His hand found her silky hair again, his fingers gently rubbing the strands together before his palm curved around the nape of her neck. He began a slow, soothing massage to ease some of the tension out of her. “Angel, we talked about this when you spoke with Barry about the wolf. You knew it was me.”
She shook her head adamantly. “I didn’t think you meant it literally. I thought perhaps that you had a wolf or a dog with you. You can make people think things with optical illusions. I thought you might have made Barry see an illusion, not that you were actually a wolf. That never occurred to me. You can’t turn into a wolf. No one can do that.”
“I am Carpathian, not human, though you persist in thinking me so. I have many abilities, and I have told you that.” His voice was deliberately soft and soothing.
“Well, you’re just crazy, that’s all. People like you don’t exist in the world, Lucian, so get over it already.” She rubbed her forehead. “You just can’t do things like that anymore.”
“You are not breathing, honey. Take a minute and listen to your body,” he advised. He kept his voice soft and persuasive.
At once she was aware of her heart beating too rapidly, her lungs gasping for air. Immediately she became aware of his heartbeat, slow and steady, the air pushing easily through his lungs. Immediately her body began to tune itself to the rhythm of his. Jaxon flung up her arms to knock his hand from her neck. “See? Right there! You can’t do things like this. No one can synchronize heartbeats exactly the way we do. Stop whatever you’re doing right this minute. You’re making me crazy.”
His hand had not moved from the nape of her neck, a curiously intimate position she found rather soothing in spite of everything. Jaxon sighed and rested her head against his arm. “You’re making me crazy,” she murmured again tiredly.
“You think you cannot accept the things I tell you, but eventually your mind will overcome its human limitations.” He said it so gently that her heart turned over.
The moment she gave in to the inevitable and relaxed against him, her heart and lungs immediately took on the slower, calming rhythm of his. Lucian pulled her into his arms and cradled her like a child so that she felt protected and safe. Jaxon stared up at his face, so still it could have been carved from stone, so beautiful he could have posed for the statues of the Greek gods.
“I don’t want to feel anything for you.” She traced his perfect mouth with one fingertip. “It would hurt too much to do that.”
He became shadow in her mind, carefully, so she wouldn’t recognize his touch, stilling the chaos of her thinking. He easily read her terrible fear for him. For him. Not really so much of him. “Listen to me, Jaxon, and this time hear what it is I am saying to you. Tyler Drake is human. He is not a vampire. He does not have supernatural powers. Drake has no chance against one such as myself. I have been in your mind, was with you as you examined the sites he chose to spy on this house. Did you think I really left you alone and unprotected? Did you really believe I would not know the moment you chose to leave this house? I will recognize his presence the moment he comes close to our property again. Tyler Drake cannot harm me in any way.”
“If you knew I was out of the house and looking for Drake, didn’t it worry you that I might run into him?” she challenged. A man like Lucian would have secured her protection, had he really known.
A faint smile took the edge of cruelty from his mouth. “I would have destroyed him from a distance. I am in your mind, honey. I can ‘see’ through your eyes. Anything I can see, I can destroy. If I connect with a person, and he hears my voice, I can destroy him. As I’ve said, I have certain abilities.”