Dark Promises (Dark 25)

His smile flashed again and he shook his head. "Sivamet, you do embody the meaning of the word cute. I never much liked that word until this moment because I did not get the meaning. The meaning is a woman who thinks I am a vampire but still asks me questions thinking I would help her out. A vampire would kill you immediately. Or he would nearly drain you dry and then torture you before finishing you off. He is wholly evil. There is no conversation with a vampire. And these things you have brought with you are useless against him."

Well. That wasn't good at all. Not. At. All. She sighed. "I'm tired and I'm going to sit down, so if you aren't really a vampire, just give me a few minutes to rest. I've been hiking all day and most of the night and I'm not so young anymore." She thought it best to point that out to him so he'd get that really hungry look off his face. She was a dried-up old prune and had no idea what to do with a man as fine as he was. Well, she'd read enough books to know what to do with him but since she didn't have any practical experience, she knew that wasn't going to happen.

Suiting action to words, she sank down onto her sleeping bag and began gathering up her vampire-hunting tools. At least she wouldn't have to carry the stupid heavy box around with her anymore, because none of it worked on him. Not one single thing. A waste of money, and if she ever got home she was putting up a one-star review and blasting the seller. That was for certain.

9

Fane studied his woman's features as she sank to the ground. She looked exhausted and was hiding scared. She had beautiful skin. That had been the first thing he'd noticed. Soft as a rose petal. A beautiful, dark, almost chocolate color that made him want to run his fingers over her skin. She had a lot of hair. It was long, reaching her waist, and was in small braids that wrapped around the sides of her scalp to the back where it was gathered by a tie of some sort and the braids fell in a thick stream down her back. Beautiful. Unusual.

He hadn't seen in color in well over a thousand years. More. He hadn't felt anything at all. At first, it was difficult to assimilate just what he was feeling, but he was a patient man and elation was at the forefront. She was human, and she clearly had ideas about what was and what wasn't going to happen between them. He didn't bother to disabuse her of any of her very wrong ideas. She was his lifemate. His reward after so many centuries of keeping the world a safe place.

He was still able, after so many centuries, to keep a cloak of civility around him and that had landed him the position of keeping the other ancients there in the monastery in check. He wasn't a man who argued or lost his temper. Looking at his lifemate, he was fairly certain he was going to need those traits.

He crouched down beside her, his fingers catching her chin so she was forced to look up at him. "Your name, my lady."

She scowled at him and for a moment he thought she might defy him. He would be forced to take the information from her and he didn't want to frighten her any further. She was holding it together by a thread.

"Trixie. Trixie Joanes. I'm from the United States, and I've come here looking for my granddaughter Teagan."

Teagan. He should have known. Fane had felt a strong connection to Teagan, Andre's lifemate, from the moment he'd first met her. She was related to his woman.

"I have met Teagan. She is safe."

Her eyes lit up. She reached out and caught his wrist. "Are you sure it was her? When did you see her?"

"Last rising."

She frowned, and he realized she was of the modern world and human. "Last night," he corrected. "She is with Andre and he will keep her safe."

Trixie drew in her breath and shook her head, dropping her hand to look around for her pack. "I have to go, to get to her. She doesn't know the danger she's in and neither does this Andre."

"Tell me."

"I came up the mountain with a group of crazy men. Fanatics. I left them in the middle of the night. They're with a man from the local village, a man by the name of Denny Jashari. I overheard him describe Teagan and a man she's traveling with. He persuaded the men I was with to hunt and kill her. They have all kinds of strange weapons with them, and I knew they planned on killing me after I led them up to this monastery and to my granddaughter. Fortunately, they didn't realize Teagan is related to me."

"They know," Fane said. "There is a society of humans who hunt those they consider vampires indiscriminately. They have killed several of my people over the years, but I doubt if they have ever come across and successfully killed a vampire. Evil feels and smells different. They wouldn't recognize that stench because . . ."

"They smell and feel the same way," she finished for him. She looked down at her hands. "I'm sorry I tried to kill you. I should have known you weren't like them." Her gaze jumped back to his face. "But you were in the ground." She was very confused. His song confused her. That and the fact that he rose out of the ground and was looking so fine when he should have been a really ugly, scary corpse, and that he seemed to make sense when really, he didn't.

"How did you get through the safeguards?" he asked.

She tried to pull her gaze from his, but his eyes held hers captive. His voice was gentle, but instinctively she knew there was nothing gentle about the question. It was a demand. He wanted to know. He was just a little bit scary, and that kind of set her temper on edge. She was too old to be scared by a man.

Now that she had a good chance to really look at his face--without the distraction of his naked body--he looked hard-edged and beautiful, but very bossy. She didn't do bossy. She was the boss. Just to be on the safe side she took a better grip on her stake gun.

"Would you mind giving me back my holy water and the two stakes I fired at you?" She was proud that she managed to sound matter-of-fact and maybe a little snippy as well. After all, he had her things. She'd bought and paid for them.

"You want them back?"

She scowled at him and narrowed her eyes to show him she wasn't a woman to be trifled with. "I feel very strongly about this. They're mine."

He looked at the vial of holy water and then reached up to his arm and casually removed the dart. Blood dripped down his shoulder. She bit her lip. She hadn't thought the little stakes were still in him and that they'd actually hurt him. She felt bad about that. He seemed too invincible for her tiny little stake gun to do much damage. Secretly, she was just a teensy bit elated. Her money wasn't a complete waste.

Fane's gaze never left hers as he removed the second dart and more blood appeared,

dotting his immaculate shirt. That didn't look good.

"I've got a first aid kit," she volunteered, although she wasn't certain she wanted to touch his muscles again. Just touching his chest made her go weak at the knees, and for a dried-up old prune, she had responded in areas of her body she had given up all hope on too many years earlier. "I could let you use it."

His steady, focused, unblinking stare made her nervous. It was the way he looked at her, as if he might devour her.

"You're actually bleeding a lot," she pointed out. "We aren't anywhere close to a hospital and if you don't stop the bleeding . . ." She trailed off.

"You will supply the blood necessary. You are my lifemate. And put that silly weapon down. You are liable to shoot me again by accident."

She tried her sternest look, the one that made her girls quake and run to their rooms. It always worked. "It wouldn't be an accident. Don't try bossing me around. I am not intimidated by you."

A slow smile curved his mouth and softened his features. Did he have to be so beautiful? She had never been able to stand seeing anyone hurt. And she'd been the one to do it. Still. He came out of the ground. Naked. And he floated. And put clothes on without actually getting dressed.

Her fingers closed harder around the gun. It wasn't loaded and she needed to try to get to the other stakes. When she put up her one-star review she was going to mention how the gun really needed to carry a full six rounds. You obviously couldn't bring down a real vampire with one or two mini-stakes. You needed a big gun.

"I am reading your mind," he announced softly.

"I don't believe you. No one can do that."

"A bigger gun? Are you thinking of staking me again?"

The amusement in his voice annoyed her. "You need to take me seriously," she snapped. "I've got the gun, not you. And I'm not afraid to use it."