Careful to keep her deep within his enthrallment, Lucian opened his shirt and shifted her in his arms so that he could palm the back of her head. His body was raging with need, and her natural sensuality was emerging under his sorcerery. One of his fingernails lengthened into a razor-sharp talon. He sliced a line over his heart and pressed her mouth to his chest that he might continue the ritual of binding her to him.
At the first touch of her lips, fire raged through him, a need so intense, so deep, Lucian, who was noted for his rigid control, nearly gave in to the temptation to take what was rightfully his. He found he was trembling, his body covered with a fine sheen of sweat. Bending close to her ear, he breathed the words into the night, into her mind, that no one could ever separate them again, that she could not be apart from him for more than a few scant hours. “I claim you as my lifemate. I belong to you. I offer my life for you. I give you my protection, my allegiance, my heart, my soul, and my body. I take into my keeping the same that is yours. Your life, happiness, and welfare will be cherished and placed above my own for all time. You are my lifemate, bound to me for all eternity and always in my care.”
The relief he experienced was tremendous and occurred despite the fact that his body had not merged with hers. His heart and hers were one, bound together, two halves of the same whole. Their souls merged so that her feminine light shone brightly within him, alleviating the terrible darkness that had threatened him for centuries. At that moment he realized that when one had lived in darkness nearly all of his life, in a bleak, ugly hell of an existence, finding a lifemate was beyond any dream he could imagine.
Jaxon Montgomery was literally his heart and soul. Without her there was no reason to continue existing. He could never go back to the emptiness and darkness he had lived in for so long. The ritual words bound them together so that neither could ever escape the other.
Lucian didn’t fool himself. He needed her far more than she could ever need him, though, from his point of view, she needed him a great deal. He had to stop and think before he pushed his claim any further. Very gently he stopped her feeding, closing the wound himself. His blood would both tie them together and aid her healing. It would also work on her human body to convert her to his race. Conversion was risky, hard on the body and mind. And once done, there was no going back. Jaxon would be as he was, needing blood to survive, seeking relief from the sun in the welcoming arms of the earth. If she was not a true psychic—the only kind of human female to successfully convert to Carpathian—the experiment would push her over the edge into madness, and Jaxon would have to be destroyed. Lucian sat back, releasing her from his dark spell.
Her eyelashes fluttered as he slipped her back onto the pillows. Lucian knew that very few humans could be converted successfully. But he also believed she must belong within those ranks, as she was his true lifemate. Her heart matched his. He knew that. When he uttered the ritual words, he felt the threads binding them together. Even so, knowing something intellectually didn’t make his heart believe it. He wanted to take no chances with her safety. Three exchanges of blood were necessary for complete conversion. Already her hearing and eyesight were more acute, more like those of Carpathians. She would soon have trouble consuming meat products and most other foods. She would need him near. He had changed her life as much as he dared to at this time.
“I still don’t know who you are.” Beneath the covers of the bed, Jaxon’s fingers wrapped securely around the butt of her gun. She was very drowsy, and this stranger was far too familiar. She didn’t like puzzles. She had no idea where she was, only that she was ill and had strange dreams of a dark prince taking her blood and tying her to him for all time. There was something exotic and different about the stranger she found hovering over her bed.