She just had no clue about him. How could she sit there, periodically leaning over the back of the seat to check on the mongrel, and chat at him just as if they were going for a nice drive? Did she not realize she had been abducted by a man whom most beings feared?
“I hope we’re going toward Tuscany, because I’m going to be meeting my friend Ellis in Genoa in four days.”
Did she not grasp the basic concept of danger? Perhaps her mind didn’t work that way. Perhaps she was too busy jumping from topic to topic to understand just who he was, and how grave was her situation.
“This is my first time in Europe. It’s amazing how much it looks like northern California.”
He did not like women who had such trivial thought processes. Even if he was willing to admit she was his Beloved—and he most definitely was not—he wouldn’t claim her. She was all glowing brightness, the coppery redness of her hair casting an aura of light and goodness around her that simply would not work in his life. He was dark and shadows, the inky abyss of torment, and she was sunshine and happiness and a free-spiritedness that had no place in his life.
What a shame that was.
He squelched the thought before she could pick it up.
Pick up what?she asked.
He didn’t answer her, more than a little discomfited by the ease with which she managed to find her way into his mind. No, he had to let go of such trivial thoughts, and focus on what was important. He had to find the link to Victor. He knew it was out there, and if Tempest—what a fitting name that was for her; it was as if she were a storm that had come into his life, turning everything he knew upside down—if Tempest wasn’t that link, then he needed to find who was.
“What were you doing at Villa Carlo?” he asked her.
“—was a friend from high school, but we lost touch for several years while I took care of my father, and we only just reconnected ... what?”
He repeated his question.
“Oh. I told you, didn’t I? Carlo is my papa’s cousin, and since I got to Italy early—I’m meeting Ellis here in a couple of days—I figured I’d spend the time until then with Cousin Carlo. He’s not really ...” She frowned while she thought out what she wanted to say.
Merrick didn’t like it when she frowned. He much preferred her smile. That seemed to light up all the dark corners of his soul.
He squelchedthatthought, too. He didn’t need to be dwelling on the woman’s personality, or her wild curls that glowed like gilded copper, or the brightness of her gray eyes. He absolutely would not think about the way her legs had felt when he hefted her over his shoulder, or how enticing her ass was the two times he happened to brush his hand against it. Most of all, he would not remember the scent of her, sun-warmed and vaguely floral, a scent that seemed to sink into his skin and heat his blood.
“He’s not really overly friendly. Not that he’s not-friendly, if you know what I mean.”
Merrick hadn’t a clue, but since he enjoyed hearing her talk, he said nothing.
Dammit. Now he was dwelling on the sound of her voice. It was just a voice. She was just a woman. She was nothing to him other than a means to an end.
“He was always foisting me off on his buddy, and let me tell you, that I did not enjoy.” She gave a little shiver. “Giovanni has to be a serial killer. Or at least a sociopath. Have you ever met a sociopath?”
“Iama sociopath,” he said, giving her a look that would have scared the life from a normal mortal.
She smiled at him. She actually smiled, and it bathed him in a warmth that he found both satisfying and annoying.
He didn’t want to be warm. He was a Horseman, one of the most feared beings in the Otherworld. He hunted, he captured, and if he had to, he killed. He was not a man to be warmed by a redheaded goddess’s smile.
A goddess... a vague memory wafted through his mind. There was something that had happened at Christian’s house, something that just slipped past the grip of memory. He’d been a little foggy in the brain the day that Christian had awoken him, and didn’t quite remember what had happened beyond the fact that the Revelation had caught him and almost destroyed him.
Christian had saved him, though... No, not Christian, one of his servants.
Her red hair making a flaming halo around her head as she bent down over him ...
He slammed on the brakes for the fourth time.
“Do you not know how to stop a car properly?” she had the gall to ask him, giving him a glare just as if he was a normal person. “I don’t have a driver’s license, but even I know you aren’t supposed to come to a screeching halt every couple of minutes. For one thing, it has to be hard on the tires.”
“The goddess. You are the goddess, the woman who fed me.”
Her face lit up with joy. “You do remember! Oh, I’m so relieved! You have no idea how embarrassing it was for me to want to tell you, but it would seem like I was bragging, and then there was the whole thing where we had wild bunny lovin’ all over the rug in front of the fireplace, and oh man, there was no way I was going to tell ... you ... about ...” Her voice trailed off as her eyes widened in horror. “You ... youdoremember that part, right?”
Merrick allowed no expression to escape his iron control, but his mind was frantically digging around its memories. Unfortunately, with the exception of the memory of the woman’s hair, and the sensation of life returning to him, there was nothing else.
