No, pequena, you were not so wrong about me.
The words brushed in her mind almost tenderly.
Colby glanced up at him, startled. It was disconcerting to have him reading her every thought. “I guess we do need to talk. You need to explain to me just what is going on between us, because I don’t know what it is.” She wasn’t going to be put off. He had promised to talk with her and she meant to hold him to it.
“Do you really believe I have something to do with the problems on this ranch?” Rafael stirred for the first time, a lazy, casual move very reminiscent of a jungle cat as he straightened and moved toward her, immediately filling the entire kitchen with his presence.
The phone rang shrilly. They could hear Paul and Ginny both racing to answer it. Colby pushed open the screen door. She needed the night air, the wide-open spaces. She didn’t turn her head and she didn’t hear Rafael walking, but she felt him moving right behind her.
As they walked across the yard, his hand brushed hers. At once her heart went crazy, pounding wildly before she could prevent it. She glanced up at him from under long lashes, surreptitiously putting her hand behind her back. “Why did you come here, Rafael? Why are you here at all? You don’t belong here, do you?”
“My brothers and I rarely travel. We prefer to stay near the rain forest.” He glanced up at the looming mountain range shadowing the ranch. “We need the wilds. Even together we have always been solitary.”
His voice was very quiet, almost hypnotic. Colby found her gaze on the mountains also. Everything seemed so much more intense. Vivid colors in the night, the breeze bringing scents and sounds to her she had never experienced before. She inhaled deeply, drawing it all into her lungs. “Why do I want to be with you when I don’t even like you?” She didn’t look at him when she asked the question. “You know why, don’t you?” She knew things; she had always known things. She knew he wouldn’t lie to her about whatever was between them.
Rafael moved beside her in silence, his body fluid and powerful. She could
feel
his power. They walked past the large garden she had worked so hard to maintain. She noted absently that Paul had forgotten to water it. As soon as the knowledge shimmered in her mind, Rafael waved his hand and the water began to flow into the irrigation hoses. He did it casually, almost as if he didn’t notice he did it.
“Why do I need to touch your mind with mine, to see you, when I’ve never needed a man in my life at all?”
His hand brushed hers again and this time their fingers tangled together. “Do you really want the answers to your questions, Colby? You must be very sure it is what you want. The answers you will get are not what you are expecting.”
She stopped walking, her body very close to his. She had to tilt her head to look up at him. Colby took a moment to think it over. She sensed he was going to reveal something monumental, something terrifying. Was she strong enough to take it? Colby
needed
to know. She took a deep breath and nodded. “I think I have enough mysteries in my life right now without this one. Tell me the truth.”
His hand framed her face, his fingertips unbelievably gentle as they brushed her face. “I look at you, Colby, and I see the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth. Inside and out you are beautiful. I know you better than anyone else could ever know you, because I can see into your thoughts and read your memories. The very light in you, your tremendous capacity for loving, humbles me.”
She looked at him steadily, trying not to drown in the depths of his black, black eyes. Looking at the intensity, the hunger there, it was impossible not to believe what he was saying and his words robbed her of her breath, of her ability to stay focused. She shook her head to ward off his spell. “Tell me about your life.” She found she was holding her breath; she didn’t want to hear about Rafael and other women. She wanted to know about
him.
Who he was, what he thought, what mattered to him.
“You matter to me. Ginny and Paul matter to me. Honor matters.” His black eyes, dark and brooding, moved over her face. His fingers drifted down her silken curtain of hair before reluctantly releasing her. “Honor is the only thing I had left to me, Colby, before you came into my life.” He looked away from her, avoiding her eyes to look up at the high shadowy peaks surrounding them. “I belong in the rain forests, up in the mountains, far from people, where it is much safer for them . . . and for me.”
