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  After several seconds—when he still didn't answer—she sat forward, shifted nervously in her seat, and asked him more directly, "Are you or are you not planning to drink my blood, Nathaniel?"

  His smile was flirtatious. "Not without your permission, Jocelyn." He leaned guardedly into her, gently nuzzled her neck, inhaled her scent...and then groaned.

  She jumped back and pushed him away. "What are you doing?"

  "Just imagining..." He smiled, a crooked grin, like the proverbial cat that ate the canary.

  She squirmed and sank deeper into the sofa. "Quit playing!

  I'm trying to ask you a serious question here. At least I think it's pretty damn serious."

  He watched her with appreciation, intrigued by her anger.

  "I'm sorry. I was distracted. What was your question, love?"

  She smirked. "Whether or not you plan to drink my blood—whether or not you want to drink my blood. Like right now, when you just...smelled me, did you feel some overwhelming urge to—No. I was teasing you." He lightly traced the contour of her neck with his fingers. "You are so beautiful, Jocelyn, but I want your comfort and your pleasure as much as my own."

  His eyes swept over her face, and he reached out to twirl a few strands of her hair in his fingers. "In all honesty, you stir an altogether different kind of hunger in me."

  She caught her breath and drew her hair behind her shoulder. "You are far too familiar with me, Nathaniel!" And then she brushed her hands over her arms trying to remove the goose bumps.

  She cleared her throat. "So, when do you...drink blood?"

  "My kind," he obliged, "we only need to feed every few weeks or so. Our lives and our power, our ability to regenerate, all of it is in our blood. We feed only to live."

  She hesitated. "Do you kill people?"

  "Not good people," he said. "I never hunt the innocent."

  "So who do you hunt then?"

  "Humans who prey on other humans for the sole purpose of deriving pleasure from their suffering."

  His words seemed to surprise her.

  "And you kill them? Like some kind of vigilante? Judge, jury, and executioner all in one?"

  Nathaniel looked off to the side, contemplating her words.

  "I can read people's thoughts, Jocelyn. I can view their memories. It is not the same as the evidence used in your human trials...all the prejudice and fear that corrupt the truth. There is no question of guilt. And I don't drink blood because I am a vigilante; I drink it because I am a vampire."

  Jocelyn shook her head slowly. "What if there are no...guilty...people around?"

  He carefully took her hand and held it firmly in his own.

  "Then I can take blood from anyone, but I would not kill an innocent person in the process."

  She was silent for a moment then.

  "Do people hunt you? I mean with garlic and crosses, stakes...that kind of thing?"

  "They would if they knew of our existence." His voice never wavered. "It has happened many times throughout the centuries."

  Jocelyn blinked several times, plainly trying to process his words. "Centuries? Just how old are you, Nathaniel?"

  "Can we skip that question?"

  "No...tell me."

  "I am just over ten centuries old."

  Jocelyn drew in a deep breath. "You're over one-thousand years old?" She stammered the words, dumbfounded.

  He patted her hand. "Yes, but you need not be concerned; I find you very mature for your age." His smile was once again crooked.

  "How old is your brother?" she asked.

  "I have three living brothers, but the one you met—Marquis—he's one of the oldest of our kind. He is fifteen-hundred years old."

  Jocelyn shook her head in disbelief, and then she became suddenly withdrawn, her light eyes turning a dark, misty hue, her skin becoming noticeably pale. She looked stuck. Like she didn't know how to ask her next question.

  And instinctively, he knew....

  "So, we are finally there, then?"

  "Where?" she muttered, her voice barely audible.

  "Back to what has been troubling you all along. Back to whatever occurred earlier in that forest. Back to the fear that has caused you—twice now—to want to take your own life."

  Jocelyn slowly exhaled and nodded, but she didn't speak.

  It was as if she couldn't.

  She closed her eyes, and her once steady hand began to tremble inside of his.

  "What is it, angel?" he asked calmly. "What has you so troubled?"

