Carpathian 01 - Dark Prince

Unfortunately, it turned into something altogether different. Believe me, I had no intention of getting hurt. A careless accident."
    "You have this penchant for getting yourself into trouble when I'm not with you." Raven's smile did not quite reach her eyes. "How bad is your leg?"
    "A scratch, no more; nothing for you to worry about."
    She was silent again, her blue eyes moving over his face with a faraway, pensive look, as if she had turned inward.
    Mikhail felt something twisting deep in his gut. She had that look, the one that meant she was thinking too much again. It was the last thing he wanted when he lay wounded, forced to go to ground at the first opportunity. He did not want her pulling away from him, and there was something in her stillness that worried him. She couldn't leave him. He knew that intellectually, but he didn't want her to want to leave him, to even be able to think about it. "You are angry with me." He made it a statement.
    Raven shook her head. "No, I'm honestly not. Maybe disappointed in you." She looked sad. "You said there could be no lies between us, yet at the first opportunity, you did lie to me." For a moment her small teeth bit down hard on her lower lip. There was a sheen of tears in her eyes, but she blinked them away impatiently. "When you're asking for so much trust, Mikhail, it seems to me you need to trust me as well.
    You should have had more respect for me, at least for my abilities. I hunt using a psychic link. I trail using someone else's eyes. Some of you people are very sloppy and complacent. A few of you don't even bother with mind blocks. All of you are so arrogant, it doesn't occur to you that a human, not one of your superior race, can crawl inside your minds. You've got someone out there just like me, fingering your people for death. If I can get inside your minds, she can do it. My advice, for what it's worth, is to take far more precautions."
    Raven stepped away from Mikhail's placating outstretched hand. "I'm just trying to save your lives, not be vindictive." It was only pride that was keeping her from falling apart. Already she felt the loss of him, of their unique closeness. Somehow she knew there would never be another man, another time in her life when she laughed and talked the way they had and was totally accepted and comfortable. "You don't need to say anything else, Mikhail. I saw your little scratch firsthand. You were right; you weren't alone out there—I was watching. Honesty in my language means truth."
    Raven took a deep breath, tugged off the ring, and laid it carefully, regretfully, on the small table beside the bed. "I'm sorry, Mikhail, I really am. I know I'm letting you down, but I don't fit into this world of yours. I don't understand it, or the rules. Please do me the courtesy of staying away, of not trying to contact me. We both know I'm no real match for you. I'm leaving on the first available train."
    She turned and started toward the door. It flew shut with a loud crash. She stared at it, not turning around. The air was thick with tension, with some dark feeling, one she couldn't put a name to. "I don't think it's going to do any good to prolong this. You need help right now. Obviously whatever they intend is some secret thing not to be shown to outsiders. I am just that. Let me go home where I belong, Mikhail, and let them help you now."

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    "Leave us," Mikhail ordered the others. They obeyed reluctantly.
    "Raven, come here to me, please. I am weak and it would take most of my strength to come to you."
    There was a gentleness in his voice, an honesty she found heartbreaking.
    She closed her eyes against the power in his voice, the soft caressing tone that rubbed sensuously like black velvet over her skin and crawled into her body, wrapping itself around her heart. "Not this time, Mikhail. We not only live in two different worlds, we have two separate value systems. We tried—I know you wanted to—but I can't do this. Maybe I never could have. It happened too fast and we don't really know one another."
    "Raven." Heat curled in her very name. "Come here to me."
    She pressed her fingers to her forehead. "I can't, Mikhail. If I let you get around me again, I'll lose respect for myself."
    "Then I have no choice but to come to you." He shifted his weight, using his hands to move his injured leg.
    "No!" Alarmed, she whirled around. "Stop it, Mikhail. I'm calling the