"He has never defeated me in battle, sweetheart. You should have more faith in your lifemate.

Lucian is a very unusual vampire, just as he was an unusual Carpathian. There is no other like him.

It does no good to try to second-guess him. He always does the unexpected. He could just as easily have attacked you or Skyler. He is intelligent far beyond your imagining, just as he is more powerful than the legends have told. To guess what he is up to is impossible, but he has found you and he has found Skyler. I do not want you to set one foot into the night without me by your side."

For some reason, Francesca was annoyed. "I am not about to allow this vampire to change my life, Gabriel. This is my city. There is much I do here, much I love. Over the centuries there have been many vampires who have come and gone. For that matter, there have been many Carpathian males, yet I live on and do as I please."

"Lucian likes games, Francesca. His mind craves action at all times. He is not one you can 'play'

with and expect to win."

"I will not live my life in fear of him."She said it defiantly, both to him and to the vampire if he was monitoring their conversation. She didn't think it was possible, but then she had not thought it possible that anyone but Gabriel could "hear" their private path. All Carpathians communicated on a common mental path, but this was different. Gabriel was her lifemate. Their path was an individual, very intimate, personal one.

No other should have been able to penetrate their private communication. Lucian was indeed powerful and unique. As she emerged into the darkness of night that was her world, into the fresh air where she could breathe without the stench of human suffering, Gabriel materialized beside her, his strong arm encircling her slender waist.

Francesca's heart nearly stopped, his presence was so unexpected. "I thought you were establishing an alibi somewhere."

"It is not so hard, honey, to send vivid images to those humans I have touched already. The judge and I have spent a pleasant evening together in his home. He plays chess, did you know that?

Naturally I was the victor, but it was a close game. He believes I drank his favorite brandy with him and conversed on all sorts of subjects. As he resides alone, it was not at all complicated to plant the memories in his mind."

"There was another murder?" Francesca asked unnecessarily. "It was Lucian, wasn't it? What is he doing? What does he hope to gain?"

Gabriel shrugged easily, the movement a subtle ripple of power. "He seeks to draw me into his web.

Do not worry, honey, he will not defeat me at the scene of one of his kills. He may be high and powerful from one of his kills, but I know his ways. I know the way he does battle, how he thinks and moves and plans. He will be far more clever than an ordinary vampire. He has a master plan.

This is just beginning, rather like the opening moves in a chess game." He bent his head to inhale her fragrance, needing in that moment to bury his face in the warmth of her neck. He could feel the age-old call of her pulse, her blood, the essence of life calling to him. His body was hard and aching and his hunger intensified.

Francesca was shocked at how her body was responding to his. Every cell was alive. Inside, heat was spreading at the mere sight of him. Even with the vampire stalking them and Brice out to blacken Gabriel's name, all she could think about was Gabriel's hard body, the heat of his skin, the softness of his long hair, the perfection of his mouth.

"Stop it." There was a husky sensuality to Gabriel's voice. The words were low and his hand bit into her ribs just beneath her breast so that every step they took she could feel the brush of his thumb against the underside of her swelling flesh. "I am trying to be the hunter, the legend you have named me. Do not tempt me. I am not nearly as strong as I would like to think."

She smiled up at him, her long lashes concealing the sudden hunger in her eyes. She liked the way she felt beside him, safe and protected. Cared for. She had been so alone for so long. Let him hunt another time.

Gabriel stopped abruptly and caught her chin in his hand. "I was alone, too, Francesca. All those empty years. Totally alone. You are cared for now. And safe. And protected. You are my reason for existing, the air I breathe." His thumb feathered along the side of her face. His black gaze burned over her, needing. Needing. He took her breath away whenever his eyes moved over her so possessively.

"I want you." She said the words in the same low tone he had used. She wanted him on fire, unable to resist temptation. She no longer wanted him in control. It was contrary of her and she knew it was wrong of her. He had a job to do, she shouldn't distract him, she shouldn't seem to know that he needed to be with her in the same way she needed to be with him. She knew she was playing with explosives, but it didn't matter to her. The world was caving in around her and she wanted his arms and his body and the hot flames only he could ignite. She wanted him no longer thinking and in control; she wanted him needing her beyond anything else. Beyond hunting Lucian.

He made a sound low in his throat, easily reading her every thought. "You are not making this easy, Francesca. We are in an open place and it is becoming difficult to take a step without pain."

