He nodded slowly. He couldn’t deny that and he wanted her to become comfortable sharing their thoughts and speaking telepathically to each another.
“Wow. That’s not good. You’re sort of gorgeous, and I’m not certain I want you able to read anything I’m thinking about you,” she blurted out.
That was the last thing he expected, and somewhere deep inside, he felt the beginnings of a smile again. It didn’t quite reach his face, but his mouth twitched. He had never liked the company of others. He always felt too caged in. Too exposed. And he disliked the inane small talk that always seemed necessary in the company of others. He wasn’t good at it and he never would be.
Frankly, he chose his own path and he followed it. The feelings and opinions of others didn’t enter into the equation. He had relied on his own judgment for centuries and had learned from hard experience. The less civilized entrapments he had to deal with the better, as far as he was concerned. The only company he ever kept was with his semi-adopted brothers, triplets he’d shared his youth with, but they would never call him civilized.
“I do not mind if you think I am gorgeous. That is a good thing, is it not?”
Her answering smile was slow in coming, but some of the tension drained out of her. He was fully connected to her now and gently pushing soothing calm into her mind.
“It’s a good thing.”
She was exhausted. She’d hiked uphill all day and covered miles. She needed rest, water and food. His blood had helped to revive her, but even that shot of energy wasn’t going to last her long.
“You can set up your camp in one of the chambers,” he said. “There is a chimney in the one just through there.” He indicated a narrow opening she hadn’t noticed. “You can cook in there and you’ll be safe. Although I would like to know how you got through the safeguards I placed at the entrance to the cave.” He could have taken the information from her, but he was practicing being polite. If she didn’t answer him satisfactorily, he would take it then.
Her face lit up. “That was you? That was so incredibly cool. It took me a long time, but I really enjoyed it. You set some intense patterns. Of course you’re psychic, you’d have to be to do that. I never thought of trying something like that to guard a place I was sleeping. With you wounded so severely, I could see you blocking the entrance.”
She still hadn’t told him how she’d done it. He liked that she wasn’t bothered by it, instead excited that he could do it and eager to try it on her own.
“Teagan.” Her name rolled off his tongue, sounding strange. Beautiful. His crazy, daring woman who had no business being out on her own. The sound was also his only warning to her. He wanted an explanation.
“I see patterns and hear musical notes. Your safeguards were a combination of both. I could see a harp in my head, the strings all tangled and messy. I had to just sort them out carefully to open the lock.”
She was not just beautiful, intrepid and daring, she was brilliant. And she was his. For one moment, Andre could barely breathe with the knowledge that this woman was the woman he had searched centuries for, had given up on, and then she just simply unraveled his safeguards and walked into his life.
3
Andre stepped out of the cave into the gathering darkness. He stretched, feeling his muscles respond with eager anticipation. He was starving. The clawing need had started the night before and was far worse now. Ordinarily, that was a dangerous thing with an ancient as old as he was, but he had a lifemate to anchor him now. He could exact his revenge and put the fear of demons into Armend Jashari without worrying he would lose his own soul in the process.
The fog was thick, but he fed it, adding in the frightening whispers of dark shadows, the ghost and phantoms he was legendary for. No one could quite face the terror of the demon packs living within the fog, not when he created them. The sound effects were particularly good, he decided. He’d never had the ability to feel the effects before or the satisfaction of knowing if anyone came near his woman, the faceless ghosts would protect her.
He’d left Teagan after she built her fire and had put on a pot to boil water for tea. She planned on making a small meal for herself and offered to share. He’d politely declined, stating he had business to take care of. She’d looked at him sharply, clearly leery of what business could possibly be in the mountains, but she didn’t ask any questions.
He thought he’d be relieved to be away from her company. He didn’t share space with anyone other than the triplets, Matais, Lojos and Tomas, and even then, he traveled loosely with them. He battled, killed and burned the bodies of his enemies. He didn’t converse with them or worry about their feelings. He was a Carpathian hunter, close to the end of his time, no, past the end of his time.
Now his world was different because of one small miracle. He could look into her eyes forever. He’d restrained himself. She’d had a man assault her already, and he didn’t need her more frightened than she already was. He was already beginning to bring her gently into his world and he wanted to do so one small step at a time.
He turned back to the entrance of the cave and used a much more difficult pattern for his safeguards. He had no intention of holding her prisoner. He was certain she could get out should she choose to, but it would take time. Time she wouldn’t have. He intended to return as soon as he’d taken care of Jashari. Still, anyone else, such as the undead or Jashari’s friends, would never be able to unravel the safeguards and any vampire would think he was inside the cave rather than outside of it. That would give him an advantage.
He shifted with ease, the change sweeping through him as he took on the shape of the night owl. He was comfortable in the form, second nature to him, as was the wolf and a variety of other shapes. He’d been shifting for centuries and had never considered how extraordinary it was until the moment he took to the sky.
The world was breathtaking from above. Even within the dense fog and the nightmare faces and voices he’d created, the night was different. Exhilarating. He couldn’t wait to show it to Teagan. He felt the wind in his feathers, and through the bird, on his face. He smelled the wild mountain and the creatures living on it. The wet mist felt like soft touches on the bird and through it, on his skin. She had done that for him. Teagan. She’d brought this to him. His own personal miracle.
How many times had he slid through the sky on silent wings, the owl’s sharp eyes scanning the ground for prey? Millions. It had to be millions. Yet he’d never felt it. At least he didn’t remember feeling anything. He circled high because he could, now out of the fog bank, just to watch the way the sliver of a moon played through the canopy of the trees, turning all the leaves and needles to silver.
The owl covered ground fast, familiar with the countryside and the best places human men would choose to camp. He also looked for signs of vampires. They’d been severely wounded, every single one of them, and he was fairly certain they had gone to ground to heal, perhaps even for a couple of days, but the master vampire wouldn’t be happy without fresh blood.
Popescu wouldn’t go looking for blood himself. Not with his heart nearly ripped from his body—and Andre had come close to disposing of the undead. The four lesser vampires had returned in the nick of time, saving their master, inflicting damage, but receiving terrible wounds themselves. The price of battle had been high for both sides.
Popescu would definitely send his least valuable minion. The newest recruit. He would expect the vampire to return with human fodder for the master to consume first. If he left any blood, the others could use the victim as well. Sometimes they kept their prey alive for several nights in order to remain beneath the ground and hidden from a hunter. Many, many times, Andre had found the remains of the vampire’s human food source. In each case, the human had died hard and brutally.
The owl suddenly banked sharply, its sharp eyes finding their target. There was a small tent pitched away from the wind, down in a slight depression where it was protected on three sides by rock. A small fire burned. The owl flew to the nearest tree above the tent and settled on the branches, slowly and carefully folding its wings, never taking its gaze from its prey.
A single man emerged from the tent carrying a pouch, which he tore open and emptied into the boiling water. Instantly Andre recognized him from Teagan’s memories. This was Armend Jashari. He was alone, and he clearly was comfortable being alone.
Jashari dropped down onto a rock beside the fire and pulled a small object from his belt. A handheld radio. Andre knew cell phones didn’t work along this particular stretch of wild mountain range. So there were others—Jashari’s friends—probably out searching for Teagan’s trail.