It is done, lifemate. Come home to me. Savannah’s voice was low and compelling, soft, seductive, not in the least concerned with his insistence that she see that he was a killer. That he would always be a killer. This is where you belong. Not alone, never alone. Can’t you feel me reaching for you? Feel me, Gregori. Feel me reaching for you. Needing you.
He could feel it, in his mind, in his heart. Her voice touched him in some secret, deep place he kept locked away even from himself. She was everything beautiful in the world, and, God help them both, he could not bring himself to give her up.
I need you, Gregori. The whisper came again. This time there was a new urgency in it. She swamped him with her desire, with rising heat and sudden fear that he would leave her alone. Gregori? Answer me. Don’t leave me. I couldn’t bear it if you did.
There is no chance of such a thing, ma petite. I am coming home. It was the only home he had ever known, the only sanctuary he had ever had: Savannah. She whispered to him, soft and sensuous, a dream of his for so long that she was a part of his soul. She whispered to him of unconditional, total acceptance. He launched himself skyward, his body dissolving into the mist, to become part of the moving fog he had manufactured.
Yet a kind of fury seethed in him, raged, consumed him. He had created this impossible situation with Savannah by his tampering with nature. He knew it could not continue. He was more than unstable in this state. She had to know the truth. What had he been thinking? That he could hide it from her and the rest of the Carpathian people for centuries? She was becoming stronger every day. She needed the closeness of a mind meld with him, and he could do no other than allow it.
Gregori had been so certain he could keep part of himself away from her for his own selfish purposes, but her happiness was now of the utmost importance to him. She needed to know the truth, that he was not her true lifemate. He would clean up the society of human butchers, hunt the master vampire, and then choose to meet the dawn. He had no choice. Savannah deserved to be complete.
Scanning automatically some distance from the house, Gregori was already aware of Gary’s presence in one of the upstairs bedrooms. The man was under Savannah’s hypnotic suggestion to sleep. Gregori could tell she had secured him for the night, but he reinforced the command with one of his own. His safeguards were deadly. If Gary woke before they rose and came looking for them out of curiosity, he would die. He reached through the layers of sleep and penetrated the man’s mind. You will remain as you are until I awaken you. If something goes wrong and you awaken early, you will not try to find us. You would die. I would be unable to save you. That was not strictly true—he might be able to protect the human—but he wanted to impress the danger into Gary’s subconscious mind. Anyone would be curious about where they might be sleeping, and Gary more than most.
The heavy white fog nearly concealed the little house. He paused to examine Savannah’s safeguards, carefully working each one backward until he had unraveled them and it was safe to enter the house. Mist streamed inside and collected in the entryway until he was once more real and solid. The house was warm and welcoming, bright and somehow beckoning. The sheets were gone from the furniture, and a fire was dying down in the screened hearth so that red embers danced low and threw shadows on the far wall.
Gregori moved immediately to the spiral staircase. He could feel her, knew unerringly the exact spot where she waited. He didn’t need to scan for Savannah; his body would always find her, his mind would always know her location. He went down the stairs slowly, dreading to face her.
The basement was completely transformed. Candles were everywhere, flickering on all levels, lighting the darkened interior of the room. Shadows intertwined intimately from every corner of the room. A variety of herbs were crushed, some lit, filling the air with the scent of woods and flowers. A huge, old-fashioned bathtub stood in the center of the room, wide and deep, with clawed feet. Water shimmered invitingly, steam rising from the surface.