  She just shook her head.

  "Can't you tell me?"

  She sniffled. "I want to, but..."

  "But what?"

  "But, it's just...I'm just..." Her hands began to shake, and she rubbed them together, nervously. "I'm scared."

  Nathaniel stilled her trembling hand. "Tell me then, what it is you're so afraid of—what do you think is going to happen if you tell me?"

  She didn't answer.

  "Are you afraid that I'll be angry—"

  "No, that's not it," she murmured.

  "Then what is it?" His eyes linked unerringly with hers, drawing her into him like a powerful magnet. "Tell me, Jocelyn. I know you have little reason to trust me, but just this once—"

  "I know what you're planning to do to me, all right?" She rushed the words, as if it were the only way she could get them out. "And I'm telling you, I can't handle it. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? I can't handle it!"

  "What do you think—"

  "Why are you doing this?" Her voice was anguished.

  "Pushing me like this. At least right now—in this moment—I can pretend. Just a little longer, I can pretend like everything's okay. But once it's all out in the open...." Her eyes dimmed and she slowly looked away.

  Nathaniel became uneasy then, although he tried to continue projecting confidence. "Jocelyn, I am not going to do anything to you without your permission."

  "You're not hearing me, Nathaniel," she said, her voice growing desperate. "I know."

  Nathaniel sat back and drew in a deep breath.

  Great Celestial Deities, what did this woman believe he was planning to do to her? There was no way—absolutely no way—she knew about the Blood Curse. And even if she did, he had no intention of forcing himself on this beautiful female.

  He had more faith in her than that. More faith in the providence of the gods. The rightness of their union.

  "Okay..." He held up both hands, coaxing her like a frightened child. "Then we might as well face whatever it is you know together...right?"

  She covered her face with her hands. "Please don't, Nathaniel...just stop—"

  Her voice broke off, and she dropped her head in her hands, her long hair falling forward so that it shielded her from his view.

  She appeared so vulnerable that it made Nathaniel's chest ache, and he absently rubbed his hand over his sternum.

  "You really can't tell me, can you?"

  "No," she whispered. "I really can't."

  Nathaniel gently pried her hands from around her eyes and massaged her temples. He lightly threaded his fingers through her silky hair, and then he raised her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. "Look at me, Jocelyn."

  She grimaced.

  "Look at me."

  Her eyes met his.

  "I'm going to ask your permission for something—"

  "No—"

  "Jocelyn, just listen."

  She shook her head. "Please—"

  "Listen to me."

  She sighed.

  "I would like to go into your mind and view your memories for myself—"

  "No!" Her eyes grew wide, and she audibly gasped.

  Nathaniel didn't flinch.

  "It will allow me to see whatever you saw firsthand. Do you understand what I'm saying? I can view the information myself, without you ever having to say a single word—but I am asking for your permission."

  Jocelyn looked pale...tired. "And if I don't give it to you?"

>   Her voice faltered.

  He sat back and regarded her squarely. "We have all night, angel. If you say no, then we'll wait." He sat forward then and grasped her by the shoulders. "But sooner or later, we are going to deal with this."

  Jocelyn's eyes filled with tears, and the tiny drops began to roll one after another down her delicate cheekbones, leaving tracks of deep sorrow in their wake. Reluctantly, she nodded.

  Nathaniel raised his eyebrows, surprised, and then he framed her face with his hands. "Yes, then?"

  She clenched her eyes shut. "Yes," she whispered.

  And then she visibly held her breath.

  Chapter Eight

  For the first time since they'd met, Jocelyn appeared to be truly lost, spiraling like a piece of driftwood in a river, haphazard and out of control. Her intense fear was palpable, and Nathaniel sensed that she detested her own vulnerability.

  He began to reach inside of her mind, to unravel her memories. Moving from the present backward, he started in his own living room—when she had first come inside from the patio.

