He bent his head to hers. Close. His mouth was inches from hers. "I know what I am asking of you, and I know you have reservations about your family. I do not want to go back to an existence without you. Spend your life with me, Joie," Traian tempted softly. He feathered kisses down her face, over the corners of her mouth. His teeth tugged at her bottom lip. "Spend several lifetimes with me, an eternity. Be with me. Say you want me that much. Let me be part of your family."

She looked up at him, at the intensity burning in his eyes. His emotion was so strong, so hot, it branded her, seared her all the way to her heart. Joie felt the pull of his need, of his loneliness. He was a dangerous predator, not quite human. Powerful beyond anything she had ever dreamed of. And s.e.xy. Heart-stoppingly s.e.xy. Her arms, of their own volition, were already sliding around his neck, her body molding itself to his.

"Can we be together, Traian? How? Tell me how." Because she had been alone in the midst of a family she loved. Always surrounded by people, friends, family, she was always apart. She never knew why until she heard his voice. Something had been missing from deep inside her, some essential part of her.

Somehow, with Traian, she felt safe and at peace. She didn't know why, she was a very independent and self-reliant person, but something in her kept demanding she search all four corners of the Earth, the highest peaks, the deepest caves, everywhere, although she had no idea what she was searching for until she'd found ... him. Traian. He held the missing piece of her.

"It doesn't make sense when you sleep beneath the ground and I can't."

"You can become as I am. You would still be Joie, still part of your family, but with the gifts and the vulnerabilities of my race. Or I can age as you age. My strength will weaken and I will be more vulnerable to our enemies. It is your happiness that counts, Joie. I want to be in your life always."

b.u.t.terfly wings fluttered in the pit of her stomach. She felt she was on the edge of a great precipice. Joie tried to pull back before it was too late. The enormity of what he was offering was both frightening and exhilarating. He swamped her with his loneliness, with the intensity of her own feelings, so completely foreign to her. She tried to take refuge in humor. "I don't even know if you're good in bed."

"I want you to acknowledge to me that you know what I am offering you." His mouth skimmed over her face, tracing her high cheekbones, her chin, moved lower to find the pulse beating frantically in her neck. His warm breath bathed her in heat, a seductive temptation every bit as powerful as the feel of his body heavy with need.

She was in his mind, saw the choices clearly. His teeth sinking deep, making her his, bringing her into his world. Or Traian staying with her as if he were human, aging along with her, his great strength slowly fading, always vulnerable to enemies. Two choices. Two worlds. Only a heartbeat of time to choose.

She knew she needed to answer him not because he demanded it, but because the intensity of her feeling for him was so strong, she needed to settle her future in her own mind. His teeth nipped her skin, his tongue swirled over the tiny ache. She felt the throb in her deepest core, the clenching of muscles aching for relief.

"Joie." He breathed her name again. "I will love you to the end of your days."

The water poured over her, heightening her sensitivity to pleasure. She heard the honesty in his voice. The purity. Joie tilted her head to the side to give him better access, closed her eyes in antic.i.p.ation. She was certain. She might not understand why it was right, but she had never been surer.

His teeth sank deep. White-hot pain pierced her body, giving way instantly to sheer ecstasy. Lightning flashed in her bloodstream, hot whips of pleasure tormenting her. Heat welled up, and threatened to consume her. She held him to her, closer, moving her body enticingly. It should have frightened her, the way he fed on her, devoured her with a hungry, craving l.u.s.t more s.e.xual than anything else.

Traian traced every line, and curve, every hollow, etching her body in his memory, wanting the moment to last several lifetimes. The rush hit him hard, a s.e.xual hunger mixed with a dark craving nearly uncontrollable. For centuries his appet.i.te had been insatiable, a terrible hunger that could never be a.s.suaged, but now her blood satisfied his inhuman need. But his intense sensual need remained unappeased. He was hard and hot and heavy with desire. His tongue swept across the pinp.r.i.c.ks on her skin. His lips traveled down to her breast. Ancient words beat in his head, words of a ritual imprinted on him before his birth. Once said, there was no going back. Traian and Joie would be bound for eternity.

