Carpathian 06 - Dark Fire

eat a thing, Desari, but thank you. I just want to go sleep for a week or so."
    Darius glanced at his sister, a quick, steady look she could read all too easily.
    She nodded almost imperceptibly. "Come on, we must allow them to clean up a bit."
    Barack growled low in his throat. "Syndil, Sasha has need of our healing powers. I will carry her, and you bring the herbs."
    Syndil's eyebrows shot up. "Have you forgotten we are entertaining a guest? I was going to fix him dinner and then take a walk with him."
    Barack caught her arm just above the elbow. "Don't keep baiting me, Syndil. I have only so much patience."
    She gave him a haughty look. "I do not have to answer to you, barbarian. Not now, not ever."
    "Dayan can walk with your precious guest into the woods. I will send Forest hunting him," Barack snapped. "You will stay with me."
    "I think you have forgotten yourself." Syndil glared at him. "I am leaving for a while, taking a small vacation."
    There was a moment's silence. Darius's head snapped up, his black eyes burning, but he refrained from the violent protest welling up within him. Dayan paused in the act of heading out of the bus, his face all at Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    once harsh. Even Julian stilled as if Syndil had dropped a bombshell.
    "With that human?" Barack hissed softly, menacingly, between clenched teeth.
    Syndil stuck her chin in the air belligerently. "It is not your business."
    Barack's hand slid up her arm to the nape of her neck. He caught her chin in his palm, holding her still while he bent his head to hers. His mouth fastened on hers right in front of them all. Hot. Burning.
    Sweeping away everything that had gone before and replacing it with heat, with a smoldering fire. Barack lifted his head reluctantly. "You are mine, Syndil. No one else will have you."
    "You cannot just decide that," she whispered, her hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes wide with shock.
    "No?" He placed both hands on her shoulders. "In the presence of our family, I claim you for my own. I claim you as my lifemate. I belong to you. I offer my life for you. I give to you my protection, my allegiance, my heart, my soul, and my body. I take into my keeping the same that is yours. Your life, happiness, and welfare will be cherished and placed above my own for all time. You are my lifemate, bound to me for all eternity and always in my care." He spoke the words aloud, decisively, furious with her that she couldn't see it, that she refused to acknowledge his right to her.
    "What have you done?" Syndil wailed. She looked at Darius. "He cannot do that. He has bound us together without my consent. He cannot do it. Tell him, Darius. He must obey you." She sounded on the verge of hysteria.
    "Have you never wondered why Barack did not lose his feelings as Dayan and I did?" Darius asked her gently. "He laughed where we could not. He felt desire where we could not."
    "With every human groupie who gave him the eye. I do not want such a lifemate," Syndil said firmly.
    "Take it back, Barack, right now. Take it back."
    "Well, that is too damned bad," Barack snapped. "I am your lifemate, and I have known it for some time. You merely refused to see it."
    "I do not want a lifemate," Syndil protested. "I will not have some pompous male directing my life."
    Barack's harsh features softened to sensual male beauty. "Fortunately for you, Syndil, I am not pompous. I have a need to discuss this with you while we are alone. Come with me."
    She was shaking her head even as he was drawing her out of the bus.
    When they were gone, Desari turned to her brother. "Did you know? All this time, did you know?"
    "I suspected," Darius answered. "Barack saw colors. He retained so much of what Dayan and I lost.
    When Savon attacked Syndil, Barack was a monster unlike anything I had ever tried to control. He raged for weeks, so much so that Dayan had to lend me his strength to keep him under control."
    "I did not realize," Desari said softly.
    "We kept it from you because he was so violent and angry, we worried for his sanity. After losing Savon, we didn't want to worry you with the possibility of losing Barack also. I realized he was experiencing not only the male need to protect but also the grief and rage, the violation and betrayal, Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    Syndil was feeling."
    "He went to ground for some time," Desari remembered.
    "I sent him to