There can be nothing between us. There is no hope for me. I must die, and you must live.

"Ow. Stupid rock. My next kidnapper is going to have a Porsche."

Adrian said nothing, but the hand nearest me tightened into a fist, as if he wanted to strangle something. I had an uncomfortable feeling I knew what. Or rather, who. That worry didn't stop me from continuing, however. For some reason I didn't care to examine fully, I had gone from being terrified of Adrian to comfortable. Oddly comfortable. As in very, very strangely comfortable. And all because he was nice to me when he could have been cruel.

The fact that he didn't eat me for dinner also helped improve my overall impression of the Betrayer.

I shivered and trudged down the winding road that led from Drahanska Castle to the nearby town of Blansko, where I fervently prayed Adrian had a car stashed. "My next kidnapper is going to know how to kidnap a girl in style. He won't drag me off to a dirty, rat-infested hole, starve me, then make me walk miles and miles and miles after the sun has gone down. He'll kidnap me using his sports car with comfortable heated leather seats, complete with picnic basket filled with goodies. A sexy red sports car."

There was no response from Adrian other than his jaw tightening.

"A convertible!"

"For the love of God, woman, what do you want from me?" he burst out, his eyes flashing an irritated midnight blue. "I asked you if you wanted me to carry you, but you said you'd rather die first."

"Yeah, but I didn't mean it literally! Death by blisters, what an ignominious way to go." I rubbed my arms to keep the circulation going, wincing as I stepped on yet another rock.

"You have absolutely no respect for me, do you?" he asked, shooting me an annoyed look. "You have no idea how powerful and dangerous I can be. I am feared and loathed by all of my people, hunted like an animal by those who would destroy me, but you aren't the least bit in awe of me, are you? You should be terrified of me, and all you do is complain."

"Well, I'm a bit in awe of those fangs," I said, trying to make him feel better, although I honestly didn't know why I cared if his feelings were hurt or not. "Aren't they in the way like that? You must have to mumble a lot when you're in public, so people won't see them. And don't your lips get snagged on them? I had braces when I was in my teens, and I tore my lips on them something terrible. I'd offer you some lip balm, but my purse was left behind when you abducted me. I hope the real Christian gives it back. All my money and my passport are in it."

"Dark Ones do not wear lip balm," he said in an outraged voice.

I shrugged and amused myself for a few minutes by trying to make the white puffs of breath that hung briefly in the air before me into a bat shape.

"No," Adrian said before I could ask the question. "I can't change into a bat."

I stopped in the middle of the road, a feeble moon casting light down upon us from between suitably dramatic wisps of cloud. "Stop. Reading. My. Mind!"

His fingers clamped around my wrist as he hauled my protesting feet forward. "I can't help it. You're projecting."

"Oh," I gasped, outraged. "I am not! I never project!"

"You are. You don't put up the slightest barrier to your thoughts. All I have to do is…" A warm presence touched my mind. I sucked in a deep breath of icy air at the feel of him merging with my thoughts. It was the most intimate touch I'd ever felt, far more intimate than just the joining of bodies.

Smug male satisfaction filled my mind.

"Stop it," I said, pushing him out of my mind. "It's not polite to wander around in someone's head without them knowing."

"You know," he grumbled. "You have to know. You also know you can read me just as easily as I can read you."

"Why would you think that?" I looked at the tall, dark figure next to me. "I've never been any good at guessing what people were thinking, let alone able to read minds."

"I've marked you," he said grimly. "It's the first step of Joining."

"Marked me? You haven't even touched me. I know you're the big bad wolf and all—"

"The Betrayer," he interrupted. "I am the Betrayer. I am hated and feared—"

"—by all your people, and hunted down like the dog you are, yadda yadda. Yeah, I know, you told me. I guess that's why I'm not afraid of you anymore, Adrian the Betrayer. You didn't hurt me when you could have."

"That's not the reason," he said shortly. I couldn't see his face because a cloud had drifted across the moon's face, but we were coming into town, which meant I should soon be able to see if his expression was as grim as his voice. "It's something much worse."

"Worse? What are you talking about?"

He refused to answer. Our conversation—sporadic at best—dried up into nothing as we started up a short hill into the town of Blansko.

"Nell," he said a little while later as we passed through a dark square. "You—"

"Oh, look, a train station! I bet you could hire a car there or something. And they probably have food, too. I'm starving. Come on."

"Nell." He grabbed my arm in his steel-fingered shackle grip and pulled me up so his mouth was next to my ear. To any of the few people driving through the square, we probably looked like lovers who couldn't wait to get home. "You will remember that you are my prisoner. You will keep uppermost in your mind at all times the fact that I'm a dangerous creature of darkness. I am a killer, a betrayer, a man without a soul who will not hesitate to destroy anyone who stands in his way."

I looked up at his face, visible in the bluish-white glow of a lamppost. A little ripple of fear skimmed down my back at the expression in his eyes. They were ice blue, and utterly hopeless. Without thinking of the folly of what I was doing, I turned so I faced him fully, gently touching the side of his face. Darkness, deep and all-consuming and endless, raged within him, a gaping hole inside him where his soul should have been. I wanted to fill the emptiness, to change the darkness to hope, and love, and happiness. I knew instinctively that I could lift the curse that bound him so tightly, easing the torment that had him within its twisted grip, but to do so would mean I had to open up that part of my mind that I had all but destroyed ten years ago.

The part of my mind that had killed an innocent woman.

"I'm sorry," I said, my voice a thin ribbon of sound on the cold night air as I lowered my hand. "I can't. I can't ever do that again."

His eyes went dark as I felt the soft brush of him against my mind. I turned away, as if that would keep him from seeing the truth about me. I had not thought for one moment that he hadn't noticed the slackness in the left side of my face, or the weakness in my left hand and leg, but he had not asked about it, and I hadn't offered an explanation.

"What do you hide from me?"

I stilled, clutching my guilt to myself. He turned me so I was facing him. Suspicion filled his face as he narrowed his eyes. "I cannot read what you hide. What secret do you have that fills you with so much horror?"

I took a deep breath, trying desperately to calm my suddenly racing heart. His thumb brushed over the pulse in my neck in a gesture so gentle, I almost melted at his feet. "You're not the only one who has betrayed people," I said finally.

"Who…" he started to say, then stopped abruptly, lifting his head as if scenting the night air. "Do prdele!"

I glanced around to see what had startled him, but saw nothing. We were in a dark square, the houses facing us dimly lit or dark already, even though it was only a little after nine at night. A few cars had zipped by us, but no walkers passed, and nothing nearby seemed to pose a threat.