Carpathian 06 - Dark Fire

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    His body moved close, closer still, until his hard frame seemed to imprint itself on the softness of hers.
    He was everywhere, surrounding her, enveloping her until she was a part of him. She knew she should try to move, to break the spell he was weaving around her, but she couldn't find the strength. Then his arms closed around her, drew her into him, and her heart turned over at the gentleness in a man of such power and enormous strength. He whispered something soft and soothing. Something compelling. A sorcerer's seduction.
    She closed her eyes, the world suddenly hazy and dreamlike. She felt as if she couldn't move, as if she didn't want to move. She waited almost breathlessly. His mouth brushed her right temple, moved across her ear, feathered across her cheek to the corner of her lips, breathing warmth, leaving little dancing flames wherever he touched. She felt torn in two. One part of her knew it was so perfect, so right; the other urged her to run as fast and as far as she could. His tongue stroked across her neck, a velvet, rasping caress that curled her toes and sent heat pooling deep within her. His fingers curved around her nape, drawing her even closer. His tongue stroked a second time. A white-hot sensation pierced her skin exactly over her frantically beating pulse. Pain sliced through her, then gave way instantly to erotic pleasure.
    Rusti gasped, found some deep reservoir of self-preservation, and squirmed, pushing at the muscles of his chest. Darius shifted subtly, but his arms remained tight and unyielding. Drowsiness slipped over her, a willingness to give him whatever he wanted.
    She felt divided into two selves, one locked helplessly in the dark embrace, the other looking on in shock and horror. Her body was hot. Burning. Needing. Her mind accepted him and what he was doing.
    Taking her blood, staking his claim on her. Somehow she knew that he was not trying to kill her but possess her. Knew also that he was not anything human. Her eyelashes swept down, and her legs buckled.
    Darius slipped one arm under Tempest's knees and lifted her, cradling her against his chest as he fed.
    She was hot and sweet and unlike anything he had ever tasted. His body was on fire for her. Still feeding, he carried her to the couch, savoring the essence of her, unable to stop himself from taking what was rightfully his. And she was his. He felt it, knew it, would accept nothing less.

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    Only when her head lolled back on her slender neck did he realize what was happening. Swearing eloquently to himself, he closed the wound in her neck with a sweep of his tongue and bent to check her pulse. He had taken far more blood than she could afford to give. And his body still throbbed with a relentless, savage demand. But Tempest Trine was a small woman and not of their race; she could not afford such a blood loss.
    Worse, what he was doing was strictly forbidden, breaking every code, every law he knew. Every law he himself had taught to the others and demanded they follow. Yet he couldn't stop himself. He had to have this woman. True, a mortal female could be used for sex, a simple pleasure of the body, if one could still feel such things. And as long as one did not drain the life from her entirely, a mortal female could also be used for sustenance, to feed upon. But not both, and never at the same time. It was taboo. Darius knew that if she hadn't fainted from the blood loss, he would have taken her body with his. Not once but again and again. And he would have killed anyone who tried to stop him, who tried to take her from him.
    Had it happened, then? Was he turning vampire? The one thing every Carpathian male feared-was it happening to him? He didn't care. He only knew that Tempest Trine was of the utmost importance to him, the only woman he had ever wanted in centuries of a lonely, barren existence. She made him feel.
    She made him see. She brought life and color into his bleak world, and now that he had seen it, felt it, he would never go back to total emptiness.
    Cradling her on his lap, he started to tear open his wrist with his teeth. But something stopped him. It didn't seem right to feed her that way. Instead, he slowly opened his immaculate silk shirt, his body unexpectedly tightening even more in anticipation. One fingernail lengthened into a razor-sharp talon and sliced a thin line across his chest. Then he pressed her mouth to the