"Absolutely you do. I suspect you have other gifts as well that are an a.s.set to you." His hand on her shoulder still held her in place, preventing her from rising as his intention was to examine her body for the aftereffects of drugs and to see if she had the same poison in her body as her grandfather.

It was a measure of how Byron managed to mesmerize everyone and everything that she didn't protest his pinning her to the bed. She would never allow anyone else to dictate her movements, yet she couldn't manage to voice a protest. And how could he know such things? "Who are you, By-ron?"

There was a small silence. The room seemed filled with the fragrance of flowers. She inhaled the scent, took it deep into her lungs. Several candles were burning, she could tell by the faint odor of the wick along with an unfamiliar aroma.

"Right at this moment, cam, I am your healer."

Antonietta lay all the way back against the pillows at his urging. She couldn't help but put her hand over her eyes.

"Why do you do that?" Byron gently removed her hand and stroked her eyelids, stroked around her eyes.

For one heart-stopping moment she was certain he was tracing the lines of her scars. She didn't dare breathe. The earth stopped spinning in just the way it had when he kissed her. She reached up to catch his wrist. "I don't like people to stare at my scars."

"Scars? You mean these small, thin lines one needs a microscope to see?" Byron s.h.i.+fted closer to her, leaning down so that his breath was warm on her face. She knew he was peering at her eyes, but all she could think about was how close his mouth was to her skin. "I have scars much worse than those. Do physical imperfections bother you?"

There was silence. His lips, velvet soft, brushed her eyes. Brushed the corners with exquisite tenderness. For a moment she couldn't find her voice. She forced air through her lungs. "No, of course not, how could any physical imperfection possibly bother me? I can't see, Byron." She hated that he might think she would be so shallow as to care about someone else's scars. "I know my face is a mess from the accident." She shrugged, trying to look casual. "It happened a long time ago, and I've learned to live with it."

Byron settled his weight on the bed beside her. He was beginning to understand. "Someone told you that you had scars." He didn't want to think how difficult it would be for a little girl to lose her parents and her eyesight and be told she had terrible scars.

"I wanted to know." She excused her cousin.

"She lied to you. You do not have to tell me who told you such a lie. I know who it was. Tasha has a malicious mouth on her when she thinks another woman is getting too much attention. I can see that she would have a difficult time with you. You are beautiful and talented and unafraid of hard work." His fingertip brushed along her skin again. "You have several very thin white lines along the outside edge of your right eye. The lines are not at all noticeable unless you are looking for them. Around your left eye, you have several small white lines, again barely visible. There is one larger scar running from your temple to the corner of your eye.

It is not unsightly, but it is wider than the other scars." Byron deliberately kept his tone clinical. He had a sudden urge to go to Tasha's room and bare his fangs, allow her to see what could make an unattractive scar. He traced the longer line, showing Antonietta the slight curve. "In some countries, when an item is made for a home, a small flaw is added because it is believed that if something is too perfect, evil will be drawn to the maker."

Antonietta smiled. "I'm hardly flawless, Byron."

"Perhaps others do not share your opinion."

She wasn't touching that. "What do my eyes look like?" She didn't know whether to believe him or not about the scars. He had such a way of speaking, it was nearly impossible to think he could lie, even to make her feel better. But would Tasha keep up a lie for years? Antonietta never asked her grandfather about her face after Tasha had screamed in alarm, crying out that the scars were hideous. "I was told the plastic surgeon hadn't fixed the damage to my face." A lump formed in her throat at the painful memory of that outburst.

"You have large, very black eyes. Your eyelashes are an extraordinary length. I am particularly fond of your eyelashes."

Byron studied her enormous eyes, trying, without success, to be clinical. "You have high cheekbones and a beautiful mouth. I have had my share of fantasies about your mouth."

Antonietta's entire body blushed. She grew hot with the thought of him fantasizing over her mouth. "Why are you suddenly telling me these things?"

Byron shrugged, uncaring that she couldn't see. "Maybe because you scared me tonight. Maybe because there should be honesty between us, and my silence could be construed as a form of deception. In any case, I cannot be with you during the days.

