Carpathian 22 - Dark Predator

grasp the enormity of what that meant. He still didn’t truly understand that emotion. He had felt it long ago—so long ago—but the emotion was so far removed from him that he no longer recognized it for what it was. Marguarita knew how to love. She had given herself into his care, trusting him to do the best thing for her.
    Her love enveloped him. Swamped him. Lifted him. Once again, warmth poured through the ice of his mind and body, finding the shadows, bridging the gaps where connections should have been. He felt her inside him—where she belonged—cementing them together with her love. With the essence that was her.
    She had made a bad decision in refusing to obey him, yes, but she didn’t understand the enormity of the repercussions. He could tell her, but her knowledge wasn’t the same as his. He knew evil walked in the world, knew what it could and would do, he had battled it for centuries. She had been raised in a loving environment where vampires were the thing of legends. Yes, she’d faced one, and she had the courage to defy it, but she had never really seen the destruction they could cause on a massive scale.
    Zacarias had no time to examine the revelations in her mind. The terrible toll on her body had to be stopped. He pushed away all thoughts of himself and his own reactions to the way her mind worked, the depth of her ability to give and feel. That couldn’t matter. Only stopping the crushing pain. He shed his body, flowing as pure spirit into hers, using that delicate thread to find his way.
    Just as in her mind, chaos reigned in her body. He could see clearly what was happening, the reformation of her body, the changes taking place in order for her to become Carpathian. He should have realized it would be a near-death experience; she would have to die as a human to be reborn as a Carpathian. And she was fighting it. Refusing. That, too, was unexpected.
    He hadn’t come to comfort her when she needed it. He’d added to the trauma instead of gathering her into his arms and holding her. She rejected him and his ways as adamantly now as he clung to them. She had closed off access to her mind deliberately, knowing she would suffer, yet not wanting his help to aid her passage. No longer wanting his comfort or him.
    He had thought her a lunatic for seeing him as anything but a dangerous predator, too long in the shadows, his soul already blackened, pierced through with a million tiny holes until it was impossible to repair. And yet, she had seen past the dark shadows to the man clinging to life somewhere on the edges. Lost. He’d been so lost. He didn’t know anything other than to hunt and kill. She had been the one to give herself freely to him, trusting that he would honor his ritual binding vow.
    Zacarias summoned his energy until he was all power and healing light. The reshaping of organs could be speeded up, but the only way to stop the pain was for him to shoulder as much as he could. Share it with her. Feel it with her. She resisted. He knew she would, but she was weak, he was strong and his blood heeded his call.
    “Rest as much as possible in between the waves,” he said gently as the pain receded from her body. He kept that thread, his one link to her.
    She sighed and turned her head away from him as he lifted her into his arms off the floor. The room felt and smelled clean, the scent of lavender and chamomile drifting around them. The bed had cool sheets with the scent woven into them lightly. He placed her in the exact center and lay down beside her, his arms trapping her body to give her an anchor.
    “I know you do not want me to help you through this, Marguarita,” he said gently, brushing the damp hair from her face. Her lashes lay in two thick crescents, a stark black against the white, almost translucent skin. She shivered continually, uncontrollably. Even her teeth chattered. “But I have to. I know right at this moment you cannot understand, but I have no choice.”
    The thought was barely out of his mouth before the revelation followed. Was it possible? Maybe Marguarita had no choice, either. That love she felt, so strong, so deep, sharing parts of him he couldn’t even see or touch without her could have made their bond much deeper than he realized. She was in him. His mind, yes, but she tapped into his soul. She saw things in him that he didn’t. And those traits she’d relied on had to be there or she couldn’t have felt such strong emotion for him.
    She