"No." He cursed himself for allowing her to see him heal. "You were not."

Her expression grew solemn. "How do I even begin to believe in something like you?""Not easily. I know what even the fact of our existence can do to the sanity of a human," he told her, brushing the hair back from her face. "But you are stronger than that, Samantha. What you saw tonight was a Kyn version of the humans you hunt."

She shook her head. "He was easy to spot. Human snakes wear their skins on the inside."

"I would have spared you this." Ironic, that she had been made to face what human monsters could do, and now had to endure knowledge of those among his kind. "Then again, perhaps all of your life's miseries were to prepare you for what I would do to you."

Now she seemed bewildered. "What have you done to me?"

"Witnessing the rage of my old friend Faryl wasn't enough?"

"Did you make him that way?" When he shook his head, she smiled a little. "I didn't think so. Was he what you said you were?

Something like a vampire?"

He hid his fear, but he could not keep back the words. "I'd rather not tell you something that will made you turn back into a beautiful carrot-"

"Don't tell me," she said. "Show me."

"You've been through enough." If he touched her now, he wouldn't be able to control himself.

Samantha reached up and took a handful of his hair in her fist, and dragged his face to hers. He was so starved for her that the kiss he gave her must have bruised her lips, but she only nestled closer to him. As he kissed her, he felt her fingers touch the juncture of their mouths. Their lips parted, and she inserted a fingertip, rimming the edge of his bottom teeth, turning her hand to do the same to the top.

Desire made his dents acerees slide from the recesses in his palate. She felt them as they extended, and the taste of her blood sweetened his mouth as the sharp, elongated point of one fang pierced her skin.

Her eyes were only inches from his. In them, he could see the reflection of his, and how the pupils in his eyes instantly contracted, becoming narrow, vertical black slits.

"Jesus," she breathed, not repulsed but riveted. "You really are a vampire."

Lucan caressed the length of her finger with his tongue as he savored the small wound he had inflicted on her. The scent of jasmine rose around them, thick and deep. Reluctantly he released her finger, kissing the reddened dimple in the skin.

"I live on human blood." He would tell her the rest. "My wounds heal instantly, and I do not age. My kind are difficult to kill.

We have been living among you since the Middle Ages, when the first of my kind rose to walk the night. I was born in the thirteenth century."

"Are you like the vampires in the movies?"

"No. The cross doesn't burn us, and sunlight only makes us tired. Wooden stakes are useless; our weakness is copper. We don't drain all the blood from humans or make them into our kind." He thought of Alexandra, but explaining her would only complicate matters. "We are different, but we try to coexist with you."

"You have sex with humans."

He gave her a wicked smile. "Whenever possible. We are very hungry, very sensory creatures, and you..." He breathed in her scent. "You are a movable feast." He felt her pulse change. "What more can I show you?""One last thing," she said. "Take off your gloves and show me your hands."

"I can't touch you."

"I know. I remember." She looked down at them. "You did something with them to stop those men who attacked us. That's why you wear gloves all the time."

"Each of the Kyn has their own talent, but some are particularly rare and powerful," he said, hearing the bitterness in his voice and despising his own self-pity. "Mine affects anything that breathes, whether it is animal, vegetable, human, or Kyn. That is why I am feared, Samantha."

"Why? What do you do?"

"I can shatter bones, tear flesh, and rend veins. Nothing living can withstand the touch of my bare hands if I wish it harm." He looked down at the weapons he could never be rid of. "My former master called me the Black Prince of Death. Black like a plague that can never be stopped. Death for my hands."

"Why does glass break around you?" she asked. "That's not a living thing."

"It happens sometimes when I'm angry, or close to losing my temper. Rather like a warning signal." His mouth curled. "I never have enough wineglasses."

She nodded slowly. "I still want to see your hands."

Lucan considered the thin layer of velvet that kept her safe. If this was the price for her sanity, then so be it. Slowly he stripped off his gloves and held out his hands.

Her expression changed to surprise. "They're not black."

Of all the things he had expected her to say, that was not one of them. "I'm not a black man."

She looked up quickly. "In my dream, one of them was black."

"Was it the left?" When she nodded, he picked up his gloves. "I was born left-handed. It was considered unlucky in my time."

He froze when she touched his hands with hers, and jerked them away. "Samantha, I told you, nothing living-"

"Can withstand your touch, yeah, I got that. I also know you don't want to hurt me. If you did, you wouldn't have been so careful." She took his bare hands in hers again. "I trust you."

The only flesh Lucan had touched without gloves protecting it for the last seven hundred years had suffered or died moments later. Yet here was this foolish, ridiculous human female, cradling his killing hands between hers, bending to them, bringing them to her face- The feel of her skin under his fingers made Lucan close his eyes.

