She turned and started toward the door. It flew shut with a loud crash. She stared at it, not turning around. The air was thick with tension, with some dark feeling, one she couldn’t put a name to. “I don’t think it’s going to do any good to prolong this. You need help right now. Obviously whatever they intend is some secret thing not to be shown to outsiders. I am just that. Let me go home where I belong, Mikhail, and let them help you now.”
“Leave us,” Mikhail ordered the others. They obeyed reluctantly.
“Raven, come here to me, please. I am weak and it would take most of my strength to come to you.” There was a gentleness in his voice, an honesty she found heartbreaking.
She closed her eyes against the power in his voice, the soft caressing tone that rubbed sensuously like black velvet over her skin and crawled into her body, wrapping itself around her heart. “Not this time, Mikhail. We not only live in two different worlds, we have two separate value systems. We tried—I know you wanted to—but I can’t do this. Maybe I never could have. It happened too fast and we don’t really know one another.”
“Raven.” Heat curled in her very name. “Come here to me.”
She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “I can’t, Mikhail. If I let you get around me again, I’ll lose respect for myself.”
“Then I have no choice but to come to you.” He shifted his weight, using his hands to move his injured leg.
“No!” Alarmed, she whirled around. “Stop it, Mikhail. I’m calling the others back inside.” She pressed him back among the pillows.
His hand caught the nape of her neck with unexpected strength. “You are the only reason I am living right now. I told you I would make mistakes. You cannot give up on me, on us.You do know me, everything important. You can look into my mind and know I need you. I would never hurt you.”
“You have hurt me. This hurts. Those people out there are your family, your people. I’m from another country, a different race. This isn’t my home and it never will be. Let me call them to you and just let me go.”
“You are right, Raven. I told you there would be no lies between us, yet I have this need to protect you from anything violent or frightening, anything that can hurt you.” His thumb moved over her delicate cheekbone, slid lower to caress her silken mouth. “Do not leave me, Raven. Do not destroy me. It would kill me if you left me.” His eyes were eloquent, persuasive, meeting hers unflinchingly, not attempting to hide the raw truth of his words from her, his total vulnerability.
“Mikhail,” she said softly in despair. “I look at you and something deep within me says we belong together, you do need me, and I will never be complete without you. But I know it’s nonsense. I’ve lived most of my life on my own, and I was quite happy.”
“You were isolated, in pain. No one saw you, knew who you were. No one else could appreciate you or care for your needs as I can. Do not do this thing, Raven. Do not.”
His hand on her arm drew her inevitably closer. How could she resist Mikhail at his most tempting? It was too late, far too late. His mouth was already finding hers. His lips were cool, tender, so gentle it brought tears to her eyes. She rested her forehead against his. “You hurt me, Mikhail, really hurt me.”
“I know, little one, I am sorry. Please forgive me.”
A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Is it really that easy?”
His thumb erased a tear trickling down her face. “No, but it is all I have to give you at this moment.”
“You need help and I know I can’t be the one to help you. I’ll go. You can contact me when you feel up to it. I promise not to go anywhere until you’re better.”
“Put my ring back on your finger, Raven,” he said softly.
She shook her head, drew away from him. “I don’t think so, Mikhail. Let’s let things be for a while. Let me think things through.”
His hand caressed her nape, slid over her shoulder, down her arm until his fingers circled her wrist. “I need to sleep tomorrow, really sleep. I want you protected from these people.” He knew she would assume he meant that they would drag him.
Raven smoothed back the tangle of coffee-colored hair from his forehead. “I’ll be fine on my own, as I have been for years. You’re so busy looking after the world, you think there’s no one who is capable of looking after themselves. I promise you I won’t leave, and I promise I will be careful. I won’t go hiding in their closets or under their beds.”
Mikhail caught her chin firmly. “These people are dangerous, Raven, fanatical. I found that out tonight.”
“Can they identify you?” All at once she couldn’t breathe. She was becoming desperate to have his friends take care of his wounds.
“No way. And there is no way they will know. I found out two more names. Eugene, very dark, a Hungarian accent.”
“That would be Eugene Slovensky. He came in on the train with the tour group.”
“Someone named Kurt?” He lay back against the pillow, no longer able to block out the pain in his thigh. It was cutting at his nerve endings like a rusty saw blade going through his skin.
“Kurt Von Halen. He was on the tour also.”
“There was a third man. No one spoke his name.” His voice revealed his weakness. “He was about seventy, gray hair, a thin gray mustache.”
“That must be Harry Summers, Margaret’s husband.”
“The inn harbors a nest of assassins. The worst of it was, the midwife told her husband, told all of them that Noelle was not of the undead. How could they believe such nonsense when she gave life to a child? God! What a terrible waste of life.” Grief washed over him anew, added to his burden of pain.
Raven could feel it hammering at her insides cruelly. “I’m going to go now so they can help you, Mikhail. You’re getting weaker by the minute.” She bent to kiss his forehead. “I can feel their anxiety.”
He caught her hand. “Put my ring back on your finger.” His thumb caressed the inside of her wrist. “I want you to wear it. It is important to me.”
“All right, Mikhail, but only so you’ll rest. We’ll sort it out when you’re feeling better. Call your friends now. I’ll drive your car back to the inn.” She touched his skin.
He was cold, very cold. Raven pushed the ring back on her finger. He caught at her again. “Do not go near those people. Stay in your room. I will sleep through the day. You rest, and I will come for you in the evening.”
“Very ambitious of you.” Gently she pushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead. “I think you’ll be in bed for a while.”
“Carpathians heal quickly. Jacques will see you home safely.”
“That really isn’t necessary,” she declined, uneasy in the presence of strangers.
“It is necessary for my peace of mind,” Mikhail said softly, his black eyes imploring her to give in to him. At Raven’s small nod he pushed his luck. “Before you go, please try another glass of juice. It will go a long way to alleviate my worry for you.” He knew by reading her mind that she had tried some juice earlier. Her stomach had rebelled, before the first sip had even passed her lips. He cursed himself for that. He was directly responsible for her body’s rejection of human nutrients. Raven was already far too thin. She couldn’t afford weight loss.
“The smell of it makes me sick,” she admitted, wanting to humor him but knowing it was impossible. “I think I really do have the flu. I’ll try later, Mikhail.”
“I will help you.” He murmured the words softly, his dark eyes clouded with worry. “I need to do this for you. Please, little one, allow me to do this simple thing.”
Behind her, the door opened and his three friends entered. One stood to the side of the door expectantly. He looked like a gentler version of Mikhail. “You must be Jacques.” Raven touched Mikhail’s cold hand once before leaving the room.