Carpathian 22 - Dark Predator

moved against his. His soul recognized hers. She became the rhythm of his heart.
    Zacarias had never needed anything or anyone. Now he couldn’t do without her. She made him as vulnerable as a new baby. He knew forever. He’d lived forever, but now, with her, with Marguarita, everything was different. Forever wasn’t going to even be close to long enough with her. He blinked several times, the colors in the darkened room so vivid and bright they hurt his eyes. Marguarita was color, all those intense, beautiful hues that burst in front of his eyes when she was in him.
    Using the hand wrapped around her throat, he forced her head up so that her dark eyes were compelled to meet his. His heart stuttered in his chest. His body trembled. He felt as if he’d been hit by a tsunami and he was being swept away, drowning. Perhaps he’d been drowning all along and had never noticed the sensation until her mind connected all the dots, but now, he knew the water had closed over his head and he was under.
    There was only Marguarita in his world. Marguarita with her soft skin and the light she poured into his dark soul. It was a strange thing for a man who had spent lifetimes utterly alone to need. It was uncomfortable and unfamiliar, but the need was greater than anything else in his world. She was so fragile, so vulnerable. He could crush her easily, yet she had all the power.
    Drowning in her eyes, a rush of fire swept through him. Need became physical, leaping from his mind to his body, a dangerous flame, so hot and so raw every muscle tensed as hot blood rushed with the fire from every point in his body to fill his groin with a terrible, clawing demand. Lust burned deep and gut-wrenching. Where before, his need had been hunger, now it was for Marguarita. All of her, her blood, her body, mind and heart and soul. He needed.
    She brought him life. She made him experience what he could not. Pain. Pleasure. Sorrow. Laughter. Rage. Joy. She was life. She was now his life. His everything. He couldn’t live without the emotions and colors she brought to him, or the soft slide of her mind against his, the warmth that melted all that ice in his veins. He needed.
    She caressed his shadowed jaw with her fingertips and that slight touch, that whisper of a burning caress, ignited something raw and primal deep within him. Lust and hunger hit with a brutal punch, a vicious clawing need in his belly, filling his groin until he hurt beyond all reason.
    He lifted her chin and took her mouth without preamble. No soft kiss. No gentle tenderness. He took what was his, claiming her mouth for his own. “I need to be inside of you. Deep inside you. Do you understand, Marguarita?”
    It was an impossible question. How could she possibly understand? The world he lived in and the one she offered him were in complete contrast to one another. He understood one and needed the other. For a Carpathian hunter, needing was the worst possible obsession.
    His kiss roughened as hidden emotions welled up, a volcano, long suppressed, building and building inside of him. Anger at her for having such a hold on him. She had claimed she was no witch, but the spell was stronger than any he had ever encountered, the web more beautiful but no less lethal than any trap ever sprung on him. He was caught. By this. By her. Marguarita. His fingers dug deep into her shoulders and he gave her a little shake, the anger building by the moment.
    She had dragged him away from eternal rest, forced him to face his past, the memories long buried—and forgotten. He’d put those things in a vault and locked them up tight never to revisit them. She opened floodgates and, sun scorch her, he was addicted to her and those vivid intense emotions she allowed him to feel.
    He realized those few moments after killing the vampires, when the horses rejected him, when the cattle turned away, shunning him, preferring the unknown to coming near him, he had been terror-struck. He hadn’t connected those feelings until she’d poured into him, but she’d reduced him to that. A warrior beyond all measure, and he’d been nearly brought to his knees at the thought that she might turn away from him.
    His mouth took hers over and over, long hot, rough kisses. He didn’t give her a chance to breathe, to pull away, to be anything but what he wanted her to be. His. Only his. All his. She leaned into him, giving herself, but it wasn’t enough for him. He could hear the growls rumbling in his throat,