You are just angry because you did not sense my touch. There was smug male amusement in his tone. I am merely keeping you on your toes. We have something taking place here we do not understand, and we both should be vigilant.
Destiny snarled. “Nicolae is the most annoying man on the face of the earth. Why would I want a smug, arrogant, pain-in-the-butt male creature like him in my life? Answer me that, Mary Ann!” I am always vigilant!
“Sex.” MaryAnn answered succinctly. “It’s sex, Destiny. He reeks of sex. I take it he’s telepathic.”
“He’s annoying, that’s what he is.” There is nothing sexy about you. I know you’re all puffed up and smirking but I don’t think you’re the least bit sexy.
I had no idea you were such a little liar, Destiny. You think I’m sexy.
“I do think he’s sexy,” she admitted, wrenching open the door to MaryAnn’s office, “but I don’t like him very much.”
“Destiny,” MaryAnn said quietly, halting her flight. “Everyone needs help now and then.”
Destiny turned her back on MaryAnn, on Nicolae and all relationships. She didn’t want help, she decided as she fled the office. She would work things out her own way. And there was that little nagging question that kept popping up. She kept pushing it down, not wanting to face it, but there were all those little things that she couldn’t ignore forever. Why could he find her at will when he had never taken her blood? And how was he able to be in her mind, actively aiding her, yet she felt no surge of power? No push? Why was she unable or unwilling to fight the compulsion to obey him, even when she knew it was a compulsion.
How powerful are you? There was accusation in her voice rather than admiration. She slammed her mind closed to him and took to the skies. It was the only place she felt absolutely free. She soared through the clouds, reveling in her ability to do so. She didn’t want to know how powerful he was. She didn’t want to think too much about what she had done with him.
Nicolae hadn’t pressured her. She couldn’t even blame him. She had insisted on the words. He would never have made love to her except that she had insisted on that too. The wind rushed at her, cooled her skin and soothed the chaos in her mind. Nicolae. He belonged to her, and she had no idea what to do with him.
It was so easy for the priest to tell her to have courage. He didn’t have nightmare images walking through his mind every waking minute. He didn’t have scars on his body and etched into his soul. He didn’t have poison in his blood that could corrupt and twist something good into evil.
“I am so lost.” She murmured the words aloud, listened to the wind carry them away from her, wishing it could take her pain so easily.
I can take away your pain.
There he was again. Just as if she had summoned him. He was always with her when her world was in turmoil. The wind tore tears from her eyes as she streaked across the sky. And what must I do in return for you? There was despair in her heart when she wanted to show him joy. She wanted to be different. She wished she could go to him clean, without distress, without scars. Without the terrible weight and sin of what she was. What she couldn’t change. She hated feeling sorry for herself; she didn’t want his pity.
You exist. You love me. You are beginning to surrender yourself into my keeping. It is enough. He was calm even when he was tearing out her heart.
It wasn’t enough, and they both knew it. Her cry of sorrow echoed across the skies.
Chapter Twelve
Surrender herself into his keeping. Such simple words. He said them with calm, with conviction. Destiny raced across the skies with no idea of where she was heading, only the need to fly high and fast and far.
I never wanted this.
She detested whining. She detested feeling sorry for herself. She really detested being afraid. She hadn’t feared her battles with the undead. If she had died then, it would have ended the suffering, the agonizing problems her tainted blood caused. If she were the victor, the world would be rid of another monster. Now she feared destroying the only person who mattered. The only one who had managed to find his way into her soul. Nicolae.