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He slid his arms around her and levitated enough to embrace her fully. There it was again, how gentle he was with her. His weight didn’t compress her and the way he held her couldn’t have been tenderer.
He remained with his arms around her for a long time. She was smart enough not to disturb the moment. Instead, she gently stroked his back, his hair, his arms. Occasionally, one of her hands would steal all the way down to his buttocks.
The whole time, he remained buried inside her.
Finally, he drew back and smiled. “That was what I wanted to do to you that night by the fire.”
“It was the same for me.”
He searched her eyes. “We’re doing things together that seem impossible. We went back in time, again, but it felt like we were in both places at once.”
“Yes. That’s it exactly a kind of convergence of time. I’m still amazed. I don’t know how it’s even possible.”
He frowned slightly. “You amaze me, Emily. Sometimes when I’m with you, I think my life could be different.”
She dared not hope. Yet hope suddenly flew madly around her chest like a bird trapped inside a church.
He cupped her face with his hands. “You are dearer to me than anyone I have ever known. I need you to know that.”
Maybe it was her fae senses or maybe she simply knew this man, but the door to the imagined church opened. Hope flew across the threshold and out into the night.
She saw him clearly in that moment. She could make love to him a thousand times and he’d still feel compelled to walk away.
“If you do this, Dev, I mean, if you leave, I need you to know this can’t happen again. I’m glad it did, because I love you. But I can see you’re already halfway out the door, aren’t you?”
He frowned and caressed her face with both hands. “I know you want more from me and I wish a thousand times over I could give you what you need. I can’t, Em.” Tears touched his dark brown eyes.
Though her heart ached, the odd, almost amusing thought went through her head that if a trip to Paradise and back couldn’t bring Devyn around, then nothing could. In a way, it was liberating.
She caught his wrist then turned her head to kiss the palm of his hand.
She then settled back into the pillow. “I know what you’ve said is true. You can’t change what’s unfixable in your heart. It’s also helped me to make up my mind. I intend to ask Vojalie and Davido to find me a mate as soon as possible. I know until I bond with someone, I’ll be in danger from the worst elements of the Nine Realms. I’m this terrible prize that will now be pursued. You’re the one I want, but I also know how much Kyle’s death has put a chasm between us. It’s profound and I see now that it’s insuperable.
“But I’m already out of time. I mean, even if you felt there was some hope eventually you’d have a change of heart, I can’t put off taking a mate. It’s too dangerous.”
Devyn lifted a hand to cover his eyes. She could feel he was overcome. He drew a deep breath and sat up a little straighter. “I wish more than life itself I could commit to you. But I can’t. And I have no right to ask you to wait in case one day what I feel here,” he slapp
ed his hand on his chest, “might suddenly and miraculously transform. But I do love you. I want you to know that. I always will.”
“I know.” She sensed a terrible weight within his spirit, something she couldn’t repair. Kyle’s death had done this to him and there was nothing she could do.
Chapter Seven
When Devyn finally left Emily’s home, he had to hunt for the mist keyhole again. He found it after about a minute of searching and once more could tell it was meant only for him. Not even Mastyr Stone would be able to use it.
Stone would have approved these measures. Emily was tucked up in her French cottage home, with her skylights, her green garden, and her silk drapes. The security of the mist relieved his mind.
She was snug and safe.
He could let her go now. He needed to turn her over to Vojalie and Davido, just as Emily had said. They were two of the wisest folk in the Nine Realms. They would know the right vampire for her.
Even thinking about another mastyr feeding from her, brought his fangs thrumming in his gums once more.
Sweet Goddess, the lovemaking had taken him to a place he’d never been before, a place where time didn’t exist. He’d gotten to relive memories of the coffee shop and later sharing wine by a log fire on a rainy night.
He wished this could be his future. But he knew himself. Tonight’s lovemaking hadn’t been a beginning. It had been a farewell.
What he didn’t get was what any of it meant? Why a blood rose? Why time-pathing and convergence? And why was Leonus so determined to have her? Although the increase in power would be enough motivation for a vampire like Leonus. Some men craved power more than anything else in the Nine Realms.
