Dark Peril Page 0,141

silly little glow when the sheen of approval lit his eyes.

"His father before him was the same way, as was his father. Something happened long ago to prompt this, whether he was born sick and twisted, or whether some event made him that way, we will probably never know, but Brodrick was raised by his father to enjoy hurting women.

"He didn't have to follow what went before. In the end, we're all responsible for the choices we make," she argued. "He's allowed the extinction of an entire species in order to pursue his depraved proclivities. I hate that his blood flows in my veins."

He stroked his hand down her hair, to comfort her. "You are an incredible woman, Solange, and not any part of him."

She felt the flutter in her heart and looked up at him, uncaring that he would see the stars in her eyes. He made her feel like a fairy-tale princess, beautiful when she knew she wasn't, special when she was ordinary, sexy when she hadn't the first clue about being a woman. Dominic was her Prince Charming and always would be. Every day with him seemed a gift to her, a fantasy she could never have conjured up on her own.

All those days when she made up a fantasy companion, her "perfect, ideal man," she had never realized just how perfect he could be for her. He was a man, and she had never been able to bring herself to trust a man. After meeting Riordan and Manolito De La Cruz, watching the two men with her cousins and her friend MaryAnn, she had wanted to trust in them and come to love them for who they were, but . . . She sighed. It had been Dominic who had allowed her to find faith in men again.

"He wants the database of psychic women the vampires have compiled," Solange said. "They are finding every woman who tests high for psychic ability, and by asking questions about their backgrounds, they're able to provide enough information to trace those who are descendents of the jaguar people. Essentially, Brodrick uses the database as a hit list to kill those he thinks can't produce a shifter and breed those who can."

"We will get the data, Solange, protect the women and destroy the laboratory and all of their computers," he assured.

It sounded like an impossible task. She'd tried for several years to figure out how to do it, but had been unable to come up with a plan.

"I'm not good with computers," she admitted. "I have no idea how to copy the information. In the end, I just figured it was better to blow the entire thing up and hope the data went up as well. I mapped out a blueprint of the building so I could plant explosives and bring it down."

Dominic leaned over and licked the mango juice from her lips. Her womb clenched and her stomach muscles bunched. "I think we can get the information. I have a friend standing by to help with the computer problem. He gave me very precise instructions."

That sensuous lick had caused her temperature to soar, and she became acutely aware of her body all over again. He seemed all too aware of her, too.

"What friend?" she asked, trying to stay on task.

The pad of his thumb traced a slow line from her collarbone to the tip of her breast. She sucked in her breath sharply. His thumb continued to smooth over her bare stomach to slide lower.

A small smile tugged at Dominic's mouth. "He is considered a punk kid, although he is not much younger in human years than you are, but he is very gifted with computers. He wanted to come, but I could not take a chance that he might think himself capable of fighting a vampire. His name is Josef, and at times I think most male Carpathians, myself included, have considered sending him to the vampires just to stop his antics. The boy is very modern and runs a little wild. He is waiting by his computer to take over the ones in the laboratory as well as their network."

She laughed. "I never considered that Carpathians might have trouble with their children. And that one sounds intelligent."

"You would be surprised. I was a very wild boy myself. Once I almost shifted inside the middle of a huge boulder just to show off."

Her eyebrow arched. "Wild? How wild?"

His smile bordered on a smirk. "Not as wild as I intend