Carpathian 01 - Dark Prince

throat. "Is it that you still want to run from me? Am I really so terrible? I would never allow any living creature, man or beast, to harm you, not if it was in my power to prevent it. I thought our hearts and minds were in the same place. Am I wrong?
    Is it that you no longer want me?"
    His words tore at her heart. "It isn't that, Mikhail, never that," she denied quickly, afraid she had hurt him. "You defeat my every good intention." She caressed his face with her fingertips, reverence in her touch. "You are the most fascinating man I've ever known. I feel as if I belong here with you, as though I know you completely. It's impossible in the short time we've been together. I know if I could put some distance between us, I could think more clearly. Everything happened so fast. It's as though I'm obsessed with you. I don't want to make a mistake that will cause both of us pain."
    His hand cupped her cheek. "It would cause me great pain if you were to desert me, to leave me alone again after I have found you."
    "I just want some time, Mikhail, to think things through. It's frightening, the way I am about you. I think about you every minute; I want to touch you, just to know I can, to feel you beneath my fingers. It's as if you crawled into my head and my heart, even my body, and I can't get you out." She said it like a confession, her head bent, ashamed.
    Mikhail took her hand, tugged at her to get her walking with him. "This is the way of my people, the way we feel about a mate. It is not always comfortable, is it? We are passionate by nature, highly sexual, and very possessive. The things that you are feeling, I feel, too."
    Her fingers tightened around his, and she sent him a small, tentative smile. "Am I right in thinking you're deliberately keeping me here?"
    Mikhail shrugged his broad shoulders. "Yes and no. I do not want to force you against your will, but as to my wanting you to stay, I believe us to be lifemates, bound more irrevocably than by your marriage ceremony. I would be extremely uncomfortable without you here, both in body and mind. I do not know how I would react to your contact with another man and, quite frankly, I fear it."
    "We really are from two different worlds, aren't we?" she asked sadly.
    He brought her hand to the warmth of his mouth. "There is such a thing as compromise, little one. We can move between the two worlds or create our own."
    Her blue eyes slid over him, a faint smile touching her mouth. "That sounds so good, Mikhail, so twentieth century, but somehow I think it's more likely I would be the one compromising."

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    With his strange old-world courtesy, Mikhail held up a branch for her to pass beneath. The path was a large oval leading back to his home. "Perhaps you are right"—male amusement again—"but then, it has always been my nature to control and protect. I have no doubt you are more than a match for me."
    "Then why are we back at your house instead of at the inn?" she asked, one hand on her hip and a smile dancing in her blue eyes.
    "What would you do there so late at night anyway?" His voice was pure velvet, more enticing than ever.
    "Stay with me tonight. You can read while I work, and I will teach you how to build better shields to protect yourself from the unwanted emotions of those around you."
    "How about for my hearing? Your little medicinal concoctions have increased my hearing to the point of absurdity." She arched an eyebrow at him. "Do you have any idea what else is going to happen to me?"
    His teeth grazed the back of her neck, his fingers brushed across her breast possessively. "I have all kinds of ideas, little one."
    "I'll just bet you do. I think you're a sex maniac, Mikhail." Raven slipped out of his grasp. "I think you put something in that concoction to make me a sex maniac, too." She seated herself at the table, calmly picked up her glass of juice, and looked up at him steadily. "Did you?"
    "Drink that slowly," he ordered absently. "Where do you come up with your ideas? I have been so careful with you. Have you felt me giving you suggestions?"
    She found herself reluctant to drink. "You're always making me sleep." Raven took a cautious sniff of the juice. Pure apple, nothing else. She hadn't had a thing to eat or drink in nearly twenty-four hours, so why was she reluctant?
    "You needed to sleep," he said without remorse. Mikhail watched her with his brooding, hawklike