Dark Descent

The night air was crisp and clean and so fresh, Joie gratefully dragged it deep into her lungs. Fear was dissipating now that she was out in the open. She pulled her helmet from her head to allow the wind to comb through her hair. Stretching her arms toward the moon, she laughed softly. "I love the night. I love everything about it. It doesn't matter if its stormy or not."

She turned her head to look at Traian. His face was beautiful in the moonlight. "Worthy of a Greek god," she murmured, astonished that she felt so much for him, that her emotions were so strong and connected with his. His hair fell like black silk around his face to his shoulders. There wasn't so much as a smear of mud on his face. All traces of blood were gone from his chest, leaving only the raw gashes on his flesh.

Joie shook her head, stepping away from him, putting distance between them. She needed space, needed to find balance. "Thanks a lot for leaving me standing filthy and wet all by myself while you're all shined up and looking good. I'm not even going to ask how you did that."

His teeth gleamed at her, more the smile of a wolf than a man. "I have my little secrets. You are shivering. Hand me your pack and take this jacket." He enfolded her in the warmth of a suit jacket.

Joie decided not to ask him where he found the jacket either. "How did you find the way out? I couldn't see a thing." She sank down because all at once she was tired and she wanted to feel the ground under her. Traian had changed her entire life in the blink of an eye, and she didn't want to think too much about the bizarre world he lived in.

"There were signs if you knew what to look for. In the old times, Carpathians and Wizards were not enemies. We lived side by side and enjoyed the benefits of both races. We often used the same glyphs. I saw them as we moved through the halls." He crouched down beside her, touched her chin with gentle fingers. "Let me take you back to the inn where you are staying. You are tired and hungry and want a shower. You are also very worried about your brother and sister. You needn't be. I planted the symbols in your brother's mind to assure that they would find their way out quickly."

"Thank you, that was thoughtful of you. I was concerned, although both are experienced cavers. I just wanted them safe and away from vampires and traps. They'll be worried about me. I know Jubal hated leaving me behind, but he'll want to get Gabrielle back to safety as soon as possible. He'll take her straight to the inn." Joie swept a hand through her hair, pushing it back from her face. "I am tired, Traian. I feel as if I could sleep for a month."

He drew her to her feet, then simply lifted her, cradling her against his chest. Joie burst out laughing. "This is so medieval. Male carries little woman over mountain. Oh, the utter humiliation of it all." She wrapped her arms more tightly around his neck in case he thought to put her down. Joie allowed her head to drop back as she scanned the heavens. "If you ever tell a single soul I let you do this, I'll have to hurt you. I just want to be very clear on this."

Traian wanted to kiss her. More than anything, it seemed necessary to bend his head and find her mouth with his. Just taste her. Put in his claim. "What is your position on kissing?"

Joie stared up his mouth. The wicked, sinful temptation of it. "I'm thinking it over," she conceded. "If I let you kiss me, I'll melt on the spot. That's a given. I already know that, and it's so very humiliating. Worse than being carried around like I'm a fainting, weak bundle of femininity."

"True, but it would be worth it," he pointed out seriously.

She sighed and lifted her hand to his face, her fingertips tracing his sinful mouth. "Yes. But there's another consideration, Traian. You're going to be addicting. And then I won't be able to get you out of my system and I'll get all weepy when we have to part, and that's just more than I can bear, crying over some idiot man. Do you see the complications here?"

"Hmmm. I do see that might be a problem if we were ever to part, but since we are truly lifemates and have no choice but to be together, I do not really think it is of much importance. In fact, under the circumstances, being addicted to my kisses would be an asset." His strong teeth nipped her finger.

"The lifemate thing - see? That's part of the problem. I have this overwhelming need to be mistress of my own fate. I don't think I'm cut out to be a lifemate if it entails a have to sort of relationship. I'm a want to sort of woman. There is a difference."

"That is good, Joie. I do not foresee any problems whatsoever, because as we think so much alike. I am definitely a want to sort of man. And I want to kiss you."

There was a devilish smirk on his face, one she couldn't possibly resist. And who wanted to anyway? His mouth was descending toward hers, and Joie lifted her face to meet him halfway. Because this kiss was her choice, and he needed to know it.

Her lips were soft, yielding, welcoming even. After all the long centuries, Traian felt like he had come home. It didn't matter where they were, whose world they were in, she would always be home to him. The Earth stopped spinning, just as he knew it would. Bursts of starfire rained down around them. The embers smoldering deep in his belly burst into flame and raged through his bloodstream. His body knew her almost as intimately as his soul, though he hadn't even really touched her yet.

