Darius rose two days later, his body completely healed. With the proper rejuvenating rest, the blood of a powerful ancient, and the rich soil, his full strength was renewed. At once he sought news of his family. He mentally checked with each of them to ensure they were well and safe. He assured them, in return, that he was whole and healed and would soon awaken Tempest.

Darius rose voraciously hungry, and he knew that if all had gone well with Tempest, she would be, also. He hunted, choosing prey close to the cave, feeding ravenously, taking enough for both of them. When he returned to the cavern, he prepared for her rising, crushing herbs to fill the air with a soothing aroma, spreading candles so that little flames danced on the walls and flickered invitingly. He made up a thick bed with soft sheets to welcome her.

Darius descended to her and cradled her in his arms, floated out of the earth, and closed the deep hole so no sign would remain of what might appear to her to be a grave. Tempest looked beautiful even in her sleep. Even more beautiful than he remembered. Her skin was flawless, her hair a mass of thick red-gold silk tumbling around her face. He carried her to the steaming mineral pool and woke her as he lowered her into the water.

He bent his head to her soft mouth, capturing her first breath as she drew air into her lungs and exhaled. She tasted like light and goodness. She tasted like hunger and flame. Her long lashes fluttered, then lifted, so that he was staring into her vivid green eyes. A faint trace of humor crept into the emerald depths. It was amazing what it did to his heart, melting it and simultaneously squeezing it hard. His chest felt inordinately tight, his heart pounding with fear about the consequences of her courageous choice.

"So, hopefully, it isn't the deranged thing going on here. I don't have a mad desire to turn upside down and hang from my toes like a bat, but I definitely have a craving." The seductive caress of her voice played over his skin like fingers. Her mind, when he touched it, was a mixture of fear and humor, as if she couldn't quite decide which to go with.

"It is natural to be hungry, honey," he reassured her, his palm sweeping the silken strands of her hair from her neck. The water was lapping at their skin, bubbles bursting over and around them, creating a sensation of intense pleasure.

"A bit on the repulsive side, though." She tried to be analytical about it.

"Do you think?" He bent his head to find the pulse beating in her throat, his tongue stroking a brand, feeling the sudden, impatient expectation. "What does it feel like when I kiss you like this?"

He was stealing her breath, her sanity. He was bringing her body to life again, bringing it to a living flame of need. "You know," she accused.

His teeth scraped lightly back and forth over her neck. Her stomach muscles clenched in anticipation. Heat pooled immediately within her, low and urgent.

"What about this, Tempest?" he persisted, his breath warm on her skin.

She arched her neck to give him better access, her entire body on fire for the erotic ecstasy of his bite. "You know, Darius."

His mouth moved to find hers in a slow, languid kiss he needed more than anything else at that moment. It robbed her of her ability to think sane thoughts, to think of anything but him.

"That is how it feels to me," Darius said, "when your mouth moves over my skin, when your teeth find me and my blood flows into you. It is beautiful and erotic, and my body craves the sharing just as yours does."

His hands moved over her skin, a slow exploration of her shadows and curves, washing the remnants of soil from her. The feel of his palms gliding over her bare flesh, cupping her breasts possessively, sliding down her belly to the triangle of curls, slipping between her legs to seek her creamy heat brought fire to her body. Brought a hungry demand she had never known. He slowly inched a finger inside her. A second. He thrust into her, explored her velvet interior, knew it pulsed with life and need for only him. She pushed against his hand, seeking relief from the gathering fire. Tempest could feel her own inhibitions slipping away as her body initiated its own demands.

She began to stroke his skin, tracing the heavy muscles of his chest, the definition of his abdomen, then moved lower to cup the weight of him in her palm, to dance enticing fingers along the hard length of him. Darius lifted her into his arms, striding out of the pool to lay her on the bed he had made for her, his body blanketing hers.

Tempest smiled and circled his head with her arms, her hands stroking his thick hair. "At last, a bed. Do you think we'll know what to do in it?"

"Oh, yeah, baby. I do not think you have a thing to worry about. I know exactly what to do," he whispered against her throat. Her body felt like satin, her hair like silk. How could anything be so damned soft? He tasted her skin, the sweet honey of it, and allowed his body to swell into a fiery shaft of desire. Need poured into him, strong and urgent, a relentless hunger only her body could sate.

Tempest was caught up in the feel of his hard body and aggressive male domination, his brute strength, the shivering response her fingertips could induce. She smiled, her tongue tasting his neck, reveling in the rich texture of his skin. Her breasts were sensitive, swollen with need, aching with pleasure, pressed against his powerful chest.

And then she became aware of his heartbeat. The ebb and flow of his blood, like the waves of the sea advancing and retreating. The call, the hunger, the all-consuming hunger. Instantly she stiffened, cried out with fear, and struggled to free herself from the weight of his body.

Darius captured her slender wrists and stretched her arms above her head with easy mastery. "Shh, my love, be calm. Turn down the volume in your head. You know it can be done. Already you were hearing things magnified, and you learned to deal with it easily."

She was shaking her head from side to side, trying to block out the sound and smell of blood, the rising, gnawing hunger that seemed to take over her entire being.

