“That is my duty, my vow to fulfill.”
Francesca sighed with relief. She was extremely tired, her body once again feeling the enervating effects of the sun as it began to climb. “We have nothing further to discuss.”
“If I had not aided you while you healed that child, you would never have had the strength to make it out of the sun.” He said the words as he said everything, with no inflection, yet she felt the weight of his censure.
Deliberately she shrugged, a careless movement of her shoulders. “It didn’t matter in the least to me whether I did or didn’t. I have said it more than once and I don’t wish to repeat myself continually.”
“You leave me no choice but to bind you to me.” Actually, he had intended to do so from the moment he’d realized she belonged with him. For two thousand years he had not lived, he had merely existed in a dark, ugly world. It was completely different now. Everything. Emotions. Colors. Francesca. He had thought to court her first, she certainly deserved that much. But if her life was at risk, he would wait no longer.
She looked at him, her eyes like black opals, beautiful and glittering. “It won’t matter, Gabriel. I won’t hesitate to go to the dawn. I won’t be responsible for your life. If you make the decision to bind us, it is your decision alone. I refuse to be a part of it. If you choose to follow me when I go, so be it. But my life will be my choice.”
Gabriel touched her mind; her resolve was genuine. She meant every word she said. “Francesca, tell me about your relationship with this doctor. How far has it gone?”
She curled up in a deep cushioned chair. “I’m not sure what you want to know. I haven’t slept with him if that’s what you mean. He wants to. I think he’d like to marry me. I know he would like to marry me.” She hesitated a moment before admitting the rest. “I’ve considered it.”
His eyebrow shot up. “And you allowed a human to develop such a strong attachment to you?”
“Why not? My lifemate rejected me and later I believed him to be dead. I had every right to find affection if I desired it,” she replied without remorse.
“What do you feel for this human male?”
There was a soft growl in his gentle voice, just enough to send a shiver along her spine. She would not be intimidated by him. She had done nothing wrong. She would not feel guilty because he had come back from the dead. She owed him absolutely nothing.
Gabriel, remaining a shadow in her mind, could read her thoughts easily. He accepted that he was to blame for her solitary existence. He believed she had every right to feel as she did. He also could see her point that she would not live comfortably with a dominating male. None of it mattered to him. He had spent a lifetime in service to his people. Battles. Wars. Destroying the undead. It had gone on endlessly. He had lived a gray and bleak existence, always the predator crouched in wait to hunt and kill. Darkness had spread within him, yet his iron will had held it off, century after century as it attempted to take over his soul.
There was a promise that had kept him going. A hope. He believed he would find his lifemate. At least he had believed it until a couple of centuries earlier. His faith had been shaken then. Perhaps she was correct. Perhaps some part of him had recognized her all those centuries ago and that was why he had been so certain she existed. And maybe it was her decision to change her Carpathian body and live like a human that had prompted the growing darkness in him to become so strong that he had locked himself and his twin in the soil for years.
He studied her mind carefully; he could allow no mistakes. He had fought his demons alone—that was the curse of the Carpathian male—but Francesca’s life had been so much worse. He had not been able to feel the loneliness, the emptiness, that he’d experienced. She’d felt every moment of it. She had longed for a family, for children. For a man to love her and share her laughter and her heartaches. The young girl had felt his dismissal as rejection; the woman knew times were terrible for their people and was proud of his decision to give his life in service for their dying species. She had done her part by leaving the Carpathian Mountains, by making it easier on the remaining males.