Christine Feehan - Dark Melody (Dark Series - book 12)

The insidious whisper of power was always with them, eating at them, calling to them, crouching in them, a dark beast filled with blood lust and the need to kill just to feel that momentary rush. As the centuries passed, the dark stain grew and spread, filling the males, until there was no hope, only the dark, dangerous hunger.

For the first few centuries, Dayan had suppressed the beast with his music and the poetry he had loved, but his struggle had increased in the last two hundred years. “Very recently there has been a change in our lives. You know all the band members, right?”

“Desari, of course, your singer. Barack and Syndil and you.” Corinne rubbed his arm, sensing his unhappiness.

“And Darius, head of our family and bodyguard. The change was good for my brothers and sisters, not so good for me. First Julian arrived and claimed Desari as his lifemate. Then Darius found Tempest. Barack claimed Syndil, and I was left alone. I felt isolated, Corinne. I cannot explain how difficult it was. How alone I was.” The sight of all of them so happy together had left him terribly alone. It had been a kind of hell without them all. They had been together during the centuries of their existence, yet he could no longer face them. The sight and sounds and smells of the mingling couples had made his loneliness even more intolerable.

He was different. He was a danger to them, to the women as well as the men. He saw the wary way Syndil always looked at him. She had been attacked by one of their own, Savon, after Savon had turned vampire. Darius had destroyed the vampire, but it had been a close thing.

Dayan knew the others worried about him, and it had disturbed him that he felt nothing at all. Just alone. Always and forever alone. He was not afraid of Darius and his power, as he should have been. He was Darius’s second-in-command. Darius felt tremendous loyalty to him, and they had exchanged blood on more than one occasion when one or the other had been wounded. It enabled them to communicate privately; it also enabled them to track one another at will, no matter how great the distance.

“You aren’t alone, Dayan; never think that,” Corinne whispered, aching for him. She heard the loneliness in his voice and she wanted desperately to comfort him. Dayan brought Corinne’s fingers to his mouth once more, kissing them gently instead of crushing her to him as he wanted. She had changed his life for all time. He could return to his family now without worry, without the threat that he might turn vampire and have to be hunted and destroyed. He would never have to read in their minds their worry over him, sense their pity and sorrow, their fears. He could feel the love he held for them all, instead of just remembering it. Corinne had done that just by being in the world for him to find. All the long centuries had been worth the wait. All the loneliness, all the terrible emptiness.

Corinne filled him with hope again. No one would be completely safe until she was bound to him, until the ritual had been completed, but Dayan could breathe easier. He had found her at long last, his Corinne. She would save him, and with him, any that he might have endangered.

“I wish I could read minds,” Corinne teased. “You go very quiet and you never exactly answer my questions. What happened to our conversation regarding those men in my house? It seemed very important to me.”

“Was it?” His voice was that perfect whisper of sound. “I find you the most important thing in my life. It is difficult to keep my mind on anything else, but since it is of such importance to you, I will try.”

He was staring down at her as if she were the most beautiful woman in the world. His black gaze drifted over her face, possessive, hungry, aching with need... with some inner torment she didn’t understand. He was looking at her the way a man looks at a woman he wants to spend the entire night making love with.

“Eternity making love,” he corrected, proving he really could read her mind.

Her eyes widened in astonishment. A blush worked its way up her neck to her face, putting color into her cheeks. She realized it could be embarrassing having Dayan read her mind. She thought about him way too much. Thought about every detail of his appearance — his long, thick hair as shiny as a raven’s wing, his black eyes, so intense and needy, his sculpted mouth, perfectly chiseled, molded and shaped into a sensual masterpiece. Half laughing, embarrassed that she couldn’t control her wayward thoughts, she put her hand over her eyes to block him out.

“Do not do that, honey,” he reprimanded softly. “Do not ever do that. I would not be happy if you did not find me attractive.”

“You’re too attractive,” she confessed. “Not real. I don’t exactly have these kinds of feelings every day.” His perfect white teeth flashed at her. “That is a relief.”

“Now you’re laughing at me.” She tried to stifle the yawn welling up. “It’s almost morning and we haven’t gotten anywhere with this. Did you call the police? Is it safe to go back into our house?”

Dayan shook his head. “Maybe to get a few things, but you cannot stay there. When those two men do not return to their people, others will be sent after you. The first place they will look is your home.”

“You didn’t call the police, did you?”

“Why would we want to do that? The police cannot do anything to these people; they cannot touch them.”

“What did you do with the two in my home? Why aren’t they going to return to their people?”

“They had orders to kill you, honey. You did not expect me to allow them to walk away.” He made it a statement. “It was fair enough — they had guns.”

She tangled her fingers in the silky mass of his hair because she had wanted to do that from the first moment she laid eyes on him. “You don’t make sense, Dayan. You answer me, but not so I can understand anything. I’m tired.” Her long lashes were continually fluttering down despite her efforts to stay awake. “I’m too tired to figure out your sentences with all the holes in them. But don’t worry, I’m fairly good at things like that when I’m fully awake.”

Dayan stroked the hair from her forehead, his fingertips lingering in a gentle caress. “You can go to sleep, Corinne. You will be safe here and we can finish this conversation when you are not so tired. The baby needs to sleep too. A little girl.” There was the slightest of “pushes” in his voice, a hidden compulsion to give in to her desire to sleep.

She smiled up at him, at his strong, sensual features. “That’s right, a girl. How did you know?” Corinne found herself suppressing a yawn.

“When I attempted to heal you, I checked to make sure she was in good health. She is beautiful, and very aware of you already.” He lowered his head, his heated gaze moving over her face, dropping to her mouth. It moved even lower to brush the slender column of her neck, rested on the pulse beating there.

Embarrassed again by the molten heat spreading through her body, Corinne tried to look away. Dayan’s hand spanned her throat. “I want you to want me. Just for this one moment in time.” He bent his dark head toward hers, slowly, relentlessly, his black gaze mesmerizing her so she couldn’t breathe. Her lashes fluttered in anticipation, her lips parting slightly.

He took his time, in no hurry to end the moment, inhaling her fragrance, gathering her close to him, his body slanting protectively, possessively over hers. He could feel her body, soft and pliant, every curve pressed snugly into the hardness of his own powerful frame, and he savored the differences between a man and a woman. He could feel his blood heat, and he allowed himself the luxury.

Corinne watched the expression in his eyes change from black, sensual possession to a strange, almost predatory stare. Red flames seemed to dance in the very depths of his gaze, and he looked fiercely hungry and all at once threatening. Before she could react, before she could think to protect herself, Dayan’s mouth found hers and time simply stopped for both of them.