Like a blind man walking without cane or guide, he let himself live dangerously for a moment. He moved his fingertips over her face, sweeping over the lines and curves, learning her, feeling her. At first he raced, eager to take in as much as he could before it was time to release her, but then he began to linger, testing a texture here, a softness there.

Her lashes were gossamer, her lips warm satin. The bones beneath her flesh were strong, angular things made graceful by the resilient stretch of muscle. The tiny hairs on her skin worked like fine velvet against him, finer than any glove he had ever worn.

Her breath warmed his skin, as tender as a lover's caress.

Too much.He opened his eyes and pulled his trembling hands away, ashamed of himself for risking her safety all for the rapture of knowing her under his hands. He reached for his gloves.

"Don't put them back on." Her voice sounded as ragged as his grip on his self-control. "Please."

He stared at her in disbelief. "Have you gone carrot-brained again?"

Samantha lay back against the pillows of his bed, and pulled up the hem of her T-shirt, tugging it up and over her head. Under it she wore a plain white bra. "I like feeling your hands on me." She touched the clip at the front, but didn't release it. "Don't you want me?"

She wasn't afraid. She had seen what he could do with his hands, and she wasn't screaming in fear. Lucan couldn't think. "I want you."

"Then take off my bra."

If he put both hands on her, he would rip her bra to shreds, so Lucan used only two fingers to release the clasp, and one to peel back the thin cotton cups. Her breasts were neither too small or too large, pretty round globes that promised to fill his hand.

Her nipples were the same color as her lips, a delicate pink only a shade or two darker than her skin, but as he looked at them they turned rosy and tightened.

"Touch me," she whispered.

Lucan had to taste her first, and so he bent his head to her, watching the tiny vibrations of her heartbeat under her skin, and opened his mouth over her, and took her nipple in. He tried not to curve his hand around the luscious weight of her breast as he sucked, but that, too, he could not resist, and the sensation of his fingers sinking into the firm mound brought his other hand to her.

He felt her hands on him, moving over his shoulders, skimming down his back. He was on top of .her, pressing her into the bed, his bare hands filled with her, his tongue lashing her. Her thighs parted and he settled between them, inching the heavy weight of his cock back and forth against her.

He lifted his head to look into her eyes. He saw no pain, no hesitation, no doubt. "I want to put my fingers inside you."

Instead of answering, Samantha reached down and unfastened the waistband of her trousers, and opened the zipper beneath it.

Lucan lifted up, first to watch her, then to help her. He stripped off the trousers, tossing them aside, but left her white cotton panties, which he found as unbearably erotic as her plain little bra, in place.

"Spread your legs for me," he told her, watching her shift, relishing the play of her muscles as she opened herself to his gaze. He used one finger to pull the cotton crotch out of his way, discovering a light dusting of dark curly hair over more delicate pink flesh, and with two fingers of his other hand he explored the plump outer curves of her labia. She was all damp and flowering, his Samantha, her hips moving in a small, subtle roll as he parted her with a fingertip and found the narrow, tight place that made his fingers ache.

Lucan might have looked at her for the rest of the night, had her hand not found his to urge him against her. He bent to press his mouth to her thigh, and then rested his face against it as he slowly pushed one finger up inside her.

Samantha made a low, keening sound.

"Yes." He penetrated her as deeply as he could, feeling the clench of her against him, sliding through wetness and tender, swollen flesh until the tip of his finger brushed the mouth of her womb. Slowly he drew his hand back, easing out of her, and then entered her again, this time with two fingers.His hands were big, and she was tight; he knew he was stretching her as he fit her to his palm. When he had his fingers inside her as deeply as they would go, he put his mouth to her, opening her again with his tongue, caressing her and tasting the silkiness his fingers were drawing from her as he pushed them slowly in and out, fucking her with his hand.

"Lucan." Her fingers were in his hair, restless, tugging.

He used his fangs to tear the panties from her, and worked his tongue against her until he felt her thigh muscles tense and strain.

Sinking his two fingers into her, he pushed his thumb up and into the tight cleft of her buttocks, opening and working it into her there.

Samantha cried out, a beautiful sound of longing and wanting and a little fear, and then she came on his hand, writhing under his mouth, drenching his fingers as she squeezed them and tugged them deeper with the contractions of finding her pleasure.

Lucan rode her climax, licking and petting and stroking her to another, and when her head fell back, he slowly withdrew his fingers from her body. His entire hand was wet from her, and he painted her breast with the satiny proof of her satisfaction before he stood and began shedding his own clothes.

Through dazed eyes she watched him undress. "What are you doing to me?"

