She stood there, gripping the side of the marble sink, staring up at him for a few moments. “Well?” She waited. “Out! You can’t think you’re going to stay in here.”
“I cannot leave you alone,” he said mildly.
“I mean it, Dayan. Get out this instant. No arguing. Out!” She was very firm and tough about it.
Dayan looked helpless for a moment, then shrugged and glided out of the bathroom, deciding the old adage “Discretion is the better part of valor” held true.
The door closed with a hard thud behind him at a wave from Corinne’s hand. “Make sure your mind goes with you,” she called out, then found she was smiling because she could wave at doors and faucets and set her toothbrush in motion and it didn’t seem to bother Dayan in the least.
I do not know why you would think my mind would not go with me and stay with you at the same time.
His voice brushed at the walls of her mind like the flutter of butterfly wings, sending waves of warmth coursing through her.
For the first time in a long while, Corinne found she was truly happy. Standing in the bathroom, leaning against the sink, making an attempt to do something with her wild mass of hair, she was perfectly happy. Once she had pulled her hair free from the thick braid, it was too heavy to manage. She found she was too tired to lift her arms to tidy it. She sighed very softly.
What is wrong?
There was anxiety in his voice.
Corinne didn’t actually reply, she knew she didn’t, she just sighed again, but it was enough to bring him rushing in, scooping her up as if she were precious porcelain. Her hair tumbled in all directions, fanning out over his shoulder and across the dark shadow on his jaw. “Just can’t stay away, can you?” she asked, secretly grateful he had raced in to rescue her.
“I knew you needed rescuing,” he said with great male satisfaction.
“Was I thinking rescue? That was the actual word in my mind?” She shook her head as she settled onto the bed. “I don’t think
rescue
was the precise word. I can’t imagine using a word like that.”
“Oh, it was
rescue
all right.” He wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily, not when her green eyes were sparkling with laughter and her intriguing dimple was very much in evidence. He especially loved that dimple. He knew he could spend hours looking at that dimple and never get tired of it.
He took the brush out of her hand. “It is amazing what the males of my race are called upon to do.”
Corinne waved her hand toward the center of the room. “Go over there and do something.” When he sat there, she pushed him, “Go on, do something.”
“Something?” he echoed as he moved obediently into the middle of the bedroom. “What kind of something?” He sounded wary.
“I don’t know exactly. Something cool. What do you like to do?” She was looking at him from under her fringe of long lashes.
Dayan suddenly grinned like a mischievous boy. “Anything at all?”
“Sure. Something really big.”
His black eyebrows shot up. “If I show you, are you going to show me?”
“Sounds like a dare to me,” Corinne said. “I can’t resist a dare.”
“Then you go first.” He folded his arms across his chest, regarding her with his black gaze. “If I go first, you are quite likely to faint from shock.”
“Faint!
I am not the fainting type .
Nothing
you do could scare me that much now that I know you can do it,” she replied haughtily.
You do not altogether believe I can do it.
His voice whispered in her mind, sinfully intimate. It was temptation, it turned her body to molten liquid.
Corinne found herself staring at him, almost mesmerized by his black-magic spell. He had woven his dark melody so completely, so perfectly, she hadn’t realized she was immersed in his music, in his soul. To cover up her reaction to the sheer intimacy of a mind merge, Corinne forced her wayward thoughts under control and concentrated. At once the brush in his hand jumped free and moved through the air to resume the task of taming her flyaway hair. With intense concentration she divided the mass into three sections, using the power of her mind alone, and wove the long hair into a thick braid. A scrunchie came dancing out of the bathroom at her call and fastened itself to the end of her hair to complete the job.
Corinne looked up at him then, a trace of apprehension marring the perfection of her joy. “Well?” She looked like a little girl, unsure whether to feel pride or fear.
Deliberately he grinned at her, a taunting male grin of sheer competition. “Watch this.” He held out his arm, his eyes fixed intently on her face, his mind wholly merged with hers in case she was frightened by the change as it came over him. Fur rippled along his arm, muscles contorted and popped.
Corinne watched in wonderment as the man slowly shape-shifted until a large male leopard was standing in the center of the room staring at her with that same unblinking stare. For a moment she stared, almost frozen in place, but then the cat moved, its powerful muscles rippling as it glided silently toward her. She recognized him! She knew it was Dayan. There was the same fluid grace and power, the same hungry eyes devouring her. Her heart rate accelerated, but it wasn’t out of fear. Amazement. Fascination. Never fear. Not when it was Dayan.
The leopard nuzzled her so that she buried her hand in the glossy fur, astonished at the texture, at the joy of being so close to something belonging in the wild. She laughed aloud as she caressed the animal’s head with her fingertips. For a moment she rubbed her face along the thick neck of the leopard, loving the feel of the fur against her skin. It was exotic, a rare privilege to be so close to a wild animal. The leopard nuzzled her back, its eyes staring at her, mesmerizing, trapping her in the untamed depths. Dayan. Her Dayan. She would know him anywhere, in any shape.
Without warning, a dark shadow seemed to creep slowly into the room, invading the air like a thick foul oil. Corinne froze in place, her entire body going perfectly still. She felt Dayan’s reassuring presence in her mind. She watched in horror as the shadow seemed to take shape on the far wall, a grotesque bent figure, a skeleton stick figure with long, bony fingers that seemed to be tipped with daggerlike talons. Her heart thudded in alarm, and instantly Dayan’s body was solidly in front of her. She felt the others joining with her too, merging minds — Desari a soothing, calming influence, and Gregori and Darius powerful and, she sensed, deadly.
All of them protected her, shielded her from the creeping shadow. It was wholly evil, a thick oily presence probing, seeking,
hunting
something. Corinne felt certain the evil thing was hunting her. She sat very still, kept her mind firmly anchored in the sanity and calm of the others. Shockingly, her heart remained steady, beating in the same rhythm as Dayan’s while her lungs breathed along with his.
It was Dayan that surprised her the most. Her poet, so kind and gentle, so giving and loving, was suddenly something altogether different. She felt the contrast in his mind first. She was so attuned to him she recognized the change immediately. It came swiftly, naturally, and she realized these qualities were as much a part of him as his music and his beautiful words. He was dark, dangerous, a silent, deadly predator, a killing machine. Merciless. Without remorse. Ruthless. The total opposite of her poet. The cunning, relentless beast he had named himself. He would be unswerving on the hunt.
And he would never stop until he had destroyed his prey.
Corinne felt Desari stronger than ever, tranquil, soothing, comforting, whispering softly in her mind, the words almost indistinguishable, yet Corinne knew she was aiding her to understand what manner of creature Dayan really was. She felt the momentary surge as the intruder reached for her in an attempt to draw her out. She was safe and protected within the walls of the cocoon the others had wrapped her in. There was no chance of the dark horror finding her, yet it touched the three male Carpathians.