Carpathian 22 - Dark Predator

present. Your vision and hearing will be far more acute. You have to control it consciously and eventually it will become subconscious.”
    Marguarita reached behind her to find something to hold on to. It had not occurred to her that her world would change so drastically. She’d given herself into Zacarias’s keeping, but her physical body was human.
    Zacarias wrapped his arm around her waist. Solid. An anchor. “Breathe, sívamet, as frightening as this all sounds, I am with you always. I will not allow anything to harm you.”
    She took a deep breath. Tell me what this means to me. She would not regret her decision. She had known all along it would take sacrifices. Physical sacrifices hadn’t occurred to her, but she could deal with it.
    “You will need to drink water and juice, Marguarita,” he instructed.
    Her stomach lurched at the idea of putting anything into it. She pushed her hand against her belly and shook her head. I cannot. The thought makes me feel sick.
    “Nevertheless, it will be necessary. No meat, of course. The thought of eating meat is repugnant to us.”
    And yet you own a cattle ranch. She sent him a faint smile, desperately trying to find a balance. She accepted the responsibility of what she’d done, and had known there would be consequences. She could live without meat. Millions of people did so every day, but the thought of taking blood as sustenance was disturbing to her.
    “I will help you when you need to eat or drink something.”
    She couldn’t imagine doing either at that moment so she simply nodded her head. She moistened her lips, rubbing her arms a little. What else did having his blood mean to her? She had to be able to go out into the sun, but her skin felt strange at the thought. She was certain it was her imagination, but earlier, with Julio, her skin had been sensitive and her eyes really hurt. With a second blood exchange, would that grow worse? What had he meant when he said she was becoming like him? Panic began to edge her thoughts.
    I’m changing inside my body? Becoming like you? She rubbed her hands up and down her arms more vigorously as if she could change her skin’s composition. If I am like you, will the sun harm me?
    He nodded his head slowly. “The sun will burn you. Not in the way it does me, but you cannot go out in it without great peril. You would blister, and the burn would be severe. It will not kill you as it would me. You will need to cover your skin and eyes all the time.”
    Her heart nearly stopped beating. She actually felt faint. She loved horses. Loved the Peruvian Paso breed. They’d been her obsession before Zacarias and she couldn’t imagine never flying over the ground, jumping fences and feeling one with the horses. She enjoyed their personalities, their quirks and the gentle temperaments. She loved every single thing about them. Just watching them filled her with joy. She couldn’t imagine not caring for them, riding them, spending her time with them.
    The Paso retained its natural, inherited gait, when so many other breeds had been diluted. It had been kept true to its lineage. In her experience, her horses had passed their gait to one hundred percent of their offspring. The breed’s center of gravity remained nearly immobile. Paso Ilano , a broken gait that was a rhythmic and harmonic tapping, was very gentle, pleasing and extremely comfortable. She could ride her horse for hours, moving in harmony across the land never tiring or getting sore.
    She hadn’t considered that she might become sensitive to the sun. Her breath felt trapped in her lungs. Her throat clogged with tears. Never to ride again. Never to feel that amazing experience, the sharing between horse and rider. The Paso also possessed a unique pace aptly named termino. To Marguarita, nothing was more graceful. The movement was flowing, the forelegs rolling from the shoulder toward the outside as the horse strode forward. She was part of the horses and they were a huge part of her.
    Zacarias studied her averted face. Deep inside her mind she’d gone suddenly quiet and then she’d completely withdrawn from him. The world around him instantly dulled to barely-there color, pale and drab. Ice poured into his veins, into his heart. Her sudden exit left him more alone than he’d ever been—ever conceived. She filled his body with warmth and light, with color and emotions and the moment she was gone, so was her radiant heat. Once able to see vivid colors and