A poignant sense of satisfaction wriggled inside him and he simply couldn’t tell if it was Helen’s or his or a combination of both. But he liked it. He wasn’t typically a sentimental man, especially not after mind-blowing sex, but he made an exception now. What they’d shared hadn’t been just sex. It hadn’t even been making love. It was beyond anything he’d ever known. For a few seconds, they’d shared space and feelings and emotions. They’d been so deeply a part of each other that he couldn’t tell where he stopped and she began.

Some of that had been disconcerting, but even with that, the experience had been incredible. Life changing.

Drake finally knew what Angus meant when he’d said that he and Gilda were truly one. They weren’t physically the same person, but if what they experienced was anything like what he and Helen had just felt, it was like sharing a soul.

He’d loved it. Wanted to do it again, but he could already feel Helen’s pleasure fading and her brain kicking in. She’d felt what he had and although she’d loved it at the time, she wasn’t loving it now.

She shut herself off from him, blocking him out.

He tightened his hold on her. “What we just shared changes things between us. I won’t let you keep me out.”

“I’m not giving you any choice,” she said. “I need some time alone to think. My head’s already crowded enough without you poking around in there, too.”

“It didn’t take you long to figure out how to shut me out.”

“I’m a fast learner,” she replied.

Drake sighed. Nothing was ever easy when it came to women.

Chapter 15

Helen was too tired to be freaking out. She didn’t have the energy for it. Especially not after sex like that. It had been cataclysmic for her—rocking her world and cracking her foundation until she no longer felt as though she was on solid ground.

She’d felt things through Drake. Seen through his perceptions. She finally saw what he did when he looked at her—smooth, soft skin, gentle curves, long, shapely legs. It had been bizarre seeing herself, but not feeling the way she was supposed to about her body. It had turned her on and that was truly disturbing. At least it was now. At the time, she’d loved it—reveled in the way she could make Drake sweat with the need to push inside her. She’d never been so turned on in her life. So satisfied.

Until she sensed Drake’s plans to keep her. Permanently. What a frightening thought that was. Not because she didn’t think she could grow to love him, because she knew she could. In fact, part of her had already fallen for him. How could she not love him just a little when she could see what a noble, caring man he was? What he’d sacrificed to protect humanity? That he never once thought about what he should get in return for his efforts?

No, what frightened her was the fact that if she let him get too close, when she died, that closeness would only make him suffer, and he’d already suffered so much. She didn’t want that for him. She didn’t want him to love her and have to watch her die the way he had Thomas—the way he had with the countless other faces she’d seen in his mind. It wasn’t fair for her to do that to him no matter how much the idea of being loved by a man like Drake thrilled her. She wouldn’t let herself be that selfish no matter how tempting it was.

She had a responsibility to Drake to keep her distance. She wouldn’t call what they’d shared a mistake—it was too beautiful for that—but she couldn’t let it happen again. That kind of intimacy was too dangerous to her resolve to protect him.

“Stop it.” His voice rumbled in her ear, which was pressed firmly against his chest.

Helen pushed herself up, feeling the heated skin cool on contact with the air. “Stop what?”

One big hand cupped her head and pulled her back down while the other stroked down her back in a soothing caress. “You’re keeping me out. I don’t like it.”

She didn’t have the strength to fight his hold, so she let herself enjoy the feeling of being in his arms, of lying against his muscular chest. It might be the last time she ever got to have this feeling of being safe and sated. “I’m feeling a little vulnerable right now.”

“Join the club. That was . . . incredible.”

Oh, baby. It had been a lot more than that, but she wasn’t going to puff up his ego by telling him. It was already going to be hard enough resisting him now that she knew what it was like. She wasn’t going to give him any more ammunition. “And messy.” Which reminded her. “We didn’t use protection. I can’t believe I didn’t even think about it.”

A little spurt of fear made her stiffen at the realization. She couldn’t let herself get pregnant. She couldn’t take another life with her when she died.

“It’s okay,” he told her, holding her in place so she couldn’t pull away from him. “I can’t make you sick, nor can I give you a child.”

“How can you know that?”

“We’re sterile. None of the Theronai have had children for over two hundred years.” His voice was tight, almost angry, but his hands were gentle over her back.

She let herself relax against him again, trying to sort through the meaning in those few words. “That makes you more than two hundred years old?”

“Yeah. It does.”

Okay, that was a little freaky, but then that was par for the course when it came to Drake. Everything that she’d witnessed since last night had veered over into freaky territory. “Tell me about what it’s like.”

“To be this old?”