"Everything." He stood for a moment by the bed, as naked as she was, looking down at her. He put his hand around his cock, stroking it as she watched. "I'm going to fuck you, Samantha. It's what I've wanted since the moment I first saw you." He took hold of her hips and flipped her over onto her belly, pulling her to the edge of the bed. He curled one arm under her, lifting her hips as he followed the tight curve of her buttocks with his other hand. She was still wet, still seething with heat. He guided the head of his cock to where his fingers had danced inside her, and pushed it inside.

His fingers weren't as thick as his penis, so Lucan had to penetrate her by slow increments. He pushed into her, and then withdrew, forcing her to take a little more of him with each small, slow thrust.

"Oh, God." As he worked his way into her, Samantha's fists knotted in the dark satin of his sheets.

"You can take me," he murmured, reaching under her to cup her breasts.

She braced herself against the bed, pushing back against him, helping him penetrate deeper inside her. He had only another inch or two and their bodies would be fully meshed.

"I'm going to taste you again." He bent, curving himself over her until he could put his mouth to the nape of her neck. "Here, while I take you. Do you want that?"

Samantha pulled her hair out of the way, baring the side of her throat, the line of her shoulder to him. For a moment Lucan stilled, wanting to preserve the image in his mind forever. Then the aching hunger inside him swelled, and he put his teeth to her, sliding his fangs through her skin as he buried himself in her completely.

Her head fell back and she groaned, shaking uncontrollably as she reached her peak, and took him to his.

Lucan drank from her throat and poured into her body, and when he could take or give no more without harming her, he wrenched his mouth away and lay down beside her.

"Don't leave me alone," Samantha murmured.

No, he wouldn't be doing that. Not for the rest of her existence.

Lucan held her to him with the hands that had been denied the simple comfort of touch for so long, stroking her with them as she drifted to sleep, and stared past her at windows Burke had replaced. It took a few minutes to realize what was wrong with them.I trust you.

Every glass pane in the brand-new windows was covered with a spiderweb of brand-new cracks.

Chapter 18.

Alexandra woke up expecting to be alone, although she didn't know why. She felt warm and contented, as if she'd been basking in the Florida sun all day. Her eyes weren't swollen shut, though, so she assumed she hadn't.

"Faryl attacked Lucan and his men," she heard Phillipe say in French outside the door. Thanks to her lousy French, she could make out only a little of the rest of what he said, but the gist of it seemed to be that Faryl had escaped into the swamp, and hunters had been sent after him. There was also something about the Brethren, but she couldn't make out that part.

"Send three of our men to aid them," Michael said. "Gard and I are going to check the churches. He thinks Faryl may try to enter one to pray."

Alex opened her eyes as Michael came into the bedroom. She rolled over to see him set a case on the table beside the bed and open it, revealing an extensive collection of daggers, through which he began to sort. "I hope you're not planning to use one of those on me."

Michael sheathed the long, wicked-looking hunting knife with a copper-coated blade and set it aside before coming to her.

"Why would I wish to do that?"

She smiled up at him, lifting her face for his kiss. "I don't know. I'm usually in the doghouse for something." She stretched, and tried to draw him down on the bed beside her. "Bored with me already?"

"Never." He gave her a rueful smile. "I must leave you again, ma belle. Faryl was seen on Bahia Mar last night. He attacked Lucan and his men, and killed two Kyn before escaping. Gard and I are going to the swamps to aid the trackers."

That wasn't what he'd told Phillipe, but maybe he meant after he checked the churches. "Faryl got away from big, bad Lucan?

So much for his rep. Did the Brethren mess it up?"

"Three attacked while Lucan was trying to subdue Faryl," Michael said.

"Bastards have the worst timing, don't they?" She yawned and sat up. "Can I come out and play, too?"

"With Faryl on the loose, and the Brethren involved, I would rather you stay here with Phillipe and the guards." He kissed the top of her head. "You do not wish me to be distracted by worrying about you, yes?"

"I do not wish, yes." She pulled on her robe. "Have fun. Don't be very late, either, or you'll have to wait until tomorrow night before I molest your body."

"I will return in fifteen minutes," he assured her. "Perhaps ten."

Alex went into the immense master bathroom and indulged herself over the next hour with a bubble bath and a pedicure. While her toenail polish dried, she experimented with new ways of doing her hair. She'd never be like Marcella Evareaux, who could tie back her raven tresses with a piece of frayed jute cord and make men swoon, but since living with Michael she'd found some magazines and tried to look a little more feminine.

It was more for Michael than anything, but she had to admit, since moving in with him, the whole hair/makeup/clothes girl thing was starting to grow on her.