They stood, regarding each other in the gathering darkness once Rand left them. Raven could feel the weight of Mikhail’s displeasure pressing down on her. She lifted her chin defiantly. He moved closer, gliding unbelievably fast, his fingers finding her throat as if he might strangle her. “You will never repeat this foolhardy act again.”

She blinked up at him. “Don’t try to intimidate me, Mikhail; it won’t work. No one tells me what to do or where I can go.”

His fingers slipped to her wrists, tightened, threatened to crush her fragile bones. “I will not tolerate any foolishness that might put your life in jeopardy. We have lost one of our women already. I will not lose you.”

His sister, he had said. Compassion warred with self-preservation. Most of this confrontation was because he was so afraid for her. “Mikhail, you can’t put me in a box and keep me on a shelf.” She spoke as gently as she could.

“I will not argue over your safety. Earlier, you were alone with a man who thought of forcibly taking you. Any wild animal could have attacked you, and if you had not been under my protection, in his present state, Rand might have harmed you.”

“None of those things happened, Mikhail.” She touched his jaw with gentle, placating fingers, a tender caress. “You have enough to worry about, enough responsibilities, without adding me to them. I can help you. You know I’m capable.”

He tugged at her wrist so that she lost her balance and fell against his hard strength. “You are going to make me crazy, Raven.” His arms came up, pinning her soft slenderness against him. His voice dropped to a drawling caress, mesmerizing, pure black magic. “You are the one person I long to protect, yet you will not obey. You insist on independence. All others lean on my strength, yet you seek to help me, to shoulder my duties.” He lowered his mouth to hers.

There was that curious shifting of the ground beneath her feet, the crackle of electricity in the air around them. Flames licked over her skin, heated her blood. Colors whirled and danced in her head. His mouth claimed hers, aggressive, male, totally dominating, sweeping all thoughts of resistance aside. She opened her mouth to him, allowed his probing exploration, his sweet, hot assault.

Her hands found the broadness of his shoulders, crept up to circle his neck. Her body felt pliant, boneless, like hot silk. Mikhail wanted to press her to the soft ground, tear the offending clothes from her body, and make her irrevocably his. There was far too much innocence in the taste of her. No one had asked to share the weight of his countless burdens. No one, until this little slender slip of a mortal, had even thought of the price he continually paid. A human. She had the courage to stand up to him and he could do no other than respect her for it.

His eyes were closed, savoring the feel of her body against his, the fact that he could want her with such intensity. He held her, wanting her, needing her, burning for her, not even understanding how such a firestorm could consume him. Reluctantly he lifted his head, his body raging at him. “Let us go home, Raven.” His voice was pure seduction.

A slow smile curved her soft mouth. “I don’t think it’s safe. You’re the kind of man my mother warned me about.”

He kept his arm possessively around her shoulders, shackling her to him. Mikhail had no intention of allowing her to leave his side again. His body urged her in the direction he wanted. They walked together in companionable silence.

“Jacob wasn’t going to hurt me,” she denied suddenly. “I would have known.”

“You were not touching him, little one, and it was lucky for him.”

“He’s certainly capable of violence. It’s always hard to miss violence.” She flashed him her mischievous smile. “It clings to you like a second skin.”

He tugged at her thick braid in retaliation for her teasing. “I want you to come stay in my home. At least until we find and dispose of the assassins.”

Raven walked several steps in silence. He had said we,as if they were a team. That pleased her. “You know, Mikhail, it was the strangest thing today. Not one person at the inn or in the village seemed to know of the murder.”

His finger flicked along her delicate cheekbone. “And you said nothing.”

She flashed him a quelling glance from under long lashes. “Of course. Gossiping is not my form of entertainment.”

“Noelle died cruelly, senselessly. She was Rand’s lifemate...”

“You used that term before. What does it mean?”

“It is like a wife or husband,” he explained. “Noelle had given birth to a child only two months ago. She was my responsibility. Noelle is not food for gossip. We will find her killers ourselves.”

“Don’t you think if there’s a serial killer loose in so small a village, the people have a right to know?”

Mikhail chose his words carefully. “The Romanians are not in any danger. And this is not the work of one individual. The assassins wish to stamp out our race. True Carpathians are almost extinct. We have bitter enemies who would see us all dead.”

“Why?”

Mikhail shrugged. “We are different; we have certain gifts, talents. People are afraid of what is different. You should know that.”

“Maybe I have Carpathian blood in me, a diluted version,” Raven said with a trace of wistfulness. It was nice to think she had an ancestor with the same gift.

His heart went out to her. Her life must have been terribly lonely. Mikhail wanted to wrap her up, safe in his arms, sheltered from life’s unpleasantness. His was a self-imposed isolation; Raven had no choice.

“Our petroleum and mineral rights in a country where most have very little is cause for concern and jealousy. I am the law to my people. I deal with the threats to our position and our lives. It was my poor judgment that placed Noelle in danger; it is my duty to hunt her killers and bring our justice to them.”

“Why haven’t you called the local authorities?” She was struggling to understand, feeling her way carefully.

“I am the sole authority to my people. I am the law.”

“Alone?”

“I have others who hunt, many in fact, but it is at my command. I hold the sole responsibility in all decisions.”

“Judge, jury, and executioner?” she guessed, holding her breath for the answer. Her senses couldn’t lie. She would have felt the taint of evil in him, no matter how good a shield he constructed. No one could be so good that they never once slipped up. She didn’t realize she had stopped walking until his hands ran up and down her arms, warming her shivering body.

“Now you fear me.” He said it softly, wearily, as if she had hurt him. And it did hurt. He had wanted her to be afraid of him, had deliberately provoked her fear, yet now, his goal achieved, it wasn’t at all what he wanted.

His voice tugged at her heartstrings. “I don’t fear you, Mikhail,” she denied gently, tipping her face up to study his in the moonlight. “I fear for you. So much power leads to corruption. So much responsibility leads to destruction. You make life-and-death decisions that only God should make.”

His hand caressed her silken skin, moved to trace the fullness of her lower lip. Her large eyes were enormous in her small face, her feelings naked to his mesmerizing gaze. There was concern, compassion, the beginnings of love, and a sweet, sweet innocence that shook him to his very core. She worried for him. Worried.

Mikhail groaned aloud, turned from her. She had no idea what she was offering to one such as he. He knew he wasn’t strong enough to resist it, and he loathed himself for his selfishness.

“Mikhail.” She touched his arm, sending flames licking along his skin, heating his blood. He hadn’t fed, and the combination of love, lust, and hunger was explosive, heady, but very, very dangerous. How could he not love her when he was in her mind, reading her thoughts, knowing her intimately? She was light to his darkness, his other half. Forbidden though it might be, mistake of nature probably, he could not help loving her.