Rafael! Nicolas’s voice was a sharp reprimand. Shall I come to you?
Rafael shook his head, denying that ever-present enticement. I will not give in this night.
Rafael swept his gaze across the dusky sky, noting the bats dipping, performing their evening ballet. The wind brought him untold information. He was uneasy, his senses telling him a vampire could be close, but he was unable to ferret the undead from its lair, if, in fact, it was in the area. It had probably gone to ground the instant Nicolas and Rafael had shown up and was waiting for them to leave before rising.
The wind carried the distant sound of voices. Alarmed. Soft. A beautiful cadence that touched something deep inside him. He heard the voice, a melodious voice, yet he couldn’t understand the words. He stepped closer to the edge of the cliff. Something caught at the corner of his eye and he looked at the scene below him, his burning gaze fixed on horse and rider. He stared down at the small woman on the large horse in a kind of mind-numbing shock. It was nearly seventeen hundred years since Rafael had seen color or felt emotion. Now, in the blink of an eye, staring at the drama unfolding in the small corral, the horse and rider locked in battle, everything changed.
He saw her bright hair, a flame of color. He saw the faded blue of her jeans and the pale rose of her shirt. He saw the horse, a burnished red, tossing its head, whirling and bucking. Time seemed to slow down so that every detail was etched in his mind. The way the leaves on the trees glittered with a silvery sheen, the colors of earth and hay. He saw the silvery tones to the water as it shimmered from a distant pond. The breath slammed out of his lungs and he stood quite still, a part of the mountain he was standing on, frozen for the first time in all of his existence.
Behind him, the woman in the truck stirred, but she didn’t matter. She was waking, drowsy, certain they had made love and that she had been overwhelmed by his attentions. The teenage boy and young girl near the corral didn’t matter. His brothers waiting at home on their ranch in Brazil, Nicolas waiting here in this crowded country, the Chevez family, none of them mattered. Only that single rider.
Colby Jansen. Instinctively he knew the rider was Colby. The defiant one. Fire and ice like the mountains she lived amongst. The mountains she 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 out 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, he responded.
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 Chevez 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 he would be even more so in the state he was in. It is most uncomfortable, Nicolas. I doubt I can stand for other males to be 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. Obrigado.
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, said something to her brother, who caught the horse’s bridle. Instantly she was back in the saddle. Rafael had had enough.
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 climbed over the railing and 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, with sinewy muscles beneath a thin silk shirt. He had thick wavy black hair, long and drawn back at the nape of his neck. 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. He caught at the snorting, bucking horse, dragging its head around and commanding obedience with an authority that even the animal seemed to recognize.
Shocked, Paul could only stare. Lord only knew what Colby would do. Paul had a sinking feeling she might throw a punch at the stranger and Paul couldn’t see himself winning a fistfight with the man when he was forced to defend his sister. He could see the stranger was the type of male who would hit sparks off of Colby.
The chestnut was acting like a lamb now and when Rafael stepped back to give her room, Colby expertly put the horse through its paces. His dark features a mask of indifference, Rafael circled Colby’s waist with one arm, lifting her bodily from the saddle. He was enormously strong and he practically tossed her to the ground.
Ginny clutched at Paul, gasping aloud. How dare he do such a thing! Appalled, she glanced at the woman watching with an air of annoyance and feigned boredom from the pickup. To humiliate Colby like that!
The moment the arm spanned her waist, Colby felt an unexpected connection. A heat from him seeped through the pores of her skin and spread throughout her bloodstream. Color stained Colby’s face as she pulled free of his hold. Her chin went up, emerald eyes sparkling dangerously. “Thank you, Mr. . . . ?” Her voice was velvet with exaggerated patience. She knew very well this had to be the other obnoxious De La Cruz brother. Who else? This was what she needed tonight. More misery!
He bowed slightly from the waist, a curiously courtly gesture. “De La Cruz. Rafael De La Cruz at your service. I believe you met my brother Nicolas and, of course, Juan and Julio Chevez. You, undoubtedly, are Colby Jansen.”
Taking the hat Paul handed to her, she slapped it against her leg to remove the dust. Her eyes slid over Rafael’s imposing figure on
ce, then returned to his broad shoulders before she seemed to dismiss him. “To what do we owe this honor?” Even Paul had to wince at the honey dripping sarcastically in her voice. “I thought your brother and I covered everything needed in our last friendly discussion.”