A slow smile tugged at her mouth. Her hand brushed his chest, dropped lower to caress the inviting bulge that was already hard and thick. Her long fingernails raked the fabric, teasing him, deliberately arousing him further. She took the lead toward the river, her body enticing him with every step. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were aching and swollen with need and her hunger was rising sharply.

Inside her mind were hot, erotic pictures. "It isn't as if we will not know if someone comes along,"

she whispered softly. Francesca reached up and began to slowly unfasten the b.u.t.tons of her blouse as they approached the shelter of some trees.

Gabriel watched in complete fascination as the edges of her blouse slowly parted to reveal her creamy b.r.e.a.s.t.s thrusting so invitingly toward him. Her smile was pure seduction. "You think to resist me, lifemate?"

"We are not in a safe place," he replied, but his black gaze was burning over her naked skin so intensely, her nipples hardened in response. He had scanned the area just as she had. He knew they were alone, and the knowledge didn't help his discipline at all. He knew that if someone came along the river, he was perfectly capable of shielding their presence.

She dragged the shirt from his shoulders, wanting to see the ripple of power in his hard muscles.

Her hand moved over his skin, her fingers imprinting the memory of him on her brain for all time.

"I want to feel what you're feeling," she said softly. "I want to know what I can do to your body, to your mind." Her hands went to his waistband and with deliberate slowness she opened the material so that he spilled out thick and hard and throbbing with fullness and need. At once the warmth of her hands cupped him, her fingers committing him to memory.

Gabriel groaned with pleasure, allowed her mind to fully merge with his so that she could feel the intensity of his enjoyment, the l.u.s.t rising sharply in him, the hunger threatening to consume him.

Her long silken hair brushed his sensitive tip as she found his chest with the warmth of her mouth, her soft lips following the path her fingers had taken. Another groan escaped as she moved ever lower, so slowly he thought he might die before she touched him.

Her lips moved over the hard length of him, her tongue tasting him, gently at first. Then her mouth, hot and tight, took him to a place he had never imagined, took her there with him.

Francesca could feel every pleasure she gave him, knew exactly what he wanted, what he needed.

Her hand found the tight muscle of his b.u.t.tocks through the material of his trousers and urged him deeper into her, reveling in the power she wielded in that moment. She reveled in the fact that he could do nothing but thrust his hips helplessly, his fists clenched in her silken hair. It felt like nothing she had ever experienced, hot and s.e.xy and so erotic. It seemed incredible to have such power over a legendary being.

He muttered her name, his head thrown back, his voice husky with need. He dragged her up to him, fastening his mouth to hers, hard and relentless, dominating, hungry, intensely masculine.

He kissed her until he was drowning in her, merged so deeply he didn't know where she started and he left off.

Francesca. His life. The air he breathed. His arms tightened possessively. His lips drifted from the heat of her silken mouth to her throat, down lower to find her creamy breast, soft and full and inviting. His lips closed over the hard peak, pulled strongly, a torment for both of them.

She circled his head with her arms, cradled him to her. "Tell me this is real, Gabriel, this is us, you and me, not the Carpathian heat rising between us." There was a plea in her voice, an aching need for it to be real.

"Only you, Francesca," he whispered fiercely. "Look into my mind and see the truth; it is there for the taking. I want you and only you. For yourself, not just your beautiful body. For me there will never be another. No other could satisfy this desperate craving. A craving as old as time itself.

Beautiful and magical." His hand wandered over her skin, pushed low into the waistband of her jeans. "I look at you and remember the endless centuries, all those wars and battles, my people turning undead and the countless times I was forced to destroy them. You are the reason I did it, the reason I endured it. Just you. Not some n.o.ble purpose, but somewhere on this planet I knew you might be, a child just beginning and it was necessary to keep you safe."

His palm moved along the curve of her hip as he pushed her jeans aside, traveled down her soft skin following the slender line of her legs. "I thought of you every time I made a kill, when my life was dark and bleak, without hope. I thought of you in a village or town somewhere, high in the mountains or down in a valley. I whispered to you that I was coming, that no harm would find you as long as I existed. And I continued to exist, century after century." Gabriel closed his eyes as his hands moved over her body, savoring the feel of her, the perfection of her, committing every curve to memory. To carry with him always. For all time. For all eternity. "For you, Francesca, I continued to exist for you." To carry with him wherever he went after his death.

Francesca felt tears burning behind her eyes, shocked that his words could move her so deeply.

The feel of his mouth drifting over her breast, the heat of his breath as he whispered beautiful things against her skin were as compelling as any black-magic spell he could have used. "You make me ashamed that I gave up all hope," she whispered, tears in her throat, as she cradled his head to her.