I would very much like you to consider hiring a personal bodyguard."

Antonietta stiffened. Byron's hand moved from her silky-hair to her shoulder with exquisite gentleness. "Before you protest, hear me out. You are capable of doing research and finding a bodyguard yourself. If you do not want to go to the trouble, allow me. I have a few connections. I am willing to spend my evenings and nights here with you, watching over you, but I cannot possibly be here all the time. If you do this, it will go a long way toward alleviating my worry."

Antonietta knew instinctively he was not telling her everything. There was a warning note in his voice. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on. She was a Scarletti, and Scarlettis had a way of seeing things others did not. Byron was delivering an ultimatum. He didn't like doing it, but he was resolved on some path she couldn't fathom. And one she was certain she wouldn't agree with.

She lay quietly, feeling the weight of his body as he leaned over her. Feeling his heat. "You aren't quite human." The words slipped out before she could censor them. Before she could stop herself. A challenge. A demand. A mistake.

The silence lengthened. Grew. She knew it was deliberate, a reprimand for her audacity. Her dark poet didn't like questions.

Outside the windows the wind blew against the stained gla.s.s. Whispered ominously. Always sensitive to vibrations, a chill swept through her.

Antonietta curled her fingers in the bedcovers but kept her expression serene. She was unshakable. She had no regard for authority or threats. She was a law unto herself. Let him glare his disapproval.

"You are a Scarletti. I doubt if you are entirely human either. What are you?" His hands slipped to her throat, stroked her rapid pulse.

His touch was mesmerizing. It dazzled her, threw her off balance when she needed to keep her senses about her. "Well, there is the tale told to all of our children," she replied, trying to introduce a lightness to their conversation. She wanted to believe the howling wind rattling with such persistence at her windows caused her chill. "Perhaps you would care to hear that explanation.

There are some carvings in the hidden pa.s.sage and obscure references in the diaries, enough to make it seem a grain of truth might be in the absurd tale." She hoped to distract him. Hoped to keep him with her just a bit longer. And she was revealing things she shouldn't.

"Tell me this tale."

"Are you going to let me sit up?" Let him think it an amusing bedtime story.

His hand remained resting on her throat, his fingers splayed wide. The heel of his hand rested on the soft swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

The lace was stretched over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, barely covering them, and she could feel the heat of his hand with every breath she took.

It was becoming difficult, nearly impossible to breathe.

"No, I am going to kiss you."

The words were said against the corner of her mouth. She felt his warmth, the antic.i.p.ation, the clenching of her muscles and the thousand b.u.t.terfly wings suddenly brus.h.i.+ng at her stomach. Her breath caught in her lungs, was trapped there. Was she really going to lie there like a Sabine captive and wait for his mouth? Wait for him to take possession of her heart and soul? Instinctively she brought both hands up to push at the wall of his chest. Her palms touched him. Felt hard muscle. Felt heat.

There was no way to push him away. Her strength was gone in an instant, her body melting with desire so intense she shook with it. She wanted him with every breath she took. The hunger rose up out of nowhere to consume her, to take away her every good sense and replace it with need. She made a single sound of protest. Or a plea for his dark embrace. She honestly didn't know which it was. She only knew she was born for him, born to be in his arms. He was

forbidden, just by nature of who she was, what she was. By who and what he was. But it didn't matter. There in the dark of her bedroom, with the wind shrieking a protest, Antonietta simply gave herself into his keeping. And took what she wanted.

She turned her mouth into his neck. Tasted his skin. Inhaled his scent. Her mouth trailed, featherlight over his neck, over his throat. Daringly, her teeth nibbled on his chin. She felt his body's reaction, hardening, thickening against her, molded as they were together.

His hands tightened on her, caught in her hair and dragged her head up to his. "Are you sure this is what you want?" He demanded the truth from her. Compelled the truth. "There is no going back, Antonietta. I will not give you up. I refuse to go back to being your grandfather's friend and sharing only polite conversation with you."

