Dark Symphony (18 page)

 "The old house still stands? It would be a miracle to see it again."

 "Out of respect for your lineage," Byron said. "Nothing has ever been touched, only to preserve it for you or any of your kin should they remain."

 "My sister was loyal to Prince Vlad and our people. No Dragonseeker has ever betrayed our people. Not one ever turned vampire. I cannot rest until I find who took my sister from us and clear our name."

 "I have never heard it whispered the Dragonseeker blood was tainted," Byron objected. He watched as Dominic swept his hand around the cave so tiny pinpoints of light leapt to life. The stranger took powder from a small container and blew it across the cavern. The scent was aromatic and soothing.

 "I am grateful that in my absence, such a thing was never suggested." Dominic knelt beside Byron and began to gather handfulls of the earth. He mixed the soil with a second powder and his own saliva. "You will need more blood before you go to ground. The wound is quite extensive and did much damage to your internal organs. How is it you have hunted the undead, yet that human male was able to harm you?"

 If there was a reprimand in Dominic's voice, Byron couldn't detect it, only mild interest in how a human managed to injure a Carpathian hunter. "Perhaps I am a better craftsmen than hunter."

 "I have noticed several of the people in this place have strange barriers. It is better to take your life mate and leave this place. Take her to our homeland. She will eventually get used to it and get over being annoyed with you." Dominic helped Byron to lean forward so he could pack the material tightly into the gaping back wound. "A craftsman who turned hunter to aid his people is always welcome at a warrior's camp fire. Craftsmen are meticulous and methodical. It is an honor to meet one such as you." Dominic's hands were gentle as he helped Byron to lie back down.

 "The prince found his life mate some time ago," Byron volunteered the news. "It seems that some human women possess psychic abilities, and those women can be successfully converted without fear of madness."

 "I have heard this rumor. How can this be?"

 "I believe it is possible that the women we are finding with psychic powers are descendants of the Jaguar race."

 Dominic once again mixed the rich soil with his powder and saliva to pack into Byron's chest. "I had not thought that any remained unless deep within the jungle."

 "Not true Jaguar, but of their blood. It would explain why the women are compatible with our race. The Jaguar are shape-shifters, and they had many gifts, as our people had." Byron closed his eyes. "Do you leave tomorrow?"

 "At sunset. I have not found the undead dwelling in this region," Dominic answered. "I will continue my travel as soon as I rise. You will heal in the ground and be safe for several risings."

 "I must be able to wake tomorrow evening. Antonietta will grieve. I do not want her to suffer."

 "You will not be at full strength, but I will make certain you wake."

 Byron's attention was caught and held by the piercing gaze. "You have green eyes." Not just green but glittering, metallic green. Eerie. Eyes that saw through to the soul. "I should have remembered, it is the Dragonseeker's legacy. Eyes of the seers."

 "I am weary now, Byron, I do not see what should be seen. Once I find the answers I seek, I will follow my kinsmen into the next life."

 "Or find your life mate. I did not think it possible, yet there is no doubt that Antonietta is my other half."

 "My lineage is all but gone. Rhiannon and I were the last of our line. I doubt if either of us would have been so lucky." Dominic stood, looming over the deep cut in the earth. "Sleep now, and wake fully healed. I will give your regards to our prince and give him the news that another woman will join our ranks soon. That alone is cause for celebration."

 "I thank you for your courtesy and for my life."

 Dominic bowed low in the way of the Carpathians. "You must sleep now and allow me to attempt to heal these massive wounds."

 Byron could hear the voices again, many of them, male and female, chanting the healing ritual in his head. Sleep, old friend, we are with you, and we will watch over you while our brother heals your body. That single voice of friendship took him back in time, when he ran free with the wolves, sat in the tallest trees, and was simply a boy playing with a friend. He allowed himself to drift off, the soothing voices distant. And one feminine voice whispering, Come back to Antonietta sat at the piano, her hands curved over the keys. Music welled up inside of her. Poignant. Frightened. A clash of emotions. Her fingers brought beauty and poetry to the chaos, blending notes until the music swelled in volume, unable to be contained in the room with its perfect acoustics. She was blatantly calling to her lover to end her mourning. The music moaned and wept, pleaded and begged. Became soft and lilting as a siren. A melody of enticement.