Darius held her firmly, calmly. "Look at me, Tempest. Open your eyes, and look into mine. Breathe with me until you are calm. We can do this together. We can. You trust me to know what is right. Look only at me."

Swallowing the tight knot of fear and revulsion, Tempest pried her eyelids open and was instantly caught and held by his mesmerizing black gaze. It calmed her as nothing else could. She did trust in him, believe in him. She loved him totally, without reservation. More than her own life. The terrible pounding in her heart subsided. She dragged great gulps of air into her lungs. Her gaze clung to his, her savior in the madness of what she had become.

Darius smiled down at her with complete confidence. "We can do this together, honey. You and me. We are one. Our hearts, our souls, our minds, and our bodies." His hand slipped between her thighs, his fingers testing her readiness. He pressed his hot, throbbing velvet tip into her scorching entrance so that she could feel his raging need, how thick and heavy with urgency he was. "This is us, Tempest, you and me. Our bodies crave one another, need one another. You feel me demanding you, hungering for you?" He pushed himself deeper with exquisite care, watching her eyes widen in response, feeling her heat close around him, tightening and clenching in reaction to his invasion. The sweet agony made little beads of perspiration dot his forehead.

Tempest moaned softly, her hips moving with her own need. Darius held her still, his body swelling even more, filling her completely, driven by the tightness of her fiery sheath, the demands her own body was making on her, on him. "Merge your mind with mine. I want us to be together as we should." His whisper was pure seduction, sheer magic. "My body is deep within yours." He withdrew and surged forward again, a powerful stroke that buried him ever deeper. Her arms tried to break free, but he held her pinned beneath him.

Darius bent his head to the temptation of her breasts, smiled when her body clenched around his. His tongue lapped lovingly at one nipple before taking her satin-soft flesh into the heat of his mouth. She cried out then, arching more closely into him, needing the feel of his mouth pulling at her. His hips moved in a slow, lazy rhythm designed to drive her crazy. She couldn't move, pinned as she was, so Darius could take his time, arousing her to a fever pitch, exploring her body leisurely.

She felt his hot breath above her breast, and something wild in her seemed to break free. "Please, Darius," she heard herself moan, and she knew what she wanted. She was coming up off the bed, offering her body to his nuzzling mouth. "Please, don't make me wait." She whispered the words in an agony of anticipation, then felt his body respond to the urgency of her plea, swelling, hardening, moving with longer, deeper strokes into her. She felt his teeth scrape her skin gently, his tongue follow with a rasping caress, and then she was crying out as white heat enveloped her, beat at her, as his teeth pierced deep and his mouth moved erotically against her breast, feeding on her. She felt fire bursting in her. All around her. She wanted it to go on forever. Never stop. She wanted to hold his head to her and force him to take her this way over and over again, for all time.

The heat. The fire. The ecstasy of it. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to it. Waves of pleasure rippling through her body, consuming her, consuming him. Then his mind was thrusting into hers with the same demands his body was making on hers.

This is what it feels like for me. I need you to do the same for me.

His voice brushed in her mind like fingers between her legs, raw and needy and creating waves of fire.

His tongue stroked across her breast. "Do this for me, my love. Give me what I have given you." It was sheer, blatant seduction, the devil's own temptation.

He thrust his hips deeper still, turning her to molten fire. His chest was over her head, pressed against her seeking mouth. Her tongue found his skin. She felt the jolt go right through his mind. Felt his body within hers throb. Her teeth moved back and forth over his beating heart. Hunger consumed her. The need to give him whatever he desired. One large hand caught her bottom, lifting her hips so that he could bury himself over and over in her; the other went to the nape of her neck, holding her tightly against his chest.

"God, baby, you are killing me here. Do this for me. I need this as I have never needed anything else in my life. Please, baby." The words came out raw with need, between clenched teeth, his body straining to convince hers. Then his hoarse cry filled the cave, his head thrown back in sheer ecstasy as her teeth pierced his flesh. She felt it, felt the intensity of his pleasure as he flowed into her, hot and rich with the essence of life and passion. His body began pumping into hers, hotter and faster, swelling and hardening until she was so tight, the friction threatened to send them both up in flames. He felt her body convulse around his, grip his, squeeze tighter and tighter until he was pouring his hot seed into her, filling her mind and body, her veins, with his life.

Darius cried out, afraid he might shatter with the pleasure, afraid she would. "I claim you as my lifemate. I belong to you. I offer my life for you. I give to you my protection, my allegiance, my heart, my soul, and my body. I take into my keeping the same that is yours. Your life, happiness, and welfare will be cherished and placed above my own for all time. You are my lifemate, bound to me for all eternity and always in my care." He forced each word out between his teeth, between each beat of his heart, so that there could be no mistake, ever, no way that the ritual was not complete. He wanted her to feel each word in their united soul, their united bodies, in their mind, their heart, and their skin. She was his, and he belonged to her. He would never give her up, never let her go, never allow anything to harm her.

Darius held her to him, his body still hot and hard in the velvet fire of hers. She was slick with his seed, her tongue closing the pinpricks over his heart, her body so exhausted that she couldn't move. He rolled off her, taking her with him, keeping their bodies locked together. "Thank you, Tempest. I do not deserve you, but thank you."

