Dark Predator

Her eyes took up half her face and the fear was back, all traces of temper gone. She couldn't scream and her mouth wasn't open to try to call for aid, and that upset him more than it should have.

"Do not look at me that way," he snapped. "Had you simply come with me without a fuss, I would not have had to drag you back in such a manner. Has no one ever taught you consequences?"

She looked away from, shifting her gaze to somewhere over his shoulder, but she couldn't contain the shudder that went through her. Perhaps his voice had been too harsh. He had to remember her infirmity. Her father certainly should have addressed her need to flout authority, but he was there now, and he had no doubt he could get the job done.

He waved his hand at the door and it opened for him. He swept through with Marguarita in his arms and placed her on the sofa while he turned back to employ safeguards. He wove intricate, very strong guards around the entire structure, taking his time, determined no one would enter - and no one would leave while he slept. The workers on his properties knew when a De La Cruz was in residence, they were not to be disturbed during daylight hours. When he was satisfied no one - not even one of his brothers - could get through his weave, he turned back to study the woman who embodied the word mystery .

Marguarita sat up slowly. He saw her catch her breath and pain flashed across her face. He frowned and stepped close to her. The scent of blood hit him. Zacarias pulled her to her feet. She kept her hands pressed tightly to her waist. He could see small red droplets trickling through her fingers. Humans didn't heal themselves. He hadn't spent time around humans in years. He'd fed and was gone, a ghost in the night no one ever saw - or remembered.

"Let me see." He softened his voice when her gaze jumped to his. "Take your hands away, woman. I need to see the damage done."

Apparently he sounded just as menacing when he used a low tone because she shivered, but couldn't seem to move.

Very gently he gripped her wrists and moved her hands. The puncture wounds from the grizzly-sized talons of the harpy eagle wrapped around her,front to back on either side. He should have thought about what those talons would do to human flesh, not about her defiance. Watching her face, he spit into his hands. His saliva would not only help mend the punctures, but he had numbing agent that would stop the pain as he healed her. He fit his palms easily over the marks, pressing into her, his hands nearly spanning her midsection.

"You will feel warm, but it should not hurt you," he assured her.

She was trembling so hard he wasn't certain she could remain standing. Her eyes stared into his with the exact look he'd seen on the prey of cobras. She looked mesmerized and terrified, unable to look away from him.

"Stop fearing me." He had wanted her to be afraid, now he wished he could take it back. She looked very fragile, vulnerable, and so very alone. "I will not allow anything to happen to you. It is my duty to look after you." He was telling the truth to her. Nothing would take this woman from him - certainly not death. By some miracle or some devilish trick, he was at long last coming to life, his body reborn, his mind once again intrigued.

He looked around the room and everything in it remained a dull gray. When he looked back at her, he could see emerging color, faint, but there. Her eyelashes were that same amazing black as the rope of her hair. Enormous eyes of deep dark chocolate stared back at him. Her eyebrows were black. Her lips were definitely pink. Colors could only be restored by a lifemate. Emotions - and he was having unfamiliar reactions to her - could only be restored by a lifemate. The fact that his body had reacted physically to her was astonishing, problematic and yet exhilarating - if he could feel exhilaration. But a lifemate would have restored those things instantly.

Mages had infiltrated, occupying the neighboring ranch only a few months earlier, biding their time in hopes of destroying the De La Cruz family. Dominic and Zacarias had stopped them, but there was a slight chance the alliance between the master vampires and the mages had held and mages had found their way back for another attempt. If Marguarita was shadowed by a mage spell - he would have known. As much as he kept coming back to that explanation, a dread was growing in him that he knew the real explanation.

If Marguarita truly was his lifemate, then something had gone wrong, and he feared he knew the answer to what that was. He had not found her in time. His soul

was in tatters, already beyond repair. His other half could not seal him to her, could not bring light to the utter darkness within him. It was no surprise that he was a lost cause. He had probably been born that way, but still, there was a time when he'd dreamed of this moment, when he'd envisioned a lifemate and even actively sought one.

His palms grew warm as he pushed heat through his body into hers. Her lungs fought for air and he purposely breathed for her, calming her, the air flowing naturally through his until her body followed the same even rhythm. Her heart pounded so hard he feared she would have a heart attack.

"Just breathe, mi?a emni ku��enak minan  - my beautiful lunatic." There was an inadvertent ache in his voice, a mourning for what he'd lost long before he'd ever found it.

Marguarita looked up at Zacarias De La Cruz's strong face. It was a face carved from the very mountains, chiseled with battle and age, yet strangely handsome. This was not a man who had ever been a boy, he was all warrior. For the first time, deep in his eyes, she saw sorrow. The emotion was deep and real and when she touched his mind, she wanted to weep. He didn't appear to realize the depths of his anguish, or maybe he simply didn't acknowledge emotion, but it made her want to weep for him.