His ice-cold black eyes moved broodingly over her face, rested on her lush mouth, on the thin trickle of blood at the corner of her lips. His gut clenched hotly, and for a moment desire flared in his eyes. “Did you think we would give up so easily?” His voice whispered over her skin, soft, hypnotic, mesmerizing. Colby actually felt him touching her, his fingertips trailing over her skin so that little flames seemed to dance through her, yet his hands were at his sides.
She shook off the effects of his voice and eyes by concentrating on the woman in the cab of the pickup. “Is your lady friend ill?”
At her words the woman lifted her head and glared at Colby. She pushed open the door of the cab and shifted so she could carefully turn on the seat, showing off long legs in spiked heels. She was a tall willowy blonde with white skin and perfect makeup. In her cool lavender dress she looked like a fashion model. She didn’t bother to hide the contempt she felt as she approached, her eyes sliding over Colby, taking in her faded dusty jeans, torn shirt, dirt-streaked face, and wild braided hair.
Colby, all too aware of the contrast in their appearances, the scars on her hands and arms from bites and wicked hooves, lifted a hand to her unruly hair. Before she could attempt to tidy it Rafael caught her wrist, easily pulling her arm down, his expression harsh. Electricity arced between them, jumping from his skin to hers and back again. That slow burn was back, heating, thickening her blood. For a moment their eyes locked, clashed, a terrible sexual hunger leaping between them, devouring them. Colby’s chin went up in that familiar challenging way her brother and sister recognized. She pulled her hand away from him, not liking the way her body seemed to have a mind of its own around him.
“Louise Everett,” the woman introduced herself, laying a possessive hand on Rafael’s forearm. “You know my brother, Sean, and his wife, Joclyn. The De La Cruzes, their servants, and I are all staying on Sean’s ranch.” She made it sound as if she had arrived with the De La Cruz family. “When they heard Rafael and I were coming over to see you they asked me to deliver a message to you.” She stared for a moment disdainfully at the dirt on Colby’s forehead. “Joclyn would like her daughter to have riding lessons.” She examined her long fingernails for damage. “Although it looks to me as if that horse has thrown you more than once. I want my dreadfully crippled little niece learning from someone qualified, someone competent.”
Paul’s deep breath was audible. Colby was a professional. The best. Her reputation for training horses was known throughout the States. He wanted the snobs gone before he lost his temper and did something foolish. He took an aggressive step forward, his hands curling into fists. He didn’t care if De La Cruz was a dangerous man and could beat him to a bloody pulp, no one was going to put Colby in such a position and get away with it, not as long as he was around. And that crack about the De La Cruzes’ servants—the woman meant the Chevez brothers. Paul was a Chevez, so was Ginny. Did that mean if the family succeeded in taking them to Brazil, they would be servants instead of ranch owners? Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Ginny. She was glaring as angrily as he was.
“There’s been some mistake.” Colby’s voice was, if anything, softer than usual. She crossed to the thermos of lemonade more, Paul was certain, to keep from punching De La Cruz than anything else. She had that look in her eyes Paul knew very well. “I don’t give riding lessons, Ms. Everett. I don’t have time for anything like that.” Her green eyes slashed at Rafael’s hard features. “Evidently Mr. De La Cruz has so many servants running his ranch for him he’s forgotten what hard work actually entails.” Crippled little niece. The words echoed in her mind so that she wanted to clap her hands over her ears and drown out the sound, the image of the poor child obviously unloved by her aunt.
Rafael’s icy black eyes seemed to smolder but the rugged features remained impassive. He moved then, glided, a ripple of muscle and sinew, no more. She blinked and he was beside Colby, crowding her close, leaning down to remove the thin trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth with a brush of his thumb. Her heart jumped at his touch. Her body actually ached for his. It was damned maddening and Colby wanted it to stop. She recognized that he would be dominant sexually. It was bred into his very blood and bones. He would demand everything from his woman, own her, possess her, until there would be no going back—ever. And she hated that she was so susceptible to his dark sensuality when she prided herself on independence.
“Louise misunderstood the message,” he said softly, his black eyes unblinking on Colby’s face. Burning. Devouring. Hungry. He seemed to be looking right into her soul. She had the uncomfortable feeling he might actually be reading her thoughts. She watched as he raised his hand to his mouth and touched the pad of his thumb to his tongue almost as if he was savoring the taste of her.