She lay listening to their combined heartbeats, resting in his mind. She saw his implacable resolve to keep her, the deep ties between them that could never be broken, and she was reassured of their future together. She saw that the ritual heat of Carpathian mating only increased over time. She could not see how that was possible without inducing heart failure, but she accepted it. She could also see beyond that possession and that hot hunger for her body. Darius loved her. Tempest. He loved her so deeply, so completely, that it filled his entire being. He loved her enough to give up his life for her. He loved her without reservation, unconditionally.

She lay in his arms, savoring the feel of him beside her, strong and real. "Are the others all right, Darius?"

He pushed the hair from her face with gentle, caressing fingers. "Of course. Julian has a twin brother, Aidan, who lives in San Francisco with his lifemate, Alexandria, and Julian has taken Desari there to meet his family." Because he had to, Darius found the hollow of her neck and scraped his teeth along her skin lightly, his tongue swirling to ease any ache. Then he smiled against her neck. "They took the leopards with them, which should be something, as Aidan has human caretakers, and Alexandria has a little brother."

"And Syndil?" Her body was reacting to the touch of his teeth with inner ripples of pleasure. Her hands found his hips and began to stroke the defined curves of his muscles. At once his body began thickening, hardening in response to her touch.

"Barack and Syndil are together, working out their relationship. Syndil seems happier and much more confident, despite having discovered her temper. She sent me a very warm greeting for you. They are traveling to Europe before the next performance in hopes of meeting Julian's Prince and others like us."

Tempest bent her head to his chest, her fingers dancing over him in answer to the fantasy she read in his mind. She watched his face, felt his heat, his smoldering passion rising with her caresses. "And Dayan and Cullen?" She could barely think anymore, as Darius's mind was now sizzling with all sorts of erotic possibilities.

"With all of us finding our lifemates, the darkness was spreading in Dayan. He needed time to adjust." She felt more than heard the underlying worry in his voice. "All the intense emotions were disturbing to him. He and Cullen Tucker have gone up to Canada. They will travel together for a while, and Dayan will help to ensure Cullen's safety, which should also ensure his own. When the band comes back together to tour, they will return." There was a huskiness in his velvet voice she couldn't ignore. Anticipation.

Catching the rather graphic image of her in his mind, Tempest slowly pushed herself up so that she was straddling him. The movement filled her with his thick heat and widened her green eyes with shock. But she flung back her hair and began a slow, erotic ride, rocking her hips gently, a small smile of satisfaction curving her mouth.

Darius reached up to span her waist with his hands, his thumbs feathering back and forth over her flesh in a caress he couldn't resist. She was just so beautiful, with her red hair tumbling sexily around her face and her lush mouth and enormous green eyes cloudy with desire for him. Her body was so perfect to him, small but curvy, her narrow rib cage emphasizing the creamy swell of her breasts. His hands tightened, moving her so that he could penetrate her even more deeply, so that he could watch her eyes darken with pleasure, and he found himself smiling, too.

"While I have you where I want you," he said softly, reaching up to trace her lower lip with his finger, "I would like to remind you that you could have died very easily from your sacrifice. Any number of things could have gone wrong."

Tempest felt the sudden fear beating in his chest, the swell of anger that rode in like a tide. Deliberately she drew his finger into the moist cavern of her mouth and clenched her inner muscles tightly around the hard thickness of his shaft while she increased the fiery friction. She found a certain amount of satisfaction in knowing she had distracted him momentarily from his male tirade. His hips thrust upward, seeking the ultimate core of her, as his hands cupped the fullness of her breasts. His eyes went black with hunger.

Tempest smiled at him, her nipples pushing into his palms, her body tempting him with every movement. Darius suddenly sat up, his arms sweeping around her, his mouth feeding hungrily at her breast for just a moment before he took charge of the situation once more.

"You will hear what I have to say, honey, and you will obey me in this. There will never again be a time when you put yourself at risk. Is that understood?" He growled the words of the Carpathian male laying down the law to his wayward mate.

Her arms slid around his neck, her tongue finding the sensitive spot behind his ear, swirling slowly, erotically, creating heat and fire, distracting him further. Her mouth then crept mischievously around his neck and burned its way to his throat, all the while her body a tight sheath bent on sending him soaring with pleasure. Darius tried to bring his disciplined mind under control. She would obey him; she had to promise. But her mouth was teasing the corner of his, and her silken legs suddenly shifted to circle his waist so that she could draw him even deeper within her.

At that moment, all he could think of, all he cared about, was going up in flames with her, shattering into a million fragments and settling safely back to earth together, wrapped in each other's arms. Soft whispers filled the cave, low laughter, the sounds of bodies moving together, the scent of their lovemaking. They reveled in their newfound love, insatiable in their appetite for one another.

When Darius finally got around to lecturing her, it was several risings later and didn't carry quite the impact he had originally intended. But it didn't matter, as he knew his future was sealed. Tempest was his, for all eternity, and she would always be his Tempest - wildly exciting, distracting him from his commands, tormenting him with her escapades, and always, always loving him.