That meant something to her; he could see it on her face. She walked past him, her fingers brushing his face. He followed her to thehammock in the bedroom. “When you say things like that to me, I don’t know what to do with you.”
“Fall in love with me.” He said it before he could censor the words. There was no taking them back, no hiding the longing that weighed down every word.
She stood beside the hammock, fingers of one hand tangled in the weave, and studied his face. “I think it would be very easy to fall in love with you, Tomas. You seem to know when to say the things I need to hear. You don’t push me the way the others are urging you to do. You take care with me when I’m falling apart. Those are all the things that sneak up on a woman and capture her heart. You see me. You seem to see what I need. I can feel there is urgency in this situation. The others know you have to leave here soon and hunt the enemy threatening to destroy your prince, but you refused to listen to them in regard to me.”
Her eyes met his steadily. “I felt as if you stood up for me, even when they were deliberately trying to make you feel as if you weren’t taking care of me.”
Tomas could see his decisions had meant a great deal to her. “We’ll sort it all out between us,” he assured her. “We don’t need the others to interfere, although they will continue to do their best to try.” He stepped closer to her, one hand tucking stray curls behind her ear. “You know why, don’t you? Lojos and Mataias feel the same driving need to protect you and keep you from harm. Like Luiz, they just feel they should put you somewhere safe and ensure nothing harmful can get near you. They actually are able to feel through you. That’s the gift you’ve given them. You are their sister, and they would lay down their lives for you.”
There was shyness in her eyes when she looked up at him, turning his heart over. Her expression was soft and open. Her mind was open to him. “I’m aware they do so out of affection, even when they are not,” she confirmed.
Chapter
17
Sarika collapsed back onto the hammock, her legs shaking too much to hold her up. Tomas was the most attractive man she’d ever met. Everything about him appealed to her. She couldn’t help feeling nervous. He had a way of looking at her as if he might devour her entirely. The saddest part of that was she didn’t think she’d mind.
Sometimes she fixated on his mouth. She had never thought a man’s mouth could be sensual, but his was. And then he had those eyes. Sometimes he looked more predator than human. She didn’t want to dwell too much on that, or why she wasn’t as bothered as she should be at the thought of Tomas taking her blood.
Tomas waved his hand and his shoes were gone. He floated to the hammock and lay down, drawing her beside him. “Nothing is going to happen that you don’t want. We have time, Sarika,” he assured her to allay any fears that he might ask for more than she was willing to give. “If you prefer not to know when the actual exchange is being made, I’ll make certain you don’t feel anything. If you’re curious, we take it very slow, and I’ll help you with anything that’s difficult.”
She curled into his side, grateful he didn’t try to kiss her. She needed a little more time to adjust to her decision. It was strange to be at warwith herself. Her head screamed warnings at her, but her body and heart said just the opposite. Tomas seemed to understand, and he didn’t push her, just let her cuddle into the rock that was his body. He put one arm around her waist, tucking her as close as possible.
“I know you looked into my memories several times in an effort to find where I hid the piece of weapon I took from Mitro. Do you have any ideas?”
“You don’t remember at all?”
“I died right after. Since you found that memory, I’ve tried to revisit it, although when I try without you being close in my mind, I can’t do it. I think that time was so traumatizing that my mind rejects any recollection of it. In any case, I have no memory of where I could have hidden the piece of metal.”
Sarika did what she always did when she was uncomfortable. Her hand crept up to wrap around the familiar jaguar head on her necklace. She’d been using the amulet to soothe herself since she was a small child. Sometimes she thought she could picture her mother’s face, when she didn’t have a single memory of her. Or photo of her. Even as a toddler, when she’d wrapped her fingers around the pendant, she felt her mother close when she needed her.
“Woman magic,” Tomas murmured, reading her thoughts, letting her know he was still close in her mind. “Over centuries of living, I’ve witnessed the power women have when they get together and combine their gifts and strengths. When I accessed your memories, in truth, Sarika, I had never seen such power in three women as I did then. I felt it, and it was centuries past. I couldn’t even see the other two women clearly, their faces were hidden in the shadows, and I realized it was the combination of the three of you shielding one another so others could not see the depravity or vileness Mitro perpetuated on you.”
“I have dreamt of it, but those nightmares never seemed real to me,” she admitted, pleased that an ancient as formidable as Tomas would acknowledge the power of her and her friends. She had foundthat the more she traveled the world, the less a woman was acknowledged as intelligent and important.
“Unfortunately, now we both know how real they are. I knew Mitro as well as his lifemate, Arabejila. Mitro destroyed so many lives. Dax and Arabejila would catch up to him, there would be a terrible battle, and then Mitro would slip away. It was one of the worst times in our history. Every hunter tried to find him, to destroy him, but no one ever got close, other than Dax. He felt responsible for the carnage Mitro left behind everywhere he went.”
“Dax was able to find him through Arabejila,” Sarika guessed.
“She was unclaimed, but the bond was still there, and she could track him when no one else could,” Tomas said. “The bond between lifemates has always been unbreakable. It was shocking that Mitro didn’t claim her when he knew she was his. He killed her mother, but he couldn’t kill her. Down through the centuries, he tried more than once, but the bond held. He could not defeat her.”
“How terrible for her.” Sarika felt such compassion for the woman she could feel tears burning behind her eyes. She couldn’t imagine Tomas attempting to kill her, let alone murdering hundreds of innocent men, women and children. Arabejila must have lived her life in a kind of hell.
“Both Dax and Arabejila blamed themselves for every death, every massacre. I know Dax is unable to integrate back into our society. He stays here in the rainforest unless he feels Riley, who was human, needs outside company. He does not use the illusion of a dragon, nor did he recruit a dragon as many of us did. In the volcano, there was an old one who believed he was the last of his kind. He had resolved to stay there, once more becoming part of the earth.”
Sarika couldn’t help the little thrill that ran through her. “I always loved every mythical tale of dragons. It didn’t matter to me whether I believed them to be real, and there was some slight evidence they may have been, at least I clung to that belief because I wanted them to be.”She made the confession with a small self-effacing smile. “Are you saying this Dax ran into the real thing in that volcano?”
“He did. I’ll give you a ride on Kinta, my dragon companion, this next rising. Once you’re fully Carpathian, you will find the right dragon to suit you.”
“Tell me more about Dax and his dragon,” Sarika urged.
“The old one is most likely the oldest dragon on earth. There are several, but he appears to date far back, further than we do. He was becoming part of the volcano when Dax awakened him. There was a battle for supremacy, the dragon determined to destroy Dax, but in the end, their souls merged.”
She turned into him, rubbing her face on his shoulder, needing the contact. “If Dax’s soul is merged with a dragon, what does that do to Riley? Isn’t her soul merged with Dax’s?”
“You always manage to ask the hard questions. I didn’t give that a thought. Riley and Dax seem happy together. I know that, for her, he pushes himself to take her into the world for short periods of time, but it is difficult, especially because of the old dragon.”
“Does Riley know it is difficult for him to leave the rainforest?” Sarika was curious. What did lifemates do when one wasn’t as happy as their vows proclaimed they would be?
