“Coward,” Dante interrupted, affectionately. “I know you would like me to tie you up. Your heart sped up at the suggestion.”
Mary flushed, but forged on as if he hadn’t interrupted. “Joe and I got back together, but this time it was totally different than the first part of our marriage. We were equals, and friends. We had learned how to communicate with each other, and made sure we did. The last twenty-eight years of our marriage were wonderful. We enjoyed ourselves and each other and did everything together.” She paused then added, “But maybe it wasn’t as great as I thought. Because I trusted he was faithful to me after that, but apparently Dave—”
“Dave was much younger in his memories of his catting-around days with your husband,” Dante interrupted solemnly. “It is most likely they occurred during those fifteen years when you and Joe were having your war of a thousand tortures.”
Mary breathed out a little sigh of relief at this news, obviously glad Joe hadn’t betrayed her again after all the work they’d done to save their marriage. Dante supposed it would have put a pall on what she presently considered the happiest years of her life. But he intended to show her what true happiness was. He would spend the rest of his days doing so. He would never betray her, would always want her, and once he turned her, she would be able to have those children she had always longed for. And Dante would be happy to give them to her. In fact, he knew without a doubt that he would enjoy planting them in her belly and fully intended on practicing doing so the first chance he got. And he would continue that practice until he could convince her to accept being his life mate and agree to the turn, then he would keep her in bed for a year whether she got pregnant quickly or not.
Dante glanced to her again and almost sighed aloud. The woman might think she was too old for him, but he could not look at her without thinking about getting her naked. The things he wanted to do to her . . . and would already be doing to her if not for the constant interruptions and then the arrival of the box and the need to save his brother. But once they had captured his and Tomasso’s kidnappers . . .
By the time he was done, Dante was determined the woman would know how beautiful and sexy she really was.
“War of a thousand tortures?”
Dante glanced to her at that squawk. She’d obviously just realized what he’d called the fifteen years of misery during the first part of her marriage. Shrugging, he said, “That is what those years sound like to me.” Smiling to soften his words, he added, “And I will be most careful not to anger you ever.”
Mary chuckled at the claim, and then fell silent for a moment before glancing at him curiously. “Can you really hear my heartbeat?”
“Si.”
“How?” she asked curiously. “I mean the engine is humming, the windows are cracked open and a breeze is coming in, and everything is jingling and rattling in the back. How can you possibly hear my heart over all of that?”
“The nanos—”
“And where the hell did the fangs come from?” she burst out suddenly, bringing up something that had been nagging at the back of her mind since he’d bitten Dave. “You said the nanos kept your people at peak condition. Peak condition for humans does not include fangs for sucking blood.”
“They—”
“Come to that,” she interrupted again, growing a bit agitated. “Reading and controlling minds isn’t a usual condition for humans either, at their peak condition or not.”
“Mary?” he said softly.
“Yes?”
“Sta’zitto,” he suggested gently, and then added, “Per favore.”
Mary blinked. “What does that mean?”
“Please, shut up,” he translated, his tone affectionate. “I will explain if you just let me.”
Mary narrowed her eyes, but nodded, and waited for these explanations.
“In Atlantis, the nanos kept their hosts at their peak condition. “But, as I mentioned, Atlantis fell and the survivors, the ones with the nanos, found themselves in a world much less advanced. There were no more transfusions. No more blood. But the nanos had work to do, and kept using the blood that was in their host.” Dante paused briefly to narrow his eyes at the rear camera screen, and then continued, “Grandfather says it was a bad time. When the blood is low in the veins, the nanos seek it out in the organs. It is very painful. Many of the survivors died. Often killing themselves.”
“So you can die?” she asked. “You aren’t really immortal?”
“We can die, but it is hard to kill us. You must cut off the head and make sure it is kept away from the body for a certain amount of time. Or we can burn to death.”