Read Carpathian 04 - Dark Magic for Free Online Page A

it. I feel it growing in you. The terrible, aching loneliness."
    Savannah's heart jumped at the rough velvet of his tongue rasping across her bare knuckles. She would not allow his natural sensuality to seduce her, no matter how her own body responded to the forbidden call. "How much time do I have before then, Gregori? A century or two? Five? More? You don't know, do you? That's because none of our women were ever allowed to command their own fate. I shouldn't be responsible for your life any more than you should be responsible for mine."
    "We are Carpathian, ma petite , not human, despite the way your mother raised you. I am responsible for your life, as you are for mine. It is the way of our people, and the only thing protecting humans from our darkness. Our women are cherished, protected, treated with respect, guarded for the treasures we know they are." The dark shadow on his chin rubbed along the top of her head in a curiously soothing gesture. Little strands of her hair caught in the stubble, weaving them together. "Your mother has much to answer for, filling your head with human nonsense when she should have been preparing you for your true destiny."
    "Why do you call it nonsense? Because she wanted me to be able to choose for myself what I wanted?
    To make my own destiny? To savor freedom? I don't want to be owned."
    "None of us can choose, Savannah." His arms tightened briefly, and his warm breath found her ear.
    "Lifemates are born to one another. And freedom is a word that can mean many different things." His voice was so beautiful and gentle, at odds with his matter-of-fact words. "Go to sleep, and escape your fear for a time."
    She closed her eyes as she felt his lips brush her ear, then slide to her neck. She savored the touch, took it into her body, and hated herself for it. "You go to sleep, Gregori. I want to think."
    Teeth grazed her skin, right over her leaping pulse. Then his tongue stroked, easing the sharp sensation.
    "I do not wish you to think any more, ma petite . Do as I say, or I will send you to sleep myself."
    She paled. "No!" Like any Carpathian, Savannah knew just how vulnerable she would be when the sun rose and sleep took her body. If Gregori commanded her into the deepest sleep of the Carpathians, she would be completely under his power. "I'll sleep." Deliberately she slowed her breathing, slowed her heart.
    Beside her, Gregori concentrated on the entrances to his lair, sealing them with ancient spells. Next he focused on the gates to the wolves' kennels. They swung open, releasing the wolf hybrids to roam and guard the upper stories and grounds of the house. Savannah still thought to escape him. But Savannah had no idea just how powerful he really was. And because he had promised himself he would always give her truth, he could not say the pretty, empty words that might ease her fears. The acquisition of Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    knowledge had helped to keep his mind and body strong in the endless years of empty blackness. He had waited for Savannah, his lifemate, since before her birth. The moment he had touched Mikhail Dubrinsky's woman, Raven, healing the terrible wounds she had suffered at the hands of some misguided vampire slayers, giving his pure, powerful blood to help save her life, he had known she would provide him with his lifemate. That the child growing within her would be his. And he had done everything he could to ensure that outcome.
    When the human hunters had tried to kill Raven Dubrinsky, Gregori had saved her and the child within her, sealing the bond between him and the newly conceived female being with his own powerful blood.
    He had ensured she could not escape him, whispering to her, soothing her, enticing her to stay in his world despite the wounds to her fragile little body. Having gone to such extremes to bind his lifemate to him before she was even born, he would never let her go now.
    He pulled Savannah's body