Dark 12 - DARK MELODY

by Christine Feehan

  She raised her head. "I thought I was doing that all by myself. I admit I was shocked at myself. If I think about it, the idea repulses me, but when we're together…" She trailed off, leaning her body into his.

  "I enhance your need and desire to feed," he admitted. "I do not want you to be uncomfortable. Over the centuries I have been in a few situations where the illusion of eating was not enough and I was forced to consume human food. Vegetables were not so bad, although my body immediately rejected them, but the flesh of animals that had been killed was wholly repugnant to me. I know you feel this way about taking blood. To our people, it is sacred and very natural."

  Dayan groaned suddenly, caught her face in his hands and brought his mouth down once more on hers. He could hear Corinne's silent laughter echoing warmly in his mind. Her hearing was acute now, and she had picked up Shea's deliberate noise as she approached the chamber.

  'It was nice of her to warn us.'

  'It was necessary, but not nice. We have wasted our time alone here.' There was another groan, his breath hot on her neck. 'Stop laughing, I might have to walk all bent over.' He allowed her to feel the painful fullness, the little jackhammers tripping in his head. Deliberately he groaned again, just for good measure.

  Corinne laughed out loud, the sound carefree and happy. "Poor baby. Welcome to real life."

  He wrapped his arms around her tightly. "I do not want real life. I want sex." He leaned close to her. "Hot sex, scorching sex." His voice was wicked in her ear, his breath stirring tendrils of hair and sending shivers along her spine.

  "Now I really don't feel sorry for you at all." She pushed at the wall of his chest to put distance between them. She was laughing, her eyes dancing as she teased him. "You're a wicked man and you deserve to be hurting." He knew very well what he was doing to her body – the rush of heat, the spread of fire. He was totally unrepentant.

  Shea moved into the chamber, still making noise to warn them of her coming. She could hear them laughing together, could smell the age-old call to mate with her heightened senses. She grinned at them as they broke guiltily apart. "I'll watch over Jennifer while she sleeps. Are you visiting Cullen and Lisa today? I checked on Cullen while they were sleeping just to make sure he was healing nicely. He's already wanting to get up. Gregori went twice too, just to make certain."

  Dayan's hand slipped down Corinne's arm, his fingers shackling her wrist to his side. "That sounds like Cullen."

  "Lisa has been very anxious to see Corinne," Shea admitted. "Cullen doesn't want her to be worried, so he's decided to get up and find you both."

  "That is where we are going now," Dayan assured the healer.

  Corinne nodded. "I've been worried about Lisa, but Dayan thought it would be too soon for Lisa to think I could travel after all that's happened."

  Shea shrugged as she bent over the incubator. "I think at this point, Lisa will be so glad to see you she won't question anything. She prefers not to confront anything that doesn't fit her view of the world."

  Corinne tugged at Dayan. "Come on. I really want to see her. Jennifer's asleep – now is our chance." She suddenly grinned at him, her teeth very white and her eyes dancing with excitement. "We can fly. You can teach me to fly. Hurry, Dayan, I can't wait." She was dragging him toward the entrance to the chamber.

  Dayan couldn't help catching her exuberance. She was bringing back memories of his childhood when he had first experienced his abilities as a boy. He stopped her. "See that chimney going up the vent? It is far faster to go up that way."

  She studied it for a moment, uncertain whether he was teasing her. "It looks very narrow. How can we fit, even if we were birds?"

  "Bats live in caves. They are small and can get into very tight places."

  "No way. You can actually make yourself that small?"

  "I can be the mist on the wind, molecules in the air. Of course I can do small. So can you. It is exactly like the leopard. Study the image in my head so you have the exact replica in detail, then focus and hold that image. You can do it." He would help her to hold the image, just as he had done with the leopard.

  Corinne followed his lead without hesitation, willing to experience everything life had to offer. The sensations were completely different: the information pouring into the bat's body came differently than the leopard's senses. When she burst into the night sky, Dayan was already providing the next image, that of an owl. In midair, she made the transformation, this time aware of his aid, and accepting of it.