  He despised the way she thought of the house as a prison, almost as if she were an inmate on death row awaiting execution. He felt the unbidden horror she had experienced as a result of Marquis's behavior and the absolute revulsion she had experienced at the sight of his own animal nature, the changes in his body when he had confronted Marquis. He shifted uncomfortably on the sofa beside her, even as he forced himself to smile, sending her strong waves of reassurance in an effort to combat what he had just uncovered.

  Moving further back into the forest, he recognized the trust she was beginning to feel as they were walking, and to his delight, he saw the strong physical attraction she had for him, despite her worst aversions.

  He resisted smiling at the pleasing revelation: Jocelyn found him incredibly sexy. It was elemental. After all, she had been created for him, even if she didn't yet understand the connection.

  And then he saw her terror.

  He actually felt her distress as she ran from the canyon in a desperate attempt to get away from—what?—her mind a tormented cauldron of muddled thoughts and broken images.

  She was desperately seeking to draw rational conclusions to something that could not be rationalized, but since she had no internal frame of reference from which to begin, her mind just spun out of control in a free fall of disbelief and horror.

  But what had caused such fragmentation?

  Nathaniel followed her much further back now, going deep into the endless labyrinth of tunnels with their musty, damp hallways, until he finally arrived with her in the chamber.

  The sacrificial chamber of the Dark Ones.

  He almost jolted but immediately caught his reaction. The last thing he needed was to frighten her further. There was musty water, with the strong stench of sulfur, on her clothes—in her hair—and the freezing cave floor was hard beneath her belly as heavy, damp rocks loomed over her head. He felt her holding her breath...trembling...fighting back the impulse to scream. She wanted to run. Her muscles were primed to fight. Her stomach roiled.

  And then Nathaniel saw the depraved son of Jaegar: Valentine Nistor. His heart turned hard as stone, his spirit colder than black ice on a winter road, as he watched it all unfold. The greedy hands of death claiming the firstborn infant, an infant with black and red striped hair like a human cobra. The hideous laughter of a depraved mind reveling in the pain of a tortured woman. And a beautiful, helpless female with flowing black hair and deep, green eyes lying on—Dalia!

  Shelby's Dalia.

  Nathaniel jerked back, breaking the telepathic connection at once. He withdrew his mind as absolute shock and revulsion crashed into him like a tidal wave against the shore.

  Devoid of reason, he sprang to his feet and turned away from Jocelyn. He could feel his fangs exploding in his mouth and struggled to maintain control.

  She couldn't see him like this.

  Not now. Not when he was supposed to be comforting her.

  Not when she was already so afraid. He shook uncontrollably.

  Jocelyn appeared stunned by his reaction. She scampered to the other end of the sofa and stared up at his shaking form, her eyes wide with fright. Nathaniel shook his head.

  Good Lord, she had seen such an atrocity. No wonder she was terrified! But she couldn't possibly have known how personal the violation was...to him.

  Nathaniel spared her a glance: She didn't speak a word.

  She didn't dare to even move.

  He ran his fingers through his thick mane of hair, pacing restlessly back and forth across the hardwood floor in front of the fireplace. He distorted his image with a masking technique and waited for his fangs to recede, all the while, struggling to put the pieces of the puzzle together: Ramsey Olaru, one of the three sentinels who guarded Dark Moon Vale, had reported directly to Napolean that Valentine had killed Dalia—that he had taken her from Shelby following a trip she had made into the nearby town of Silverton Park. The sentinels had found her body days later in a washed-up river-bed, thrown carelessly behind a group of thorny bushes at the edge of the creek. The corpse had been mutilated and drained of blood.

  Napolean had immediately given the order to have Dalia cremated so that her soul would be released from the taint of the Dark One as it traveled to the next world. So that Shelby would never have a chance to see her bruised and battered body. As powerful as his little brother had been, Shelby could never have defeated one such as Valentine on his own, and Napolean knew that all the Silivasi brothers would have gone to his aid, setting off an all-out vampire war over a personal blood vengeance. Too many humans would have been caught in the fall-out.

