This time Tempest made a lunge to break free, but Darius caught her firmly, imprisoning her within the circle of his arms. “Not so fast, honey. You were the one implying I was telling you falsehoods.”
She stood stiffly. “Nobody says falsehoods anymore. Your age is showing.”
He laughed again, amazed that after centuries of loneliness and utter lack of emotion, he could find himself laughing so readily. There was joy in the night itself, joy in the world, in the very act of living. “That was not nice, Tempest,” he scolded her, but his voice was so gentle, it turned her heart over.
“No merging, Darius. I think we should do something semi-normal. Say, just talking. Talking is good. Not anything strange, just the usual. Tell me about your childhood. What were your parents like?”
“My father was a very powerful man. He was often referred to as the Dark One. He was a great healer among our people. I understand that my elder brother has since taken his place among our kind. My mother was gentle and loving. I remember her smile. She had a spectacular smile.” The words conjured up the memory for him, the rush of warmth.
“She must have been wonderful.”
“Yes. I was only six when she was killed.”
Her fingers tightened on his arm in sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Darius. I didn’t mean to bring up a sad memory.”
“No memory of my mother could be bad, Tempest. When I was six, the Ottoman Turks overran the village near our home and murdered nearly everyone. I was able to get out”-he gestured in the general direction of the campsite-“with a few others. My sister, Desari, along with Syndil, Barack, Dayan, and one other. After that, we were cut off from the rest of our people.”
“At six years of age? Darius, what did you do? How did you survive?”
“I learned to hunt from the animals around me. I learned to feed the others. It was a time of great hardship. I made so many mistakes, yet every day was a new, exciting experience.”
“How did you get separated from your parents, your people?”
“There was a war. Human villages were being wiped out-people our families considered friends. Our adults decided to stand with the humans. But the soldiers attacked after the sun had risen, when Carpathians are at their most vulnerable, when they need to go to ground. And there were so many soldiers, vicious and cruel, determined to wipe out the entire region, to rid themselves of all of us, as they considered us vermin, vampires. Unfortunately, adults of our species have no power, no strength, when the sun is high, so it was a slaughter, a useless waste of lives. So many died that day, humans and Carpathians alike, women and children. Many of our race were subjected to ritual ‘vampire’ killings- beheaded and staked through the heart, my parents among them.”
Darius’s voice was soft, melancholy, distant, as if part of him was centuries away from her. In his arms, Tempest turned to reach up and touch his mouth with her fingertips. “I’m so sorry, Darius. How terrible for you.” Tears were glistening on her long lashes, making her eyes luminous. Sorrow for him, for his lost parents, for the boy he had been, throbbed in her heart.
Darius touched a teardrop, catching it on the end of his finger. “Do not weep for me, Tempest. I never want to bring tears to your heart. Your life has been a hard one, too. At least before I lost emotion and color, mine was filled with the love of my old family, and then of my new family for hundreds of years. The boat I and the others escaped our war-torn homeland in took us across the ocean before going down in a violent storm. We were on our own, I the oldest, but we made it to the shores of Africa, and we had great adventures in those years and since-before the darkness gathered in me and spread across my soul.”
She watched him bring his finger to his mouth to taste her shimmering teardrop, his black eyes sensual, his perfect lips alarmingly enticing. She swallowed convulsively, afraid she might fling herself into his arms just to taste his mouth again and be forever lost in the burning intensity of his eyes. “What darkness, Darius? What are you talking about?”
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