in her flesh.
No one, woman or man, should have been able to push aside the pain and function, not only sitting, as she was doing now, but running as she had earlier in the rain forest. The pain should have dulled her thinking and affected her ability to manipulate energy. The pain was there in her mind. She felt it. But she pushed it into a center of her brain he was unfamiliar with. He’d never seen the pattern before. He was ancient. He had used mage, jaguar and human for sustenance at one time or another, and as the species mixed, the patterns became less distinct over the ages. He ran his hands over her thigh, an intimate exploration. She shivered in his arms, her body moving restlessly against his.
She is yours.
Yes. She was his. Made for him. Shaped for him. The other half of him.
She was made for you.
Of course she had been, her body curved just so, soft and pliant, hot silk moving in his arms so that he would know what it would be to bury his body deep within her, drive them both over the edge into ecstasy.
It is your right.
He had every right to her body. He owned her, body and soul, just as she did him. He could take pleasure when and where he wanted. His hand slid along her thigh, moved toward heat—his heat—she belonged to him. He knew exactly the things that would please her, would bring her to a fevered frenzy of sexual need.
Why bring the jaguar-man across? He will only turn vampire and you will have to hunt and kill him as you have so many others.
It was madness to consider bringing another male into their world when there were so few lifemates. He might try to steal MaryAnn.
He was alone with her. Naked. Showing her his body in order to lure her away from you. He wants her. He’ll do anything to take her from you.
The jaguar-men had all proven to be deceivers. They did lure women and hold them captive, treat them brutally.
He touched her. He touched your woman. He saw your mark, smelled your scent all over her, yet he touched. You saw him standing over her. He was stark naked. What do you think he was trying to force her to do?
She defended him. Said he’d saved her life.
She wants him. Make her yours. Take her now. Take what belongs to you. Bring her to your side for all eternity.
He couldn’t stop. He needed this. He was starving.
Starving.
The hunger drove him mad. Nothing could sate him but his lifemate. The rich, hot blood burst through his system with the rush of the most powerful drug.
He needed her body submitting to his, all heat and fire, sating the desire that had him so hard and hot and beyond caring of anything but sinking deep into her. He wanted to hear his name called out in a storm of need. He wanted to see her eyes glaze over with passion; he wanted to hear her beg for him to join them. He had waited an eternity through darkness and hell, and now she was there, in his arms, her body ripe and ready for his, her blood mingling with his.
Take her. It is your right. She cannot deny you. Anything you want she must provide. Yours. Take her now before the jaguar claims her. You cannot stop now when you are so close. Take enough to convert her and she cannot leave you. Taste her.
The whispers grew. Voices joined in.
For one moment, his arms tightened possessively and his body urged hers backward so that he bent her beneath him. For what? Would he take her right there with Luiz dying beside them? With Jasmine and Solange there as witnesses to his madness?
Yes. Yes. You take her now before it is too late and you lose her.
Fear rose in him. Fear that he couldn’t control the addiction to her taste, that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—stop. He was losing his mind, and he was going to harm the one person he had sworn to care for. He shouldn’t be listening, but the voices were insidious, creeping into his mind and preying on his worst fears and his worst traits.
His worst traits. The need to dominate. The need for her to see only him and no one else. The terrible need to force his will on her, so that she not only wanted to but
needed
to do everything he wished. He wanted her on his terms and knew he could control her through a sexual relationship. He knew her desires and fantasies, and he knew how to exact every erotic response. Not for pleasure—hers or his—but for control.
He would not only dishonor himself and everything he stood for if he took her blood and her body, if he brought her wholly into his world, but he would ruin any chance he had of gaining MaryAnn’s affection. That was not what lifemates were all about. He was her lifemate and would be in every sense of the word.
The voices became louder, more persuasive. The shadows around him lengthened and grew. He caught at MaryAnn’s arms, prepared to wrench her away from him, but she moved in his mind, a soothing warmth, a feeling of well-being.
That is not so, Manolito. I hear them and they speak falsely. Of course you feel I am yours. If I am your lifemate, I am the other half of your soul.
MaryAnn was grateful that Destiny had taken the time to try to explain the bond between Carpathian lifemates.
Naturally you would want me wholly in your world. They are preying on your instincts, but you are stronger than they are.
We
are stronger than they are.
You can hear them?
He was desperate for her to know that he walked in two worlds. It seemed so implausible. And yet he was surrounded by the shadows, the voices and the cold chill he couldn’t shake, when a Carpathian could control body temperature.
