Carpathian 13 - Dark Destiny

slightly. A small signal, but MaryAnn noted it. She watched the younger woman examine a painting on the wall. The silence stretched between them until MaryAnn was certain Destiny wouldn't respond.
    "He came to me when I was a child." The voice, usually so beautiful, was strangled, a choked whisper of sound. "I might have been six. It's hard to remember. Time isn't the same for me anymore. It's endless and stretches out forever."
    "Is it difficult to remember because it was a painful time?"
    Destiny touched the painting, traced the outline of the child. "I prefer not to remember it. I closed the door on that part of my life."
    MaryAnn nodded. She laced her fingers and regarded Destiny over her hands. "That's a self-preservation technique that abused and traumatized children often have to employ to survive. They have compartments in their minds to safely put things away in so they can move on." Her voice was without judgment. "Do you associate Nicolae with that time in your life?"
    "Nicolae is…" Destiny hesitated, searching for the right word. "Magic. Not real. A dream that can't possibly be true. He's like a white knight. The hero in an action film, larger than life and only a figment of the imagination."
    "Destiny." MaryAnn waited until the other woman turned to look at her. "What would happen if Nicolae was real and not a dream at all?"
    Destiny lifted her hand to eye level, held it out for MaryAnn to see. They both watched it tremble uncontrollably. "He could take everything away from me. Everything I am, everything I've worked so hard to achieve, to become. He could rip me apart, and I would turn to ashes in the sun."
    "You're saying you're very vulnerable to him, and that frightens you. He is capable of hurting you if you let him in."
    "I'm saying he could destroy me. I've been destroyed once and I rebuilt my life into something." Destiny ducked her head. Nicolae had given her back her life, had made her into what she was. And now he was asking her to change all over again.
    "I think it is natural for anyone entering into a relationship, a partnership, to be frightened of being hurt, don't you, Destiny? When we allow ourselves to love, we're always vulnerable. Everyone is, Destiny. It wasn't that long ago that you were leery of having a simple friendship," MaryAnn pointed out.
    "Because it would bring you into a dangerous world. It did bring you into that world." Destiny sighed and took another turn around the office. "I could destroy him."
    There it was. Out in the open. The words had slipped out before she could stop them. Maybe she'd wanted to tell MaryAnn all along. Maybe that was why she had been drawn to this place of peace. To tell the truth to someone who mattered to her.
    MaryAnn pushed back her chair and moved around the desk to lean her hip against the edge. "That's what you want to talk about, isn't it? You're worried about Nicolae."

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    "You said you have a talent. That you can read women. What do you see in me?" Destiny lifted her chin almost belligerently, her gaze steady on MaryAnn's.
    MaryAnn allowed her breath to escape her lungs in a rush. "Seeing things is not always comfortable.
    You're certain you want me to tell you?"
    Destiny shrugged with studied casualness. "I could just as easily read your mind, MaryAnn. But I respect you and, unless it is for your own protection or the protection of others, I would never violate the trust between us by reading your mind without permission."
    "I know you are tied in some way that I can't understand to Nicolae. It is beyond the boundaries of the earth. And I know you were hideously abused and you fear that staying with him will somehow cause his destruction. Nicolae is a strong man. I've never encountered anyone with his sheer power." MaryAnn tilted her head to one side, regarding Destiny carefully. "Why are you so certain you're not just what Nicolae needs? I think you are. I think you're exactly what he needs. I know you're what he wants.
    Every time he looks at you that longing is in his eyes."
    Destiny waved MaryAnn's remark aside. They had come full circle. She had already ranted about the way Nicolae looked at her, she didn't need MaryAnn to point it out to her. She knew he wanted her, that he needed her. She also knew the price might be more than either of them could afford. She swept her hair away from her eyes. "There aren't just a few small problems,