  To soar across the sky was so incredible, she lost the image more than once and had to rely on Dayan to hold it for her. It didn't matter – she was entranced. High above the trees she circled, dipping her silent wings and scanning the earth for all she could see and hear. ‘I could stay here forever!'

  He was experiencing flying and shape-shifting through her eyes. It was such a part of him, he had forgotten the joy of it. Or maybe he had never been able to feel it as strongly as Corinne did until now, not even as a child when his emotions were still intact. Or maybe the intensity of his feelings was because Corinne was with him, by his side, in his heart and soul, and he had someone to share every pleasure, every sorrow. Maybe that was the difference. He only knew she had made him whole, had changed the world into something new and shiny, and her joy was constantly spilling over to him.

  Dayan turned her in the direction of the house where Syndil and Barack had taken Cullen and Lisa to protect them from the members of the society. Dayan knew Darius had tracked down the hunters and had succeeded in diminishing their numbers. He had done so once before. Hopefully, it would be some time before they could fill their ranks of soldiers and send new assassins after his family. He refrained from passing on the information to Corinne, not wanting her to have to face the harsher aspects of their life until it was necessary.

  Below them the house appeared, a long, sprawling structure surrounded by forest. The clearing contained a garden of wildflowers and ferns. To one side was a large oak tree. Hanging off a branch by a thick rope was a tire swing. The house looked well kept. Dayan glided to earth, guiding Corinne as she landed, scrambling for a purchase in the midst of pine needles and vegetation. The female owl nearly crashed into the tire swing. She shifted back into her normal shape, laughing aloud. It was Dayan who provided clothes.

  "Dayan, this is so much fun. Did you see me? I thought I was going to smash into the oak tree. I was trying for a branch, but at the last second I was afraid I wouldn't make it."

  Her hair was a wild mass of silk, her cheeks flushed with excitement, and her moss-green eyes were dancing again. She took his breath away and melted his heart. "You did fine, though your landing could use work."

  His voice was teasing, a black-velvet melody that somehow played through her body and soul. Corinne touched his face. "Thank you, Dayan. I love every minute of this, I really do." She glanced at the house. "Is this where Lisa is staying? It's wonderful – who owns it?"

  Dayan shrugged. "Carpathians own property all over and we lend it when there is need. Listen to me, honey, before we go in. Lisa must not know about us. That we are different. It will be better for her if she never finds out." Dayan spoke with extraordinary gentleness.

  Corinne smiled lovingly up at him and framed his face with her hands. "I know Lisa better than anyone else, Dayan, and I love her. I would never want her burdened with more than she can handle."

  He nodded his acceptance and bent his head to kiss her inviting mouth. "I fear you are looking far too beautiful to have gone through such an ordeal as you have.

  I do not know how Lisa will take your recovery." His hand traced the slender column of her throat, moved lower to cup the weight of her soft, firm breast in his palm. He thought that touch would be enough, but need slammed into his body. Before he could stop himself, he bent his head lower to find her nipple right through the thin silk of her blouse, his teeth scraping gently, his mouth suddenly hot and urgent, pulling strongly.

  Corinne closed her eyes and
leaned into him, wanting him all over again, her body flooding with liquid heat. She circled his head and held him tightly to her. "What are you doing, Dayan? We're right outside the house; anyone could see us through the windows if they were looking." But she wasn't pushing him away as she should have; she was pressing him to her, arching her body to give him better access. Her breath was coming in ragged little gasps. How could she need his touch so much? She wanted him right there, that minute, again and again, his body hard and thick, thrusting into hers.

  'We can be unseen if we so desire.' Even in his mind, his voice was husky, sensual, wickedly erotic. She could taste him in her mouth, feel him deep inside her, and yet he was only at her breast, his mouth demanding. The feel of his mouth, hot and wet over the silk of her blouse, was making her wild and hungry.

  'You mean invisible?' The thought excited her. Having him right there, right at that moment. When she wanted. She was already moving against him, making her own demands. 'Tell me how.'

