Carpathian 18 - Dark Possesion

know. Even when I entered the other world, the other occupants knew. After a while the darkness runs together until you no longer know if you can resist the lure to just one time feel something. Anything."
    "But three of you have found lifemates. That should give him hope."
    "He cannot feel hope, not his own. He can only feel our hope for him. And even should he find his lifemate, I fear he would be too difficult for a woman of today's society to live with. Most of our lifemates are human or raised human. He is a throwback to a different era. You find me difficult. In comparison, I assure you, MaryAnn, I am a very modern man."
    "I'm very glad to hear you say that, Manolito, because this modern woman has come to a decision, and it's my decision to make. Mine . You have to understand that I believe I do have rights. This is important to me."
    "What decision would that be?" He sounded wary. He was wary. He wasn't about to free her from her obligations even if it was possible—which it wasn't.
    "I want you to convert me. Now. Tonight. I want to share your life wholly with you." She ignored the storm clouds gathering in his eyes. "I didn't have a decision at any time along the way. So this is me, thinking it over, knowing what I'm doing and saying, yes, I love you and I want to be wholly yours."
    Chapter Nineteen

    Manolito bit down on his first response, forcing the sudden fear down. Emotions were much more difficult to deal with than he'd remembered. If he converted MaryAnn, and the wolf protested, it might kill her. No one, not even Vlad, remembered the pairing of a wolf and a Carpathian.
    "Manolito?" Her fingers drifted over his face, tracing his cheekbones, gentle, filled with love.
    He swallowed the lump in his throat and turned his face away from her so she wouldn't see him fight back the way she affected him. She shook him with her tenderness. With love. Being a lifemate seemed so simple, yet it was far more complex than he had ever considered. He wanted her conversion for himself. He had pride in what and who he was, but at the same time, he wouldn't—couldn't—risk her.
    "Ask me for the moon, MaryAnn, and I will find a way to get it for you. But not this. Not when we do not know what will happen."
    "You are changing. You said so yourself." She pressed kisses along his strong jaw and up to the corner of his mouth. "Whatever you are, I want to be. I've thought about this a lot. I had plenty of time while I was fighting off vampires and mages and jaguar-men. It's really rare to find someone you love, and even rarer to have them love you back."
    "We will still have that," he said gently and reached up to pull her down on top of him. He couldn't look into her eyes and not give her whatever she wanted. "We will always have that." When had it started? When had she turned his world upside down? His stomach was jittery and his heart melted the moment he looked at her.
    His brothers would laugh if they knew. He rubbed his chin on top of her head, feeling her hair catch like tiny threads binding them together. With a thought, he removed her top, sending it sailing to the floor so he could smooth his hand down her soft back.
    "Do you feel the wolf inside you?" She rolled over to pillow her head on his shoulder. "Because his scent is all over you—and all over me. He's there, I know he is, reaching for my wolf when we make love. That's probably why you're even more dominant than when I first laid eyes on you." He'd taken her breath away even then. "That's why you rub your body all over mine, to get your scent on me, and that's a wolf trait."
    "It's a Carpathian trait."
    She laughed, and he felt the sound moving through his body like small electrical currents. "Don't say that like it's a good thing. I'm not going into this relationship with rose-colored glasses. It has occurred to me you might be difficult to live with."
    He bit her neck, his teeth gentle, scraping back and forth over her pulse while the breath caught and held in her lungs. "As long as you do everything I say, I think life will be easy."
    The teasing note in his voice was almost as sexy as the way his hands came up to cover her breasts. He simply cupped the undersides in his palms, holding her close to him for a long moment before he slipped out from under her head, one arm wrapping around her waist and rolling her onto her side to face him. The way he did it, his hands so strong and sure, his movements decisive, sent a shiver of excitement up her