His mouth didn’t smile, but a hint of warmth crept into the bleakness in his eyes. “I remember. You did your best to do the exact opposite of everything you were told.”
Her smile was intriguing. Gregori couldn’t stop staring at her mouth.
“You’d think I would have grown out of it by now, but I haven’t. Try to work with me on this.”
Her enormous blue eyes pleaded with him. He felt as if he was falling into their depths.
“Please.”
He wrapped a length of her hair around his wrist. “I will try, bébé, but first comes your safety. Always.”
She laughed softly. “Gregori, I know you will never let anything happen to me. It isn’t something I worry about.”
“It is uppermost in my mind.” He sounded very stern.
She tilted her chin at him. “Has it occurred to you that I have been all by myself these last five years and that nothing ever happened to me?”
Gregori smiled then, lending a sensuality to the curve of his mouth. “You have never been truly alone, chérie, never at any time. When it was too dangerous for me to be near you, I made certain others were close.”
Her quick temper flashed in spite of her every resolution not to let it. Her blue eyes scattered sparks. “You had someone watching me?”
There was something about the way the color rose in her cheeks, the flash of her eyes, the lift of her breasts when she was angry, that made him want to keep her that way. “I was not the only one, ma petite. Your father would never have allowed you to be without protection. You should have known that.”
“My own father?” How could she not have known? It would be just like Mikhail. Just like Gregori. Here she thought she had acquired such independence, that she had struck a blow for all Carpathian women, and all the time they were having her watched. “I hired a security company to work my tours,” she said, wanting him to recognize that she hadn’t been careless about her safety.
“Humans.” His tone said it all. “You needed one of us.”
“Who? Who did you trust enough, Gregori?” she asked, curious. Trust would be alien to his nature. What other male would he have entrusted his lifemate’s safety to? It seemed so out of character for him.
Gregori pushed a hand through the shaggy mane of hair falling to his broad shoulders. His neck hurt. Absently, he tried another massage. “Some situations call for extreme measures. I chose the strongest, most powerful man I knew, one with an unwavering code of honor. His name is Julian. Julian Savage.”
“Aidan Savage’s twin brother. He’s here? In the city?” She had never met Aidan Savage, but she had heard of him from her father. He was a vampire hunter for the Carpathian people. Mikhail greatly respected him, and that in itself said a lot for the man. Recently he had found his lifemate. Savannah had hoped to visit them while she was in the city. They were probably as starved for someone from their homeland as she had been. “Did Aidan know his brother was here protecting me?”
“I am certain Aidan would sense his presence in the area. How could he not? They are twins. Whether Julian will choose to see him, I do not know. He is struggling with the darkness.”
Savannah turned away from those bleak, glittering eyes. So cold. So alone. So lost. Gregori. The Dark One. Her dark one. Her Gregori. She could hardly bear his pain. It didn’t show, not on that expressionless face, the face carved from pure granite, like the rock lair. It wasn’t in his pale eyes, so arctic cold they reminded her of death itself. It wasn’t in any part of his mind that he was sharing with her. She felt it all the same. His heart, her heart. His soul, her soul. They were one and the same. Two halves of the same whole. He didn’t know it yet, didn’t really believe it. After all, he thought it wasn’t true chemistry, that he had managed to manipulate their joining. She knew better.