“I agree,” he validated, hearing the note of doubt in her voice. She didn’t doubt she was right; she doubted he would believe her. “I looked at your memories and saw you. I recognized you. After witnessing Mitro’s reprehensible behavior, you have every reason to fear Carpathians.”
“If I can be reborn over and over, carrying your soul with me, wouldn’t it stand to reason that some of our greatest enemies could be as well?”
His hands stilled in her hair. He had been brushing it out, but he stopped, and Sarika turned her head to look up at him.
“I have never thought in terms of our enemies being reborn. We hunt vampires. When they are destroyed, they do not return.”
“What if they did? What if they were in the underworld and somehow they were able to return?”
Tomas couldn’t conceive of such a thing. “How could we live for centuries and not notice such a phenomenon? If I was able to defeat a vampire and he reappeared, even a century later, I would recognize him.” He shook his head. “That goes against the rules of our world.”
“Maybe, but over the centuries, has every rule remained exactly the same?”
Tomas had always admired the young girl and then, when she was a little older, the young woman who wrote to him and asked him interesting and thoughtful questions. He had learned she thought outside the norm. In taking the time to examine her questions and ideas, he found it had always expanded his way of thinking.
“Now that you ask that question, no, the rules have changed over the centuries. In the beginning, no vampire would associate with other vampires. Their egos wouldn’t allow it. They didn’t want to share the blood of any of their victims. There were all sorts of reasons why vampires didn’t form coalitions.”
She reached out a hand for a towel, stood and wrapped it around her. “But that changed?”
Tomas nodded. “Over time, vampires began to collect the newer ones and use them as pawns. They would sacrifice them in battle. The master vampire would recruit lesser vampires that had managed to stay alive and have them be their line of defense after the pawns.”
“Like an army.”
“Yes, like an army. A lone hunter would find himself facing multiple vampires, not just one. They were often very skilled in battle.” Tomas kept his voice very matter-of-fact. Sarika was puzzling things out. She had a mind that once started on a path would continue working until it came up with a conclusion. He had the feeling that whatever conclusion she came up with would give them the direction they needed to prevent a massacre.
Sarika dressed in a racerback tee and thin capri pants. Tomas found himself enjoying the sight of her feminine form and the graceful way she moved, almost like a dancer. He had observed thousands of women over the years, and not a single one had captured his interest, certainly not as a male interested in a female.
Everything was entirely different with Sarika. He was aware of every movement she made. Every expression that crossed her face. The way her hair fell in a riot of curls and coils around her face and down her back. When she gestured or moved her hands, for him it seemedas if she were weaving magical spells, mesmerizing him. Her voice was beautiful, a soft, low melody that played over his nerve endings, setting them on fire.
He could hear her heartbeat calling to him. At times, their hearts beat in the same rhythm. And there was her blood. The taste of her was always in his mouth. In his mind. It was unforgettable and addicting.
“Tomas, you have to stop looking at me that way.” There was a trace of amusement in her voice. She sent him a look, her green eyes holding that same humor, but there was a trace of desire. A hint of need. Of hunger.
“I was thinking how beautiful you are. And remembering the taste of your blood.”
Her fingers stroked over the pulse in her neck where he’d left his first mark on her. The touch was gentle, almost reverent. “I know. I was thinking the same thing. It’s kind of scary to me how often I’ve thought about the way you taste when I wasn’t aware of exchanging blood with you. I woke up with the taste of you in my mouth.”
Tomas found it very sexy that she would admit it to him that she thought about their blood exchange, and she felt she was as addicted as he. He had never thought in terms of sexy. He never had the experience of just thinking of or looking at a woman turning his body to fire.
He liked the fact that she was courageous. She didn’t think she was because she had panic attacks, but he found her astonishingly brave. That not only made him proud of her, but he found her courage sexy as well.
He gave her a faint grin. “Can’t stop looking at you this way. I’ve never, in my life, found a woman sexy until you. I like looking at you. To a man who had no feelings or emotions, when I look at you and you give me a slow, burning heat, or a rush of flames through my veins, I know it would be impossible to ever stop.”
A blush stole up her neck into her face. That dusting of freckles stood out against the soft rose color. “Weirdly, I was never attracted toany of the men I was around. I traveled quite a bit, and mostly, the groups I went with were all men. I can’t remember a single time I found any of them physically attractive.”
He gave her an old-fashioned bow. One that was courtly and showed respect. “I believe we were created for each other. Every man wants purpose. I thought it would always be my duty to our people as a hunter. But since meeting you, I realize my purpose on this earth was to be your man.”
She pressed her hand over her heart. “One would think you were very experienced in the art of seducing a woman. Everything you say makes me want to stay with you.”
“Don’t sound as if that’s a bad thing. I swear to you, I’ll make you happy you chose me.”
“The strange thing is I feel like I’ve known you all my life, that we’re close and that I can totally trust you, but the truth is we’ve only known each other a couple of days.”
Tomas didn’t correct her language. The Carpathian people would use the termrisingsfor the passage of time. “You have known me all of your life. T. Smolnycki Sr. was me. I just changed from father to son when it became clear that my findings were being viewed as academic, and I began to make a name. You wrote to me when you were just a very little girl.”
“That seems so strange.”
“Carpathians do not keep anything that would identify age. No photos, no letters, nothing that would allow anyone to think they lived longer than a normal human. I have every single letter you sent me. I keep them in a cave deep beneath the earth, not yet discovered by humans. Those letters were sacred to me, and I did not want to give them up.” He gave her another faint grin. “That is kind of silly when I could quote each letter word for word. I carry them here.” He put his hand over his heart.