“No, to live a life like yours. All the monsters. Carrying a sword. Living with magic. It’s all so . . . strange.”

She felt him shrug under her cheek. His muscles flowed with smooth strength and although she was too worn out to do anything about it, she appreciated his body and the way it made her hum inside just being near him.

“I was born into the Sentinel community. My parents were bonded Theronai. I’ve grown up fighting the Synestryn all my life, so I don’t know any other way.”

“If your parents were Theronai and had you, then what makes you think the Theronai can’t have children?”

“We’ve run tests. All our men are infertile. We’ve never been a very prolific people, so it’s hard to pinpoint when or how it happened. The Sanguinar theorize it’s something the Synestryn did to us without our knowledge—some kind of poison, maybe.”

That was a horrible thought. She couldn’t imagine being violated in such a way and couldn’t help but try to give him comfort.

She stroked his chest and felt the luceria warm. Until she’d felt the heat, she hadn’t realized she’d been trying to reach out to him like that, trying to comfort him that way as well. Using the link was becoming more natural to her. She was going to have to be careful about that, because it was such an intimate connection—something she’d never shared with anyone else before.

Helen needed to put some distance between them. She needed some privacy and a chance to gather her thoughts. Her world was upside down and she needed some space to right it. “I’m going to go clean up.”

Drake slowly released her as if begrudging her the freedom. He let out a regretful sigh. “We need to get moving again, anyway. I want to be home before sundown.”

“When the monsters come out,” she reminded herself. She sat up and brushed her tangled hair away from her face.

“That, and the fact that I want to get you some help with your vision. I know you think it’s real—that you’re going to burn to death—but I can’t believe that. I don’t want you to believe it, either. As long as you think you’re going to die, you’re going to hold me at arm’s length and that’s not nearly close enough for me.”

Helen saw a possessive light flare in his eyes, reminding her of all the things that he’d shown her he wanted to do to her—all the wickedly wonderful things he had in store for her. A heavy heat pulsed low in her belly and her nipples tightened. She had to remind herself to pull in her next breath. “It’s not?” she managed to squeak out.

“I have plans for you, Helen, and most of them involve us being very close and very naked for a long, long time. It’s best for both of us if you just get used to the idea.”

“I’m not sure I can get used to some of those ideas of yours.”

The smile he gave her was pure, lethal sin. “You’ll love every one of them. I’ll make sure of it.”

Helen slept on the way to Drake’s home. She woke when the van slowed as it neared what she could only think of as a fortress. A thick, stone wall surrounded more acres than she could see. All the trees near the wall had been cleared away, leaving the sheer surface of granite sparkling in the setting sunlight. The wall had to be fifteen feet high, and along its top were coils of razor wire and thick metal spikes that looked just as sharp. The only way in that she could see was a huge iron gate.

Drake pulled up to that gate and pressed his hand against a lighted panel. At least three camera lenses trained on them.

“ID,” spoke a deep voice from a speaker mounted by the panel.

“It’s Drake, dickhead. Open up.”

“You’re not alone.”

“Jealous, Nicholas?”

“Absolutely. I’ll let Joseph know you’re here.”

The giant gate rolled open more swiftly than Helen would have thought possible for its size. Drake drove through, and the thing was closing again before his bumper had cleared the opening.

She wasn’t sure whether that kind of attention to detail regarding security made her feel better or much, much worse.

“We’re safe here,” Drake told her, sparing her a quick glance.

Helen didn’t let herself look into his eyes. Ever since she’d gotten out of his bed, he’d been watching her as if gauging her emotions. She’d kept a tight clamp on the pipeline between them and she could tell it was starting to irritate him.

Too bad. He was going to have to learn to deal with it. At least until they found Kevin’s sword. Or until she died. Whichever came first.

Helen looked out the window. The land here was wild and overgrown in places and painstakingly manicured in others. Ancient, towering trees shaded everything, protecting the area from the hot summer sun.

Between the trees, she could see glimpses of a large building. Like the wall, it was made of shimmering stone that reflected the pinks and oranges of the sunset. It was several stories tall, and although it was much larger than any plantation home she’d ever seen, it had the same kind of elegantly simple architecture.

As they got nearer, she could see that the building in front was only part of the mammoth structure. Behind it were twin wings shooting from the back, and each of those had two wings jutting out from it as well.

“What is this place?”

“My home. We call it Dabyr. It’s also home to nearly five hundred Sentinels and humans.”

“It’s huge.”

“It has to be. Otherwise we’d kill each other.” He sounded serious. “See the north wing?”