She couldn’t feel this urgent hunger clawing at her. She had sacrificed being a woman for her family. She couldn’t go back on that. She wouldn’t know how.
“Hän sívamak,” he said softly, right into her mouth. He poured the endearment down her throat. Into her lungs so that she breathed—him. The word found her veins and crawled inside, to spread through her body like hot lava, burning her from the inside out.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered. She couldn’t find her voice or her attitude. Her sea hag had disappeared completely. She just refused to come out around this man.
“My lifemate is my home and she is hän sívamak—beloved.”
Beloved. She couldn’t be anyone’s beloved. “I’m a grandmother,” she blurted out. “I’m a great-grandmother. I’m probably old enough to be your grandmother. I am not your beloved. You have to stop kissing me because I think there’s some kind of law against it. And if there’s not, there should be.”
“I am centuries old. An ancient among my people. I am locked in this monastery away from all humans. Away from my own people, those I have protected all of my existence, because it is not safe to be among them. Or it was not. Now, with you, it is. You will bring hope to my brethren here. My beautiful, beloved lifemate.”
She was horrified. Hor-rif-ied. “Now you’re talking crazy. Seriously crazy. Centuries, in case your English isn’t so good, means hundreds of years. People don’t live that long.”
He had to stop stroking her skin. His fingers had gone to the nape of her neck and just stayed there. She squirmed a little to remind him she was half lying on a sleeping bag and he was half lying over the top of her and this wasn’t going to happen. Even if he could kiss like sin. Even if he looked like sin. Even if he was sin.
“Humans do not live that long,” he corrected gently, and leaned in to brush his mouth over hers. “There is no need to tremble. I could never harm you, but we are tied together now and the ritual must be completed. I am far too close to darkness to wait. You want me. I want you.”
She pushed at his chest again, giving it some muscle this time. He didn’t rock back so much as an inch. In fact, he didn’t appear to notice.
“I have news for you, Fane. Any woman would want you. But it isn’t going to happen. Not with me. There’s really pretty women down in the village and you just have to waltz right in and any number of them will oblige you.” It hurt to say the words. In fact they tasted bitter in her mouth. She was encouraging this gorgeous man who wanted her to find someone else. Better now than later, when he realized she wasn’t the only woman available to him, and once he saw the others he would throw her away. Just like before. And that hurt. Bad. She wasn’t going there again. Not ever.
“Lady, you think I do not see your mind? I see you. The one you hide away from everyone else. That is my woman. The woman belonging to me. And I know what the English word centuries means.”
For one horrible moment she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t know why she believed him, but she did. He was centuries old. He had perfect skin and perfect teeth. He had the body of a man who was a warrior and maybe in his late thirties. She was not going there with him just for that alone. Sheesh. Was he crazy?
“I need my gun back. If you’re centuries old and you sleep underground, you have to be a vampire and I’m obligated to kill you.”
He moved. Just inches. That was all—a few inches—but she found herself on her back, staring up at his beautiful face. That mouth. Those eyes. Her heart pounded in anticipation, not fear. That in itself was scary. He was scary. Everything about him was scary because she couldn’t seem to find the strength to shove him off her and make a mad scramble for the gun.
He brushed back her hair and framed her face with his hands. “You are obsessed with that silly gun. Hän sívamak, it will not kill me. It will not kill a vampire. You are clinging to it because you are afraid to face being my lifemate.”
“You aren’t human,” she pointed out. Again her voice refused to go above a whisper and there wasn’t a single note of snark. Or attitude. She felt exposed and vulnerable, afraid he could really read her mind, and that would be so embarrassing.
“Would you kill me because I am not human?” His eyes stayed on hers, holding her captive while the pad of his thumb traced her lips. “Would you, Trixie? Would you kill me simply because I am not human?”
There was no way she could kill him. Not really. She had closed her eyes when she fired the stake gun, but it was rather jerky of him to point it out. “No.” His song was too beautiful. His music was already wrapped around hers. She heard their song, their harmony, the way they belonged.