Dark Possession(37)

"Take me back to the house. Can you find your way?"

"I do not want to lead danger back to the others."

"If a vampire is hanging around the neighborhood, my guess is he knows all about the others. We're safer in numbers, especially if you aren't going to be with us." The idea of him leaving her alone caused instant panic. Her throat swelled until air could barely get through to her lungs, but she refused to give in to fear. He was Carpathian and she was human…

MaryAnn went rigid. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute." She held up both hands, palms out as if she could block the information flowing into her. "Did you take my blood?"

"Of course."

There was that puzzlement again, as if she was maybe not quite as bright as he'd expected. "And you think I'm the other half to your soul. Destiny told me that in your society the man can marry the woman without her consent and bind them together. Is that true? Did you do that to us?"

"Of course."

MaryAnn scrubbed a hand over her face. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "How many times does it take to convert a person to Carpathian?"

"It takes three blood exchanges if they are not already Carpathian."

She bit down hard on the end of her thumb, memory flooding her. She looked down at her fingernail-the one she had broken earlier in the forest. It had grown to the length of the others and then some. All of her fingernails had grown. Sometimes that was a problem. She had to cut them often, but not daily. Maybe it was the Carpathian blood accelerating the growth. "How many times have you exchanged blood with me?"

Her palm slid over the mark on her breast. It still throbbed and burned as if his mouth was on it. Why could she imagine that all of a sudden? Why was she so certain his mouth had been there? Why could she feel his mouth, burning like a brand, against her skin when his lips should never have been there? Not skin to skin. He had kissed her, slid his mouth over her; she still had a warm, wet spot on the nearly nonexistent lace of her bra. As sexy as it had been, it wasn't his mouth on her skin, so why was the memory suddenly so strong?

"I would imagine many times."

She inhaled sharply. "You don't really know, do you? Manolito, if you don't know, and I don't know, we could be in real trouble.! am not Carpathian. I was born in Seattle. I went to school there and then to Berkeley, in California. If it's true that you've exchanged blood with me, I know I haven't gone through the conversion. I would know if I had to sleep in the ground. I'm still just me."

"That cannot be so. I remember taking your blood, binding us together. You are a part of me. I cannot be mistaken."

She opened her mind and memories to him. "I'm telling the truth when I say I haven't met you before. It's the truth that I saw you at a party in the Carpathian Mountains, but we were never formally introduced. I am physically attracted, but I don't know you at all." Okay, wildly physically attracted, but this was serious and she could overlook it-she hoped. Everything was falling into place. The things Riordan and Juliette had told her were beginning to make sense. Her heart thudded hard.

He was silent, assessing her memories of him, dwelling a little too long over the one he found of a man coming into her house and attacking her. He felt the lengthening of his sharp teeth and the demon within roaring for release. Very carefully, he hid his reaction. She was coping with enough, and if he had somehow brought her into his life without her knowledge-or his-raging like he wanted to because she hadn't been safe would only make things worse.

"If what you say is true, MaryAnn, then how is it we are lifemates? Speaking the ritual words cannot connect two people who arc not one. I could say them to every woman I met, but it would do me no good."

"Maybe you made a mistake," she ventured. "Maybe we aren't really connected."

"I see in color. I feel emotions. I can think of no other woman but you. I want no other woman. I recognize your soul. We are lifemates." His voice was firm, brooking no argument.

MaryAnn couldn't find an argument. While it was true that she didn't know everything about Carpathian life, she knew enough that the possibility was strong. Judging by her reaction to him alone, she had to admit it was probable. "All right. Say we are lifemates, Manolito. You say you wronged me in some way and that is why you're stuck here. Why do you think that?"

His thumb slid up the back of her hand, stroking tiny caresses over the silky smooth skin. He bent his head to nibble the pad of her thumb while he thought about it, the gesture automatic, sexy, burning through her with ease. "I felt like I was being judged for something I had done to you. I should know if I wronged you."