beautifully feminine, yet Traian managed to make her feel all those things.
Her reactions to him confused her more than the vampires, secret caves of mages, and his shifting shape. Her fingers curled in the thick silk of his hair. On him the long hair seemed natural, almost elegant, pulled back from his face and captured at the back of his neck with a thin cord. His chest was wide and thick, his arms enormously strong, his hips, encased in black trousers, narrow. She had a difficult time believing a man as attractive as Traian would want to be with her.
He laughed softly and ruffled her thick cap of hair. “I told you, a Carpathian cannot see any woman other than his lifemate—certainly not once he’s found her. I have heard there have been one or two throughout the centuries who were not quite right, but you have only to look into my mind to see what you mean to me. Lifemates cannot lie to one another.”
“I have morning mouth,” Joie said, wiping her hand across her lips, more to prevent more kissing than to cover her breath. More kissing was going to most assuredly lead to other things.
His smile lit his eyes. “It is evening.”
“Whatever. Still. I just woke up and unlike you, I have to brush my teeth to have fresh breath.”
“As far as I’m concerned, your breath is fresh. You taste like a mixture of honey and mint.” He flashed her a reassuring smile.
Traian realized she was very nervous. Joie seemed to be very confident, but he suspected she was confident in action rather than inaction. Deliberately he paced across the room to give her space, and toed a chair around to straddle it, knowing his height and shoulder width made her feel as if he was taking up the room.
“You had a nightmare.” He made it a statement.
Her gaze jumped to his face, a little wary. She nodded. “Yes.” She shrugged. “It was unsettling but hardly surprising. The things we witnessed last night were a lot to take in. Who knew there was an entire world of mythical beings living in the same world as us? You said you were traveling back to your homeland. Where have you spent all of your time?”
He knew she was searching for reassurance that they weren’t moving too fast, that the pull between them was real and not simply powerful chemistry. She needed a few seconds just to breathe. He refrained from pointing out that all she had to do was access his mind and she’d know everything about him she wanted to know. He would hold nothing back—good or bad, but she needed the breathing space and the humanness of speech.
“Centuries ago, my prince called the ancient hunters together and told us the war was coming and more vampires would roam the earth. It was our duty to rid the world of them. Those of us who agreed to go were sent to far-off places with little or no contact of our kind. I was assigned basically to cover India and outer regions such as Sri Lanka. It was a very extensive territory and not developed much. Wars occurred often among kingdoms trying to seize control.”
“Did you participate in the wars?”
Traian shook his head. “Very rarely. If I came across a woman or child being abused, I stepped in, but I had enough to do moving through such a large area trying to keep any vampire from establishing himself.”
“It’s hard to believe that vampires were in India.”
He smiled at her. “Think of the legends and myths you hear in every country around the world. You would be hard put to find a country that didn’t have some form of vampire firmly entrenched in the tales and lore recorded. And what of all the strange animals one hears of, the ones even now that have occasionally been captured on film but are always put down to a hoax, whether proved to be so or not. Even in the States there are strange sightings.”
Joie leaned toward him. He could see the open speculation in her eyes. She was an unusual woman in that she had a very open mind to anything others would never consider.
“Are you saying those strange animals are vampires?”
He shook his head. “No, but more than likely they are among the species still existing that are capable of shifting shape, and that includes the undead.”
Joie shoved a hand through her hair, drawing his attention to the cap of thick,