Carpathian 06 - Dark Fire

did so.
    Tempest gasped and clutched at the leathery scales rippling over his body. She closed her eyes against the earth falling away from her, against the wind rushing around her. She felt safe and protected in his arms, as strange as those two appendages now appeared. It was amazing to her that he could do that-shape-shift, fly through the air, and expect her to accept it as an everyday occurrence.
    Darius whisked them across the glittering sky, needing the feel of her close to him. He took her over a moun-tain and back toward high ground near a waterfall. It seemed as if they hovered there alone on top of the world. Below, the mist rose to meet them, vapors from the waterfall rising to encompass them, to surround them in a cloud.
    As the huge dragon's clawed feet touched down, Darius was shape-shifting again. One moment Tempest was staring up at a wedge-shaped head bending toward her, recognizing only the familiar hunger burning in its black eyes. Then, as the head moved closer, the dragon became Darius, his perfect mouth hovering inches above hers. Her breath caught in her throat, and her heart slammed alarmingly.
    "You can't," she breathed against his lips.
    "I have to," he countered, meaning it. There was no other choice for him. He had to taste her, hold her possess her totally. His fear had been so great that, on his rising, his mind and body could accept no other than completing the ritual, making her irrevocably his. It no longer mattered to him that it was against his law against everything he believed in. He had to have her have the right to keep her safe at all times.
    His lips moved over hers, gently at first, a sweet coaxing that rapidly changed as he fastened his mouth to hers hungrily. Tempest felt flames rushing throughout her body. He had started a fire there was no way to quench. A fire that would consume them both. Yet Tern pest didn't care. Her heart might pound with a mixture of fear and excitement, but nothing would change what would be. And she knew it would be.
    She would belongs to Darius for all time. Once he possessed her, he would never let her go.
    "I would never have let you go anyway, honey," he murmured against her throat. "Never." He was carrying her with his usual casual strength up the faint trail lead ing to the top of the falls.
    "Are you planning to throw me over?" she asked, be mused by the intensity in the depths of his eyes, by the fire racing through their bodies.
    "If I had any sense, I would," he replied gruffly.
    There was a cavern behind the falls, and he carried her right through the mist and moisture to it. The cave was narrow, sloping downward into the mountain itself
    "Have I mentioned to you that I have a problem with small spaces?" she asked, trying not to put a stranglehold on his neck.
    "Have I mentioned to you that I have a problem with anyone who disobeys me?" he countered, stopping in the narrow tunnel to find her mouth once again.
    Perhaps he intended the hard kiss as a punishment, or a distraction, but the earth was already moving Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    under their feet, the world tilting and spinning crazily the moment he touched his lips to hers. Hunger was a craving they fed one another. When he lifted his head, his dark eyes were blazing at her. "If I do not have you soon, baby, the world itself will go up in flames."
    "It isn't my fault," Tempest absolved herself, touching a finger to her mouth in awe. "It's you. You're lethal, Darius."
    He found he could smile then. In spite of the urgent, painful demands of his body and the fear she had put him through, even his anger that she had tried to leave him, she could make him smile. She could melt his heart. Here he was, the leader of his people, an ancient, one with enormous strength and tremendous knowledge, his word law, his commands obeyed without question. She was a small, fragile, human female, and he was putty in her hands.
    The tunnel led deep within the bowels of the earth itself. It was warm and moist, the sound of water ever present. It seeped from the sides of the tunnel and trickled from the curved ceiling above their heads.
    Tempest inspected her surroundings warily, not liking the fact that they were in a volcanic range of mountains and it was decidedly warm. "Have you ever been here before?"
    He heard the note of nervousness in her voice. "Of course I have, many times. We spend a great deal of our time below ground. The earth speaks to