She knew exactly where Joshua was. Unerringly she found her way to the room where he was sleeping. She stood in the doorway and simply watched him, her heart aching for both of them. He looked so small and vulnerable. His bright hair was a curly halo on his pillow. She could hear his soft breathing.

Alexandria approached the bed slowly, misty tears blurring her vision. Joshua had lost so much. She had been a poor substitute for their parents. Not that she hadn’t tried, but she had never managed to get Joshua out of the worst neighborhood in the city. It seemed a terrible irony that now, at last, he was in a mansion, surrounded by everything money could buy and going to one of the most prestigious schools around, and the man who had made it all possible was a vampire.

She sat on the goose down quilt and smoothed a palm over its thickness. What was she going to do? The burning question. The only question. Could she take Joshua and run? Would Aidan let her go? She knew, somewhere deep inside herself, that he had allowed her to pull away from him when he was forcing her to feed. He was far more powerful than she could conceive, and he was concealing the full extent of it from her.

She let her breath escape slowly. She had no relatives to take Joshua to. There was no one to help her. Nowhere to run. She leaned close to kiss the top of his head. At once she became aware of the ebb and flow of his blood. She could hear it as it throbbed through veins bubbling with life. She became fascinated by the pulse beating in his neck. She could smell the fresh blood, and her mouth watered with need. She inhaled deeply, her cheek brushing Joshua’s neck.

Alexandria felt the incisors then, sharp and ready against her tongue. Horrified, she sprang away from the bed, away from the sleeping child. That she reached the door in a single leap barely registered. With one hand clamped tightly over her mouth, she fled down the hall and through the house, jerked open the front door, and ran into the dark night, where she belonged.

She ran as fast and as far as she could, each step draining the strength from her, sobs tearing at her chest. The fog was now no more than a thin mist, stars scattered across the sky in their timeless pattern. When her adrenaline was spent, Alexandria sank onto the ground beside a wrought-iron fence.

She was so evil. What had she been thinking? That she could just take her brother away and everything would be as it was before? Joshua would never be safe from her. Aidan might have told the truth about Stefan after all. Hunger clawed and bit at her until her very skin crawled with need. Her fingers found the solid weight of an iron bar, and she wildly considered stabbing herself through the heart with it. She pulled at it experimentally, but it was embedded solidly in concrete. Weak from lack of blood, she could never remove it by herself.

Biting her lip hard to stabilize herself, she considered her options. She would never endanger Joshua. There was no way she could ever return to that house. She could only pray that Marie and Stefan would grow to love Joshua half as much as she did and protect him from the insanity of Aidan’s life. She had no desire to hurt any human being. And that left her only one option. She would stay here until the sun came up and hope the light would destroy her.

“Not a chance, Alexandria.” Aidan’s tall, muscular frame appeared out of the mist. “That is not going to happen.” His face was a mask of implacable resolve. “You are so willing to die, but you are not willing to learn to live.”

She gripped the fence until her knuckles turned white. “Get away from me. I have the right to do whatever I want with my life. It’s called free will, although I’m sure the concept’s beyond your understanding.”

In a lazy display of rippling muscles, he stretched to his full height. A certain elegance clung to him like a second skin. “Now you are trying to provoke me.”

“I swear, if you keep using that calm, cool, Alexandria, you-are-hysterical tone on me, I will not be responsible for what I do.” She kept her fingers tightly around the bar in case he tried to force her to go with him.

Aidan laughed softly, without humor. It was a masculine, mocking taunt that sent a shiver down her spine. “Do not try me too far, piccola. I will not allow you to meet the dawn. There will be no discussion on this matter. You will learn to live as you should.”

“Your arrogance astonishes me. I will not, under any circumstances, go back to that house. You don’t know what I almost did.”

“There is no such thing as secrets between us. You smelled Joshua’s blood, and your body reacted normally. You are hungry. More than hungry, you are starved and in need. Naturally you reacted to the proximity of nourishment. But you would never have touched him. You would never harm your brother.”

“You can’t know that.” She didn’t know it. How could he? She rocked back and forth in agitation, lowering her head to her knees to hide her shame. “It wasn’t the first time. It’s happened twice now.”

“I know everything about you. I am in your mind, your thoughts. I can feel your emotions. The hunger you experienced was natural. You cannot neglect the demands of your body. But Alexandria, you could not harm a child. Any child, let alone Joshua. It is not in your nature.”

“I wish I could believe you.”

She sounded so forlorn, it nearly broke his heart. He hated this, the terrible burden of confusion and misinformation she carried. She had mixed the myths and legends of vampires, her horrifying encounter with the real thing, and his powers all together.

His fingers were gentle beneath her chin. He tilted her head up so that her eyes were held captive by his. “I cannot lie to you, cara, for you can touch my thoughts at will. Merge your mind fully with mine, and know I speak the truth. There is no danger to Joshua. I am part wild animal, a hunter, a very efficient killing machine, I believe were your thoughts. And that is true of me at times. But that is not the case with you. A male Carpathian is responsible for the protection, the health, and the happiness of his lifemate. I am the darkness to your light. You have compassion and goodness in you. You are Carpathian now, but as with all Carpathian women, your true nature is one of gentleness. There is no danger to Joshua.”

She wanted to believe him. There was something in the purity of his voice, in the directness of his steady gaze, that nearly convinced her. More than anything in her life, she wanted to believe him now. “I can’t take the chance,” she said sadly.

“And I refuse to lose you.” He bent down, pried her fingers from the fence, and lifted her easily into his arms. “Why will you not allow me to help you? I know this is all a shock, but listen to your heart, your mind. Why did you choose to save me if you thought me evil?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, except that I want Joshua safe.”

“And I want you safe.”

“I can’t bear to be close to him and have such strong feelings of hunger like I had. It was awful, thinking of blood, looking at his pulse.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “It made me sick. And it scared me, made me so afraid for him.”

His mouth touched her hair in the lightest of caresses. “Allow me to help you, Alexandria. I am your lifemate. It is my right as well as my responsibility.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

He could feel the resistance draining out of her. She looked up at him hopelessly. There was no trust in the depths of her eyes, only a terrible sorrow. She couldn’t fight his strength or his implacable resolve.

“Allow me to show you,” he said softly, his voice low and intense, a black velvet seduction.

Chapter Nine

Aidan’s arms tightened a fraction as he held Alexandria to him. There was an expression on his face, a look in his eyes she was afraid to name. Possession. Tenderness. A mixture of both. She didn’t want to know. It made her feel cherished, treasured. It made her feel sexy and beautiful. The way his gaze moved over her face, touching her lips like a physical kiss, sent her heart racing.