Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

Which is why Sandu broke the tablet in half, I suppose, Siv guessed. Sandu. You really broke a tablet in half? Now her laughter played down his spine like the touch of fingers. Sandu needed to be in the sleeping chamber with her. He searched her mind to see if there was a particular bed she liked.

Sandu pretended to be unrepentant. There had been extenuating circumstances—a kind of virus at work, but the telling of that would be for another time. This was all in fun. It was the demon’s tool. I couldn’t master the keys. My fingers were too big, and the boy talked too fast.

He waited as did the others. They were rewarded with her laughter spilling into their minds.

That was the problem? Your fingers were too big? Then you just broke the entire tablet in half? Do you have any idea how expensive they are? Poor Josef. I’m keeping all my devices away from you just in case you lose that atrocious temper I didn’t know you had.

He tried to sound contrite. I am certain I will be able to learn much better from you. The boy was difficult. He did not like repeating himself and would grind his teeth together if I asked politely for him to show me a second time how to do something.

Her amusement continued to feel like fingers stroking caresses down his spine. His belly tightened into dark knots of something very close to lust. He examined that feeling as he did all emotion—stepping back from it to look at it from every angle. The tension coiled tighter and tighter in him, like a fist, a number of them. A dark craving ran through his veins in a slow burn. He tasted her in his mouth. A dark addiction that he knew was his alone, instilled with lifemate ritual. His teeth were sharp against his tongue in anticipation. His cock was full and hard.

I don’t know what I can teach you, Sandu, but I am willing to learn from you.

That fist in his belly grew tighter. His cock grew thicker, the girth wider, hot blood pounding through it, along with his heartbeat. There was a sultry tone to her voice. He kept his breathing even only through centuries of discipline.

You are deliberately teasing me. Playing with fire, I believe is the term.

His brethren were speaking to one another, and he really should be paying attention, but his attention was really focused on his lifemate. This time her soft laughter was an invitation. A deliberate caress. Fingers stroking over his chest. Lower, along his belly. He swore he felt the brush of her fingers, so light, along his shaft, dancing over the broad, flared head, cupping the velvet sac and sliding along his balls.

When did you learn to do that?

It is working, then? Her voice sounded a little too innocent. You can feel what I am doing to you in my mind? I have tried to work out every detail. I memorized you. Your body is so beautiful to me.

He suppressed a groan. Adalasia was learning how to use her skills as a Carpathian woman, but he hadn’t expected her to practice sexual skills. He should have. She was . . . Adalasia. Unafraid. Demanding. Uninhibited. She liked to tease. To play. She knew he did as well.

“There were no signs of the undead when we were in the village,” Siv announced, “but that doesn’t mean they are not around. We should make certain, Sandu, before we allow Adalasia to move around too freely. Her brightness would be a beacon to a master vampire.”

Sandu had to agree. He touched on the chamber where they had slept. The small fire in the fireplace cast shadows around the chambers, adding to the flickering light the candles gave off in the sconces high up on the walls. The entire chamber was shrouded in a dim, dancing light that played through the room.

A bed was in the center of the room, one positioned at a certain height. His woman knelt in front of the fireplace, her long hair tumbling down her back. She was dressed in a covering of red lace that stretched over her generous breasts and tightened around her rib cage and waist to disappear between her legs. The lace did nothing to hide her body from him, and his breath caught in his throat, his blood thundering in his ears.

“We are going to take some time to patrol the forest, Sandu,” Benedek said. “We cannot afford to allow her enemies or ours to come near her.”

Sandu needed to concentrate on what his brethren said to him, not look at his lifemate waiting so patiently for him. He felt the brushstroke of fingers against his shaft again. Maybe not so patiently. She was practicing in her mind.