A slight breeze stirred the warm night air on the patio. The leaves of the surrounding trees fanned them for a few moments, taking the worst of the heat. Sandu realized Adalasia wasn’t regulating her body temperature the way she should. She was following the conversation carefully, but she was also caught up in the beauty of the night, looking at it through eyes full of wonder.
Sandu pushed back the need to reprimand her. She needed to take better care of herself. She needed to pay attention to every detail of their existence until the smallest element was automatic. That would save her life one day. He couldn’t bring himself to interrupt her enjoyment of the night—not when they’d been through hell. He merged deeper into her mind, needing to share the experience with her. At once, there was a sparkling quality to the sky through the canopy of the trees.
Like thousands of diamonds, she whispered. You’ve given me so much, Sandu.
He shook his head at her statement. He hadn’t given her much other than torture and pain. She’d given him laughter and paradise and seeing the world with new eyes. The simplest thing, like looking up at the canopy and seeing the stars, changed the way he viewed things.
That’s all you, ewal emninumam. I have no idea what I ever did before you were in my life. Exist. But not live. I do know that much.
Danutdaxton laughed softly. “Sandu, I fear you are completely enthralled with your lifemate. You cannot take your eyes from her.”
“I saw her tortured, Dax. I could not get to her, and the demons flayed the skin from her bones. They burned her to ashes over and over. I do not know if I could ever live through that again.” Sandu stated the truth. “I think it best if she stays very close to me for a long time to come, perhaps the next thousand years will suffice. If not, she will be used to my continual presence by that time.”
Dax’s laughter continued. “What do you think of that, Adalasia?”
Before Adalasia could answer, Riley made a little sound of derision. “Dax is the worst. He’s sounding all modern-day, like we aren’t attached at the hip, but I think we’re working on that first thousand years of togetherness. Sticking together like glue or something of that nature.”
Dax raised an eyebrow. “I am nowhere near as bad as this besotted fool.” He made a gesture toward Sandu. “I allow you to go to that shop you like all by yourself.”
Adalasia and Riley exchanged a look, and both women burst into derisive laughter. Sandu knew Dax had screwed up by using the word allow. That needed to be struck from his vocabulary. And one shop? Was the man crazy?
“It isn’t me,” Dax said. “The Old One worries incessantly about her. If I don’t have my eyes on her every second, he gets crazy and acts like he might do a flyby.”
Riley rolled her eyes. “Now you’re just plain making up stories.”
Dax laughed. “That could be so. I do like to keep you close.”
“Since you did travel so much, Dax,” Adalasia ventured, “I wonder if you ever heard of the disappearance of a Carpathian child centuries ago. A little girl of about ten. She could talk to animals. No one ever found her, although apparently the search was conducted for months. Years even.”
“She supposedly wandered off,” Sandu continued. “No one believed she lost her way.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Dax asked. “The forests were thick. Very wild. A child easily could have gotten lost. If she was trying to conduct experiments, she could have ended up in the middle of a rock, and no one would be the wiser. If she fell and shattered bones, wild animals could have gotten to her.”
“She would have called out to the adults,” Sandu pointed out reasonably. “Few spoke of it, but the conclusion most came to was that she was taken.”
“Who would take a Carpathian child?” Dax and Riley exchanged a long, measured look.
A ripple of uneasiness went through Sandu. “We believe the child was taken by Xavier, the high mage, in exchange with a demon for the parasites he wanted in order to begin the destruction of our species.” Sandu continued to look between Dax and Riley. “Forgive me for prying, but you haven’t had problems with conceiving or carrying, have you?”
Again, a look passed between the couple. Riley gave a small nod and Dax sighed. “Riley is expecting our child now. She is quite advanced in her pregnancy for the second time. We are a little apprehensive, as there are three of us to consider. The Old One’s soul and spirit resides in me. He’s part of me. Twice, he had thought to move on, but in the end, he will not let this child slip away as the others did.”