 The doors to her rooms were locked as they had been all day. She would see no one. Not even Don Giovanni could persuade her to open her doors. The seconds had ticked by, as loud as heartbeats. Long. Lasting minutes, hours, days. She couldn't bear to go on without him. Byron. Her dark poet. She had lost him before she had a chance to know him, and the agony was beyond her comprehension.

 Grief ravaged her. Ate at her. Blocked out her anger at her cousin. At her family. At Justine. She refused comfort from them all. Only Celt was allowed to remain with her as she wept and threw things in a way very unlike Antonietta. She cried a storm of tears, raged at the heavens that they would allow her cousin access to a gun. Through it all, the dog paced at her side, guided her around the missiles she had thrown, and thrust his head lovingly against her in consolation and camaraderie.

 The music shifted into melancholy, the notes taking flight, spilling out into the great halls so the entire household was silent with grief. Even the children spoke in whispers, and Marita shushed them. A pall hung over the palazzo. Antonietta, their lifeblood, their mainstay, the one person constant in their lives, was devastated as she had never been before. Over a man. Worse, over a man they feared. The symphony played on endlessly, an outpouring of tears and anguish, until even the servants were weeping.

 Outside, beyond the multitude of colors in the priceless stained glass windows, the storm had long since passed over, yet clouds rolled across the sky, darkening the moon and blotting the stars so that the gargoyles and winged creatures sitting atop the eaves and battlements were shadowed and dark.

 Antonietta felt the music rising in her, the relentless, merciless emotions, a volcano erupting endlessly. She was driven to play, unable to stop. And then she felt the weight of his hands on her shoulders. The warmth of his breath on the nape of her neck. The touch of his lips in her hair. Her fingers stilled on the piano keys. There was abrupt silence after the intensity and power of the music. The palazzo hushed instantly, an eerie shock after the hours of passionate sound.

 Antonietta sat on the gleaming piano bench without moving, without daring to believe he was there with her, that he had come to her after all the long hours of stark fear and grief. Her heart seemed to cease beating in her chest, her world narrowed to his hands. The heat of his skin. The warmth of his breath. The beating of his heart. Her heart stuttered, found the rhythm of his. Beat in perfect synchronization. She whirled around, her arms going around his neck, her cry muffled by his mouth melding with hers.

 Byron tasted her tears, tasted love and acceptance. His lips traveled over her face, her eyes, memorized her high cheekbones, the small dimple, returned to capture her mouth. There was heat and fire and need. The earth shifted out from under them. Her hands tugged at his shirt, desperate to inspect his body, to see with her fingertips. It was almost more than she could bear to wait. She nearly ripped the material covering his skin even as she kissed him back, ravaging his mouth, telling him without words what she needed.

 Byron shrugged his shoulders, and the shirt fell away, exposing his chest to Antonietta's inspection. She couldn't stop kissing him. Over and over, frantic, long, drugging kisses. Her fingertips inspected every inch of his chest, every defined muscle, his rib cage, his narrow waist. She found the scar, still raw but nearly healed, and she gasped with alarm into the heat of his mouth.

 He nearly killed you. I thought you were dead. She couldn't speak aloud, her mouth traveled over his jaw, down his throat to his chest.

 I told you I would live. I am sorry you were so frightened. He closed his eyes, threw his head back, his fists bunching in her hair as she tugged at his pants, desperate to take them off of him.

 I need to touch you, every inch of you, and know you're alive and here with me. I never want to feel like that again! Her tongue tasted him. Textures and feel and taste were all important to her and in the aroused state she was in, a mixture of sexual hunger and intense emotion, Antonietta wanted to touch and explore and savor him.

 Your shoulder? His hands left her hair to push her robe from her arms. It floated to the floor, a soft pile of lace. The spaghetti straps of her gown were minute, yet he pushed them off her arms as well so that the gown slithered to the floor.

