"You haven't failed me," I whispered, hot tears welling up in my eyes at the knowledge that what he said was true. His agony of almost a thousand years of despair was as real as anything I'd ever felt, and I knew with my heart and soul that what he was telling me was the truth. He would destroy himself rather than face a bleak future that held nothing but the misery of the past.

I don't know why I thought I had a choice in this. I didn't; I couldn't. Either I left Christian and he would kill himself, or I stayed with him and Guarda and Eduardo would do the job for him.

In the dream Eduardo had told me I must make a choice. Silly me, I thought it was a choice between my own survival and Christian's—not a choice of how he would die.

Why do you believe we will be so easily overcome?

I sniffed. He handed me a handkerchief. I wouldn't allow myself the intimacy of speaking into his mind. "I don't mean any slur, Christian, but if Guarda and Eduardo could overcome your friend, what's to stop them from overcoming you?"

"Sebastian has not found his Beloved."

"So?"

"Is it not true that two are stronger than one?"

I thought about that. "Oh. I guess so. You're saying that a Dark One who's found his Beloved—"

"One who has Joined with his Beloved."

"—is more powerful than a solo Dark One, but that means squat in this case. I'm not your Beloved."

"You are. I was incorrect earlier when I said you weren't. I know now that you are the woman I have waited for, the one who holds my future in her hands, the Beloved who can redeem my soul."

"I'm not! I'm not a soul-saving sort of person; I'm a Summoner. That's all I am."

"There is nothing that says you cannot be both."

"But—"

He took my hand and kissed my palm. Little streaks of fire shot up my arm. "You have already started to heal my soul; you have ever since I met you. That is why I am able to tolerate the last hours of the sun. The hunger within me has diminished, changed so that I crave only you. That, too, would not happen unless you were the woman intended to make me whole again."

"You crave me?" I looked at him suspiciously. "You crave us together, you mean? Sex?"

"That is part of the hunger, yes."

I had a momentary glimpse into what he needed from me. There was the hope that I would salvage his soul, there was an intense desire for physical joining, and there was a deep, dark thirst for—"

"Blood. Oh, I see. Dark Ones only dine off their Beloveds, eh?"

"You will be all I need, all I will want. The act of taking blood from another has become repugnant to me."

He watched me closely to see how I would take that news. I felt for one horrible moment like some sort of deranged cow, fed and pampered so I could donate blood on a regular basis, then thought, really thought about what Christian was feeling. I knew from experience how intimate—how erotic—it was for him to feed off me. Did I want him doing that with anyone else?

I most certainly did not.

Still, there were questions to be answered. "Why did you think Joy was your Beloved? Why did you think I wasn't? Why did you change your mind?"

He ran a long-fingered hand through his hair and leaned back on the couch, taking me with him. "Joy once said that she thought it was possible for there to be two women with, as she put it, their wires crossed: one who was born a Beloved, but who was never meant to fulfill that role, and another who was not born to it, but who would grow into it. I did not think it was possible at the time, but now"—His eyes lightened to a beautiful warm reddish brown with gold flecks that made his eyes seem to shimmer with light—"now I believe she was right. You were not born to be my Beloved, but you are she. If you choose to stay with me now, to help me overcome my darker self, there will be only one more step before we are truly Joined."

Ick. I knew what that meant. A blood exchange. I pushed down the pesky little thought that when we made love, I had a deep, forbidden, primitive urge to taste his blood even as he was drinking mine, and instead focused on the here and now.

"All right, letting the Beloved question go for a minute, how can you expect me to believe that you and I have enough strength, even working together, to face the triumvirate again? They almost did me in, Christian, and that was with you pouring your power into me. I felt how weak you grew doing that; you were giving me everything you had."

He kissed my palm again. I fought back the shiver of pleasure that his breath on my sensitive skin triggered. "Once we are Joined, we will be as one. You will complete me, and in return you will be made immortal."

"Even immortal, I can still be hurt. You said yourself it was possible to kill a Dark One, and your friend is proof that you can be held prisoner against your will."

"Sebastian was not trapped by Eduardo and Guarda. There was another's hand in it, one who was able to blind Sebastian because he had no Beloved. A Dark One who is redeemed would never make that mistake."

"Don't tell me: When you're redeemed you become even more perfect than you are now?"

A smile flirted with his lips. I wanted to flirt with the smile. "Nothing so arrogant, Allegra. It is simply that a Moravian who has Joined would not do anything that would endanger his Beloved. She is everything and all to him. He lives for her happiness. He would take no chances with his own life simply because he must live to protect her."

I gave in to my desire and let my lips flirt with his smile. "Now why do I find that statement a bit questionable?"

He tugged me closer, until I was sitting on his lap.

That is because you have never had a Dark One of your own. I promise I will make the experience one that you will never forget… or regret.

The door opened again. I stayed where I was.

"Now she's sitting on his lap. No, wait, they're kissing again. And he's got his hand on her boob. Will you stop yelling at me? Geez, Joy, I'd appreciate it if you'd make up your mind! Either you want me to see what they're doing, or you don't—"

The door closed again, rather firmly this time.

I smiled into Christian's mouth. "You know, you're not giving me any choice. What you're doing is called emotional blackmail."

His smile sobered instantly into something that filled me with sorrow to see.

Guilt. He felt guilty about telling me the truth.

"If there were another way, Allegra—"

"You've let me see into that thick head of yours," I said, running my fingers through the cool length of his hair. "I know what you're telling me is true, just as you know I could not let you destroy yourself. So I guess it means we're going to have to work out some sort of a relationship."

I fisted my hands in his hair and tugged until he tipped his chin up. I nibbled on his neck, gently biting the tender flesh around his Adam's apple. There are going to be some rules, Mr. Arrogance. Lots and lots of rules.

"Rules can be good," he said, lowering his head until his lips teased mine. "I particularly like the one that says I must make love to you until you beg me to stop."

"I have a very high tolerance for lovemaking," I warned just before he claimed my mouth.

A short while later the door opened behind us.

"Guys, I think you might want to put some clothes back on. Joy's gone to pee—for the five hundredth time today—but she's coming in to check on you next. So… um… guys? That is you two under those blankets, right? That looks like your clothes on the floor. Oh, boy, Allie, you really need to get yourself some new underwear. Yours looks like the kind my grandmother wears. I didn't know they still made—"

Christian closed the door on her without ceasing doing what he was doing. I moaned into his mouth and gave myself up to the sharp stab of pure pleasure as our bodies and minds once again merged into one.