Her entire body clenched. She found herself staring almost helplessly at him. The idea should have repelled her, but he was sinfully sexy, and she was mesmerized by him, the way he moved, the way his eyes were so hungry as his gaze drifted over her face. He had the ability to make a woman feel as if she was the only woman on earth. The only one he saw. He also made her feel as if he would take her, throw her over his shoulder and stride off with her if she defied him. It was unsettling—and, God help her, exhilarating.
“Colby.” Ginny caught at her sister’s hand, suddenly afraid for her. The stranger was looking at her older sister as if she belonged to him, as if he might be a wicked sorcerer bent on casting a spell on her.
Colby shook off the sexual web Rafael was weaving, silently cursing. This man was truly dangerous. He would own a woman, make her a sexual slave with no thought but to please him. He was an erotic temptation no woman could ever afford to succumb to. They had sent the first brother to order her to turn over the ranch and the children to the Chevez family and when that didn’t work, they obviously sent the first string in to deal with her. She lifted her chin in challenge. “What message exactly were you supposed to deliver?”
“Joclyn would appreciate you meeting her later this evening at the saloon.” The voice was so beautiful she ached to hear more. She forced her hands to stay at her sides instead of pressing them to her ears. “I believe she wanted to do you the courtesy of speaking to you herself.”
Colby found herself clutching at Ginny’s hand for solace. Rafael De La Cruz was capable of casting spells, a dark sorcerer weaving black magic, and she was highly susceptible. She wanted him gone before she fell into the depths of his black eyes. He was leaning so close to her she could smell his masculine scent. Outdoors. Sexual. Definitely male. “It seems to be very important to her.”
“I’m very busy this time of year,” Colby said a little desperately. She couldn’t look away from him, not for a moment. His eyes were so hungry, so needy, so demanding. And damn him, her body actually ached for his. Crippled little niece. She couldn’t let the image go.
“Then I will have to stay and convince you,” he said, his accent very much in evidence. Everything in him, every cell, his heart and soul, his brain, even the buried demon roared at him to chain her to his side. He could do it, just take her. There was no one capable of stopping him. He was used to nothing, no one opposing his will. Certainly not a little slip of a woman. A human woman.
“Eight o’clock then,” she said impatiently, trying not to look as frightened as she felt. No one had ever made her feel as confused and edgy as he did. There was something possessive in his eyes, something that seemed to claim her. She had never been truly afraid of anyone before. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to work.” He was the enemy. Closely associated with a family who hadn’t wanted her or her mother. Someone who would consider her brother and sister servants in a land they knew nothing of. She had to remember th
at. She had to remember how hard their father had fought to give his children a legacy of their own. Rafael De La Cruz had that Latin charm she’d heard so much about but had never experienced. The man was lethal. Deliberately Colby looked at Louise. She was obviously drowsy and purring like a domesticated cat. She looked very much as if the two had just made love. Louise was stroking his arm and looking up at him with a singularly rapt expression on her face, one that turned Colby’s stomach.
Rafael gestured imperiously toward the pickup, and Louise sent him a smile, her face lighting up at his attention, and she obediently went to the truck. The motion set Colby’s teeth on edge. Why didn’t you just snap your fingers? The De La Cruz brothers had a way of acting as if women were inferior to them and it irritated the hell out of her. That wasn’t altogether true. It was more like every man or woman, every human being on earth, was considered inferior to them.
Rafael turned his head and looked at her almost as if he could read her thoughts. For a moment she froze, almost afraid to move. She had never seen eyes so hard or cold. If his eyes were a mirror to his soul, this man was truly a monster. He made no move to follow Louise; instead his gaze swept over Colby’s slender figure, his merciless features devoid of expression. “Why do you persist in this nonsense? This is work for a man, not one such as you. It is obvious you have spent most of the afternoon on the ground.”
“It’s none of your business, De La Cruz.” Colby’s pretense at good manners was thrown to the wind. Colby had no idea why she felt so threatened but she had the impression she was caught in the crosshairs of a powerful scope.
“I believe that is one of my horses you are breaking. How did you get him?” He asked it softly, as if he could not be bothered becoming disturbed by their disagreement.
Christine Feehan 5 CARPATHIAN NOVELS Page 39