He smiled down at her. “It’s good to know I’m safe while we’re in the caves.”
She nodded. “You are.”
“This journey we’re taking together,” he ventured as he brought her into the chamber he’d chosen to use to keep her safe during the day. “This is about your history, isn’t it? The history of your family, perhaps? Is it tied to those men?”
He set her down as he once again waved his hand to install the sconces on the upper walls to illuminate the chamber for her. He did it casually, not really giving it thought. He added things from her home: a rug, comfortable chairs, a bed.
She sucked the side of her lower lip into her mouth and bit down with her small teeth. “Our histories were entwined, Sandu.”
“Our futures are entwined,” he corrected, turning to face her.
“Perhaps, but our histories were entwined as well.”
“I am an ancient. There are few of my kind left in this world, Adalasia. You know I’m not human.” He took a step toward her and framed the side of her face in his hand, his thumb moving in a caress over her cheek. “I don’t believe you are an ancient.”
She was beautiful to him. Her skin like silk. She was courageous. She didn’t flinch away from him, her eyes looking straight into his. Long lashes swept down and back up again. His thumb glided along her full lips. Silky there as well.
“I’m not an ancient,” she whispered. “It’s difficult to take in that you’re actually real. I knew of you only as a legend.”
He could hear her heartbeat calling to him. The pulse beating so steadily in the side of her neck fascinated him as no other ever had. He swept the pads of his fingers over that pulse point. “Who told you of the legend?” He murmured the question as he dipped his head toward hers. Toward that beckoning drumbeat.
He ached for her now. He felt the slide of his teeth. One arm slid around her back, pulling her into his body, locking her to him. He kissed that steadily beating pulse. Swept his tongue over her soft skin and then sank his teeth deep. She cried out, the bite of pain giving way immediately to something else altogether. He shared her mind, so he knew that shocking painful bite became a dark, erotic heat that swept through her body.
He’d taken blood millions of times over centuries to sustain his life. But this was different. This was an aphrodisiac that poured into his system and flooded every cell in his body with an erotic heat. He drank from her as the ritual binding words rose up like a great storm in his mind. He could no more have held them back than he could have held back the tides. Te avio p?l?fertiilam. You are my lifemate. ént?lam kuulua, avio p?l?fertiilam. I claim you as my lifemate. Ted kuuluak, kacad, kojed. I belong to you. élidamet andam. I offer my life for you. Pes?met andam. I give you my protection. Uskolfertiilamet andam. I give you my allegiance. Sívamet andam. I give you my heart. Sielamet andam. I give you my soul. Ainamet andam. I give you my body. Sívamet kuuluak kaik ett? a ted. I take into my keeping the same that is yours.
Adalasia stirred in his arms. Wait. What? You’re binding us.
Sandu very reluctantly closed the twin holes over the pulse beating so frantically in her neck and opened his shirt. You are my lifemate. The ritual has to be complete. Yes, I am binding us together. Soul to soul. He lengthened his fingernail and opened a line on his chest, pressing her mouth to the crimson drops that were for her alone, distancing her from the act so it wasn’t difficult for her, so she would only taste the ambrosia of his blood.
He threw his head back, need and a very different hunger moving through his body as her mouth moved on him and her tongue lapped at his gift to her. It would have been impossible to think, but the ritual binding words were imprinted on him before his birth, and they were forced from his mind and pushed into hers, weaving their torn souls back together.
Ainaak olenszal sívambin. Your life will be cherished by me for all time. Te élidet ainaak pide minan. Your life will be placed above mine for all time. Te avio p?l?fertiilam. You are my lifemate. Ainaak sívamet jutta oleny. You are bound to me for all eternity. Ainaak terád vigyázak. You are always in my care.
He cupped the back of her head, holding her in place, letting the distinctive spice of her blood rush through his veins, the dark needs of his kind celebrating the shocking reality of finding his other half after centuries of waiting for her. It seemed an impossibility, but she was there with him in his arms, drinking from him, taking enough for a true exchange. It took three exchanges for a conversion. Two more and his woman would be fully Carpathian. Fully able to be in his world, sleeping beneath the earth with him, instead of vulnerable above it when he couldn’t protect her.