Christine Feehan - Dark Secret

"Rafael, stop talking in riddles. What is it?" She could hear her own heart beating wildly. She could feel the desperation in her mind and body as every single cell needed to comfort and assure him. But he was changing her life. She knew it instinctively, she knew he was warning her, not reassuring her. Whatever he was not saying was something terrible. So she simply stood there looking up at him. Waiting.

Rafael stood one moment looking curiously vulnerable and the next his expression was grim, determined. Sheer arrogance. He dragged her into his arms and took possession of her mouth with his. She tasted a desperate need, a terrible hunger, and something far more frightening. She gave herself up to him, clinging to him, returning the hunger in his kiss, reassuring him even as she feared where he was leading her. Her hands crept up to his neck, bunching his hair in her fingers.

"Tell me, Rafael, can't you feel how much I want you?" She wanted to give him the courage to tell her, wanted to give herself the courage to listen. She whispered the words into his mouth, against his lips, holding her body very close to his.

He lifted his head then, his black eyes glittering at her. He looked every inch a tall, dark predator. "You cannot just want me, Colby, you have to love me." There was a finality about his words, something in his voice that warned her she was in danger.

She stood in the silence, listening to the wind whisper to her, feeling it on her face, her body. His face was still and etched with a deep sorrow she couldn't quite comprehend. He looked as lonely as her beloved mountains. Colby lifted a hand to his lips, her fingers gently smoothing the lines. "What is it, Rafael? Say it aloud, say it here in the night where it's just the two of us while we belong together. Right now."

Tiny red flames flickered in the dark depths of his eyes. His fingers shackled her fragile wrist, lightly, loosely, as if chaining her to him when he expected her to run from him. "I am of the night, Colby, of the wind and the earth. I can soar as the eagle or take the shape of a jungle cat. My people are as old as time itself. I am not human."

For a moment her mind was perfectly still, not comprehending, not wanting to take in what he said. She blinked up at him as the words settled into her mind. Her gaze fixed on the flames in his eyes. "If you are not human, Rafael, what are you?" She shouldn't have believed him, but she sensed the danger in him, the predator, she sensed his differences. The way the Chevez brothers acted suddenly made perfect sense. They knew he was different. And they feared him.

She wasn't running from him, she didn't even attempt to pull away, but he heard the slamming of her heart and he saw the gathering apprehension in her eyes.

"I am Carpathian. My original homeland is in the Carpathian Mountains. In the thirteenth century, our prince asked for volunteers to go to distant lands to protect the world from the evil branching out. My brothers and I were already warriors with much experience and we answered the call."

She stood very, very still. The words "thirteenth century" echoed through her mind.

"We are rather like normal human children in the first years of our lives. As we become teenagers our gifts and talents begin to emerge. The elders teach us to shape-shift, to use our gifts. At that time the sun begins to become a problem for us."

She drew in her breath sharply, her eyes never leaving his face. "Like it is becoming for me. It isn't because of the fire, is it?" Shape-shifting. He had used the term casually, in the same way he had mentioned the thirteenth century. He wasn't insane and Colby wished he were. She took an involuntary step backward, her hand going up to cover the mark throbbing on her neck.

He shook his head slowly. "No, Colby, your sensitivity to the sun is not because of the fire. I brought you partially into my world, and I have no choice but to bring you fully into it." He said it very quietly, implacably, irrevocably. His black eyes watched her carefully. She felt him in her mind, that same watchful stillness, judging her reaction.

She held her ground, looking up at him steadily. "You think I'm just going to let you take me over?" Her words were soft, like the night wind, but it was a threat, the first real threat Colby had ever made in her life. "I love my brother and sister; I will never let you take me from them. I hope we understand one another."

He nodded, his eyes very black, very empty. "You have strong gifts, Colby, but you have no concept of my power. I mean it when I say I have no choice. You have no concept of how strong the pull of the darkness is, the insidious whispering of power. The call to feel. Just feel. Such a small thing humans take for granted. I thought there was nothing worse, but it is not so. Emotions bombard me; I cannot seek the solace of the earth because you are aboveground and my soul cries for yours. I have no anchor. I cannot hold out much longer. There is too much at risk."

She lifted her chin. "I don't know exactly what you're talking about, Rafael, I'll admit it, but it doesn't matter, don't you see that? I don't matter, you don't matter, only Paul and Ginny matter."

His white teeth gleamed in the darkness, a predator's warning. "You think I will allow you to trade our lives for theirs?" His voice was very, very low.

Her heart thudded painfully and for a moment she could scarcely breathe. Was he actually threatening her brother and sister? He seemed invincible there in the darkness and she didn't even know what he was, what he was capable of doing. She sensed his power, she felt his power clinging to him, vibrating in the air around him. "What are you saying, Rafael? I don't like riddles."

His hand moved up to shape her face. Colby stepped away from him before his fingers could skim her skin, before his touch could seduce her into acceptance. His hand fell to his side. "I am incapable of harming those children," he said softly, his voice a whiplash. "They are a part of you. I have offered my protection to them. You persist in seeing me as your enemy when you are surrounded by the real enemy."

She stood quietly with the wind ruffling her hair and her heart as heavy as a stone. His pain or hers? Colby wasn't certain if it was one and the same. "I'm sorry, Rafael." She shoved a trembling hand through her silky hair. "The ground seems to be shifting out from under me and I honestly don't know what to think." She waved a hand to encompass the mountains surrounding them. "This is my world. This ranch, the children. My entire world. What's happened between us is frightening. I behave differently around you. It isn't me. You have to understand that. I'm not who you want."

He smiled at her. Gently. Tenderly. "Colby." Her name was a soft ache in the darkness of the night. "I have waited close to two thousand years for you. Only you. Without hope, without color or emotion. I cannot go back to a barren world. You are here in front of me and our time is now. I will not allow it to slip through our fingers. You cannot conceive of the monster I can become without you. You sense it lurking, watching, waiting even, but you do not realize its potential."

"You have the ability to mesmerize with your voice."

"I see no reason to deny it. I did not seduce you with my voice. You are my other half, you feel it, you know it. I live in you and your need is as strong as my need." He moved then, glided, a silent predator, his arms gathering her against his body and his dark head descending until his mouth claimed hers. Hot. Dominant. Hungry. An urgent demand.

The moment his mouth fastened on hers, Colby felt the flames licking at her skin, inside her skin, deep within her body. The heat built, a fiery inferno that turned her blood into a molten liquid that pooled low in her body and consumed her mind with a dark desire she would never escape. It moved through her body, wicked, sinful, a treacherous craving that deepened and spread, until she was consumed with the need to touch him, taste him. To give him everything. Her denials were gone, lost in the fire of his hot mouth and hard body.