She stared up at him as the moonlight shone on his features, giving him a shadowy, evil look that sent her heart plummeting to the soles of her feet. “You’re crazy.”
“No,” he said, his voice clipped. “But I am out of patience. I have waited centuries for this day. And I will not wait any longer.” He reached out, scooped her up into his arms, and before she could shout a protest, carried her back into the room and tossed her onto the bed. “There is no escape from your destiny, Shea. Tonight it begins.”
She scrambled away from him, never daring to take her gaze from his. “What? What begins tonight?”
Torin walked across the room, opened the door and stepped through it. Before he closed it again, he sent her one long look and said simply, “The mating ritual.”
Chapter 3
Torin left the bedroom with one last look at Shea. Everything in him burned. The flames that were a part of him seemed to lick at his insides as well, consuming him in a fire that could not be smothered. He closed the door firmly, then stalked down the long hall and stopped at the head of the stairs. The lighting was dim, shadows spilling from the corners. His housekeeper, an older woman named Anna, looked up at him.
“No one goes in there.” He glanced back down the long hallway at the closed door. He wanted Shea to accept where she was and that she wouldn’t be leaving. If he gave her an hour or two to herself, he had no doubt that she would come to realize that their joined path was now set in stone. That there would be no escape from the destiny they had both been chasing for centuries. Time to herself would make her that much more receptive when he returned to her.
Finally, he swung his head back around to meet the older woman’s gaze and repeated, “No one goes in. I will take her food later.”
“Understood,” Anna said, sitting down in the nearby chair to keep watch.
Torin smiled briefly. He had every confidence in Anna’s loyalties. This woman and her family had been with him for generations, traveling from one country to another as he followed his witch through her many incarnations. They were honorable and unquestioning and he trusted them as he did few others.
Leaving Anna on guard, Torin took the stairs to the main level of the house and walked directly to the library. Acres of books surrounded him. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases ringed the room, broken up only by the wide windows that offered views of the landscaped lawn. In this room, too, the lighting was dim, as if Torin preferred the shadows to the light. And perhaps that had been true for the last few hundred years. Now, though, he had changed, he told himself. Now there would be light. There would be life.
All Torin could think was that finally Shea was here. Where he wanted—needed—her to be. His body ached for hers. His mind reached for thoughts of her, like a balm to his fragmented soul. With the completion of the ritual, they would be one. Her body, her soul, would be laid open to him—and his to her. As it was always meant to be.
And what had once gone so terribly wrong would at last be righted.
Every inch of his body hummed with need and it cost him greatly to remain apart from her. But he called on his immense will and vowed to give her an hour or two alone. To settle into the situation. To realize that she had no choice. The Awakening was on her and it was long past time for them to begin the ritual.
Damned if he would wait even one more night to claim what was rightfully his.
His mind racing, he stopped in front of one of the windows and stared out at a yard drenched in darkness. There were no spotlights on his property. Torin didn’t need them. His eyesight was as keen in the dark as it was in daylight. Incandescent lighting would have served only his enemies. Of which there were many.
And now that the Awakening had begun, those enemies would be gathering.
“Does she remember?”
He shook his head, barely sparing a glance for the man who stood in the shadows, watching him. Well over six feet five inches, Rune, too, was an Eternal. His long brown hair was tied at the back of his neck by a strip of rawhide.