She stopped right there with the rain coming down and darkness surrounding them. Teagan shook her head. "It's not the same way, Andre. The way I feel about you is fierce and intense, so much so, that against my better judgment I'm still with you. You feel for me, yes, but you can say no to me very easily. You refuse to get the concept that I wasn't born in your century. I'm going to have to live with that, and it will be difficult for me."
"Is that what you think?" Andre's arm tightened around her. "Teagan, against my better judgment, we are here, in this village."
She bit down on her lip. She had forgotten he'd objected strenuously to coming here. He didn't mix with humans, not if he could help it. She understood part of his reason, but what was the harm of walking down the street and feeling normal for a few minutes? Well, her normal.
"I need this."
His hand moved up her back to the nape of her neck. "I know you do, Teagan. That is why we are here. Just remember, it is imperative to keep a low profile. Stay close to me and always keep your eyes open. This is the nearest hunting ground for vampires."
Her throat closed for a moment. She hadn't thought of that. Of course the undead would hunt in the village. The next closest humans were many miles away.
"You're going to go after them, aren't you?"
"It is what I do. First, I want you safe and happy. I need to know you have my back on this before I go out. It is necessary that you are comfortable with your new life."
She pressed her lips together and then decided the best thing to do was just tell the truth. She was who she was. "I'm scared, Andre."
"Teagan." That soft loving tone. "I know you are."
"No. I mean all the time. Every minute of every day. I'm so used to being afraid that it's a part of me, of who I am. Fear is inside me. In my skin. In my blood."
They were coming up to a building that looked like it could be a modern day Internet cafe, when everything else around them looked a little old world to her. He stopped right in front of the wide windows and turned her to him, his arms settling around her back, drawing her close to him, her front pressed to his. Everything else dropped away but the awareness of his hard body tight against her soft one.
"I am well aware of your fears, Teagan, but you are not afraid when you are with me. Not even when you shifted and took flight. You trusted me to look after you. You gave yourself to me and I take that seriously. You are safe with me. You always will be."
His lips brushed the top of her hair and she felt the sensation go all the way to her toes. She wasn't as afraid, which was kind of shocking because she hadn't known him that long. But she knew absolutely he would lay down his life for her, this man who had spent centuries alone.
"Don't ever let yourself be fooled, Andre, I can freeze in a heartbeat and dissolve into hysterical tears."
"I have seen this in your memories."
He didn't sound in the least perturbed. Instead, he used that low, sexy voice that tended to slip inside her skin and wrap around her heart.
"But, Teagan, you always, always recover quickly and finish whatever you are doing. You overcome your fears."
She shook her head. "The fear is there, I overcome the panic." She felt compelled to tell the strict truth even though his statement sent a rush of warmth through her veins.
Andre tipped her chin up so her eyes met his. "And that is just another beautiful, courageous trait I love in you."
He dipped his head to hers, brushed his lips over hers gently. Tenderly. She felt that touch almost as deeply as if he'd kissed her hard, with lots of tongue. Her entire body reacted. Her mind. Even her heart fluttered. She stared up at him a little dazed as he lifted his head.
"You belong to me, csitri, and that means every vow I made to you, I keep. That means I take care of you. No one hurts you. Not ever. Not physically and not emotionally. Now, call your grandmother, Teagan. You need to tell her you have met someone. Tell her you will be bringing me home."
She didn't like anyone telling her what to do. Not ever. But having him declare with absolute honesty, with such conviction, that he would stand for her, protect her, and she knew he would, felt good. No. It felt great.
"When should I say we're coming home?" She couldn't believe he would actually move to the United States with her. She bit her lip. Maybe she was reading him wrong. Maybe it was a visit. She didn't want a visit. She wanted to be close to her grandmother and sisters. She wanted to see her nephews and nieces grow up. If she was now like Andre, did that mean her entire family, generation after generation would grow old and die and she wouldn't?
Teagan raised her eyes to his once again, tears close. "I haven't asked you a lot of questions about what my future holds, mostly because I was so upset and I need time to process, but will I have the same longevity you have, Andre?"
His arm tightened around her waist, holding her even closer as if he could give her strength. "Yes, sivamet."
"My entire family will die?"
"That is the natural cycle of life, Teagan. Most likely you were going to lose your grandmother and sisters before you died. They are older than you."
She bit her lip harder, shaking her head. "But not the children. I'll have to see them die as well, won't I? And their children?" It was suddenly difficult to breathe. Her throat felt raw and her heart accelerated.
He didn't reply right away. She leaned into his strength. His warmth. His arms, surrounding her, felt good.
"Living in my world, there are really wonderful things as well as drawbacks. Just as there are in any world. I will see to your happiness, Teagan. Always. You will have the privilege of seeing future generations if you so wish. The descendants of your sisters. We will of course travel and have new identities every so many years, but you can go back when you need to in order to see your relatives."
She tried to push away the idea of her family members dying over and over and her having to watch it.
"How do you do it?"
"I am not human and I have never come to love humans after I lost those I considered family. The idea of leading a vampire to anyone I cared about was too soul-destroying, so it was easier to just avoid them."