Colby kept her eyes on his face, determined to know the truth. There was something truly solitary about him, something so alone it touched her heart. She had an overwhelming desire to gather him into her arms and comfort him. “I don’t see what is so wrong with needing your own space. Sometimes, there is such a bombardment of information overwhelming me that I can barely hang on. You are much more sensitive than I am, I can tell. If you read minds, the emotions must be overwhelming.”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose thoughtfully, shaking his head at her. “Naturally you would give a plausible reason for my behavior. But it is not so,
pequena,
I do not have the excuse of being bombarded with emotions. In truth, although I can read minds, I felt nothing at all until I met you.”
Colby continued to walk. The soft breeze was soothing, a perfect backdrop for serenity when she was struggling to understand what Rafael was telling her. “I don’t understand. How could you feel nothing? You mean you never fell in love? What? What does that mean?”
“I mean it in a literal sense, Colby,” he continued gently. “Touch my mind, look at my memories.” He didn’t sound ashamed, he sounded matter-of-fact, as if he casually discussed his sins every day, not as if he was bearing his soul to her, as if he was ripping his heart out and handing it to her.
He knew he could no longer continue without her. He knew he was too selfish to end his life, and in any case he had all but tied her to him. He had no idea of the consequences to her should they be separated. He had not officially bound them with the ritual words but he had exchanged blood with her on two occasions. She was partially in his world. And she needed him. She was lonely in the midst of her beloved family. And they were using her up, her generous, compassionate nature and unique gifts. Without those talents, it would not have been possible for Colby to run the ranch on the defective equipment as she had been doing these last few years.
There was a vampire in the area, probably drawn by her use of her psychic talent. And there was Nicolas, so close to turning it was terrifying. And Rafael truly did not know how much longer he, himself, could endure without claiming her. More than all those reasons, Rafael knew he had never wanted anything for himself in all his long years. He wanted Colby and he wouldn’t give her up.
She reached out to him, for the first time really seeing beyond his expressionless mask. His handsome face was different when she really studied him. There were lines etched into his sensual features that hadn’t been there before. There was a sorrow in the depths of his eyes as if he was suffering. Instantly her heart melted and Colby tightened her grip on his arm.
“What is it you don’t want to tell me, Rafael? Don’t you think it’s just better to get it out in the open?”
Colby. Direct, to the point. He tucked thick silky strands of red-gold hair behind her small ear. “You have so much here, Colby. You are willing to give so much of yourself to those you love. I want you to love me. I am not deserving of your
love. I have not only done nothing to deserve it, but I have made your life more difficult. I need you. I know I will not always be easy to be with. I am a very dominant man, sexually and otherwise. I want you to be mine. All mine.” He said the words starkly, without embellishment, totally vulnerable, aware she could crush him easily with one word, one look. “But I want you to love me, I need you to love me.”
Everything in Colby responded to the directness of his plea. He looked so alone, tall and straight, his black eyes alive with some terrible inner pain. “Why? Why do you need me to love you, Rafael? You have everything.” He wasn’t overwhelming her with romantic endearments, or even using the highly charged sexual chemistry between them to persuade her, and that, more than anything else, had her complete attention.
“I have nothing without you. Before I came here, Colby, my life was one endless bleak moment after another. I am alive when I am around you. I can feel emotion, I know I care for the Chevez family, I feel affection for them, I
care
what happens to them. I
feel
for my brothers, my people. I do not want to return to a barren world, I cannot.” His black eyes moved moodily over her upturned face. “You are a miracle and you are not even aware of it.”
“I haven’t done anything to be a miracle,” Colby reminded him quietly. She waited in the darkness for what would inevitably come. She knew there was something else, something he didn’t want to tell her.
“That you exist is a miracle for me, Colby.” He gestured with his hand, the long slow sweep taking in a wide circle. “This is my world, Colby, the night. I have lived long alone and I cannot do so anymore.” He bowed his head as if infinitely weary. “I thought I might be strong enough to allow you to slip away from me. I have thought long on this, but I cannot.” He looked at her directly then, his head coming up, standing tall and powerful, his black eyes burning a brand into her mind. “I cannot, Colby.”