He lifted her easily with his enormous strength. "I do not want you ever to feel such a thing," he chastised softly. "You are the strength in my mind, the iron in my will, you are so brave and beautiful, inside and out, and I do not deserve one such as you. So many centuries of living alone, cut off from your people-for someone else it would have been a living h.e.l.l, yet you managed to do good with your life."

Francesca clasped her hands around his neck, threw back her head as she wrapped her legs around his waist, and settled over the hard length of him. Her hair fell in a dark curtain of silk, enveloping them in a private world. She wanted this, the union of their bodies, so perfect in the night air. The night where they belonged, where their people lived and thrived. She held him to her, rode him, at first slowly, savoring the hot slick feel of him filling her with his strength, sending pleasure coursing through her slender body. She clutched him, trembling with ecstasy.

She bent her head slowly, seductively toward his throat. He had fed well this night, and she was shaking with her longing to have every part of him, to consume him in her own fiery need, in the fires of her dark desire. He whispered her name, his arms like iron bands, holding her close. He closed his eyes as her b.r.e.a.s.t.s moved over his chest, as her tight sheath enveloped him, clutching with a hot velvet friction. Unbelievable pleasure. Her teeth sank deep into the side of his neck and white-hot lightning lanced through him, through both of them, welding them together.

He began to move then, taking the lead, picking up the pace, surging deeper and deeper, striving to find the very core of her. Her hair was sliding over his skin, sensitizing him even more. She seemed to be his world, his breath, his blood, his body, his every pleasure. The rush built like a fireball, a firestorm out of control. He felt her gasp, close the pinp.r.i.c.ks with her tongue, a sensuous caress, her body clutching at his, milking him until he wanted to shout his joy to the heavens. To feel this. To experience this. The love that welled up in him overflowed. His body was exploding into the universe, following hers, stars shooting in all directions and colors whirling like a kaleidoscope.

He held her to him, their hearts beating as one, their bodies united. They belonged together. He stood there in the darkness holding her close. "I love you, Francesca. I really do."

She went very still, her head buried against the warmth of his neck. "Gabriel."

"I do, Francesca, very much, more than I ever thought it possible to love anyone. I did not know how strong such an emotion could be. I am not asking anything of you, sweetheart, do not think that. I only want you to know what I feel. I want to say the words to you aloud. And just so you know, I love your body, too."

She laughed softly. "I was the one who seduced you." She wanted to make that very clear. "Time and again."

"It was not for lack of wanting, lady, and you well know that. I was being a gentleman." Very gently he allowed her feet to touch the ground. "And I told you first that I loved you. Just remember that when you are being smug."

Francesca stretched sensuously, turning her face up to the stars. "Take me home, Gabriel. Set safeguards for Skyler and take me home. I want to spend the rest of this rising making love to you."

She grinned at him mischievously. "And you remember when you're being smug, I was the one to make the suggestion first."

"It is only fair that you spend time with your lifemate. Soon our home will be filled with others. I think it is time you stayed with me and admitted you made a terrible mistake looking at that poor excuse for a human man."

"He is not as bad as he is looking at the moment." There was genuine puzzlement in Francesca's voice. Without giving any more thought to Brice, Francesca straightened her clothes, her body very close to Gabriel's.

"It is all right with me that you showed poor judgment in this one small area before my arrival," he said with a straight face. "After all, you showed your common sense in all other things."

Francesca began laughing so hard she had to fling her arms around Gabriel's neck to keep on her feet. "I can't believe you're such a schmuck after two thousand years. I would think you'd have a clue how to talk to a woman."

He bent his dark head to hers. "Sweetheart, do you want to hear me talk to you?" His voice was softer than the night sky. At once her dark eyes found his. He was looking at her with hunger.

Nothing else described it. Hunger. "Because I very much want to talk to you." His hand cupped her breast, his thumb moving gently, insistently over the hard peak of her nipple. "Can you hear what it is I am saying to you?"

Francesca shivered and wrapped her arms around him. "Let's go home, Gabriel. Skyler needs a few more days in the hospital and I want every minute we have alone with you. Every minute." Her mouth found his, every bit as hungry as his eyes.

Chapter Eleven.

Something terrible was going on in the city. Francesca could hardly bear to look at the news. There were strings of murders, mutilations, terrible things that seemed to be breaking out all over the city. Was it Lucian? Was he responsible for the crimes sweeping her beloved Paris? If she and Gabriel left, would he follow them? It was more than the brutal murders, it was the feel of the city, as if something evil resided there. Something dark and malevolent, crouching, awaiting its moment to rise. Somehow it seemed to permeate the city until the residents were affected. Fights broke out, wrecks occurred on the streets, and conflict erupted everywhere.

