He was asking her opinion. Jaxon blinked back tears. It was true she didn’t know him all that well, but she caught glimpses of his mind each time he merged fully with her, and she had seen enough to know he was a master at planning battles. Most of all, it mattered that he would ask her opinion.
She thought carefully about each plan of action. “I think it’s too hard to protect everyone. We can’t be with them during the day, so they’re vulnerable to Drake and any creature the vampire decides to create. If we go, I don’t see what good it will do for the vampire to attack people here. We should think of a place we can lay out an ambush and easily defend.” She suddenly noticed she was shivering uncontrollably, her hair soaking wet, while he was standing there perfectly groomed in his robe. She glared up at him. “Why are you dry and I’m soaking wet and shaking with cold?”
Lucian took her hands in his and rubbed them gently to warm her. A faint smile touched his sculpted mouth. “Think of being warm and dry. Picture it in your mind. Hold the picture in your mind of your hair dry, your skin dry, your body warm.” He merged with her, stilling her tumbling thoughts, helping to build the image of warmth and dryness.
Jaxon withdrew her hand from his to reach up and touch her hair in awe. “I did that? Just like that? No blow-dryer, no towel?”
“Just like that.” The smile was once more inside him, blossoming strong, filling him with joy. She brought back his first days as a fledgling trying to learn the things that came so easily to the adults of their species.
“Can I do all the things you can do?”
He nodded slowly, watching her face through half-closed eyes. He looked lazy, yet Jaxon had the feeling he was totally alert.
“What would you like to learn how to do?” he asked.
“Now?” She ran her palms along her arms, aware of the way her skin had resisted the rising sun.
“Your skin will become tougher, Jaxon. Eventually you will be able to watch the sunrise as long as you wear dark glasses. You should make it a habit to carry them with you wherever you go. That way if you are caught out in the morning or need to rise early, your eyes will be safe from the rays of the sun. I am an ancient—we feel pain much more intensely than do the younger members of our species—yet I can go out in the early-morning hours with little trouble. It is one advantage the hunter has over the vampire. The vampire cannot rise until the sun has truly set. He cannot see the sunrise ever.”
“Are we really helpless in the afternoon?” A soft note in her voice betrayed her fear.
His hand found her silky hair, then slipped to the nape of her neck, his fingers slowly massaging to ease the sudden tension from her. “Our bodies are lethargic at that time, it is true, but we are not entirely without means to protect ourselves. I am extremely powerful, angel; there is no way you will come to any harm. I would never allow it.”
Jaxon moved into his arms, holding him tightly. Staying a shadow in her mind allowed him to see how his world, so alien and different, so filled with myths and superstitions, with violence and creatures of the night, seemed a very terrifying place to her. Lucian locked his arms around her. “Should we ever have need of help, Jaxon, my brother is always near.”
“I hate to disillusion you, Lucian, but your brother lives in Paris. I saw his address. That isn’t just around the corner, even by your standards.”
“If your need was great, he could do as I did from afar, seeing through your eyes—lend you his aid, his strength, even destroy an enemy threatening you.”
The thought of any other man crawling around in her mind was instantly abhorrent to her. Why she didn’t mind Lucian reading her every thought, why it seemed natural, she didn’t comprehend, but she knew she would be reluctant to have anyone else discover the things about her he had.