“Rusti?” Desari asked softly. “Are you okay?” She turned Tempest’s hand over to examine the scraped knuckles. “How did you do this? Has Darius seen this?” She closed her palm over the scrape in the same way Syndil had. At once Tempest could feel a soothing warmth.
“Of course,” Tempest admitted, blushing slightly as she remembered the feel of his mouth on her skin. “He doesn’t miss anything. What exactly are the undead? You said Darius hunted the undead. Are you talking about vampires?”
“If our males do not find a lifemate, in time they eventually lose their souls to the darkness within them. They become vampire, preying on our people as well as humans. They must be destroyed,” Desari answered.
Syndil touched Tempest’s shoulder to draw her attention. “The one who attacked me, the one who was raised as my brother, my family, my protector—he had turned vampire. He nearly killed Darius. Had Darius not been so powerful, he might have succeeded. As it was, Darius was severely wounded. I, too, would be dead, and perhaps Desari as well. Who knows?”
“Cullen told me he had seen a vampire in San Francisco. That the woman he had intended to marry was murdered by one,” Tempest said. She reached up to take Syndil’s hand with her free one, so that they were all connected. “Could Darius still turn?” There was a note of fear in her voice.
“Not unless something happened to you.” Desari was examining Tempest’s knuckles again. “We need to clean this scrape.”
“Is there a possibility of a child? Could we have children together?” Now there was a distinct quaver in Tempest’s voice.
Desari exchanged a long look with Syndil. “I do not know for certain, Rusti,” Desari answered honestly. “Julian told me of one woman who was born to a human mother and a Carpathian father. She was not raised in our ways and had a difficult time surviving. There was no one to teach her, to love her, to help her grow properly because the mother committed suicide and the father turned vampire. The child did survive, however, and eventually was discovered by her true lifemate.”
Tempest closed her eyes tiredly, rubbing her suddenly pounding forehead. “So I guess if I stay with Darius—and I don’t seem to have too many other choices—I might or might never have children. I never really considered I’d have the whole fairy tale.”
“Darius is giving up his life for you,” Syndil pointed out gently. “When the sun is high, members of our race are vulnerable. Even Darius. In the ground, few could harm us, but while he sleeps the sleep of mortals, he cannot go to ground. Anyone who found his resting place could easily kill him. As time goes on, and he loses more and more rejuvenating sleep, his great strength will weaken substantially.”
“What can I do to remedy the situation? I don’t want this. I never asked him for this. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to him because he was trying to take care of me. It’s insane for him to neglect his own needs because he’s watching over me.” Tempest couldn’t think beyond that. Everything else was far too overwhelming. “Has an ordinary human woman ever before become a lifemate to one of your kind? Surely I can’t be the only one. There must be someone who knows what to do. I can’t have Darius endangering himself.” The idea of some assassin or vampire stumbling upon Darius while he was vulnerable was frightening.
Desari tightened her hold on Tempest’s hand. “Julian told me his brother’s lifemate was human.”
Tempest jerked her hand away, unwilling for Desari to feel her elevated pulse. Desari had used the past tense. “She’s dead?”
“No! Oh, no, she is one of us now. She is like we are.” Desari glanced at Syndil, well aware Darius would not thank them for imparting this information and worrying Tempest.
Syndil hugged Tempest gently. “I am going to fix you more vegetable broth. You are quite pale.”
Tempest shook her head, answering almost absently, her mind clearly somewhere else. “I’m not hungry. Thanks, though, Syndil. What do you mean, she is like you now? How is that possible?”
“Darius can convert you,” Desari admitted carefully. “He has said he will not, that he would never take the chance of something going wrong. He has made up his mind to live as a human until your death. Then he will go with you.”
Tempest stood up, scattering the leopards, pacing restlessly. “How is it done? How would he convert me?”
“He must make three complete blood exchanges with you. It is obvious he has made at least one, perhaps even two.” Desari watched her pacing, nervous that she had told her things Darius had purposely kept to himself. “But Darius will not even consider the idea. He feels it is far too risky, as only a couple of women have survived such conversions... intact.”
Tempest stiffened. “Exchanged blood. He has taken my blood. What is an exchange?”
There was a small, telling silence. And suddenly she didn’t want anyone to say anything; the knowledge was already seeping slowly into her pores, her brain. Tempest pressed her hand to her mouth. The idea was so frightening, she pushed it out of her head in an attempt to understand what the women were telling her. “That’s why I see things and hear things so differently,” she mused aloud, looking to them for confirmation.
“And why you are having trouble eating human food.”
There was another silence while Tempest digested what they were saying. Her mind worked at it from all angles. “So if he converted me, I would have to have blood.”
Syndil stroked a light, soothing hand down the length of her hair. “Yes, Rusti, you would be like us in every way. You would have to sleep our sleep, stay out of the sun. You would be as vulnerable and as powerful as we are. But Darius refuses to take the chance. He has made up his mind to keep the risk all his own.” She said this softly, gently, her voice a beautiful blend of soothing, comforting notes, yet it didn’t help.
The sides of the trailer were suddenly closing in on Tempest, suffocating her, crushing her as the mountain had done. Tempest pushed herself away from the two women and stumbled toward the door. She had to breathe; she needed air. She flung herself out of the bus, wanting to run into the night, run to freedom.
Darius caught her small, flying figure as she leapt down the steps, and he pulled her into the safety of his arms. “What is it, baby?” he whispered softly against her neck. “What has frightened you?” He didn’t invade her mind, because he wanted her to trust him enough to tell him herself. If she refused to tell him, he could always merge with her.
Tempest buried her face in his neck. “Take me away from here, Darius, please. Just get me out into the open.”
He raised his eyes, black and furious, to meet his sister’s guilty gaze before he turned and moved away from the camp. Once out of sight of prying eyes, he poured on the speed, so fast that the trees around them blurred. When he stopped, they were in a secluded clearing tucked into the rolling hillside by a grove of trees.
“Now tell me, honey.” He was still permitting her to speak the words rather than reading her mind. He wanted her trust. He wanted her to volunteer what was causing her fear. “We are under the open sky. Only the stars are looking down upon us.” His hand caressed her cheek, her throat, slid down the length of her arm to find her palm. Very gently he brought her knuckles to the warmth of his mouth, to the soothing, healing moisture his velvet tongue provided.
She closed her eyes tightly, savoring the feel of him. She had missed him these last few hours. Missed him so much that she didn’t even feel alive unless he was bugging her. “I don’t know how to be a part of something, Darius, a part of you.” She pressed her forehead against his shoulder, afraid to look at him. “I’ve been alone all my life. I don’t know any other way.”
Darius held her closer, warming her. “We have all the time in the world, honey. You will learn to be comfortable with a family, and if it is too much all at once, I will take you away from the others until you learn to be a part of me. You do not have to contend with the entire group of us all at once if you find it overwhelming.”