It was important to her to spend as much time as possible with Gabriel. She wanted to be with him each rising, when the night was so beautiful it took her breath away. She wanted the early morning hours. She wanted to make love to him, watch his gaze become so intent that she felt a rush of heat through her body. They had spent every moment they could together, their only responsibility checking on Skyler. Francesca wasn't yet ready to relinquish her time with Gabriel, but he was a hunter and the newspaper reported that evil had found its way into her city. He could do no other than destroy what threatened his family.

Gabriel moved up behind her, silent as was his way, his palm shaping the nape of her neck, his touch warm. "It is not only Lucian, my love. I believe Skyler and you are targets of the undead. You are now out in the open. I have exposed you to a danger you managed to elude for long centuries.

Skyler is not of age, but her ability is strong and she has come out of her own mind where she had so successfully remained in hiding. The undead seek ones such as Skyler. We need to move her to this house immediately and set up strong safeguards for her."

"Brice said one more day," Francesca murmured, all too aware of his hands on her. She was always so aware of Gabriel. His rich scent, the power in his body when he moved. Most of all, the way he needed her. The way it was so necessary for him to touch her, to allow his fingers to drift through her hair, to touch her skin. The connection between them. She loved the way he glided up behind her and circled his arms around her, his hands locked protectively over their child.

Their child. It was growing inside her, a part of her, a part of him. A miracle she had never expected. He thought he had committed an unforgivable crime, yet she wanted to weep with the joy of it. He had given her a gift beyond measure, beyond her dreams. Francesca wanted to laugh aloud at herself. How silly and childish she had been to think she would walk into the dawn.

She was a healer, a woman of power, one who knew her body intimately. Gabriel could not have deceived her unless she had wanted to be deceived. She had taken his dark desire willingly, returned it tenfold. He thought he wielded so much power over her, yet on some level she had known all along what was happening. She had known. She was no fledging; she was an ancient.

He could not have seduced her without her consent.

Was the call of a lifemate so strong? Or was it the lure of Gabriel himself? The legend. The myth.

The Carpathian wanting to share her life, no, needing to share her life. She leaned into him, her body finding the exact niche it sought as if they had been made for each other.

Gabriel, a shadow in her mind, refrained from reminding her they had been made for each other.

Exclusively. Francesca was the other half of his soul, his heart. She was his world, the reason he had spent two thousand years in darkness. She was the reason he fought so hard to rid the world of the undead. She needed to know he was the reason she had held on to life for as long as she had. They belonged to each other.

Francesca glanced over her shoulder at him, her large dark eyes very expressive. "I am reading your mind, Gabriel," she said softly, a small smile tugging intriguingly at the corners of her mouth.

"If you were reading my mind," he responded wickedly, "you would be blushing right now."She found herself blushing just at the sound of his voice, the brush of velvet, the whisper of his breath. She didn't need to see the images in his mind, so vivid in detail, so completely erotic. "Stop it, we have work to do this rising." She took a deep breath. "Especially you." She could feel her heart skip a beat at her words. She was sending him out into the city to hunt the vampire, to try to find out what was happening to her beloved home. Evil was stalking Paris. Lucian. Dark angel, the fallen angel. At once she felt incredibly sad and knew she was catching Gabriel's sorrow, so intense it washed through him like a turbulent storm.

Gabriel turned away from her, removing his touch as well as his mind to spare her the intensity of his grief, but Francesca immediately swung around and captured him within the circle of her arms.

Soothing, tranquil, his healer as well as his lifemate. Her mind found his unerringly, sending him waves of peace and comfort. "I am with you, Gabriel, always with you. Do not feel as if you are alone in your task."

"If you are sharing my mind, Francesca, then you will see him as he was, a warrior unsurpa.s.sed by any other. He gave his life for our people, for mankind. I believed in him always and he never once let me down. After all the battles, all the times I witnessed his kills, it is still impossible for my heart to accept what I know to be true." Gabriel raked a hand through his long black hair, his dark eyes stricken. "He fought the vampire night after night. He suffered many wounds, terrible wounds, and often he took my place when I would have been injured. He moved that swiftly, inserting his body between mine and the undead when we battled. I never heard him complain, not once in all those endless centuries. He always did the right thing, no matter the cost to himself, yet now I am sworn to destroy him."