  'First you do whatever you see in my head.' His hand was sliding over her flat stomach, pushing aside her shirt so that he could feel bare skin.

  He had pictures in his head, but Corinne was certain they had nothing to do with becoming invisible. She heard his soft laughter. 'You're so incredibly bad sometimes. ' She meant to chastise him, but it came out soft and sexy. She was already responding to those pictures, trusting him to cloak them from prying eyes. She was pushing aside his clothing, her hands finding the hard length of him, fingertips dancing and teasing, making intimate promises to him.

  Dayan removed their clothing in the way of his people, easily, simply, so that her body was open to his, so he could look at her curvy feminine form and marvel at its lush perfection. His hand slipped down her flat belly to the nest of curls and settled there, his fingers finding her hot and slick with damp need. "I could take you over and over and never have enough," he whispered, leaning back to watch her face while he pushed with his palm against her entrance. He loved to see her face, the way she moved into him, her hips begging for more, wanting him with the same eagerness he had for her.

  "Dayan." She whispered his name. Softly. Her voice said it all. He bent his head again to find her mouth with his, at the same time inserting two fingers into her hot channel, stroking, teasing, matching the rhythm of her hips. She was fiery hot, and her scent called to him. Corinne moved restlessly against him, loving the way the breeze slid over her body like his fingers, teasing her nipples into hard, beckoning peaks so that Dayan couldn't resist her invitation. She loved him watching her pleasure, feeling her pleasure when he merged with her.

  ‘I want to taste you, Corinne. I want every part of you.'

  ‘I would deny you nothing, Dayan. You know that.' She loved the intimacy of their mind merge. The way everything between them was so out in the open. She didn't have to tell him she wanted him to push into her harder – he already knew it. He didn't have to tell her that the way she was moving and showing her need of him excited him unbearably.

  His hands spanned her waist and he lifted her, setting her bottom unexpectedly on the tire swing. He tipped her back so he had access to her sheath. "You'd better be right about that invisible thing," she warned him, but her fists were clutched in his hair and she was already going up in flames.

  Dayan delved deep into the sweet, hot core of her. She was shaking with need now, her muscles clenching tighter and tighter. She wrapped her legs around his back, moaning her pleasure, unable to believe she could feel so alive and ready to shatter at any moment. His hands were hard on her hips, pulling her to him as he deliberately took her over the edge into a mind-shattering release that seemed to go on forever. Satisfied, he stood, dragging the swing forward, pinning her hips so that he could bury himself in her to share her explosive pleasure. He moved in hard, deep strokes while her body exploded around his and her hands' grip on the rope was the only thing keeping her in touch with reality.

  Dayan tightened his hold on the curve of her hips and allowed the wildness of his nature to claim him. Corinne was urging him on with little breathless cries, with her tight, hot body surrounding his, pulling him deeper and deeper into her. Lightning arced across the sky and split open the heavens, raining a shower of sparks around them. Or maybe it was just in their minds – Corinne wasn't certain. Electricity seemed to be crackling between them so that flames sizzled and danced along their skin.

  He threw back his head, surging forward again and again, the wind in his face, his body buried in her hot velvet sheath, tight and fiery, dragging him closer and closer to the edge of the world. Corinne was so much a part of him, he couldn't tell where his pleasure started and hers left off. He felt the first ripple, the contraction, the strong gripping of her muscles around him and he willingly went with her, right over the edge of the world. They were free-falling through time and space, while all around them the earth rocked and rolled and fireworks seemed to scatter across the night sky in a fiery display.

  Corinne found herself back in her own body, struggling to control her wild breathing, both hands clutching the thick rope. Dayan was watching her, his heart like thunder in their ears. His black gaze was so hungry and intense, Corinne's heart went into instant meltdown. They both smiled, the same slow grin of sated contentment. Of intimate conspiracy.

  Dayan gently disentangled himself, helping her to her feet, holding her close to him. He loved holding her almost as much as he loved making wild love to her. Music was playing in his head, notes and lyrics running through his heart and soul. Corinne. He breathed her into his lungs, letting them both recover naturally.

