Immortals After Dark 05 - Dark Needs at Nights Edge

thought she was upset that he’d seen that dance. He figured women were like that—whenever they showed a bit of vulnerability, they came out with claws bared.
    “Come with me, Néomi.”
    Her delicate hand rose to her forehead. She seemed drained, her image flickering, her eyes weary and not as luminous.
    The changes in the house, the music, and all of those ghostly surroundings had to have been fueled by her, by her very essence.
    “Why should I?”
    Because he needed to keep her close. Because what he’d just witnessed had done something to him. He was altered. This was more than his determination that she was his. It was more than his resolve to do something about it and more than his new need to protect her.
    He felt as if some foreign emotion had wedged itself inside his chest, and now it was swinging punches, demanding more room.
    But he only said, “Why not?”
    She was obviously so tired, but she still jutted her dainty chin up. “You feel sorry for me now. You don’t have to babysit me. I assure you that I’ve gotten through this by myself before.”
    “I know you have.” Each month for eighty years, she’d relived her death—alone. Never again. “You would come inside for no other reason than to save me from incineration. Because, tantsija, I can be as stubborn as you.”
    “What does that word mean?”
    “It means dancer.”
    As tendrils of sunlight began to reach them, she pursed her lips. “Oh, very well.” She floated to her feet, then accompanied him back to the house.
    Though she grumbled, he was able to lead her into his room. She was likely too tired to resist. Inside, she drifted straight to the bed, then curled on her side, hovering just above the mattress.
    Earlier, he’d noticed that she floated over chairs as though sitting. Now he knew she slept on beds as well.
    In seconds, she was asleep... .
    During the long day as he watched over her, her image grew stronger, which satisfied him more than anything in recent memory.
    He experienced needs unknown before, inexplicable urges... . He wanted to lie behind her. Wanted to tuck her small body into him. Again and again, he ran his hands over the outline of her hair, imagining what the glossy curls would feel like.
    He had the overwhelming urge to buy this place, fix it, and keep her safe within it—but only if he could prevent her from having to dance as she had last night. His hands clenched as he thought of her, cursed to feel that pain over and over.
    Conrad had the knowledge necessary to do some spells—mostly crude protection or camouflaging spells—but could rarely access it on demand. Whenever he wanted a certain memory, it proved infuriatingly elusive. If he was able to utilize at will all the knowledge he’d acquired, could he figure out how to protect her?
    What if the answer was there, already within him, waiting to be retrieved? Nikolai had said Conrad could learn to do it.
    He’d also said that there was only one thing that could compete with bloodlust—sex. And that there was only one thing that could compete with the overwhelming need to kill.
    Now Conrad knew. The need to protect.

    By dint of will, effort, and a rake he’d found in a ramshackle toolshed, Conrad had retrieved several of the newspapers on the drive that she’d been unable to reach. He intended to make a gift of them to his female.
    Having no experience whatsoever with women and limited resources, this was the best he could come up with.
    He’d just finished stacking up the papers in the room and settled in to wait for Néomi to wake when his brothers traced into the room.
    Nikolai exhaled wearily to find him moving about freely. “How did you get loose?”
    “Dislocated my shoulder.”
    Almost at the exact same time, all three raised their brows at the collection of papers. “You dislocated your shoulder to get to the newspapers on the road? You could have asked one of us if you wanted to read—”
    “No. That’s not it.” Why not tell them? They already thought him mad. What if one of them has encountered a ghost? What if they believed him? “I got them for a female who lives here.” He was sane enough to recognize how this sounded. “She likes to read them.”
    “The house is abandoned, Conrad.” Nikolai pinched the bridge of his nose. “You know this.”
    He ran his palms over his pants. “I’m the only one who can see her. She’s lying on this bed right now.”
    To a man, they got that anxious expression as though they