He sighed. “I am not going to ask what is childishly endearing.”
She smiled at him. “No, you’re not. You’re going to tell me about your childhood. About yourself, so I get to know you.”
He brought her fingers to his mouth, wanting – no needing – the reassurance of being close to her. “I grew up with Darius, Desari, Barack, Syndil and another called Savon. We were alone as children, with no adult to guide us. It was Darius who took responsibility for us. He was six years old and already showing signs of great power and strength of will. It was Darius who took most of the risks for us.”
His teeth were nibbling anxiously at her fingertips, but he seemed unaware of it. Corinne regarded him steadily. “How did a group of children like that slip through social services? How did you all manage to eat and sleep?”
“We were separated from our people and were believed to have been murdered along with our parents. There was a shipwreck, and we ended up in Africa. That is where we grew up. Our band travels with leopards; we raised them. We actually learned quite a bit from animals. It was a difficult time but also very rewarding.”
Corinne’s small teeth scraped at her lower lip. She believed him, although it seemed impossible that six children could survive in Africa alone. The continent was wild and untamed. Something in her recognized the truth in his simple explanation, yet she knew there was much more he wasn’t telling her.
“Dayan,” she said softly, bringing his dark gaze to hers. “You either trust me or you don’t. You have to make up your mind.”
“What if I tell you I am not human?” He said it quietly, his teeth biting harder at her knuckles. “What if I told you my parents had died during the Turk wars? Would that frighten you away from me?”
Corinne’s heart accelerated for a moment, and she was glad for the diversion, happy to be able to concentrate on slowing it down, giving herself time to think. She had suspected there was something not quite human about Dayan, but to hear him confirm it was something else altogether. The Turk wars? What did that make him?
“I would hope I’m not that big a coward. Are you something other than what you’ve shown me? Because the man I’m attracted to is gentle and caring and unbelievably wonderful.” She was feeling her way, trying to encourage him and yet give herself the time she needed to assimilate the information he was giving her.
He looked away from her, unable to face her condemnation. “I want to be gentle and caring, Corinne, but in truth I am a predator,” he said regretfully. “You are all that is good and right within me.”
Corinne shook her head in denial. “You’re so much more than a predator, whatever that means, Dayan. You’re a poet without equal. The words that pour out of your soul, the incomparable music you make – that is who you are. The other is a part of your nature, perhaps, but only a small part. You couldn’t say the things you say, the beautiful words you give to me, without feeling them deep within you.”
He opened her hand, studied her lifeline for a moment before pressing a kiss into the center of her palm. “I felt so many things in my youth, so much music, it seemed I was music. I heard it everywhere, in the earth and sky, the trees, the animals. I heard it and knew it was my world. Slowly it faded away. It was terrifying to realize I was going to lose it, so I wrote songs, hundreds of songs, thousands of songs, pouring out the notes and words and committing them to memory. Over the years those memories were what I relied on to get me through the darkness. I didn’t feel the words or music anymore, but I had the memories to sustain me. I could touch others who felt the joy of love and laughter and draw upon their emotions to create what I needed.”
He studied her face, his black gaze drifting over her possessively, lovingly, with so much hunger and need she could feel her body melting under his scrutiny. “You cannot possibly understand until you are able to merge your mind fully with mine. I knew utter bleakness, a black, empty void. Without my music, without my soul, I wandered the earth not understanding what I was, not willing to accept what I was. What I am.”