Joie couldn't think, couldn't breathe, forgot whether it was night or day. It was impossible to get her brain to function. She could only feel. Nothing had prepared her for the unrelenting pressure building so swiftly in her body, the heat rising, flames dancing along her skin, creating an inferno deep inside. Passion coiled tighter and tighter, a spring threatening to explode. Her breasts ached. Her fingers found the silk of his hair, crushed the thick mass in her palm. "You shouldn't be able to do this to me," she whispered into his mouth. Into his heart. "I don't let anyone inside."

"I am already inside you." His lips took hers again, over and over, long, drugging kisses that shook them both.

"It has to be the danger factor," she said. "It's the only logical explanation."

"Is there logic? I cannot remember." He couldn't get enough of her. Mud from her face smeared his. Her clothes were wet, soaking his. His wounds burned, but he couldn't feel the discomfort when his body was so heavy and hard with need.

His voice shook her. It was possessive. Husky. Perfect. A seduction in itself. It was Joie who pulled away, framing his face with her hands. She rested her forehead against his. "I need a minute here. I can't breathe, or think, or want anything but you."

His mouth curved into a smile. "Is that supposed to stop me?"

Her gray eyes studied every inch of his face. He could see her confusion. "Why do I feel like this? Does this make sense to you, Traian? I don't jump into relationships. All I can think about is having sex with you. Not just sex - wild, uninhibited sex."

His smile widened. "I think kissing you is the best idea I have ever had."

She couldn't help smiling back. He made her happy in a way she never had been. Complete when she hadn't known a part of her was missing. "Why you? You aren't even human."

"Your entire family has telepathic abilities. Are you certain you are human?"

Laughter spilled over. "Please don't ever ask my father that. He's outrageous, and he'll tell you some absolutely horrible and untrue tall tale, and we'll all be mortified."

The raw affection in her voice told him her father's outrageous stories never really mortified her and she loved the man very much. "That gives me hope. At least I know you plan on introducing me to your parents, but the list of dos and don'ts is growing." He bent his head to steal another kiss. "Hang on. I am about to take you flying."

She made a noise somewhere between laughter and strangling. "Has it occurred to you I might be afraid of flying?"

"You were engaged in astral projection the first time I laid eyes on you," he pointed out.

"I thought it was drug-induced," she admitted. "I'd been experimenting, but I didn't really believe I was actually accomplishing it. I thought I just sort of hypnotized myself. I would never have been so open with you had I thought you were real." Joie turned her face up to the sky, her head cradled on his shoulder.

"Then I am glad you thought you made me up. I think I will like your family very much. I have not had a family in so many years, the idea of one did not occur to me. Yet now, when I watch you with your brother and sister and feel the love you have for them, it makes me envious."

Her heart turned over at the longing in his voice. Joie had never thought she would feel so intensely about a man. The mere tone he used could make her shiver like the caress of fingers, or wrap around her heart like a fist. "I've never wanted to give myself to anyone, not wholly," she admitted, looking up at him. "Not all of me. I didn't want anyone to see inside me. But you already do, don't you?"

"Yes." Holding her close, protectively, he took to the air.

They soared across a night sky so dark it was nearly purple. A blanket of stars sparkled overhead. The few remaining storm clouds drifted rather than spun. Far below them the ground dropped away - mountains and valleys, forests and lakes hiding secrets best kept hidden for all time. A mixture of old and new.

Joie's breath caught in her throat. She was half terrified and half fascinated at the shape Traian had assumed. He had the enormous wings of a huge owl, yet human arms held her against the soft, feathered breast. The feathers tickled her skin, sent a shiver down her spine when she realized it was all too real.

Is this not better than thinking you are crazy?

The masculine amusement would have earned him a punch had they been on the ground. Sheer exhilaration was taking the place of fear.

I'm not certain I want you running around in my brain. It was perfectly natural to think I was hearing voices. Even when you are able to speak to your brother and sister telepathically? That's entirely different. We've always been able to speak to one another, but not anyone else. We just thought it was a Sanders sort of thing. My mom and dad can do it too. It could be considered arrogance to think that only your family was capable of telepathic communication.

Lights from the inn lit the ground below them. Traian dropped to earth some distance from the building, where the shadows were deep. Music spilled out of the two-story building, floating out in all directions. People mingled on the wraparound verandah and on most of the balconies, some dancing, some talking, and others pressed close to one another.