Francesca chose her words very carefully. "It is no longer the man you are hunting, Gabriel, but a sh.e.l.l left behind. What once was great, the soul and mind and heart of your twin, is long gone from this earth. You cannot think of him as being the one you loved so much, the one you held in such high esteem. This is a vampire, the undead, and is not your twin."

Gabriel caught her hand, held it to his chest over his heart. "I know what you say is true, yet he is not like the undead I have hunted and destroyed for my entire life. He retains certain qualities I would never have expected."

She moved closer to him, a small protective gesture he treasured. "Perhaps those small things have been your downfall with him, Gabriel. Perhaps he was cunning enough to know the memories would defeat you where he could not."

He brought her hand to the warmth of his mouth. "I know only that he was a great man and I loved him much. We were together two thousand years, Francesca, even during the last few centuries when we battled long. He was always there, touching my mind, sharing information, a challenge in a world of emptiness. It was Lucian who allowed me to continue when the darkness threatened and the whisper of power called to me. He was always there, my mission on this earth. To allow another to destroy him would be a sacrilege and I have given my word of honor to him." He shook his head, his sorrow so great it weighed both of them down, a stone on their hearts.

"Gabriel?"

The voice shimmered in his mind and Francesca heard it as clearly as Gabriel did. It was soft and beautiful. Lonely. Concerned. It sent a shiver deep inside her very soul. How could one so evil possess such a gift, such a weapon? If he commanded her obedience, would she be strong enough to resist the lure of that voice?

"If you seek me, Lucian, simply reveal where you are and I will come to you in all haste." Gabriel sounded weary, and his tone alarmed Francesca. She took a firmer grip on his arm, terrified that that beguiling voice was somehow wearing Gabriel down so that he no longer believed in his abilities.

"You are tired, brother. I would not want to take unfair advantage when there is much more entertaining prey. I will leave you to your rest."The contact was broken as easily and as swiftly as it had been made. Gabriel buried his face in the warmth of her neck. "Do you see what I am saying? It was my sorrow that brought his mind to mine. He retains a strong connection with me that I cannot sever." He lifted his head, his black eyes searching her face with such intensity she could hardly bear his scrutiny.

"I want you to know something, Francesca. You have given me more happiness in the short time we have been together than I have ever known in all the centuries of my existence. I am honored that I was given such a wonderful lifemate, a woman of courage and beauty when I have only known evil. I have never had a home before. I look around this dwelling of yours and I see you everywhere. I went into the room you put together for Skyler and it was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes. I touched the quilt you had wrought for her. It was you. Soothing. Compa.s.sionate. Courageous. It was filled with life and love and laughter. I felt the safeguard to keep her nightmares at bay. It was strong, as you are strong."

Embarra.s.sed by his words, Francesca looked away from the black depths of his eyes. In a way, his words were frightening, almost as if he were saying good-bye. He caught her chin in his fingers, stilling her so that his gaze could capture hers. "Do not look away from me. You deserve to look into my heart and mind and know the truth of my words. There is no other woman in the world like you. I would want no other. If something happens to me, I know you will choose to stay in this world, you will be strong enough to raise our child with enough love for both of us. You will see to it that our child knows who I was and what I stood for."

"Gabriel, don't!" Francesca jerked away from him. "You are talking about yourself in the past tense.

You will destroy Lucian, I know that you will."

He nodded slowly. "Yes. I have no choice."

Francesca found herself clutching his arm, giving him a little shake. "You don't believe you will return to me."

"No, Lucian will take me with him." His hands framed her face. "You are in my heart, and wherever I go, I will take memories of you with me until such time as you are able to join me. It is enough that you and Skyler and our child will remain safe."

"I am your lifemate, Gabriel. You insisted on the ritual, you bound us together, you gave me a child. You cannot go into battle with the idea that you will not return. Lifemates remain together,"

she protested. He believed what he was saying, and all at once she realized he was everything she had ever wanted in her life. Gabriel. Her lifemate. Her legend come to life.

A small smile tugged at his sculpted mouth. "You are so brave, my love, you will remain even when others would not. You have known a life on this earth few others could have managed. You would never abandon Skyler when she is in such need. She must be guarded at all times and brought up to know her own power and strength. Without you, Skyler would retreat back into her mind and be lost to our people. You know that. In your heart you know it is only the link you forged with her that keeps her with us. You cannot leave her. And there is our child, growing inside you, part of me, part of you. You must be the one to raise and guide him so that he has the strength so many others do not. I would want no other to perform this task. He must know you, and through you, me." Gabriel kissed her forehead gently, his hands tunneling in her hair.