Carpathian 18 - Dark Possesion

you're a coward. You want me to take all the risks. You want me to become something unknown and frightening, and I have to accept it because fate somehow decreed we should be together. Well, I refuse to be with anyone who insists on me risking everything, but he won't risk anything at all. Take me home now ."
    It was a command, a compulsion, and for the first time, she realized she had not just thought it—or said it.
    She had thrown the command into his mind, furious with his double standard. Furious with herself for letting him take her over. More frightened than she'd ever been in her life, because she suspected there was no turning back and that even if she made it home, whatever was inside of her would refuse to quiet.

    She was psychic, just as they all had said. She had been using her ability all along, without being aware of it.
    She looked up at him, and her breath caught in her throat. He was looking down at her, black eyes glittering with menace. He was every bit as furious as she was, and much more frightening.
    "I said no. You are not going anywhere."
    She leapt at him, raking at his face with her long fingernails, missing him only by a scant breath as he grabbed her arms and gave her a hard shake. "Do you think to command me?" He shook her again. "Me?
    Your lifemate? You dare to try to influence my mind? To attack me?"
    Who was she conspiring with to try to trap and kill him? She had deceived him. Even as the words slipped out, even as he entertained the idea that she would harm him, he rejected the thought.
    What was he doing and thinking? Had he truly lost his mind? Was he the coward she called him? He had gone into battle with the vampire without flinching. No one had ever questioned his courage, yet he was bullying his lifemate when she needed love and reassurance. He was accusing her of things the innocence in her eyes, in her mind, belied.
    Was this his true personality? Or was it some manifestation of the wolf mixing with his Carpathian blood?
    Both species were dominant. Both demanded instant obedience, the wolf perhaps more. Who knew what secrets that elusive society had kept? It was obvious they had gone underground and still existed, but he had no way to understand what was happening—the thick mane of hair, the increased sense of smell, acute hearing, the driving need to keep his mate beside him, his scent all over her.
    He was angry with himself, not her. He should have recognized the wolf traits in her, been more prepared for the consequences of taking her blood. He had been consumed with her, so much so that when he woke he had needed to feel her body wrapped around his even more than he needed blood for sustenance. In all the centuries of his existence, that had never happened. She was in every thought he had, taking him over until he knew he couldn't survive without her. Worse, when her mind was withdrawn from his, the other world invaded and he was left in the gray shadows, wandering, trying to figure out a way to reconnect wholly his spirit and body.
    He couldn't force her to accept him. He couldn't get into her mind and stay merged; nor could he persuade her of the consequences of keeping that mind merge from him. And as she had withdrawn from him, he could no longer sustain enough power to keep his spirit wholly in the land of the living. Around him, the colors faded until everything was dim and grayish, and when he looked at his hands, he could see through them. His brain felt as if it was bursting through his skull, his temples pounding with pain. Ordinarily he could shut off pain, but it was impossible. His tongue felt funny, thick and coated with copper.
    MaryAnn struggled in his grip, opening her mouth with the intention of blasting him, so hurt she wanted to crawl in a hole and pull the earth over the top of her, so angry she thought she might take another swipe at his face with her too-sharp fingernails, but something about him caught her attention. She pushed down her own hurt feelings and forced her mind back to reason.
    "Manolito, is your head hurting?"
    He nodded, pressing against his temples hard. "I shouldn't experience pain like this. I do not understand."
    Unless it is the wolf. Unless it is this woman, trying to pretend to be my lifemate when she is really a puppet of the vampire, bent on my destruction .
    She caught that and flinched, nearly backing out of his mind, afraid he would hurt her more with his insults, but then she caught a sound. A buzzing. Like a