Carpathian 08 - Dark Legend

allowed the towel to drop to the floor, simultaneously clothing herself in the manner of her kind as she did so. "I have to go out this night." She was not going to be drawn into an argument with him.
    "If you seek nourishment, I will provide for you," Gabriel said smoothly.
    She fought to keep color from sweeping up her neck and into her face. She didn't want to think about the way he would provide for her. He turned the simple act of feeding into a sexual intimacy. "Thank you very much for the offer, but I am going to the hospital. There was a message from Brice about another patient."
    Gabriel reached out and wrapped his fingers around her slender wrist, a shackle she couldn't possibly break. He wasn't hurting her; in fact his touch was gentle, but even if she had struggled desperately, she would never have broken his grip. "I will keep what is mine, Francesca. Do not put this doctor in the middle of our battle."
    "There is no battle, Gabriel," she replied softly. "Brice is my friend. I go to the hospital often to give aid where it is needed. It is a large part of my life, of who I am. It has nothing to do with Brice, other than that he happens to be a doctor and we're friends."
    "You are reaching for him in your mind because he is simple. He is someone you are familiar and comfortable with. I frighten you."
    Her dark eyes rested on his face. "I don't know exactly what you're planning to do, Gabriel, but I can read your intent. You think to stop me from doing the things I have planned for so long."
    Gabriel shrugged casually, not bothering to deny the obvious. "Perhaps it would help if you considered other possibilities, another way of life."
    "Because you think you've changed your lifestyle. You haven't, you know. In a day or two there will be a killing in this city and you will be on the hunt without a backward glance, without a single thought for me, just as you did before."
    Gabriel smiled at her, his teeth very white. "I will have no choice but to hunt the vampire, but I will not only look back, I will come back."
    Francesca twisted her wrist experimentally, reminding him to release her. "There's no real need to hurry," she said coolly. Even as she said it, even as she tried to dismiss him, she was reaching up to smooth his collar.
    At once Gabriel felt the same soothing calm he had experienced from the moment she had first touched him. He had not realized just how tight he was inside. Francesca recognized it and knew what to do to relax him. "You are a great man, Gabriel, a legend among our people, and your reputation is well deserved. I wish that I could give you all that you should have." Francesca's long lashes swept down to conceal the deep sorrow and guilt in her eyes. "But I had a life before you came here. I don't know you. My body reacts as a Carpathian lifemate's should, but my heart is not yours."
    Gabriel brought her hand up to her chest and held it over his heart. "You feel admiration for this human doctor, Francesca, I can read it easily in your mind, but do not mistake it for love."
    "Why do you believe I could not love a human man?"
    "Because you are my lifemate and there is only one man for you. I am here now, Francesca. I should have been here sooner, but I am here now. Do not allow fear to send you running to this man."
    "I have felt affection for Brice for a long time, Gabriel. It is true I was entertaining the idea of sharing my last years with him. I deserve some semblance of happiness in so long a lifetime." Francesca could not understand why she was feeling guilty. She owed Gabriel nothing. She had asked him not to bind them together, yet he had done so. She felt cornered and confused.
    "You enjoy this doctor's company because you share his interests. You are a born healer. He, too, heals people. But that commonality is not love, Francesca. Affection, admiration and friendship do not add up to love."
    "If he had asked me to marry him, Gabriel, you would have found him living with me."
    Gabriel's black eyes moved over her face. Very gently he reached out to tug her chin up. "I do not have to read your mind to know just how often he has asked this question of you. No man, human or otherwise, would take long to try to make you his. You do not love him, Francesca."
    "I don't love you, Gabriel. And that matters to me. I have lived far too long to enter into a relationship at this late date because I wish to experience sex."
    His eyes laughed at her. "Great sex," he corrected.
    A small