A Whisper of Eternity - By Amanda Ashley Page 0,38
tongue exploring her mouth, his hands moving over her back, her breasts, lightly massaging her belly, making her burn like a fire out of control. He released her hands and she wrapped her arms around him, her body intimately molded to his, certain she would fall if he let her go. Faint images whispered through her mind. It took her a moment to realize they were fragments of his life. She saw him as a young boy tending sheep on the side of a grassy hill. He was tall, even then, his skin dark, his hair long. He sat on a rock holding a small black lamb in his arms. In the distance, she saw a hut with a thatched roof. The scene changed and he was strolling down a cobblestone street with two other young men. They were laughing as they walked along. The scene changed yet again, and Dominic was seated at a small table in what looked like an inn. A woman sat beside him, a beautiful woman with long red hair and skin that was almost translucent. The woman smiled at him, a come-hither look in her dark eyes, and Dominic followed her out of the inn. The scene changed yet again and she saw the two of them sharing an embrace in a dimly lit room, saw the woman's lips draw back to reveal a pair of small white fangs...
Startled by what she saw,Tracy drew back, frowning.
Dominic looked down at her, askance.
She shook her head in wonder. "I... I saw you..."
He lifted one brow. "Saw me?Where?"
"You were a little boy holding a lamb... a young man laughing with two other men." She swallowed hard. "I saw you with a woman. A beautiful woman with red hair..."
" Kitana."
"She bit you."
"Aye, she did indeed."
"She was a vampire?"
There was a wrought iron bench under one of the trees. Dominic sat down, and after a moment,Tracy sat beside him.
"I had just turned twenty-five when I met her," he said. "Until then, I had done little, seen little. I knew nothing of the world beyond our little village, had no ambition other than to tend the sheep with my father. It was not a bad life. I had a few friends, and I had met a woman I planned to marry. And then I met Kitana . She was a wild Gypsy woman, more beautiful than any creature I had ever seen. She tempted me beyond all reason and I was suddenly filled with a restlessness I did not understand. And then one night she asked me to go away with her. She said she could arrange it so that I could be what she was, promised that I could live with her forever, if that was what I desired. I said yes without a moment's thought. Naive as I was, I thought she meant I would be as wild and free-spirited as she. I had no idea then what she really was, or what being like her entailed."
"So, you're saying she was a vampire?"
He nodded. "Yes. She was very old, and very powerful."
"Did it hurt? Becoming a vampire?"
"The bite did not hurt. What came later was... frightening, more than anything else, though she could have made it easier for me."
"What came later?"
"What difference does it make, if you do not believe?"
"What happened to her?To Kitana ?"
"We spent many years together and then one night I woke up and she was gone. It was while I was looking for her that I found you the first time. I knew the moment I saw you that we were fated to be together."
"How did you find me in all those other lives you claim I've had?"
"I do not know how to explain it, but somehow, sooner or later, I am drawn to where you are." He smiled faintly. "But this time, it seems, you were drawn to me."
She didn't want to think about what that might mean. "Did you ever see Kitana again?"
"From time to time."
"Why did she leave you?"
"She found another young man. I imagine the world is filled with those she has brought over and abandoned." He did not tell her that once Kitana had tired of her youngman, she had come to him again, wanting to take up where they had left off. They had not parted on the best of terms. He had told her it was over between them. She had vowed that one day she would bring him to his knees.