Joie studied the man below her. He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Ever. And she trained with some fairly hot men. He had a rock-hard body. Plenty of defined muscle and she was a darned good judge of such things. He exuded power, despite the fact that he was obviously severely injured. He was making light of it, but when she really studied him, she could see a horrific tear in his neck and bite marks all over his shoulders and running down his arms. When he eased his position slightly, she caught sight of more on his back.
“You look like you ran into a pack of wolves.”
She bit her lip hard, waiting for an answer. She found, when she took herself out of her body, that she didn’t feel pain, but she did feel cold, and this time, she was colder than usual and it had nothing to do with being in an ice cave. She had never held a projection for an extended period of time, certainly not over a great distance, and she’d chosen a mountain range she’d been studying with the idea of vacationing there.
The biting cold pierced her through and through. She was worried about this man. Where her body was barely there, and he couldn’t really see the damage to it, with all the blood and gore, she could see the wounds on him easily and the evidence all over the ice where he’d come in. He was really injured. Without a real body she couldn’t help him.
“More like dogs than wolves. I wouldn’t give my brethren such an insult.”
She loved the sound of his voice. “You have an incredibly sexy accent. Do women fall all over you just at the sound of your voice?” She was very good at placing people by their accents, but his was different; there was a rich turn to his words. As astral dreaming went, this one was fascinating. The longer she stayed, the more real he seemed to her.
“I have not actually noticed such a phenomenon,” he replied, his eyes glinting with amusement, “but I will watch for it in the future.”
The idea of women falling all over him irritated her on a primal feminine level which surprised her. She wasn’t that kind of person. She worked with men every day and never once had she decided she wanted one permanently. How strange that during an astral projection she would run into a man she found attractive. She loved his sexy voice, and hard, firm body. He was definitely European. His hair was longer than she usually liked on a man, but he wore it exceptionally well and it suited his aristocratic face.
She couldn’t determine his age, but he was definitely all man. A warrior. The type of man who really appealed to her. She realized she was staring at him and sent a small smile his way, trying not to let her teeth chatter. The cold was worse, deep inside her as if her core temperature had dropped alarmingly.
“You’re too charming not to have noticed,” she pointed out. “You seem a very experienced man to me.” She looked around her. “Nice cave. I love caves. This one looks like a wonderful place to explore.”
“I do not believe it has been discovered yet,” he replied pleasantly.
“Really? You just sort of stumbled in blindfolded, did you? An interesting way to explore caves. Where am I? I’d like to come back here.”
“If you did not know about these caves, how could you find them? Did you float through the air blindfolded?”
She grinned at him. “I do that sometimes when I don’t want to be wherever I am. A bad habit.”
Traian studied her. She was beautiful, even though at times her form seemed to fade in and out. “You’re in a network of ice caves in the Carpathian Mountains. This mountain range is considered home to my people. The wilds of the forest, and the deep of the earth.”
She frowned at him. “I like the way you talk, I really do, very old-fashioned and courtly, but also, you managed to neatly avoid my question. The Carpathian Mountains happen to be a very large range and run through many countries.”
Traian’s way of life had been deception for as long as he could remember. Carpathians left no traces of themselves behind, no trail, nothing that might indicate they were not human. And they certainly didn’t give the location of their homeland away. He