He was completely self-contained, not needing anyone. So powerful. And so utterly alone. He inflicted pain, terrified her and then so very gently healed her wounds. Perhaps he was a little mad from being alone for so long. Each time he called her something in his language, his voice softened almost to a caress, his words wrapping around her like strong arms. Sadly for her, that lonely, feral quality in him drew compassion from her. Already her mind reached for his, automatically soothing him, sending him warmth and understanding.

Without thought she lifted her hand to touch those deep lines carved into his face. He caught her wrist, startling her. She hadn't been aware she was actually contemplating touching him. Her wrist ached from the force of his palm slapping her skin. He was as hard as a kapok tree, his flesh not giving at all. His fingers wrapped around her wrist easily, clamping down like a vise,making it impossible to pull away. Her heart slammed hard in her chest and she blinked up at him. Her breath exploded out of her lungs. She'd managed to stir the tiger again, without even thinking.

I'm sorry. Truly.

The suspicion in his eyes was so like a wary wild creature that she couldn't stop that flow of compassion and warmth from her mind into his. She felt as if she needed to calm him. He didn't belong inside a house. There was no way four walls could contain his power or his savage nature. She couldn't imagine anything or anybody being at ease around him. He was too dominant, taking over the room, his aristocratic ways and hard authority adding to the terrifying aura surrounding him.

"Were you planning on petting me?"

There was no sarcasm in his tone, but his question hurt. She licked her suddenly dry lips and shook her head. She didn't know what she had been doing. If she had her pen and paper - maybe she could try to express herself,but she felt cut off from the world most of the time, like this moment. How did she try with mere impressions to convey the way her strange gift manifested?

She wasn't even certain how her gift worked. She only knew that everything in her reached out to the wildness in him, to the tortured soul, stark and lonely and in need. He didn't even know he was in need. How could she explain when she didn't have a voice?

I'm sorry, she repeated, unable to think what else to do.

Zacarias's expression remained absolute stone as he brought her fingertips to his face and held them there. "Do not be sorry. I am not."

Her stomach performed some weird acrobatic somersault at the touch of his skin beneath the pads of her fingers.

"If you wish to touch me, you have my permission."

For the first time since the vampire had attacked her, she was glad she couldn't speak. There were no words. Nothing. She should have been irritated by his aristocratic condescension, but instead she wanted to smile.

She had no excuses. Whatever compulsion he seemed so worried about was obviously working on her as well. And without her pen and paper she felt vulnerable, stripped naked, unable to communicate. She swallowed hard and nodded, wondering a little hysterically if he thought she should thank him for his consent.

He dropped his hand, leaving hers against his shadowed jaw. She pressed her palm into that dark scruff and felt her heart reach out to his. The sensation was so strong it scared her. She dropped her hand abruptly and stepped back, confused at her reactions to him. She was very afraid of him, yet the sadness in him weighed so heavily on her she couldn't stop herself from feeling compassion.

She'd done this to him. She was guilty and there was no getting around that. He had come here to end his life honorably, and she had stopped him, leaving him once more in the loneliness of his bleak world. If there was truly a man who was an island unto himself, it was Zacarias De La Cruz. She couldn't see his entire lonely world, but she felt the tip of it and that was enough to make her want to weep forever. She owed him and a Fernandez always paid their debts.

I didn't know what I was doing when I stopped you from ending your burdens. If I could go back and undo it . . . Would she? Could she stand by and let him die? Her shoulders slumped. She couldn't lie to him. She would never be able to just stand there while he burned in the sun. It was beyond her ability. She raised unhappy eyes to his. I'm sorry. Was there nothing else she could say to him?

Zacarias studied her face for so long she began to think he wouldn't speak again. Then his gaze dropped, drifting over her body, studying her feminine form much like one of the ranchers assessing stock. She bit her lip hard to keep from shoving him away from her. She wasn't a horse. She owed him, yes, but she'd apologized more than once. And he didn't have to look at her as if she was a germ.

His gaze jumped back to her face, locking with hers. "I am reading your thoughts." His hand dropped to hers. He lifted her clenched fist to his chest and one by one pried open her fingers. "You are a bad-tempered little thing, aren't you? And very confused. One moment you feel remorse and think to offer me your services and the next you think to strike me. You already serve me. I have only to order and you will provide whatever I require. As for striking me, it is not advisable or permitted."

Talking to him was much like having fur rubbed the wrong way, she decided. It mattered little that everything he said was true. She had been about to call a truce with him, to offer her services willingly - not grudgingly. That man was so arrogant he didn't seem to know the difference. And as for striking him - it might not matter whether or not it was permitted if he kept talking like that to her.

A slow, rusty smile, very faint, but real, softened the hard line of his mouth. It was brief, she barely caught it, but his smile was - incredible.

"I am still reading your thoughts."