Carpathian 22 - Dark Predator

hard. He glared at Lea.
    Tears immediately sprang to her eyes. “That’s not true.” Lea reached out for Marguarita imploringly. “I swear to you, the friendship between us is real. I felt at home here. For the first time in a very long while, I was happy.”
    Marguarita took her hands, her gaze flicking to Zacarias. I don’t have my notepad. Please assure her we’re good, that I understand and am her friend.
    Zacarias smiled at Lea, a mere baring of his teeth that was obviously supposed to serve as a smile. “Marguarita knows your friendship is real. Have no worries.” He pushed a small compulsion at the woman.
    I don’t understand what Esteban would want with me just because I filled out a questionnaire. What does this mean?
    I will explain later.
    “It sounded so silly to me,” Lea continued. “I knew you were good with horses, but really, psychic? I didn’t care why we came, just that we had. Even Esteban seemed happy for a while—until DS showed up. It doesn’t take long before he ruins everything. Now our house is just plain scary.”
    “You shouldn’t go back to that house,” Julio told Lea. He glanced at Marguarita, pointedly prompting her to invite Lea to stay.
    “You are welcome to stay, Lea,” Zacarias said for both of them, surprising Marguarita. He brought her hand up to his mouth and brushed his lips lightly over her knuckles. She will not stay here. She still believes she can save her brother.
    But you don’t think she can?
    I am sorry, sívamet . He is too far gone.
    You don’t know that. But he did. Zacarias had been in the world too long. He had seen too many friends, family members, humans fall. She saw it all in his mind. She felt his terrible sorrow like a weight pressing on his chest, on his heart—yet he refused to acknowledge it.
    She closed her eyes, allowing herself to take it on, that weight that never left him. What would it be like to spend her days hunting people who had meant something to him at one time? Having to kill the people that had mattered? To know you could never make a friend, trust anyone, love anyone or be loved? She wanted to understand him and it was here, in this sorrow, in the memories he refused to acknowledge she would find her courage to stand with this man.
    “Take me home, Julio,” Lea said. “It’s very late and I need to sleep. I’m glad Ricco is going to be all right.”
    Marguarita signed thank you and blew her a kiss.
    Julio rose with her. “Thank you for the tea, Marguarita.”
    Zacarias kept his hand on Marguarita’s shoulder as he rose, too. “I will see you out.” I have to remove her memories of the conversation with us about Diaz. It could put her in danger.
    She was surprised that he had added the last after a brief hesitation. In his memories, she had never found an instance where he explained himself to anyone.
    I am a fast learner. You need reassurance that your friend will be all right.
    She felt as if he’d wrapped her in a protective cloak of warmth—more than warmth—he surrounded her with protection and filled her mind with love. She hugged herself, trying not to smile. She wasn’t even certain if he knew what he was feeling toward her, but she knew and, right then, when she felt a little out of her depth, she needed him just the way he was.
    Marguarita collected the cups and dessert plates and took them to the sink to wash up. Looking at the crumbs made her think of hunger, but she didn’t feel it. The thought of eating anything was disturbing. She drank water, hoping that would assuage her growing thirst. There was a strange throbbing in her veins, a beat that refused to go away, a soft insistent call that steadily grew stronger. A need. A longing. A hunger.
    The entire time she’d spent with Lea and Julio, she’d been uneasy and had convinced herself it was because of Zacarias, afraid of what he might say or do. But here, alone in the kitchen, with no one to witness, she could admit to herself, it was the call of their hearts, the steady ebb and flow of the blood in their veins. She could hear it, and although she’d turned the volume down as Zacarias had helped her learn to do, she found the temptation beating in her own veins—beating in Zacarias’s veins, in his mind and heart.
    It would never stop, not as long as her mind was immersed in Zacarias—as long as he filled her up in the way she filled him. The hunger didn’t stop for Zacarias, not when he could hear the drumming call of a pulse, not