Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 141492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
He expected her to look outraged. Instead, she gave him the sweet curve of her bottom lip that brought her fascinating dimple to the forefront. He couldn’t stop his reaction. He leaned into her, sweeping his tongue into the dimple and then blowing warm air over the little indentation before nibbling at the sensual curve of her mouth.
“Just how did you intend to do that?”
The laughter in her eyes was an unexpected shared intimacy. Safia was a mystery he might never solve. He’d been on earth a very long time, and yet she didn’t have the reactions he had come to expect from humans.
“The Imazighen are a people of honor. I would have appealed to your code first. I cannot imagine that you would have neglected to uphold the word of your family.”
“I see.”
“It would have worked.” He spoke with absolute confidence. He kissed his way down her neck. Her throat. Her pulse was a steady, strong beat that beckoned him. His heart matched the rhythm of hers.
“Yes,” she agreed. “When I was first told, it felt as if my father and grandfather had betrayed me. The thought of leaving my family and going with a stranger to a foreign land was not only a shock but horrifying. I felt like that little child, once more thrown away for the good of everyone else. On some level, I knew it wasn’t logical.”
“Of course it was logical.”
“My father and grandfather have always treated me with love and kindness. It wouldn’t be logical that suddenly I wouldn’t matter to them. I didn’t want to hear their explanation. I just wanted to run away and hide. I knew I would honor the agreement, but at the moment, when I was first told, I was so shocked and frightened at the thought of losing everyone who mattered, I wanted to strike out at my father and grandfather. I didn’t want to hear what they had to say.”
Petru didn’t like the slight hint of guilt in her mind. “Pelkgapâd és Meke Pirämet, it is only natural to need time to process a shocking revelation. You were prepared to marry the man your grandfather chose for you. I saw that intention in your mind.”
He blazed a trail of fire back up to her lips, needing to distract himself. The scent that was hers alone had filled his lungs. Her taste was in his mouth. The addiction was beginning to consume him, the craving for her blood.
“I wasn’t prepared to marry a stranger,” she admitted.
“But you would have.”
The drumbeat of her pulse called to him. Just like needing time to process the idea of marriage to an outsider, she needed time and persuasion to accept the conversion. He knew there was a great deal of pain involved. He wanted to ease her into her new life, not throw her into a panic. There was no easing when his lifemate would suffer with excruciating pain. He couldn’t shoulder that burden for her.
He was already asking so much from her. Changing her way of life. She would need to learn to take blood from humans to survive. She would sleep beneath the ground with him. She would live in the night, not walk in the sun. Every so many years, she would have to change location so as not to arouse suspicion because they didn’t age. Or they would need the appearance of aging and dying to be reborn as another couple. She would watch her family die until the sorrow would be so much, he would be forced to take her from all that she knew.
“Stop,” she whispered.
“What do I have to give you in return? Why do all Carpathian males have such a belief they can make their lifemate happy?”
“Why do you feel as if you have nothing to give me, Petru?”
“I do not understand emotion.” He had tried. Emotion wasn’t logical. The things he felt for Safia made no sense at all. Her reactions to him made no sense. She should despise him, and yet she laughed at the things that should make her furious. He had been prepared for a woman far different. She’d disarmed him. Cast her spell. In order to cope with her, he found himself either shutting off emotion to study her or having to continually adjust the way he was thinking about himself and his species.
“I think you’re learning at an alarming rate of speed. I’m never going to catch up. I don’t know what the women in your society are like at all.”
Petru cupped the back of her head. She fit into the palm of his hand. “You’re the one learning at an alarming rate of speed. Each time you slip into my mind, you pull out battles with vampires to learn fighting techniques. Or you look for social norms within the Carpathian society. There’s no need for that.” He swept back stray strands of hair from her face. “I wouldn’t trust my memory on social details of Carpathian life anyway. We don’t have to be like anyone else. What we make of our relationship is for us to decide.”