  Nathaniel turned his attention to Jocelyn, who was still sitting in stunned silence on the far end of the sofa. She was watching him intently, and he didn't hesitate to read her mind. She was dissecting the situation like a computer, analyzing the obvious internal battle he was waging to remain in control...even as her own private fears threatened to consume her. She was frightened...and waiting for a response...and she had no idea, whatsoever, why he was so upset.

  As far as the intelligent human was concerned, Nathaniel had to know the nature of his own kind; surely, he had seen such a thing before. That stone slab had far too much blood on it for the woman she saw to be the first. She thought he was angry because she had witnessed the perversion, like she had somehow ruined his plans...for her.

  Oh, gods! Nathaniel cursed beneath his breath. This had to be what Jocelyn feared all along—that Nathaniel was going to do the same thing to her that Valentine had done to Dalia. His stomach rolled, and he had to fight to restrain his rage.

  Although he couldn't fault her for her logic, he was furious with the conclusion. Staggered by the whole revelation. Dalia had been defiled by a Dark One, and now Jocelyn—his very own destiny—made no distinction between him and the evil son of Jaegar. Made no distinction between him and Valentine Nistor. And as if that weren't enough, she was terrified of experiencing the same fate at his hands.

  Before Nathaniel could find the words to address her unfounded fear, Jocelyn jumped up from the couch. In his distress, he had momentarily released the barrier, forgotten to keep his image blurred, and she was seeing him exactly as he was. She was staring at the fire in his eyes, blanching at the involuntary contractions of his body, literally gawking at the points of his fangs...and her fear had finally gotten the best of her. She began to scan the room for an exit—prepared to fight to the death if necessary.

  Nathaniel turned to face the terrified female and cursed in the ancient language.

  "Jocelyn, don't!"

  He made it a harsh command, taking momentary control over her body with his mind, effortlessly tossing her back onto the couch and holding her there. And then he held up his hand, his palm facing out. It was an apology. A universal request for patience.

  "Please, just give me a moment."

  He needed to collect his thoughts. To understand hers. To try and pro
cess the enormity of what he had just seen. The beast within him was far too aroused with fury to deal with a physical confrontation, and he was well aware of the fact that she was prepared to physically fight him if that's what it took.

  "Be still," he warned. "Do not provoke me."

  He released his hold and reconstructed the barrier, once again blurring his image. He was pacing even faster now as he analyzed more information:

  Nathaniel knew Ramsey Olaru well. Ramsey would no more lie to Napolean than he would slit his own throat.

  Valentine must have staged everything. He had to have murdered some anonymous woman and drained her body of blood to stage the crime, knowing they would cremate the body.

  He could have easily gotten away with creating a replica of Dalia using a single cell of her blood to interpret her DNA.

  From that one cell, he would then possess the genetic material needed to project an image of the whole—to create a holographic replica. Valentine was an ancient. Cloaking the woman's body to appear as Dalia would have been an easy feat to accomplish. He must have hidden her until the cremation and then taken her home...to breed.

  Shelby's woman! Shelby's wife! Raped and mutilated.

  Tossed aside like garbage. Made to endure the unthinkable in order to produce Valentine a son—an abomination of evil who would take countless innocent lives in his lifetime.... And they had allowed it to happen! They had failed to save her from such an agonizing fate. The anguish was overwhelming. The reality of it beyond comprehension.

  Nathaniel clasped his hands over his eyes, desperate to get the picture out of his mind. He removed the barrier and turned to face Jocelyn. He spoke as calmly as he could: "The woman you saw in the chamber was my brother's wife." His voice trembled in spite of his effort.

  Jocelyn looked up at him, stunned. "Marquis's wife?"

  "No," he muttered, "my youngest brother's...Shelby's. He was killed last week as a result of losing her. His burial was this morning. I was at his grave site earlier when I heard you cry out."

  Jocelyn blinked and her features softened. "Nathaniel...I'm sorry."