  "Was I yelling like a banshee? I can't honestly remember," Corinne asked.

  "If you were, I must have been yelling right along with you," Dayan assured her. He allowed the wind to cool the heat of their bodies before he clothed their bare skin. Tilting his head to one side, he regarded her gravely. "You are so beautiful, Corinne. When I am up on the stage performing and you are either by my side, performing right along with me, or simply sitting in the audience with all those single men staring at you, I am going to have a few bad moments."

  She laughed at him, flung her arm around his neck to kiss him soundly. "Crazy man, we just made the earth move. I know you aren't going to pretend you're not feeling arrogant and like the greatest lover of all time. What is all this sudden insecurity?"

  His white teeth flashed, black eyes boyishly mischievous. "I knew if I planned it right, you would eventually get around to admitting it." He caught his mane of hair in one hand and secured it at the nape of his neck with a leather tie.

  Corinne's fingertips tenderly brushed at the wayward charcoal strands falling across his forehead. "You deserve it this one time. I love you very much."

  "At last. I never thought you would come right out and tell me! I was going to pry it out of you if you waited much longer. We are no longer invisible. I think we'd better go up to the house and get inside in case Lisa comes out here and notices we did not bring a car. I saw the curtains flutter upstairs."

  Corinne turned eagerly to the house, hurrying up the porch steps to the front door. Before she could tap, the door was yanked open. "Corinne!" Lisa flung herself into Corinne's arms so hard, she nearly knocked them both over. Dayan saved them with a steadying hand on Corinne's back. Tears were swimming in Lisa's blue eyes, streaming unchecked down her face. The two women clung together, laughing and crying at the same time while Dayan looked on in helpless male horror.

  "I was so afraid for you," Lisa said, clinging to her. "Let me look at you. They told me in the hospital that you were going to die. You just disappeared out of your hospital bed. Syndil told me your heart is strong and the baby is alive. Where is she?"

  Corinne hugged Lisa to her as the words began to tumble out. "I didn't die. My heart is very strong, stronger than it has ever been. Dayan's family knows healers – incredible doctors, they saved the baby and me. Jennifer is still in an incubator, but I promise, as soon as they let me have her, I'll br
ing her to you. Tell me about Cullen. How is he?"

  Lisa was leading Corinne through the beautiful house, toward Cullen's bedroom. Dayan followed, keeping his distance, allowing Lisa to have Corinne's complete attention. "Cullen is really doing well, but he won't stay in bed no matter what I say. Yesterday morning he wanted to get up and fix me breakfast! He's like that – he's always wanting to do the sweetest things. I like doing things for him, but he doesn't want me to; he thinks he's imposing."

  "Has he tasted your vegetarian lasagna yet? That should convince him you can be very domestic," Corinne advised.

  Lisa stopped before pushing open the door. "I want to be with him, Corinne. I mean it – I've never met anyone like him, anyone I could just talk to for hours. I love being with him." She smiled. "He's sort of been a captive audience."

  "That's good, isn't it?"

  Lisa shrugged. "I'd give up modeling to be with him. You know how much it means to me to know I have a huge retirement fund, and plenty of money to fall back on. But I'd give it up for him, I really would."

  "But…" Corinne encouraged gently.

  Lisa glanced at Dayan, who was some distance down the hall, studying a painting. She lowered her voice. "Cullen hasn't said anything to me. I think he likes being with me, I know he's attracted, but I don't know how he really feels about me. Or how much. He's different from other men, Corinne, he really is."

  "I'm happy for you, Lisa. I like Cullen. I think I could grow to love him, and I can't imagine that he wouldn't adore you as I do." She took Lisa's arm. "Before we go into Cullen's room, I should tell you that Dayan and I are married."

  "What?" Lisa glared at her, clearly hurt.

  "It was necessary to protect the baby. I love him, really love him, and I want you to love him as a brother. He's been so good to me. He saved my life; he saved Jennifer's life." Corinne looked up at Lisa with a steady, almost mesmerizing gaze. "I intend to spend the rest of my life with him. I need you to accept him as family."