"I want you to kiss me, Byron," she said, more certain than she'd ever been of anything else in her life. "I dreamt of your kisses." And G.o.d help her, she had.

His mouth was hot and hard and possessive. It was everything she had ever dreamed of. Perfect heat. A perfect fire blazing through him, through her. He devoured her, kissing her as if he would never get enough of her. She could lose herself in his smoldering pa.s.sion. She knew she could. Simply go up in flames and rise into the wind and clouds and night sky where she would soar free from the daily intrigues and dramas in the palazzo.

"Byron." She whispered his name into the silken heat of his mouth, her hands in his thick, long hair, tangling there, every bit as possessive as he.

His hand closed over her breast, and flames licked her skin, seared her belly, and drove the breath from her body. His mouth left hers, trailed little kisses to her throat. His tongue swirled over her pulse, while his palm cupped her breast through the fine lace and his thumb stroked her nipple into a hard, aching peak.

Antonietta gasped with pleasure, with excitement. How long had she dreamt of him? Longed for his touch? From the first moment she heard his voice, she knew he would be a perfect lover. Be an instinctive lover.

His mouth roamed lower, his tongue replacing his thumb, laving her nipple, until her hands gripped fistfulls of hair in reaction.

His mouth was hot and wild, suckling strong at her urging. She heard her own moan, a soft whisper of need that spread from her aching b.r.e.a.s.t.s inside her body, thickening her blood. Hunger and need were sharp and terrible, so much so that she was afraid.

She had never been so on fire, her body ruling her mind. She couldn't stop herself from thrusting deeper into his mouth, from making the small, urgent noises that escaped her throat.

His mouth left her breast, and she cried out with bereavement. His arms tightened around her, pulled her fully into his arms.

His heartbeat was strong and fast. Her heartbeat followed the rhythm of his. She cried out with longing when his teeth began to sc.r.a.pe teasingly back and forth over the telltale pulse beating so frantically in her neck. Desire pounded through her blood when she felt the tiniest of nips. She had never expected such a thing to be so erotic.

He whispered to her. Antonietta could not catch the words, but she felt them. She was restless and edgy, her body ached for relief. For the possession of his. She moved in his arms, unable to be still when every inch of her was inflamed. Still, he took his time, his mouth roaming lower until he reached the swell of her breast. She felt his teeth again, and a thousand b.u.t.terfly wings fluttered in the pit of her stomach. Hot liquid desire trickled along her thigh. Her muscles clenched.

Then there was white-hot lightning, a flas.h.i.+ng pain that gave way to sheer pleasure. Instinctively she cradled his head to her, feeling as if she belonged to him. As if they were two halves of the same whole, and they were merging, skin to skin, blood to blood. She heard his voice whispering in her head, soft words in an ancient dialect she couldn't place, although she spoke several languages. The actual words didn't matter to her, just the sound of his voice as it slipped past her guard and branded his name on her heart. On her soul.

She didn't want his name on her heart. She wanted a lover with no strings. The terrible enchantment he cast was wrapping her up in something she couldn't afford. For a moment she did her best to struggle, to come up for air, to find a way for her melted brain to function again.

Byron swept his tongue across the pinp.r.i.c.ks, whispered to her, commanded her so that she ceased her struggles and fell deeper into his enthrallment. Her head lolled back against his shoulder, and he couldn't resist the temptation of her neck. She tasted the way he knew she would. A woman of courage and sweetness. A conflicting mixture of confidence and self-doubt. A contradiction of innocence and experience.

He s.h.i.+fted her in his arms, his body hardening to the point of pain with the knowledge of what he was about to do. He opened his s.h.i.+rt, stared at his hand until one fingernail lengthened, razor sharp, and he swept it over his chest and pressed her mouth tightly against his skin, whispering another command.

