“You haven’t been around people much?”
She was sharp. He was giving her too much information. She needed time to process. More time to be with him and grow closer. He didn’t want to bring her into his world too fast. In fact, he wanted her to choose his world. To choose him. If she didn’t, he would find other ways to persuade her, but in the meantime, he wanted to court her. To give her the things his woman deserved.
He shook his head. “I’ve talked more to you than I have to anyone else in a year.” Centuries. But he couldn’t say that and not have her ask questions.
Teagan made little patterns on the surface of the water. He found the swirling images fascinating. “Andre? I know there’s a monastery around here. At least I’ve done a lot of research of this area, and there are enough references to it that I believe it’s there. Up higher, shrouded in all that mist. Were you there? Is that why you haven’t talked to anyone in a year and now you’re living here in this cave?”
She lifted her gaze once more to his and the impact hit him low. Like a punch. Hard. Desire burned through him. Her dark eyes had gone even softer. She thought she understood where he had come from and why he was there.
“No one goes up there, Teagan. Those inside are not like one would expect monks to be. They are warriors. They believe in the ancient ways. It would not be safe to go into their home.”
He knew that wasn’t an answer. He also knew how she would take it. She had a soft heart. Her compassion was going to be her greatest downfall if someone didn’t look after her. He was even a little disappointed in her beloved grandmother for not stopping her from traveling alone.
Teagan began to draw a picture in the water, right through the swirling patterns. His breath caught in his throat. She drew curls of fog and inside of it, there were faces. He recognized the faces. Women Armend had killed. He had called to their spirits and joined them together in the whirling mist so they could see justice brought to the man who had betrayed their trust, raped, tortured and murdered them.
Teagan was in his head whether she knew it or not. There was nothing good for her to find in his memories. His life had been endless battles against the undead. If she dug too deep, she would find things that would scare her to death. She’d try to run and he couldn’t allow that—it would be far too risky for both of them—and then she’d be more afraid than ever. How had she managed to get inside his head without him knowing? Was that a part of the gift her grandmother had passed on? If so, it was an extremely dangerous one.
Andre was fairly certain Teagan’s grandmother had been approached and recruited by the human society that hunted vampires. They were a secret order that left their legacies of murder to their children. They were ruthless and used pawns to draw out anyone they wanted to accuse of being the undead. He had heard rumors that vampires had actually penetrated the society and were using it to find women psychics. Women like Teagan and her grandmother.
If both women were proverbial tuning forks for those who needed blood to survive, and they were capable of slipping undetected past shields into the heads of both Carpathians and vampires alike, they were extraordinarily dangerous to his people.
He went very still, looking inward, reaching for the small intruder. He wanted her in his mind, but only looking at the memories he gave her, not finding everything at once. Eventually she would know everything—she would have to. As his lifemate, there would be no secrets between them, but not now. Not this early. She was still finding her way with him.
It took a moment to find her presence. Her spirit was barely there—and it had nothing whatsoever to do with being a tuning fork or even his lifemate. This had everything to do with her being a genuine and powerful healer. She was such a strong empath that she had reached out to him without either being aware of it. Or was she?
“Teagan?” He said her name softly. Whispered it. Put the emotion into it that he couldn’t say aloud without her bolting.
Her head came up. Her eyes met his. She was having a difficult time looking at him. She didn’t trust or understand the physical attraction she had with him. It was new to her and too extreme and intense for her to be comfortable with. Still, right there, in the shy, dark chocolate of her eyes, he saw the truth. She knew she had touched him. She wasn’t looking for memories. She wasn’t trying to see who he was. She wasn’t there for herself and so to her, denying she was in his mind was the truth. She was there to heal him.
“You have already healed me,” he said softly. “Teagan. Just you. Just your existence has healed me. There is no need to take on the burden of what I was before you came into my life.”
“You didn’t go to that monastery because of your faith in God,” she said. “I know you didn’t. You hunted . . . men. Like a bounty hunter. Or a sheriff. I can’t tell which and it doesn’t matter. You’ve had to kill and it took its toll on you.”
Andre was amazed at her insight. She got it right, and yet she got it wrong. He hadn’t lost his emotions or the color in his life because he’d killed. He could kill, even men he had grown up with and considered his friends, because he lost his emotions. He was Carpathian and that was the life of the male. Their world became bleak and stark and gray after a couple of hundred years. He needed Teagan. Only she could give him back the light. And she had.
His heart hurt. He put his hand over his chest, feeling the steady beat. She could do that. She had that much power. Just because it mattered to her that he felt sorrow for his lost friends, for those who would never know the sheer beauty of what he had sitting next to him in a pool of hot water. He wanted to curl his fingers around the nape of her neck and pull her to him. He knew she would come, but neither had many clothes on and he wasn’t certain of his own discipline, not after waiting for so many centuries for her. Not after giving up hope. Not after finally finding her and tasting her.