She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his chest. She hadn't meant to bring up something that was so traumatic.
His hand cupped the back of her head, his fingers sliding into her hair. "Csitri, that was a long time ago, long before you were ever born."
"But I brought the sorrow back to you. The guilt you really don't deserve to feel. It's all new and raw just as if it happened yesterday." She tilted her face up to look at him. "I'm in your mind, too."
"I can shield you," he offered. "There is no need for you to feel the emotions from so long ago."
"Don't you dare, Andre. I know you protect me, but I want to give you the same thing back. If you're my man, then I have that right."
His eyebrow shot up and a slow frown darkened his face. A little shiver crept down her spine. He didn't look happy.
"If? If I am your man? You are not certain yet?"
She bit her lip. Whoops. That wasn't well thought out, not when he was the possessive type. "It's all new," she defended.
"New or not, you should be certain."
"I need to call my grandmother." Avoidance was the only real savior and she grasped at it immediately.
"So call."
Yep. Still not happy with her. She pulled out her cell phone, happy for international calling. She couldn't wait to call her grandmother. She needed to hear her voice. Already, she felt the eager anticipation she always got when she had been away from her grandmother for too long.
Andre didn't let her go. If anything, his arms tightened, holding her to him while the phone rang.
"Teagan?"
There it was. Her grandmother's voice. Her throat closed for a moment. She loved her so much. "Grandma Trixie? How are you? I miss you."
"I miss you, too, girl. I wish you were home. Your sisters come round every day getting into my business.
Sometimes all of them. Whispering. Staring at me. They think I'm totally batty."
"You aren't, Grandma Trixie. I know you aren't. I'll be home in three weeks or so. I want to take in as much as I can. And . . ." She took a breath. "I've met someone."
There was a long silence. "Someone? As in a man?"
Andre's hands tightened around her belly, pulling her closer into him. There wasn't any room left, any place to go with the exception of his skin. She could just melt there and become part of him.
"Yes. A man. His name is Andre Boroi. He's amazing. He's going to come home with me so you can meet him."
Again there was silence.
"Grandma?"
"This isn't like you, Teagan. How did you meet him?"
"Remember Armend? He turned out to be not so nice. In fact it appears he's kind of . . . um . . . a serial killer," she said it fast. Really fast. Hoping her grandmother really didn't notice. "Andre sort of rescued me."
"A serial killer?"
Her grandmother screeched the words at the top of her lungs. Teagan held the phone away from her ear. Her hearing was acute enough as it was. There was no turning down the volume fast enough.
"You went into the mountains with a serial killer?" Grandma Trixie demanded.
"Well. Yes. But this time it wasn't my fault," she assured.
This time? Andre asked.
She tipped her head to scowl at him, hoping that would serve to shush him.
Grandma Trixie sighed. "Teagan, it's never your fault, but you always get into trouble and still, you insist on traveling all over the world where I can't get to you when you're in trouble."
"I'm not in trouble," she denied. "I don't get in trouble and if I do, I always get myself out."
Clearly you do get into trouble, Andre observed. I should have been told about this or looked closer into your memories.
She glared at him. Her most fierce, practiced glare. Andre didn't appear impressed.
Stay out of my memories and stop listening in on my conversation with my grandmother. I mean it, Andre. She hissed the order into his mind, using her famous "tone," the one that sent her brothers-in-law scurrying to the other room to avoid any confrontation with her. She had a very carefully cultivated reputation of being the best at verbal battle.
He didn't appear intimidated or impressed. She could have sworn his lips twitched, and for one moment amusement dared to light his eyes.
"Teagan, tell me about this serial killer right this instant," Grandma Trixie insisted, using her no-nonsense voice.
Are you laughing at me? she demanded. Because I have enough to contend with trying to convince my grandmother I'm perfectly fine.
The trouble was, she wasn't perfectly fine. She had no idea what she'd gotten herself into this time, and she didn't think her grandmother could get her out of it. Why did things like this always happen to her? She knew Andre was monitoring her thoughts because he trailed kisses down the side of her face from the corner of her eye to the corner of her mouth and then back up to her ear.
She had to suck in her breath sharply and work to keep her wayward body under control when it wanted to melt into a puddle at his feet. As it was, she went fairly boneless and his hands at her belly held her upright.
"I told you I asked Armend, you remember him from college . . ."
"I never met him, but you talked about him."
"I tutored him, Grandma. I went to school with him for three years. He grew up in a village near the highest peaks of the Carpathian Mountain range. I wanted to explore that region. You know I love to hike, so when I decided to head over here, I contacted him through the Internet. We occasionally had exchanged email just to keep up. He seemed nice enough."
"A serial killer?" Grandma Trixie repeated.
Teagan sighed. "At the time I agreed to tutor him I didn't know he was a serial killer. He dated all the time, just not me." She chewed on her lip for a moment. "I don't think he actually killed anyone then. I would have heard about it."
"Well thank heavens for small favors. What, you weren't his type?"
"Thanks, Grandma." She tried to keep the sarcasm from her voice, but really, her grandmother was implying she wasn't attractive enough to even get a serial killer interested.