The small sound escaping from her throat only urged him on. His tongue teased and danced over her taut nipple, caught the droplets of water as they beaded on her skin. "You are my lifemate. I claim you as my lifemate. I belong to you. I offer my life for you." His hands shaped her body, slid up to cup her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

His face was dark, his gaze intent as he looked into her eyes. Joie felt a strange wrenching in the vicinity of her heart. A part of her tasted fear, wanted to cry out for him to stop, but another part embraced his words, understood the importance of each promise uttered. Her hands slipped over his chest, and she leaned forward to taste his skin, her teeth nipping his chest, directly over his heart. She had never been a biter, but something urged her to sink her teeth deep, to connect them together. She swirled her tongue over his heavy muscles.

Joie was killing him with her innocent sensuality. His body hurt, a hard, painful ache; he was desperate for relief. "I give you my protection. I give you my allegiance. I give you my heart." His hands tightened on her waist, holding her so tight he felt her soft body melting around his. "I give you my soul. I give you my body. I take into my keeping the same that is yours. Your life, happiness, and welfare will be cherished and placed above my own for all time. You are my lifemate, bound to me for all eternity and always in my care."

The words spilled out of him, the Carpathian ritual marriage, as old as time. He felt thousands of tiny threads binding them together as they were meant to be joined.

He caught her chin in his hand, lifted her face to his, finding her lips almost blindly, wanting to devour her. She opened her mouth to him, melted into him. Traian caught her up in his arms, kissing her wildly, and carried her to the bed, cradling her in his lap so that his heavy erection pressed tightly against her b.u.t.tocks. He whispered softly in his language, a strong command, even as his fingernail lengthened and he drew a line over his chest.

Joie kissed his throat, her lips drifting down his neck, unerringly finding his chest and the gash there. A hot flame burst inside him, a firestorm of emotion and sensation. The back of her head fit into his palm as he held her to him, encouraging her to make the exchange. Heat poured through his body. He burned for her, his body hard and painful with need, even as pleasure swept through him. Traian shifted, lowering Joie to the comforter, following her down so as not to break the connection between them. When he was certain she had taken enough for a true exchange, he whispered the command to halt and closed the wound himself. At once his mouth was on hers, stealing her breath, giving her his own.

Joie couldn't remember how she ended up beneath him, his hips wedged between her legs. His hands were everywhere, stroking, caressing, inciting. There wasn't an inch of her skin that he didn't explore. She heard her own strangled cry as his fingers sank deep inside her, felt her muscles clench tightly around him. Ready. Waiting. Desperate for his invasion. Her fingers caught at his hips, pulling him to her in a frantic attempt to find relief. She had never wanted or needed anything more than to feel his body deep inside hers.

Traian, certain she was ready for him, pinned her hips and thrust into her in one long, deep stroke. She gasped with pleasure, arched upward toward him, meeting him thrust for thrust. He cried out, unable to stay silent as he surged into her. She was a silken glide of fire and velvet as her feminine sheath gripped him tightly.

Joie clung to him, unable to do much more than hold on, lifting her body eagerly to meet his as he drove harder and deeper, merging them together in a fiery tango that she wanted to go on forever. They were skin to skin. Their hearts beat with the same wild rhythm. The air crackled with electricity, and sparks leapt from nerve ending to nerve ending. The pressure built and built until she thought she might have to scream with the joy exploding through her.

He poured into her mind, filling every lonely place with-him. She felt the sensations in his body, the gathering of a great force, much like a volcano. Hot. Thick. An inferno of desire and hunger mixed with intense emotion and pure l.u.s.t. He filled her with flames and heat, an outpouring of pressure building from his toes to the top of his head. At the same time, he felt her every reaction, the waves of pleasure swamping her, racing to overtake them both, consume them completely.

Joie cried his name, clutched his body tightly as they went over the cliff together, free-falling through s.p.a.ce in wild exhilaration. She couldn't catch her breath; her heart was pounding out of control. Little explosions continued, rocking her, so that her body refused to let his go, clamping down hard and holding him to her.

"I think I see fireworks," she whispered into his chest.

He laughed softly. "I think we produced the fireworks." He lay over her, his body pinning hers, locked tightly inside her while he kissed her slowly. Thoroughly. Leisurely. Savoring her. "Thank you for finding me, Joie."

