Christine Feehan - Dark Destiny (Dark Series - book 13)

Mary Ann was waiting for her answer, seeming comfortable with the silence. Destiny’s life was silence. She hadn’t talked so much with anyone in years. Other than Nicolae.

“How do you know when you can trust someone?” Destiny asked softly. “How do you know they won’t betray you?”

“I think sometimes it’s instinctive,” Mary Ann answered carefully, “although it is always possible to make a mistake. Usually you reserve judgment until you’ve been around someone, until you’ve seen their true character.”

“Is that what you’re doing now?” Destiny tilted her chin.

“With you?” Mary Ann’s reply was mild. “You want something from me I can’t give you. You want me to condemn you. You’ve saved my life at least twice. I like you as a person. I know you’re troubled, but that doesn’t make you the monster you want me to name you.”

Destiny heard the swell of conversation in the bar, the blare of music. Laughter erupted from a table only a few feet away. She waved her hand. “This isn’t real. You think you live in reality, but this isn’t real.”

“Of course it is. It’s as real as your life has been, just completely different. You can’t go back; I can’t go back either, but we can go on.”

“That’s not true,” Destiny said softly, raising her vivid eyes to meet Mary Ann’s gaze. “It isn’t true that you can’t go back.”

For the first time Mary Ann looked uncomfortable. She rubbed her fingertip along the tabletop as she composed her thoughts. Weighing her words. Thinking it through before she spoke. “I presume that means you can do something to my mind to alter my perception of reality.”

Destiny nodded slowly, hearing the sudden increase in Mary Ann’s heart rate. “I can take away your memories of me. Of everything you’ve learned about vampires. You won’t remember and you won’t ever have nightmares. You won’t be in danger from... anyone.”

“You can do that?”

Destiny smiled suddenly. There was no amusement in the depths of her eyes. “You would be shocked at what I can do. Yes, easily. I’m one of them, Mary Ann. I’m one of them, and I’ve become comfortable being one of them.”

Mary Ann shook her head. “You’re something different, Destiny. I don’t know what, but you aren’t anything like that creature who wanted my blood.”

Destiny leaned across the table. “What do you think I exist on?” She placed her palms flat on the table, leaned closer still. Her voice was a soft hiss of warning. “I can hear your heart beating. I hear the blood rushing in your veins.” She ran her tongue over her small, perfect teeth. “I have to fight to keep my incisors from lengthening. I haven’t fed in two risings. I think about hunger every moment I’m awake. It crawls through me, an addiction I can’t overcome. Don’t make the mistake I did. Don’t ignore the fact that something beautiful, something alluring, can be the most dangerous thing you will ever encounter.”

Mary Ann’s frown slowly disappeared. She leaned closer still. “It isn’t going to work, you know. I know what you’re doing. Of course the idea of vampires is frightening to me. I had no idea such things existed outside of movies and books, but I’ve had two days to think about that thing. He

felt

evil. I’m not scared of you, but you’re deliberately trying to frighten me. You want to drive me away from you. I threaten you in some way, don’t I? Why are you so afraid of me?”

Destiny pulled back as if Mary Ann had slapped her. She forced air through her lungs, forced the roaring in her head to a semblance of quiet. “I can’t breathe in here. How do you breathe inside a place like this? I have to get out of here.”

“Destiny, don’t. I don’t want you to remove my memories, and I don’t want you to try to drive me away from you. I just want to be your friend. Is that really such a difficult thing? Do you have so many friends that you can’t use another?”

“I can’t breathe,” Destiny repeated.

It was a measure of her discomfort that she didn’t realize someone was approaching their table. He moved in silence, a stalking predator, and was upon them before she had a chance to scent him. Nicolae laid his hand on her shoulder, his fingers curling almost possessively around the nape of her neck.

Yes, you can, little one. I am here; just inhale and the air is there. If not, I will breathe for both of us. I will be your air.

The words whispered in her mind. Soft. Sensuous. Robbing her of her ability to speak.

Nicolae lifted his gaze from Destiny to the woman sitting across from her. His eyes were flat and cold as his gaze rested on Mary Ann. “What are you doing to her? I warn you, she is under my protection, and if you have done anything to hurt her, you will answer to me.”

Fear clawed at the pit of Destiny’s stomach. Her first instinct was to turn and fight, but the pressure of his fingers at the nape of her neck was a clear warning, preventing her from moving. Without taking his censorious gaze from Mary Ann, Nicolae bent very close to Destiny, until his breath was warm against her ear and his lips skimmed her earlobe, a mere wisp of contact that set her heart pounding and sent heat rushing through her veins. “You cannot call attention to our kind in this place, Destiny. It is the last thing you want.”

His hair brushed her skin like raw silk, and she felt a shiver all the way to her toes. His masculine scent enveloped her. Beckoned. Tempted. His arm, so casually draped over her shoulder, was hard with muscle and sinew, felt hot through her thin blouse. Destiny was so aware of Nicolae as a man, she couldn’t think properly. Her world narrowed until it encompassed only the two of them. A strange roaring throbbed in her ears. Her body seemed heavy yet alive, every nerve ending shrieking at her, though whether in alarm or need, she wasn’t certain. She didn’t care.

Destiny had spent most of her life alone. Never touching another person unless she was feeding, rarely speaking to anyone. Yet now, here in this place, she was surrounded by people, overwhelmed by the smell of blood, the beating of hearts. Music pounded out a primitive rhythm. She was suffocated by perfume. Alcohol. The noise was deafening, the scents overpowering. This was too much. All of it. She never should have allowed the door to her past to crack open for even a moment. And here was Nicolae. Coming to her when she was lost in the midst of hell. She wasn’t prepared for her strange physical reaction to him.

“Why in the world would you think I’m doing something to hurt Destiny?” Mary Ann looked more shocked than intimidated. “I would never do such a thing. Destiny is upset and rightly so, but not at me. Are you a friend of hers?”

Destiny let her breath out slowly, forced herself to attempt to relax beneath those strong massaging fingers. Mary Ann’s voice snapped her back to the reality of here and now.

Pretend.

She was a mistress of illusion when she had to be. The pad of his thumb lingered over the pulse beating so frantically in her throat, slid back and forth in a gentle, soothing caress. Nicolae could feel her body trembling—how could he not? He could hear her heart pounding loud and hard, and that telltale pulse told him much more than she wanted him to know. But she couldn’t stop trembling. She, who was always so controlled, could not control her own pulse beneath his marauding thumb.

“Perhaps I misread the situation. I could feel Destiny’s distress from across the room and I thought you were upsetting her.” Nicolae smiled at the woman, a show of elegant charm. He bowed slightly, his white teeth perfect, his sensual face without guile. He looked like a lord of old, at home in a palace. He leaned lower to brush a lingering kiss across the top of Destiny’s dark head. Strands of her hair caught for a moment in the stubble along his jaw, connecting them. “I cannot bear it when she is upset. Forgive me if I frightened you. I’m Nicolae Von Shrieder.”