“You have hurt me. This hurts. Those people out there are your family, your people. I’m from another country, a different race. This isn’t my home and it never will be. Let me call them to you and just let me go.”
“You are right, Raven. I told you there would be no lies between us, yet I have this need to protect you from anything violent or frightening, anything that can hurt you.” His thumb moved over her delicate cheekbone, slid lower to caress her silken mouth. “Do not leave me, Raven. Do not destroy me. It would kill me if you left me.” His eyes were eloquent, persuasive, meeting hers unflinchingly, not attempting to hide the raw truth of his words from her, his total vulnerability.
“Mikhail,” she said softly in despair. “I look at you and something deep within me says we belong together, you do need me, and I will never be complete without you. But I know it’s nonsense. I’ve lived most of my life on my own, and I was quite happy.”
“You were isolated, in pain. No one saw you, knew who you were. No one else could appreciate you or care for your needs as I can. Do not do this thing, Raven. Do not.”
His hand on her arm drew her inevitably closer. How could she resist Mikhail at his most tempting? It was too late, far too late. His mouth was already finding hers. His lips were cool, tender, so gentle it brought tears to her eyes. She rested her forehead against his. “You hurt me, Mikhail, really hurt me.”
“I know, little one, I am sorry. Please forgive me.”
A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Is it really that easy?”
His thumb erased a tear trickling down her face. “No, but it is all I have to give you at this moment.”
“You need help and I know I can’t be the one to help you. I’ll go. You can contact me when you feel up to it. I promise not to go anywhere until you’re better.”
“Put my ring back on your finger, Raven,” he said softly.
She shook her head, drew away from him. “I don’t think so, Mikhail. Let’s let things be for a while. Let me think things through.”
His hand caressed her nape, slid over her shoulder, down her arm until his fingers circled her wrist. “I need to sleep tomorrow, really sleep. I want you protected from these people.” He knew she would assume he meant that they would drag him.
Raven smoothed back the tangle of coffee-colored hair from his forehead. “I’ll be fine on my own, as I have been for years. You’re so busy looking after the world, you think there’s no one who is capable of looking after themselves. I promise you I won’t leave, and I promise I will be careful. I won’t go hiding in their closets or under their beds.”
Mikhail caught her chin firmly. “These people are dangerous, Raven, fanatical. I found that out tonight.”
“Can they identify you?” All at once she couldn’t breathe. She was becoming desperate to have his friends take care of his wounds.
“No way. And there is no way they will know. I found out two more names. Eugene, very dark, a Hungarian accent.”
“That would be Eugene Slovensky. He came in on the train with the tour group.”
“Someone named Kurt?” He lay back against the pillow, no longer able to block out the pain in his thigh. It was cutting at his nerve endings like a rusty saw blade going through his skin.
“Kurt Von Halen. He was on the tour also.”
“There was a third man. No one spoke his name.” His voice revealed his weakness. “He was about seventy, gray hair, a thin gray mustache.”
“That must be Harry Summers, Margaret’s husband.”
“The inn harbors a nest of assassins. The worst of it was, the midwife told her husband, told all of them that Noelle was not of the undead. How could they believe such nonsense when she gave life to a child? God! What a terrible waste of life.” Grief washed over him anew, added to his burden of pain.