At the first touch of her lips, he threw back his head in ecstasy, shaken by his reaction to her touch. To the sight of her face, so beautiful in the darkness. To the fall of her hair, s.h.i.+mmering like a dark cloud. Byron knew he had learned patience over the last years, a steady, carefully cultivated trait he guarded. Antonietta shook his self-discipline. He wanted her-worse, needed her. He had taken his time to learn everything he could about her, and he knew she had no thought of a permanent relations.h.i.+p. She wouldn't mind taking him as a lover, but she didn't think in terms of marriage or eternity.

His first thought was to simply take her, but he dismissed that impulse immediately, refusing to be selfish, refusing to make a mistake that might cause her to suffer in any way. He had been determined to court her until the moment he had seen her struggling for her very life on the cliffs. Safety came first, and he was of the earth, impossible to protect her during daylight hours. So he had to tie them together before she was ready to accept what he was.

His entire body shook with the effort not to say the ritual binding words that would tie them together for all time. She had to stay above, and he would have to return belowground while the sun was high. Trembling with need, Byron stopped the exchange at just enough to complete a true bond between them.

With most humans, scanning and reading thoughts was relatively easy, but Antonietta and many members of her family were more difficult to read. It was not only the Scar-letti family but also a few people in the city and some of the servants in the palazzo.

Their brain patterns weren't normal. If he simply pushed beyond the barriers, they would know he was there, reading their minds, taking their memories. He needed to work out their strange brain patterns before he attempted to do something he might regret. He had no idea what other differences the people in the region had. With the blood bond he established between himself and Antonietta, he could find her easily anywhere and touch her mind at will. There was no way she could escape him, and he had a better chance of protecting her should there be need. It was the only real solution and the only safe thing he could think to do to ensure her protection.

"Wake, Antonietta," he ordered softly.

She blinked up at him with her enormous, dark eyes, almost as if she couldn't quite focus on him. The pads of her fingertips found his lips unerringly. "I've never had anyone kiss me quite like that. I'm afraid if we went any further, I'd go up in flames."

"We cannot have that. The night is almost over, and I have yet to examine you for poison. When I make love to you, Antonietta, I want time to do it properly."

Her eyebrow shot up. "When? Not if?"

"I do not think there is much doubt we both want the same thing." He placed her gently back on the bed, his hands stroking the soft swell of her breast. "Lie quietly and allow me to ensure no poison remains in your system and no drug lingers."

Antonietta wished she could see him. She had the impression of great strength, of a tall, broad-shouldered man. She knew from Tasha that Byron was handsome and wore his hair long. Her cousin had particularly mentioned his chest and his firm backside. Strangely, she felt different. Her hearing, always so acute, seemed even more so, as if she could hear his very breath moving through his lungs. She was even more aware of Byron, of his every movement, of his exact location in the room.

"Sleep, Antonietta. Tomorrow your family will make their usual demands on you, and you must be rested."

Her eyelashes drooped down, almost as if he compelled it. She felt him gathering energy, felt heat and power, knew the precise moment he entered her body to find if she had been poisoned along with her grandfather. "Byron." She whispered his name because she was sliding into sleep despite wanting to stay with him. She didn't want to let go of her magical night.

"Do not worry, cara, no one will be allowed to harm you or your grandfather. Sleep now and be at peace."

A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "I wasn't in any way thinking of either of us being in harm's way. I was thinking only of you." She succ.u.mbed to the lure of sleep with his name on her lips and the taste of him in her mouth.

"A ntanietta! Wake up! If you don't wake up, I'm call-Aing the doctor!" Natasha Scarletti-Fontaine shook her cousin over and over. "I'm not fooling around, wake up right this minute!" There was panic in the voice.

Antonietta stirred. Her lashes lifted partially, indicating she was awake. "What is it, Tasha?" Her voice was drowsy, and her lashes simply dropped down, covering her sightless eyes. Her head settled back into the pillows, and she burrowed beneath the covers. She was so tired, far too tired to get up. Everything in her urged her to sleep at least two more hours. It couldn't be sunset yet...

"No you don't! Antonietta Nicoletta Scarletti, you wake up this instant!"

Recognizing the absolute resolve in her cousin's voice, Antonietta made a supreme effort to shake off the need for more sleep.

