“I don’t think we have the right to erase the things she’s been through, but it wouldn’t hurt to dull the memories so that she can deal with them. The most important thing is to help her feel safe, to trust us. I think she needs that more than anything else,” Francesca said softly, worried. “Of course, she’s missed most of her schooling, too.”
Gabriel shrugged indifferently. “That is the least of our worries. We can impart knowledge should there be a need. At this point she needs stability and a decent home life. Once she has the things necessary to build her confidence back, school will come.”
“Helping her will be a huge commitment, Gabriel. I do not ask that you share it with me.”
“I felt her pain. She is a mere child. But she will soon be a woman. A woman who has psychic ability.”
Francesca swung around to face him once again. “Are you certain? I thought she might, because the connection between us was so strong.”
“I could not mistake such a gift. I am thinking she could not be in better hands than ours. We can see to her happiness, protect her, and safeguard her should the undead detect her presence. She is so young and has suffered so much already, we cannot allow her in harm’s way. And when she is grown, she may be a lifemate for one of our people.”
Francesca stiffened. “She will be free, Gabriel, to choose her own destiny. You will not call in the males of our race and hand her over. I mean it. She has suffered much at the hands of males, and our race is domineering and at times brutal. She has it in her mind to avoid all relationships of such a nature and we must respect her wishes. She may never fully recover from the damage done to her.”
He laughed softly and curved his arm around her slender shoulders. “We males are never brutal to a lifemate. I believe we have a mama tiger on our hands. You are a very formidable lady. The kind I would choose to be the mother of my child.”
She made a face at him. “I don’t think you should bring that up just now. It could get you in trouble.” She didn’t sound as if it would. Her tone was mild, teasing even. Her dark eyes were smoldering but there was a softness about her mouth that belied her flare of temper.
“Skyler will be a well-loved young lady in our household. I will cherish her and offer her the protection I would give my own daughter. She will be happy, sweetheart, very happy. I would never allow someone to claim her ruthlessly without her consent as I have done to you. You forget she may not be compatible with any of our men. I believe in destiny. If she is to be claimed by one of our males, let him find and court her as he should. He will treasure her all the more.
As I do you.”
He thought it and the words shimmered in the air between them.
Francesca blushed a vivid scarlet, her long lashes sweeping down to hide her pleased expression. There was such a sincerity about Gabriel. She loved his Old World accent and his intense smoldering passion barely hidden beneath the thin veneer of civility. His emotions were stark and devastating, raw and real. He looked at her with such need, such hunger, he took her breath away.
Francesca kept her eyes focused straight ahead. Gabriel could so easily overwhelm her, swamp her with his hungry passion. No one had ever needed her before, the way he seemed to do. She had always thought of him as being entirely self-sufficient, yet now she saw he was utterly alone. A warrior endlessly walking the earth in search of the enemy. She didn’t want to sympathize with his loneliness, to admire his honor.
“You are smiling again. That faint mysterious smile that makes me want to pull you into my arms and kiss you. I promised myself I would behave in your presence, Francesca, but you are making it extremely difficult.” He said the words softly, his voice a smooth black velvet whisper of seduction.
She was suddenly terrified of reaching her home, yet at the same time, she wished desperately that they were already there. “You can’t kiss me Gabriel. You’re already driving me crazy. I don’t know what to do with you. I had a nice comfortable life with a nice comfortable future all planned out and now you’ve come and turned my world upside down.”
He grinned at her, a quick, almost boyish, mischievous flash of immaculate white teeth. “I cannot help myself, sweetheart. You are so beautiful, you take my breath away. What man would not have such thoughts walking in the night beside you, with the stars overhead and the breeze teasing him with your scent?”
“Do be quiet, Gabriel.” Francesca tried not to let any pleasure sound in her voice. He certainly didn’t need any encouragement. “For a man who claims little knowledge of women, you certainly know all the right things to say.”
“It must be inspiration,” he replied.
Francesca burst out laughing; she couldn’t help herself. He was becoming more outrageous by the minute. “The dawn is creeping up on us and I’m tired. Let’s go home.”
He liked the sound of that. Home. He had never had one. Gabriel could acknowledge to himself that he had been lucky in the unique relationship he shared with Lucian. He had been lonely, but never truly alone like the other males of his species. Even after Lucian had turned, they merged often. A two-thousand-year habit could not be broken so easily. It was automatic.
It bothered Gabriel that he had not found Lucian’s first kill in the city. Any kill. Lucian had risen starving from their long imprisonment beneath the earth. He would have gorged himself on the first human he had come across, yet Gabriel had scoured the city for evidence and had found nothing. He knew there was more than one vampire in the area. He read the papers for news of strange murders, but none of those murdered had been killed by Lucian. Lucian was an artist with a very distinctive style. There was nothing sloppy about Lucian. Each kill held his personal signature, as though he were taunting his brother to come after him. Sometimes Gabriel thought it was all a game to Lucian.
“You’ve gone away from me again,” Francesca said softly. “Where do you go, Gabriel? Is he talking to you?”
Gabriel didn’t pretend not to know whom she was talking about. “Sometimes we merge inadvertently. At those times you are in great danger.”
“You love him very much, don’t you?” Francesca curled her fingers around his wrist, brushed her body close to his to offer comfort.
At once he felt her soothing presence, and peace stole into him as it always did when she was touching him. He wondered, just for one moment, if she could have healed Lucian before he turned. Could she have imparted the same peace to his soul as she did to his twin?
They turned up the road leading to her house. He liked the look of it, the way it seemed to reach out and beckon to them. Home. This was home. Was there any possibility of a family for him? Could they actually live here together? Raise their baby? Care for Skyler? Would Francesca ever be able to love him? She wanted him, her body craved his, but would she love him? Forgive him?
“You go very quiet when you think about him,” Francesca murmured softly. “I can feel the pain it causes you. Yet if I touch your mind, you have only good thoughts of him. He must have been quite a man.”
“There has never been another like him. He was a master at battle. At anything. I never had to look to see if he was there, I always just
knew
it. Lucian was a legend. He saved so many lives down through the ages, human as well as Carpathian, it would be impossible to count them. He never faltered in his duty. Not at all. We were close, Francesca,” he admitted softly. “Very close.”
They were walking along the property toward the front entrance. “Tell me about him. It might help to share your memories. I feel your reluctance to speak of him; you think it is disloyal to him. But I would never presume to judge him. You loved him and admired him and I can only do the same.”