The martyred look was back on his face, but he opened his arms without saying anything. I didn't wait to debate the pros and cons of curling up next to a mind-reading vampire, I just threw myself onto him, apologized briefly for inadvertently jamming my knee into his groin, wrapped my arms around him, and buried my face into his neck. He was warm and strong and he smelled good. I relaxed into his body, his arms closing around me with a solidness that left me feeling safe and protected.
Which was ridiculous, considering he had just kidnapped me and wanted me to destroy myself in order to save him from a curse.
"Nell?" His voice was low and deep in my ear, his breath hot on my temple as he spoke.
"Hmm?"
"I've never once had to shovel women off me."
I chuckled into his neck, too warm and comfortable to protest the fact that he had been reading my mind.
"But it pleases me that you think I'm sexy."
I pinched a bit of flesh on his back exposed between his black cotton sweater and the waistband of his pants. "Bad vampire."
As I was falling asleep, a thought shimmered in my mind in a way that made me wonder if I had imagined it, or heard an echo of his thoughts.
There can be nothing between us. There is no hope for me. I must die, and you must live. "Ow. Stupid rock. My next kidnapper is going to have a Porsche."
Adrian said nothing, but the hand nearest me tightened into a fist, as if he wanted to strangle something. I had an uncomfortable feeling I knew what. Or rather, who. That worry didn't stop me from continuing, however. For some reason I didn't care to examine fully, I had gone from being terrified of Adrian to comfortable. Oddly comfortable. As in very, very strangely comfortable. And all because he was nice to me when he could have been cruel.
The fact that he didn't eat me for dinner also helped improve my overall impression of the Betrayer.
I shivered and trudged down the winding road that led from Drahanska Castle to the nearby town of Blansko, where I fervently prayed Adrian had a car stashed. "My next kidnapper is going to know how to kidnap a girl in style. He won't drag me off to a dirty, rat-infested hole, starve me, then make me walk miles and miles and miles after the sun has gone down. He'll kidnap me using his sports car with comfortable heated leather seats, complete with picnic basket filled with goodies. A sexy red sports car."
There was no response from Adrian other than his jaw tightening.
"A convertible!"
"For the love of God, woman, what do you want from me?" he burst out, his eyes flashing an irritated midnight blue. "I asked you if you wanted me to carry you, but you said you'd rather die first."
"Yeah, but I didn't mean it literally! Death by blisters, what an ignominious way to go." I rubbed my arms to keep the circulation going, wincing as I stepped on yet another rock.
"You have absolutely no respect for me, do you?" he asked, shooting me an annoyed look. "You have no idea how powerful and dangerous I can be. I am feared and loathed by all of my people, hunted like an animal by those who would destroy me, but you aren't the least bit in awe of me, are you? You should be terrified of me, and all you do is complain."
"Well, I'm a bit in awe of those fangs," I said, trying to make him feel better, although I honestly didn't know why I cared if his feelings were hurt or not. "Aren't they in the way like that? You must have to mumble a lot when you're in public, so people won't see them. And don't your lips get snagged on them? I had braces when I was in my teens, and I tore my lips on them something terrible. I'd offer you some lip balm, but my purse was left behind when you abducted me. I hope the real Christian gives it back. All my money and my passport are in it."
"Dark Ones do not wear lip balm," he said in an outraged voice.
I shrugged and amused myself for a few minutes by trying to make the white puffs of breath that hung briefly in the air before me into a bat shape.
"No," Adrian said before I could ask the question. "I can't change into a bat."
I stopped in the middle of the road, a feeble moon casting light down upon us from between suitably dramatic wisps of cloud. "Stop. Reading. My. Mind!"
His fingers clamped around my wrist as he hauled my protesting feet forward. "I can't help it. You're projecting."
"Oh," I gasped, outraged. "I am not! I never project!"
"You are. You don't put up the slightest barrier to your thoughts. All I have to do is..." A warm presence touched my mind. I sucked in a deep breath of icy air at the feel of him merging with my thoughts. It was the most intimate touch I'd ever felt, far more intimate than just the joining of bodies.
Smug male satisfaction filled my mind.
"Stop it," I said, pushing him out of my mind. "It's not polite to wander around in someone's head without them knowing."
"You know," he grumbled. "You have to know. You also know you can read me just as easily as I can read you."
"Why would you think that?" I looked at the tall, dark figure next to me. "I've never been any good at guessing what people were thinking, let alone able to read minds."