Dark Destiny Page 0,70

came out an aching whisper. "I have tried. I swear to you, I have tried."

He reached for her, unable to prevent himself when there was raw pain etched into her face and such urgent need in her eyes. "Come here to me. Nothing can be done until we resolve what is between us." His hands settled around her, gathered her into the shelter of his body, and he took to the air.

She knew she should protest. Wherever he was taking her was a place in which they would be alone. She couldn't afford to be alone with him and the temptation he represented. Her hand was already splayed over his chest, feeling the heat of his skin through his thin silk shirt. She reached around his neck to loosen the mass of his long, thick hair so that strands blew around her face and over her arms.

Nicolae felt the shiver that ran through Destiny as he took them far out away from the city to one of the larger underground chambers he had found in his explorations of the area. His lips skimmed her throat, lingered for a moment over her frantically beating pulse, feathered up her neck to press against her ear.

"We need a private place to speak on this matter. I do not altogether trust what is happening within the neighborhood. Anything could be listening to us."

He placed her on her feet, waving his hand so that flames leapt to life in the carved urn he had left behind days earlier. Golden light flickered and danced on the walls of the cave, illuminating gems buried in the rock so that the chamber seemed to sparkle. A ring of boulders captured a pool of shimmering water that bubbled up from the ground and fizzed like a Jacuzzi.

Destiny moved away from the sheer potency of his larger, masculine frame. "What happened back there with Velda? Is she like me?"

Her eyes were begging him to give her the right answer. Nicolae touched her mind very gently as she shared with him that first dangerous memory. The little girl with a mass of ringlets falling around her shoulders and eyes too big for her face smiling up at a handsome man. The stranger bent down to her level, speaking softly, and her smile widened. She nodded her head several times, took his hand and walked him back to a small house. A woman stood on the porch, frowning a little as she watched her daughter speaking animatedly to a tall, rather beautiful man who slowly took on the form of a monster. His perfect skin became gray. His thick dark hair grew white and hung in strings. The slash of his mouth revealed jagged teeth stained black with blood, and long, sharp talons bit into the child's arm.

Immediately, Nicolae realized he was looking at the vampire through the eyes of the child Destiny had once been. "How could a child of six recognize a vampire? How could she know that one even existed? A child is innocent of such things."

"I drew him to my family. You can't say different. Velda is in her seventies. In all this time, why hasn't she drawn a vampire to her or her family? And what of Mary Ann? She is also psychic. We've destroyed several vampires in this area, yet none of them were drawn to these women."

Nicolae could feel the tears burning behind her eyes, although she held her chin up and her blue-green gaze was as steady as ever. "A better question might be why are all the vampires congregating here? That disturbs me immensely. Three women with varying psychic talents are here together. Is that really a coincidence? And Father Mulligan knows about our people, and he just happens to be here too. In this city of so many, we just happen to meet him and become involved in his life. Does that not disturb you? And we have two men, John Paul and Martin, behaving in a manner totally out of character for either one of them. I examined Martin. He has no darkness in him at all. He is incapable of harming another human being, yet he must have assaulted the priest. Or someone pretending to be him did so. How could one person play the part of John Paul, a large, muscular man, as well as Martin Wright, a slender, much shorter man?"

"A vampire could. He could assume any shape, any role," Destiny pointed out.

"And play the part well enough