Raven had heard his words, all of which held truth, but he knew she had no idea of the reality. She would hear the whispers from every room in the inn, know when a bee entered the downstairs dining room. The sun would bother her eyes and she would burn easily. Animals would reveal their secrets to her.

Most foods would make her sick. But most of all, she would need him close, need to touch his mind, feel his body, burn with him. She already felt it, and she was fighting it in the only way she knew how—fighting to free herself from him, fighting to understand what was happening to her.

Raven leaned her body against the glass shower stall. She knew she couldn’t hide in the bathroom like a runaway child, but he was so potent, so compelling. She wanted to ease those lines of strain around his mouth, wanted to tease him, argue with him, hear his laughter. She was curiously weak still, a bit dizzy.

“Come on, little one.” Mikhail’s voice wrapped her in a black-velvet caress. His arm reached into the glass shower, turned off the water. He shackled her wrist and pulled her from the safety of the large stall, enveloped her slender body in a towel.

Raven wrung out her long hair, a blush stealing over her entire body. Mikhail was so comfortable, uncaring of his nudity. There was something untamed and magnificent about his raw strength, the casual way he accepted it. He rubbed her body with a large bath towel, buffing her skin until she was warm and rosy. The towel brushed her sensitive nipples, lingered along her rounded bottom, delved in the crease of her hip.

Despite her resolve, her body came alive under his ministrations. Mikhail cupped her face, bent to brush his mouth against hers, feather light, enticing. “Come back to bed,” he whispered, leading her there.

“Mikhail,” she protested softly, breathlessly.

He tugged on her wrist, unbalanced her so that her body came up against him. Her body melted into his, soft breasts pushing against heavy muscle, the evidence of his desire pressing against her stomach. His thighs were two strong columns welded with hers. “I could love you all night, Raven,” he murmured enticingly against her throat. His hands moved over her body, leaving fire in their wake. “I want to love you all night.”

“Isn’t that the point? It’s dawn.” Her hands had a mind of their own, finding every defined muscle with her fingertips.

“Then I will spend the day making love to you.” He whispered the words against her mouth, bent closer to nibble at the corners of her lower lip. “I need you with me. You chase away the shadows and lighten the terrible load that threatens to drown me.”

She skimmed her fingertips across the hard edges of his mouth. “Is this possession, or is it love?” She dipped her head to press her mouth to the hollow of his sternum, to slide her tongue over the ultrasensitive skin above his heart. There was no mark, no scar, but the sweep of her tongue followed the exact line of his earlier wound, where he had forced her to accept his life’s blood. She was merged with him, reading his mind, his erotic fantasies, wanting to bring them to life.

His gut clenched hotly, his body responding with fierce aggression. Raven smiled at the feel of his hard length burning against her skin. She had no inhibitions when she lay with him, only a fierce desire to burn with him. “Answer me, Mikhail, the truth.” Her fingertips brushed his velvet tip, fingers curled around the heavy thickness of him sending hunger raging through his body. She was playing with fire, but he didn’t have the strength to stop her; he didn’t want to stop her.

His hands curled in her damp hair, two tight fists. “Both,” he managed to gasp.

He closed his eyes when her mouth moved over his flat belly, leaving behind a trail of fire. Wherever she touched him, her mouth, hot and moist, followed. He dragged her closer, urging her onto him. Her mouth was tight and hot and driving him mad. A low, ominous growl escaped, the beast shuddering with pleasure, needing primitive satisfaction.

Her fingernails raked the hard column of his thighs, light, erotic, sending fire leaping, coiling in his gut. His mind blurred, merged more deeply with hers, a red haze of lust and need, love and hunger. He craved her touch, her hands, her silky mouth turning him into a living, breathing flame.

Mikhail dragged her up, his hands like bands, although he made every effort to be conscious of his strength. His mouth took hers, mating, dancing, so much hunger beating in him she caught it, pressing closer, her body sliding against his, rubbing, heating.

“Say you want me.” His mouth moved over her throat, closed over her aching breast. Every strong pull sent an answering rush of liquid heat.

“You know I do.” She pressed him to her, wound a leg around his.

She could barely breathe with her need, clawing at him to get closer, to crawl inside the shelter of his body, his mind, to feel his body in hers, taking possession as he was meant to, to feel his mouth at her breast, dragging her further into his world.

“All of it,” he said hoarsely, his fingers probing the nest of tiny curls, stroking, caressing. “Mate with me my way.”

She moved in a kind of anguish against his hand. “Yes, Mikhail.” She was frantic for release, frantic to relieve him. She was consumed with the same red haze, not separating love from lust or hunger from need. She was on fire, hurting, aching, body and mind, even her soul in torment, not knowing where his wild, uninhibited emotions left off and hers began.

Mikhail lifted her easily with his enormous strength, slid her slowly, erotically down his clenching belly until she was pressed against his raging velvet tip. Her heat seared him, beckoned. Raven’s arms slid around his neck, her legs around his hips, opening for him. Slowly he lowered her body over his, impaled her on the thick length of fire so that she surrounded him with such a moist, tight sheath he shuddered, somewhere beyond mere pleasure, a kind of erotic heaven and hell.

Her nails dug into his shoulders. “Stop! You’re too big this way.” Alarm was spreading across her face.

“Relax, little one. We belong together; our bodies were made for one another.” He slid in farther, began to move in a long, slow rhythm, his hands caressing, soothing.

He shifted his shoulders so that he could see her face, his body claiming hers with deep, sure, possessive strokes. Without conscious thought, the words poured out of his soul. “I claim you as my lifemate. I belong to you. I offer my life for you. I give to you my protection, my allegiance, my heart, my soul, and 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.” With those words, a male Carpathian bound his true lifemate to him for all eternity. Once said, she could never escape him. Mikhail had no intention of binding her to him, but every instinct in him, everything he was, forced the words out of his soul so that their hearts were one as they were meant to be. Their souls were finally united, their minds one.

Raven allowed his words and the hot strength of his possession to calm her. Her body seemed to melt around his. He took them higher, bending his head to lap at her nipple, his hands cupping her small bottom possessively. She threw back her head, her hair flowing around them, over them, brushing their bare skin so that their flesh burned. She felt as if she truly was where she belonged. She felt wild and free. She felt a part of him, his other half. There could be no other than this man who was so hungry for her. Who needed her so desperately, who knew her own kind of lonely existence.

He moved harder, deeper, turning so that he could lay her half across the end of the bed, so he could drive them closer and closer to the edge. He felt her body ripple, tighten, drag at his, once, twice. She cried out with pleasure, felt as if her body was dissolving into his. There was so much pleasure, wave after wave until Raven thought she couldn’t possibly stand any more.