"The festival," Joie said. "I forgot about it. Look at me - I'm a mess."

"You look beautiful to me," Traian objected. "Which room is yours?"

"Second story, third balcony on the left." She grinned at him. "Are we floating?"

"Is the window locked?"

"That wouldn't stop me. I have second-story skills."

His eyebrow shot up. "I am very impressed. I am a hunter and I am certain those skills could come in handy."

She narrowed her gaze, locking her fingers behind his neck. "They come in handy for a bodyguard. I do have a business, and I'm known to be one of the best."

"I'm sure you are." He took her into the sky fast, enjoying the way she clung to him, tightening her arms and gasping as he shot up.

Don't you laugh at me. I'm not laughing. I can feel you laughing. You know, it isn't normal to fly through the sky. It is normal for me.

The balcony floor felt solid beneath her feet. She let go of his neck immediately. "Great, I would have to do this with a hundred people around."

"They cannot see you. I have shielded us from their eyes."

She glanced at him over her shoulder. "We're invisible? Sheesh. Is your life easy or what? I wouldn't mind being invisible in my line of work. No wonder those things are afraid of you."

"They fly, and they can cloak their presence as well."

Joie pushed open the door to her room. "How perfectly charming of them. Where do they come from?"

Traian followed her into the room. She heard his heavy sigh and turned around to face him. "I'm not going to like your answer."

"Vampires are Carpathians who have chosen to give up their souls for a brief moment of power, the thrill of the kill. Our males lose their emotions and the ability to see in color after the first two hundred years of existence. Some earlier, some later, but all of us eventually lose everything we hold sacred if we do not find a life-mate. Our race has few women and fewer children. We are on the verge of extinction. There is little hope, and more and more of our males are turning."

There was compassion in her eyes. "How terribly sad for all of you. So you and the other hunters are forced to police the vampires. Even if they were once boyhood friends... or family."

He nodded, astonished at the wealth of understanding he read in her expression. She clearly saw what others did not: deep below the surface, every destruction of a childhood friend or cousin had cut pieces out of his soul until he feared there was little left. Yet her understanding, the compassion washing over him, changed something. He felt it, felt the first healing touch and the power a lifemate wielded. She stood there in her filthy clothes with mud smeared all over her face, and she was beautiful to him. A lump the size of his fist rose in his throat, and he turned away from her, afraid of allowing her to see the emotion threatening to choke him. How could she possibly understand what she meant to him? "I'm sorry, Traian. I know I can't begin to understand what it must have been like, but I feel the weight of it in your mind." More than that, she felt how alone he had been. The intensity of his pain shook her. His life had been stark. Ugly. Bleak. She caught frightening glimpses of scenes in his past. Terrible battles that lasted for hours. Severe injuries. Death all around him. No one to comfort him. No one to care.

"This is becoming a habit."

Joie closed her eyes briefly, overwhelmed by longing, by the need to wrap her arms around him and just hold him. "I have to contact Jubal and Gabrielle. I can feel that they're close, so I'm certain they made it." When she picked up the phone to dial their rooms, her hand was trembling.

Traian waited while she talked to her siblings, assuring them she was fine and that she would meet them downstairs after she showered. She was instantly relaxed, laughing, her voice soft with love, firm with reassurance. He had forgotten so much. Just the tone of her voice brought back memories of his life before he left his homeland to answer the call of his prince.

Joie was uncomfortably aware of her appearance now that Traian was staring at her. "I need to take a shower."

"Is that an invitation?"

She stared at him, at the hard angles and planes of his face. At his dark, fathomless eyes. If the attraction between them was merely physical, Joie would have thrown him on the bed and ripped his clothes off right there. But he stirred unfamiliar feelings in her. Deep and frightening feelings for a woman in charge of her own destiny.

With indecision written so clearly on her face, Traian felt as if his world was balanced on the point of a needle. He was afraid to move. Afraid to speak. He knew their joining was inevitable. He would have her. She was his. She belonged to him. But he still wanted it to be her decision. He wanted her to want him in the same way he wanted her.

"It's a small shower stall," she said.

She put both hands behind her back and knew that she was afraid of the next step. But she took it because she was nothing if not courageous. She lifted her chin and smiled at him in invitation.

He didn't wait for her to come to him; he took the few steps separating them and swept her up into his arms. Joie smiled at him.