Dark Slayer Page 0,116

him. He was so steady. A rock. For her.

She lifted her head and smiled down at him, not realizing her heart was shining in her eyes. "You are mine, Dragonseeker. My rock."

His slow, answering smile nearly stopped her heart. "That I am, han ku kuulua sivamet-keeper of my heart. I will be your everything."

Ivory allowed her feet to drop down into the snow. "Let's go home." More than anything she wanted to be home with him. She wanted her private sanctuary to welcome him, to feel as if he was as much a part of the pack-of her home-as he was her heart.

Razvan held out his hand to her. She glanced up at the sky, scanned the trees, hesitating. She was a warrior first. She could never lose sight of that.

"You will never be diminished by what is between us," he said softly.

Something in her settled. She couldn't imagine being diminished by Razvan. If anything, she would be better, stronger, more. She looked at his upturned palm. His hand was large. There were scars up and down his wrist and forearm. Her heart fluttered. She placed her hand in his and watched his fingers close around hers, binding them together just as the ritual words had done.

Do you remember? She couldn't ask aloud; it meant too much. She was very spiritual and believed, whether anyone else did or not, that they had been created to be together, and those words imprinted on him from birth ad made them one.

Razvan brought her hand to his chest and stepped close, brushing the snow from the strands of hair tumbling around her face, pulled from her thick braid in their wild battle. "I remember every word, Ivory, and I meant them. I wanted the binding between us. It was not desperation. And it was not the need to save me."

He bent his dark head in that slow way of his. He still had snowflakes on his lashes. As he moved, a thick heat slipped like molasses through her veins. His mouth closed over hers and the snow melted around her, she was certain of it. She swore she could see steam rising from the ground and feel molten liquid gathering like thick magma in her most feminine core.

She leaned into him, melting like the snow. She felt on the edge of a great precipice, teetering, knowing she was going to fall and it was far too late to save herself. In truth, she didn't want to; she already craved the taste of him, the heat and white lightning arcing through her body, sizzling in her mind, shorting out her brain for way too long when they were out in the open.

When he lifted his head she took a moment to drown in the intensity of his desire. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Ivory stepped away from temptation. "You are the most lethal man I know."

"I will take that as a compliment." He kissed her again. "You like lethal."

He knew how to kiss. Long and slow and delicious. A slow, burning heat that scorched from the inside out. She found herself smiling up at him all over again as he lifted his head. "Yes, I suppose I do." Although, she was scared to care that much about anyone ever again.

They walked through the drifting snow for several miles until the flakes began to look like a white blanket falling from the sky. It might have been the muffled world they found themselves in, alien and white and so quiet that even their breathing seemed too loud in the vast silence, but Ivory began to feel uneasy. Another mile and her wolves stirred. She felt the itch spread over her skin as Raja lifted his head out of her back and bared his teeth in a snarl.

I know, she soothed. We have company. Ivory glanced at Razvan. "We are being followed." Her voice was a thread of sound, as muffled and as quiet as the snow.

A small, unexpected smile of amusement lit up Razvan's face. "Well, I guess we get to have a little fun."

She frowned at him. "Fun? Razvan, it is not the undead who are following us. We cannot have anyone finding our lair, nor do we want to engage them in battle if they are Carpathian as I suspect they are."

His grin widened. "I was fairly certain someone would try to follow us. I have been giving it quite a bit of thought as we walked, working out a plan."

Ivory's amber gaze