“Rafael, stop talking in riddles. What is it?” She could hear her own heart beating wildly. She could feel the desperation in her mind and body as every single cell needed to comfort and assure him. But he was changing her life. She knew it instinctively, she knew he was warning her, not reassuring
her. Whatever he was
not
saying was something terrible. So she simply stood there looking up at him. Waiting.
Rafael stood one moment looking curiously vulnerable and the next his expression was grim, determined. Sheer arrogance. He dragged her into his arms and took possession of her mouth with his. She tasted a desperate need, a terrible hunger, and something far more frightening. She gave herself up to him, clinging to him, returning the hunger in his kiss, reassuring him even as she feared where he was leading her. Her hands crept up to his neck, bunching his hair in her fingers.
“Tell me, Rafael, can’t you feel how much I want you?” She wanted to give him the courage to tell her, wanted to give herself the courage to listen. She whispered the words into his mouth, against his lips, holding her body very close to his.
He lifted his head then, his black eyes glittering at her. He looked every inch a tall, dark predator. “You cannot just want me, Colby, you have to love me.” There was a finality about his words, something in his voice that warned her she was in danger.
She stood in the silence, listening to the wind whisper to her, feeling it on her face, her body. His face was still and etched with a deep sorrow she couldn’t quite comprehend. He looked as lonely as her beloved mountains. Colby lifted a hand to his lips, her fingers gently smoothing the lines. “What is it, Rafael? Say it aloud, say it here in the night where it’s just the two of us while we belong together. Right now.”
Tiny red flames flickered in the dark depths of his eyes. His fingers shackled her fragile wrist, lightly, loosely, as if chaining her to him when he expected her to run from him. “I am of the night, Colby, of the wind and the earth. I can soar as the eagle or take the shape of a jungle cat. My people are as old as time itself. I am not human.”
For a moment her mind was perfectly still, not comprehending, not wanting to take in what he said. She blinked up at him as the words settled into her mind. Her gaze fixed on the flames in his eyes. “If you are not human, Rafael, what are you?” She shouldn’t have believed him, but she sensed the danger in him, the predator, she sensed his differences. The way the Chevez brothers acted suddenly made perfect sense. They knew he was different. And they feared him.
She wasn’t running from him, she didn’t even attempt to pull away, but he heard the slamming of her heart and he saw the gathering apprehension in her eyes.
“I am Carpathian. My original homeland is in the Carpathian Mountains. In the thirteenth century, our prince asked for volunteers to go to distant lands to protect the world from the evil branching out. My brothers and I were already warriors with much experience and we answered the call.”
She stood very, very still. The words “thirteenth century” echoed through her mind.
“We are rather like normal human children in the first years of our lives. As we become teenagers our gifts and talents begin to emerge. The elders teach us to shape-shift, to use our gifts. At that time the sun begins to become a problem for us.”
She drew in her breath sharply, her eyes never leaving his face. “Like it is becoming for me. It isn’t because of the fire, is it?” Shape-shifting. He had used the term casually, in the same way he had mentioned the thirteenth century. He wasn’t insane and Colby wished he were. She took an involuntary step backward, her hand going up to cover the mark throbbing on her neck.
He shook his head slowly. “No, Colby, your sensitivity to the sun is not because of the fire. I brought you partially into my world, and I have no choice but to bring you fully into it.” He said it very quietly, implacably, irrevocably. His black eyes watched her carefully. She felt him in her mind, that same watchful stillness, judging her reaction.
She held her ground, looking up at him steadily. “You think I’m just going to let you take me over?” Her words were soft, like the night wind, but it was a threat, the first real threat Colby had ever made in her life. “I love my brother and sister; I will never let you take me from them. I hope we understand one another.”
He nodded, his eyes very black, very empty. “You have strong gifts, Colby, but you have no concept of my power. I mean it when I say I have no choice. You have no concept of how strong the pull of the darkness is, the insidious whispering of power. The call to feel. Just feel. Such a small thing humans take for granted. I thought there was nothing worse, but it is not so. Emotions bombard me; I cannot seek the solace of
the earth because you are aboveground and my soul cries for yours. I have no anchor. I cannot hold out much longer. There is too much at risk.”