love the water on my skin. Is that hot spring there too hot to bathe in?” Joie indicated the pool, although it wasn’t in her sight, but she knew exactly where it was positioned by the map in his head.
“If you want to bathe in a pool, sivamet—my love, we will bathe in a hot pool.” He wrapped his arms around her and floated to the surface. “We may have to sleep during daylight hours, but in truth, few of us long for the day. We were born for the night and for us, it is beautiful. The things we can do make up for our vulnerabilities during daylight hours.”
He kept his arm around her to steady her as he put her feet in the heated pool. Joie had no idea how weak she truly was. He had gone out early to feed before he woke her, needing to supply her with more blood. He could feel her hunger beating at him, although she steadfastly refused to acknowledge it. She needed to cling to her human ways just a little longer, to slowly accept a new, completely different way of life.
Joie was far too courageous and if her family and Gary were true examples of human bravery then he had been missing out on knowing many good people. It made him a little ashamed to think he hadn’t even tried to get to know those humans around him. He hadn’t trusted any of them, and yet when he’d needed help, four generous people had come to his aid. Joie had been so trusting of him, and he honestly didn’t know if he could say had it been the other way around, that he would have been so trusting of her.
He rubbed his chin along the top of her hair, enjoying the feeling of the thick, silky strands against his jaw. Very gently he began to wash her body, his hands moving down the line of her back and smoothing over the curve of her hips. Her breath caught in her throat and her hands began to move over him, tentatively at first, but washing the lacerations and bite marks the insects and bats had made clean, pressing her mouth against the terrible, raw, barely healing wound Valenteen had made in his chest.
The touch of her lips moving against his skin so close to his heart moved him unexpectedly—shook him. His body reacted with a hard, painful ache, shocking in its intensity. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring her touch. Blood rushed hotly in his veins, his teeth lengthened, and need pounded through his head.
Joie lifted her head, her eyes meeting his. “Yes,” she whispered. A siren calling to him. “Always yes.”
He had to stop before he lost his head. They were both clean of the soil packs and all traces of the rich loam needed to provided healing and rejuvenation for his people. He swept her up in his arms and floated them back to their earth bed. In concession to her humanity, he pressed a simple sheet over the earth as he took her down to their bed. He could remove it later, after he’d fed her and sent her to sleep.
“Not yet,” she whispered. “I promised myself the first thing I’d learn as a Carpathian was how to heal my husband’s . . . my lifemate’s wounds,” she corrected.
Before he could stop her, she was already leaning over him, her tongue swirling around the edges of his mangled skin.
Traian closed his eyes. He should stop her, just give her blood and send her back to sleep, but the seduction of her mouth was far too enticing. Her tongue was soothing, a gentle caress that took him by surprise. She was attempting the healing chant in her head, the words soft and hesitant, but she got them right. His eyes burned, his throat clogged, and even his chest felt tight. It had not occurred to him that she would try to take care of his wounds—not first—not before anything else. Another woman would have chosen so many other things.
“Silly man,” she whispered. “Of course I’m going to take care of you. I need to take care of you.”
He didn’t open his eyes, afraid she might see tears there. “I thought you were a want kind of woman.”
“True, but women get to change their minds all the time. Right now I need to do this.” She laughed, and her breath was warm against his skin. “You might be