Hot Blooded

loved and
clung to so fiercely. He studied her, his gaze black and hungry. He didn't move
for several moments, his mind filled with chaos, emotions crowding in fast and
furious. Emotions stored somewhere for hundreds of years poured through him like
burning lava, forcing him to sort them at an outrageous pace.
    He had four brothers and all of them were telepathic, could touch each other
at will. Rafael reached out on the common path his brothers used to share the
colors, the unfamiliar raging in his body, the rising tide of hunger. Nicolas
had no experience with such a thing.
She can only be your lifemate
.
    She is human, not Carpathian.
    It is said there are some who can be converted. Riordan's lifemate was
not Carpathian.
    The emotion and sexual hunger rising together were overwhelming, a fireball
streaking through his gut, burning his blood, sharpening his appetites. He
stretched, reminiscent of a large jungle cat. Beneath the thin silk of his
shirt, ropes of muscles contracted. Colby Jansen belonged to him and no other.
He wanted no other near her, not the Chavez family and not Nicolas who had seen
her first. He felt the beast in him rising, fast and ferocious at the thought of
her with another male, mortal or immortal. Rafael stood very still, forcing
himself under control. Dangerous at any time, he recognized that he would be
even more so in the state he was in.
It is most uncomfortable, Nicolas, I
doubt I can take other males in close proximity to her. I have never felt such
emotions. Never felt such jealousy or fear
.
    It was a warning and both brothers recognized it as such. There was a small
silence.
I will leave here, Rafael, and go to the high mountains to the
east. The hacienda is empty and I will wait for you to sort this out
.
    As always Nicolas was calm and serene, a quiet confident sanity that stirred
others in the direction he wanted them to go. Nicolas didn't express his opinion
that often, but when he did, his brothers listened to him. He was a dark,
dangerous fighter, proven many times over. The brothers were connected and had
stayed close down the long centuries, relying on one another for the memories
that kept their code of honor intact. Relying on one another to keep the
insidious whispering of the power of the kill at bay.
Muchas gracias
.
    Rafael's fingers curled into tight fists until his knuckles turned white as
he watched the drama unfolding below the bluff. This woman, small and fragile,
human
, insisted on doing dangerous, bone-breaking work. There were limits
to a man's endurance when he had emotions. He found that he could not take
watching her on the back of the pitching, bucking animal.
    She went down hard, her body small and fragile, the huge chestnut powerful
and dangerous, the pounding hooves inches from her. Rafael stopped breathing,
his heart stilled. Colby rolled free and said something to her brother, who
caught the horse's bridle. Instantly she was back in the saddle. Rafael had had
enough, sweat breaking out, his mind shrieking a protest.
    Â 
    IT was Ginny who first noticed the intruders, the new four-wheel-drive truck,
sleek and gleaming as it roared up the dirt road. The driver parked the vehicle
on the grassy knoll a few yards from the series of corrals. The two occupants
stared out the windows at the struggle between horse and rider.
    Ginny's low, alarmed cry spun Paul around. Every vestige of color drained
from his face, leaving him pale and strained. Instinctively he put his tall body
in front of his younger sister, one hand wrapping around her wrist protectively.
    The driver was out of the car, crossing the dirt road, moving with fluid
grace, power, and coordination combined. A rippling of catlike muscle lent the
stranger a predatory appearance. He looked a hard, cold, dangerous man. Tall.
Broad shouldered. Sinewy muscles beneath a thin silk shirt. He had thick, wavy,
black hair, long and drawn back at the nape of his neck. His harsh implacable
features were strong and sensual. He looked elegant and tough at the same time.
This had to be Rafael De La Cruz. They had met Nicolas, and he was intimidating
enough, but this man seemed to ooze menace from his every pore.
    Rafael vaulted the fence with all the ease of a jungle cat, clearing the top
rail by several inches, catching at the snorting, reefing horse, dragging it's
head around, commanding obedience with an authority that even the animal seemed
to