 Antonietta barely noticed, as she dragged his clothes from his body. She rubbed her face over his chest, his abdomen. He tore the tie from her long hair so that it spilled, unbound, around them, silky and teasing his flesh.

 "Antonietta." He whispered her name in a husky blend of hunger and need as his own inspection began. The wound on her shoulder was nearly healed, although she was bruised, but the bullet had been spent from tearing through his body. It had lodged in the hollow of her shoulder, a shallow penetration, and Byron had removed it when he attempted to heal her. There was little damage to the muscle, but he leaned down to lap at the bruise.

 It's nothing. Nothing at all. I have no idea how you managed to get around me in the narrow confines of the passageway, but you saved my life. She was moving her hands with loving patience over the ridges of his hips, his buttocks, moving them around to the hard column of his thighs.

 "You are distracting me." He barely managed to get the words out. It was too late anyway. Her hands cradled the thick length of him, her fingertips memorizing the feel and shape of his heavy erection with maddening slowness. Flames danced over him. Her fingers were strong and sure, not tentative in the least. She knew exactly what she wanted, and she did it, tracing every inch of him, her fingertips dancing and playing with the same expertise she used on the piano.

 The breath slammed out of his lungs. His body tensed, went taut, every muscle contracting in reaction to the caressing stroke of her hands.

 I need this, Byron. I need to know every inch of you. You can have later, but give me this. She didn't wait for an answer. Her teeth nipped his belly, her tongue tasted his skin. She blew warm air over his erection, was pleased when he hardened even more.

 He made a single sound, somewhere between torment and ecstasy, when her mouth closed over him, hot and moist and suckling strongly. "Antonietta." His voice was husky, his breath slamming out of his lungs. "Dio, woman, I cannot believe you." His fingers found her hair, held her to him while his hips found a gentle rhythm he could barely endure. It was sweet torment. Fire burned in his belly and spread through his body until flames were consuming him, and the roaring in his ears joined with the roaring of the inner beast, insisting on his rights.

 The need to claim his mate rose sharply, more intense than any sexual appetite. He felt his incisors lengthening, and he turned his head away from the temptation of her soft skin, vulnerable and exposed to him. Flames licked at him, devouring every good intention. "Antonietta, you are in danger." He gasped the warning out, tugged at her hair to raise her head, to acknowledge she had some modicum of self-preservation. He couldn't save her alone. He had waited and needed and longed for her for far too long. She had nearly been killed in front of him, not once but twice. He was at odds with his own nature in trying to court her in the human manner.

 Antonietta lifted her head. She looked a sexy siren, a wild, uninhibited temptress, with her long coils of hair cascading around her like a living cloak and her dark, haunted eyes, heavily fringed with long lashes. "Never from you."

 A low warning growl rumbled. He kept his face averted. "I am trying to protect you."

 "I don't want protection, Byron. I don't need it. I'm a grown woman, and I take responsibility for myself. I know what I want, and I want you. I want you to make love to me." Her fingers never stopped moving, caressing, playing. She kissed his belly, his chest, leaned into him to nibble on his chin.

 Byron could feel her there, pressed tightly against him, into him, her body soft and pliant, a willing offering. Her blood called to him, hot and sweet and addicting, a potion made just for him. Antonietta. Life mate. You are mine. I have searched an eternity for you. "I will not go quietly away into the night. Do not think I will, Antonietta. I am not Jaguar. There will not be an easy way to rid yourself of my presence should you decide you are bored."

 Her arms circled his neck. She fit her body close into the cradle of his hips. "Now you are trying to scare me by sounding like a stalker. Just make love to me. Does it matter that we may have to talk about our future later?"

 She smelled so good. Clean and fresh and tempting. Her head was back, her throat alluring. Byron buried his face against her neck. Against temptation. His tongue found her pulse. Felt the beat. The rhythm went through his body so that he shuddered with the pleasure of it. With the hunger of it. His need was so intense he burned throughout every cell in his body. Teeth teased her skin over her throbbing pulse point. He inhaled her scent. "It matters that you know I tried to court you in the way of your people." He closed his eyes, aching with need.

 "I think you did an admirable job." She rubbed her body against his, much like a cat, skin to skin.