The wolves were silent shadows slipping closer. Mikhail sensed their eagerness, the cry of bloodlust. It washed over him and mixed with black jealousy. The pack whispered and called to him as their brother. The beast in him lifted its head, roared for release. The human male claimed innocence, but it was easy to read lust in his body, smell the scent of sexual arousal. It was easy for Mikhail to read the taint of sickness in the son, placed there by the father.
Mikhail’s dark gaze swept Raven’s small figure. She could stop his heart, take his breath away. She never looked beyond the surface; she had trained herself not to. Mikhail read compassion, sadness, exhaustion, and something else. He had hurt her. It was there in the depths of her enormous eyes. And there was genuine fear. She knew the wolves were out there; she heard their voices urging him to protect his mate. It was a terrible blow for her to realize just how susceptible he was to their primitive logic, to realize how much animal was really in him. Instantly his arm swept around her, dragged her beneath his shoulder, close to his warmth. He sent out a silent command to the wolves, feeling their resistance, their reluctance to obey. They could sense his antagonism to the human, his own lust for blood, the need to vanquish an enemy that might threaten his mate’s safety.
“I heard of your loss,” Mikhail made himself say, his arm curving around Raven protectively. “Your mother was a great woman. Her death was a tremendous loss to our community. Your father and I had our differences, but I would have wished his death on no man.”
Raven was shivering with cold and reaction to the knowledge that Mikhail could feel such intense animosity toward anyone. She was the light to his darkness, incapable of understanding that he was first and foremost a predator. His hand moved up and down her arm gently, seeking to reassure her. Mikhail reinforced his command to the wolves. “You had better go home, Mr. Romanov. You need sleep, and these woods are not always safe. The storm has left the animals edgy.”
“Thank you for being so kind,” Rudy said to Raven, reluctant to leave her with a man who looked so capable of great violence.
Mikhail watched the man retreat to the safety of the edge of town, beyond the clearing. “You are cold, little one,” he said very gently.
Raven blinked back tears, forcing her trembling legs to begin walking, one slow step at a time. She couldn’t look at him, didn’t dare. She had simply been enjoying the beauty of the night. Then she had heard Romanov. It was in her nature to help if she was able. Now she had triggered something dark and deadly in Mikhail, something that troubled her deeply.
Mikhail paced beside her, studied her averted face. “You are going in the wrong direction, Raven.” He put his hand at the small of her back to guide her.
Raven stiffened, then twisted away from him. “Maybe I don’t want to go back, Mikhail. Maybe I don’t really know who you are at all.”
There was more hurt than anger in her voice. Mikhail sighed heavily and reached for her, his grip unbreakable iron. “We will talk in the warmth and comfort of our home, not here where your body is like ice.” Without waiting for her consent, he lifted her easily and moved with a burst of speed. Raven clung to him, her face buried against his shoulder, her slender body shaking with cold and more than a little fear of him, of her future, of what she herself had become.
Mikhail took her directly to the bedchamber, lit the fire with a lift of his hand, and placed her on the bed. “You could at least have worn shoes.”
Raven drew his cloak around her protectively, looking up at him from under long lashes. “Why? And I’m not asking about shoes.”
He lit candles and crushed a variety of herbs to fill their chamber with soothing, healing sweetness. “I am a Carpathian male. I have the blood of the earth flowing in my veins. I have waited centuries for my lifemate. Carpathian men do not like other men near their women. I am struggling with, unfamiliar emotions, Raven. They are not easy to control. You do not behave as a Carpathian woman would.” A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Mikhail leaned lazily against the wall. “I did not expect to come home to find you gone. You put yourself in danger, Raven, something the males of our race cannot allow. And then I find you with a human. A male.”