She didn't mean that.
She tried another scowl, which was seriously difficult to do when his fingers were sliding through her hair and then dropping to the nape of her neck in a slow massage before returning to her hair--and that felt nice. Too nice. She was so susceptible to him and the way he touched her. Exasperated, she pushed at his hand.
"Teagan, you sound as if you wanted a serial killer to find you attractive."
She sighed. Her talk with her grandmother wasn't going at all in the direction she wanted it to go. Worse, Andre's hand had stopped moving, but remained wrapped around the nape of her neck. Her life was totally out of control.
"Grandma Trixie, take a breath. I don't want a serial killer to find me attractive. I don't think that much matters to them, although since he was a serial rapist as well, maybe he had a preference type."
Her grandmother shrieked, an ear-splitting shriek Teagan was fairly certain she heard straight from the States and not from her cell phone. Okay, another mistake. She blamed Andre, because right at the moment she began trying to explain, his fingers slid into her hair again and totally short-circuited her brain.
"A rapist? Teagan Jonelle Joanes, you come home right this minute. Now. Get on a plane or I swear, I'm coming out there to save you from yourself."
When her grandmother used all three of her names in that tone, she meant business. She opened her mouth to defend herself, but her grandmother wasn't finished.
"Whoever this man is, he is a total foreigner. He has a different culture, and those foreigners treat women different. He might lock you up in his harem or something. Lose him now and get home."
Teagan closed her eyes. Andre heard. Probably the people in the pub down the street heard. "He isn't from a place where they have harems," she defended lamely. "Grandma Trixie, you have to take a breath and just listen to me. He's dead. Armend is dead. There is no threat to me." Her voice kind of took a dive on that, because if you counted vampires and Armend's friends she might have been lying just a tiny bit to her grandmother.
A tiny bit?
Andre's laughter slid into her mind. Poured through her skin into her veins. It wasn't fair he was so damned sexy. She tried hard not smile. The situation was just plain out of hand. Everything she said only made it worse.
"Don't you lie to me, girl. You went right up into those mountains, and I warned you there are vampires wreaking havoc on the population."
"I'll watch out for them, Grandma Trixie," she assured, because she would. "The idea of encountering a vampire in my travels is very, very low on my to-do list."
"You take me seriously."
"I always take you seriously. I have to go now, but I'm all right. I'll check in again in a couple of days, and please stop worrying about me. Andre is perfectly capable of protecting me from anything or anyone who might want to harm me."
"You don't know this man, Teagan. Come home."
"I'm going to marry him, Grandma Trixie," she blurted out. "I'm very serious about him so don't get it in your head he's wrong for me. I've waited a long time to find the right man and he's the one. He's coming home with me, and I want you to make an effort with him."
There was a long silence. Teagan bit her lip hard. Her heart pounded. Andre leaned down, his lips against her ear.
Breathe, sivamet. She will learn to accept me. She wants to protect you, that is all. She loves you. You apparently get into a lot of trouble when you are out of her sight.
I do not. She was silent for a moment. She sighed. Okay that's not exactly the truth, but really it isn't my fault. There was the time in Chile when the police--corrupt police--tried to take my passport and I refused to get back on the bus without it and they nearly shot me. She chewed on her bottom lip. There might
have been a few incidents like that one, but I always get out of them.
"Come home, Teagan. Bring him if you want, but don't do anything until we meet him. Just get away from those mountains. I have some friends who know all about that particular mountain range, especially around Romania."
"I'm not in Romania at the moment, Grandma Trixie," she pointed out. "I really have to go. I love you. Like crazy, I love you. To infinity and back."
"I love you, too, Teagan," her grandmother whispered. "Honey, come home."
Teagan didn't answer. She ended the call and turned in Andre's arms. "That went well."
"The police in Chile wanted to shoot you?"
"Corrupt police," she said. "They have a great black market for American passports. I managed to get my passport and get back on the bus in one piece."
"And Argentina?"
She gasped. "You looked into my memories."
"What were you thinking in Spain, confronting those two men who tried to put something in your drink?"
"Well, it was an outrageous thing to do and very disgusting. It happens to women all the time, but see, I noticed because I was paying attention."
"Why were you there in the first place with no one to look after you?"
He sounded genuinely puzzled as well as angry. Risking a look at him--yeah--he was definitely not a happy camper. His eyes went glacier cold, like total blue ice, and at the same time, his face darkened. He looked--scary. Really scary. She took a deep breath and tried to step away from him, put a little space between them.
His arms turned into absolute steel. She couldn't move, not even a fraction of an inch.
"Andre." She pushed at his arms. "Modern day women travel all the time on their own. They go into bars and have a drink, not to pick anyone up, but just to wind down. I don't exactly look like the kind of woman men are going to get excited about. Maybe because I'm small, they thought I looked like a victim. I have a few self-defense moves. I can take care of myself."
His breath rushed out of him. "We will talk about this later. We need to hear as much as we can about Jashari and his friends. We need information. The best place to hear gossip and news is there." He indicated a rustic building just about a city block away. People were coming in and out of the door constantly. In fact, it seemed to be the only place where there was any activity.