so apologetic. She was lying on the floor of her home with a perfect stranger pinning her down, a stranger she had seen drinking the blood of a human being. A rotten human being, but still . . . drinking blood. She had seen the evidence with her own eyes. How could he explain that away?
Falcon stood up, his body poetry in motion. Sara had to admire the smooth, easy way he moved, a casual rippling of muscles. Once again she was standing, her body in the shadow of his, close, so that she could feel his body heat. The air vibrated with his power. His fingers were wrapped loosely, like a bracelet, around her wrist, giving her no opportunity to escape.
Sara moved delicately away from him, needing a small space to herself. To think. To breathe. To be Sara and not part of a Dark Dream. Her Dark Dream.
“Tell me how you met the vampire.” He said the words calmly, but the menace in his voice sent a shiver down her spine.
Sara did not want to face those memories. “I don’t know if I can tell you,” she said truthfully and tilted her head to look into his eyes.
At once his gaze locked with hers, and she felt that curious falling sensation again. Comfort. Security. Protection from the howling ghosts of her past.
His fingers tightened around her wrist, gently, almost a caress, his thumb sliding tenderly over her sensitive skin. He tugged her back to him with the same gentleness that often seemed to accompany his movements. He moved slowly, as if afraid to frighten her. As if he knew her reluctance, and what he was asking of her. “I do not wish to intrude, but if it will be easier, I can read the memories in your mind without your having to speak of them aloud.”
There was only the sound of the rain on the roof. The tears in her mind. The screams of her mother and father and brother echoing in her ears. Sara stood rigid, in shock, her face white and still. Her eyes were larger than ever, two shimmering violet jewels, wide and frightened. She swallowed twice and resolutely pulled her gaze from his to look at his broad chest. “My parents were professors at the university. In the summer, they would always go to some exotic, fantastically named place, to a dig. I was fifteen; it sounded very romantic.” Her voice was low, a complete monotone. “I begged to go, and they took my brother Robert and me with them.” Guilt. Grief. It swamped her.
She was silent a long time, so long he thought she might not be able to continue. Sara didn’t take her gaze from his chest. She recited the words as if she’d memorized them from a textbook, a classic horror story. “I loved it, of course. It was everything I expected it to be and more. My brother and I could explore to our hearts’ content and we went everywhere. Even down into the tunnels our parents had forbidden to us. We were determined to find our own treasure.” Robert had dreamed of golden chalices. But something else had called to Sara. Called and beckoned, thudded in her heart until she was obsessed.
Falcon felt the fine tremor that ran through her body and instinctively drew her closer to him, so that the heat of his body seeped into the cold of hers. His hand went to the nape of her neck, his fingers soothing the tension in her muscles. “You do not have to continue, Sara. This is too distressing for you.”
She shook her head. “I found the box, you see. I knew it was there. A beautiful, hand-carved box wrapped in carefully cured skins. Inside was a diary.” She lifted her face then, to lock her eyes with his. To judge his reaction.
His black eyes drifted possessively over her face. Devoured her. Lifemate. The word swirled in the air between them. From his mind to hers. It was burned into their minds for all eternity.
“It was yours, wasn’t it?” She made it a soft accusation. She continued to stare at him until faint color crept up her neck and flushed her cheeks. “But it can’t be. That box, that diary, is at least fifteen hundred years old. More. It was checked out and authenticated. If that was yours, if you wrote the diary, than you would have to be . . .” She trailed off, shaking her head. “It