"My pleasure, Traian," she answered. He was moving yet not moving, and each small shift sent ripples of aftershocks through her entire body. "I can hear our hearts beating. Really hear them, like pounding drums. And I can hear the blood moving through your veins. Is that normal? Because if it is, eww, ick, and yuck."

He laughed softly, the sound vibrating through her entire body so that her muscles gripped even more tightly around him. "Think about turning the volume down. Our minds are very powerful. You can control the volume with a thought." His teeth tugged at her lower lip "Think about it and you can hear a pin drop in the next room. But, if you want quiet, you simply turn the volume down."

"I don't feel that much different inside. I thought I would notice changes."

"You haven't gone through a conversion, Joie. It takes three blood exchanges. We have only exchanged one time." He caught her firmly in his arms and rolled, taking her with him, so that she was straddling him.

He filled her completely, still hard and thick so that every movement sent pleasure dancing through her body. His hands cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "I want to look at you. I still have a difficult time believing I actually found you. That I am with you."

Deliberately Joie moved, a long, slow glide up and down. She felt him shudder with pleasure and arched back, pushing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s into his hands, getting a better angle to take more of him deep inside her. "Why are you waiting, if we need three exchanges?"

He watched himself disappearing inside of her, slick and wet from her body. "I want to give your body time to adjust to the changes. It is not always easy." He found it was difficult to get the words out, difficult to have a coherent thought when she was gripping him so strongly with her muscles, riding him harder and faster with long, deep strokes. Fire licked at his belly, flames erupted over his skin until the heat rushed to one central spot, collected there, and raged out of control.

He let the s.e.xual ecstasy wash over him, through him, take possession of him, all the while watching the glide of her body, the way her muscles moved beneath her skin, the way her b.r.e.a.s.t.s pushed into his palms and her nipples teased and tempted him. The sheer enjoyment on her face. Her thoughts, completely taken up with giving them both pleasure, were enough to send him over the edge. He picked up the rhythm, thrusting upward, driving into her as she came down over him. Each stroke took his breath, took his heart. Her body caressed his-was wet and hot and tight and brought him to the brink, setting up an addiction that would never end. He would always want her again and again. He felt her muscles contract, grip, squeeze, and grip until they both went up in flames together.

Joie lay beside him, unable to move, wanting to laugh with joy. Her fingers found his, tangled, and held on. She believed in living life to the fullest, but she had always thought she would do so alone. For the first time in her life, she felt complete and utter satisfaction. Complete and utter peace.

"I feel exactly the same way," Traian said. "I cannot help wondering-if you had been the Carpathian and I the human with a beloved family, would I have been as trusting as you have been? You cannot know what your faith and trust mean to me."

Joie turned her head, a mischievous grin on her face. "I decided I liked flying and the shape-shifting would be cool. And if you do something so silly as to cheat on me or run off with someone else, I'm very good with a knife."

He raised an eyebrow. "I thought you would be worried about giving up food. It does smell good. I have even sampled some from time to time."

"No one said anything about giving up food." She eyed him with suspicion. "There are certain things women can't do without, Traian. Chocolate at certain times of the month is essential to health. Not necessarily my health, but the health of all males in the vicinity. I'm not giving up chocolate, not even for great s.e.x."

He propped himself up on one elbow, the pad of his finger tracing a circle around her breast. "Chocolate is that important, is it?"

"Essential. Absolutely essential. That's nonnegotiable."

"What kind of chocolate must you have?"

"Dark chocolate, of course. Is there any other kind?" He dipped his head to pull her breast into his mouth, suckling strongly just to feel her reaction. His tongue swirled over her nipple before he kissed her. His kiss was long and slow and thorough. When he lifted his head, he laughed softly at her expression. She stared up at him, bemused, one hand touching her lips in wonder where the taste of dark chocolate melting in her mouth was very real.

"How did you do that?"

"You need and I provide-that is how it works. I believe you wanted to see your brother and sister tonight."

She allowed him to pull her up. "Anytime? You can do that anytime? Wow. I think I'm going to like this lifemate business."

Traian laughed, hardly able to believe the happiness blossoming inside him. Hardly daring to believe Joie was real.