Of course I hear them.
She wouldn’t let them take him. Whatever was happening was real, not imagined. She was an urban bush woman, and she could handle whatever the trash wanted to throw at her or her man.
Her stomach did another odd little flutter. She was already thinking of him as her man. Whatever. She wasn’t going to desert him until he was safely in the land of the living, without vampires and ghouls hanging around.
Manolito tried to still his pounding heart and the surge of hot blood racing through his body straight to his groin. The good thing was, with her body heat, her soft skin and total acceptance, she had dimmed the voices enough for him to dull the demon rising to claim her, and for him to reason once again.
She had been aware of his thoughts, yet she hadn’t fought him, hadn’t pulled away. She had waited for him to sort it all out, believing in him through the entire exchange. Her faith terrified him. What if he let her down? What if the man she believed him to be didn’t exist? She humbled him with her confidence in him.
He swept his tongue across the pinpricks, careful this time not to leave his mark. Once was enough, and he made certain it was still there to remind her, in his absence, of the connection of their souls. He held her for a moment, his heart pounding. Had the voices been more than a temptation to do her wrong? Had those in the shadow world sensed she was connected to him and had Maxim tried to draw her into the world of mists, where he could kill her?
“Let me heal your leg.” He couldn’t bear to see those marks on her, and she had been suffering long enough while he helped others. His fingers slid over the tears on her calf, the ripped flesh and the exposed muscle gaping from the wound.
“But Luiz…”
“I am keeping him alive. Allow me to do this.”
MaryAnn pressed her lips together to keep from protesting, sending one quick glance toward Jasmine and Solange, hoping they weren’t witnessing her reaction to Manolito’s attention. Because quite frankly, it was sexual. In the midst of blood and chaos, her body was doing things and thinking things it shouldn’t. Solange lay without moving, eyes closed, holding Jasmine’s total concentration.
“Go ahead then, but hurry.” Her voice came out choked. She could hardly think, let alone speak, with his fingers trailing up and down her thigh.
He bent his head toward her calf, his fingers circling her ankle to hold her still. Her breath caught in her throat, as she watched his silky hair cascading like a waterfall around his shoulders. She could see his profile, his long lashes and the outline of his lips. He was just too gorgeous to be real. She lifted a hand to her out-of-control hair. Even braided, it was trying to grow into a wild mass. The action drew her attention to the bloodstains on her silk blouse.
She looked with dismay down at her really chic black dress pants. One trouser leg was ripped and torn, the really cute cuff shredded into strings. Beneath it, her leg had deep rake marks, so deep the muscle poured from the slashes. Pain exploded through her, robbed her of breath, and for a moment she thought she might get sick.
“Manolito.” She gasped his name, shocked at the pain burning through her. Tears swam in her eyes. “It hurts.”
“I know,
sivamet
, I can take that away as well.” He found it interesting that the moment her mind had become aware of the wound, she had felt the entire load of stabbing pain. It was no longer compartmentalized in her brain, shut off from her conscious self.
Manolito shouldered the pain and began the task of healing the wounds from the inside out. When the lacerations were sealed and free of all infection, he came back to his body and bent to inspect her leg. She closed her eyes when she felt his tongue rasp over the wound like the stroke of warm velvet.
She knew he had a healing agent in his saliva, and that there should have been an “ick” factor for her, but there wasn’t. Instead, a million butterfly wings brushed at her stomach and her muscles clenched. Heat pulsed between her legs. He was doing something with the pads of his fingers, up higher, on the inside of her thigh, something that threatened her sanity, but before she could lose her mind, he lifted his head, eyes heavy-lidded and smoky with desire.
“We need to focus on Luiz.” His husky voice was thick with emotion.
She nodded, unable to speak. “Tell me what to do to help you.”
Carpathian men did not share their women, and Manolito was definitely the jealous type, but his heart went out to Luiz when he sensed his apprehension as Manolito bent to his throat.
Try to hold him to you, MaryAnn, to make his transition easier. I fear his cat is strong and will not relinquish him easily.
It wasn’t easy to make himself ask her, but he was already firmly merging with the jaguar-man, and the taste of fear was bitter for a man who had fought so many battles and worked so hard for his people. Manolito didn’t want Luiz moving from one life to the other in a state of anxiety. He allowed himself to merge completely to calm the man, but the cat sensed what was about to happen and raged.