"Oh for heaven's sake, is there a major catastrophe I don't know about?" She rubbed her eyes and struggled to sit up, desperately trying to understand where such an absurd thought as waiting for sunset had come from. "What is wrong with you?" She felt slightly disoriented and hazy, as if there were a veil over her mind, and she couldn't quite remember important things. She wanted to sleep forever.

She pressed her hands over her ears. Her hearing was so acute, she could hear the steady beating of Tasha's heart. Like a drum. It threatened to drive her crazy. Tasha's breathing sounded like a rush of wind. Outside, the sea thundered and the rain poured down. Antonietta put her pillow to her ears in an attempt to m.u.f.fle the sounds before she identified the whispering as actual conversations being carried out throughout the palazzo.

"Wrong with me?" Tasha was outraged. "I'll have you know it's nearly four in the afternoon, and none of us could wake you.

Nonno told us about the break-in and said both of you had been drugged. He said your attackers threw him from the cliffs. What utter nonsense to think Byron Justicano saved his life by pulling him from the sea. No one could do such a thing. Nonno is getting senile. The authorities have been waiting for your account, and you just lie here sleeping the day away like nothing was wrong! And if that's not enough to have to deal with, the cook has gone missing, just up and left without a word, and we had nothing suitable to eat. The housekeeper is having hysterics."

Antonietta could not imagine the housekeeper, reliable Si-gnora Helena Vantizian, in hysterics. The housekeeper was a steady, patient, matronly woman, well in command of the palazzo. "Why would Enrico have gone missing?" Cautiously she took the pillow from her ears, deliberately trying to turn down the volume on her hearing. It helped enough that her eardrums weren't ringing.

"How should I know what that silly man is thinking? And it's just like you to choose the most uninteresting and unimportant thing to deal with. The authorities came. Didn't you hear me? They waited all day."

Antonietta had a mad desire to laugh but wasn't altogether certain the impulse stemmed from mirth. She might have found it amusing that it was perfectly normal for Tasha to sleep until noon every day or perhaps the problem was she was slightly hysterical due to the strange phenomenon with her hearing. For a moment, she actually tracked an insect scurrying across the floor. She forced her mind to focus on her cousin's distress. "Are they waiting now?" Things were coming back to her, crowding into her mind. Not the details of attempted murder, but pure sensual pleasure. Byron.

"Nonno sent them away. He said you needed your rest after your ordeal last night. He can be so utterly rude sometimes. I wish you'd talk to him."

Antonietta recognized the petulant note in Tasha's voice. "You know perfectly well Nonno is as sharp as a tack." Although he could be quite abrupt if he thought someone was acting like an idiot. He was often abrupt with Tasha. "For a minute there, I thought you were worried about me."

"For a minute there, I thought I was, too, and I don't appreciate the worry one bit, Antonietta. I absolutely do not want to get those hideous worry lines you serious types get. And why is it you always get the adventures? Why can't someone try to kill me?"

There was a rise to her voice now, a hint of a wail that forced Antonietta to s.h.i.+eld her sensitive ears. "It makes no sense to waste it on you. You're so you. Look at you sitting there just as calm as you please. I could be such a perfect victim and look pale and brave and interesting. You don't look as if a single thing out of place happened."

"Believe me, Tasha, it wasn't a particularly fun experience. You don't need to have someone try to kill you to look interesting.

You always manage that nicely. You don't need to be pale and brave, you're beautiful, and you know it."

Tasha waved the obvious away. "I know, I know." She sighed. "Mere beauty isn't always enough to capture attention, Antonietta. Some men are only interested in silly things like murder. What am I supposed to do? Hire someone to kill me just to get a little attention?" She stood up and paced across the floor with quick, angry steps. "It's utterly ridiculous to think of that man spending hours with you, and you can't even see him! It doesn't bear thinking about."

"Byron?" Antonietta tried desperately to follow her cousin's thinking and at the same time control the volume of her hearing.

The sound of Tasha's shoes reverberated through her head.

"Oh that odious man! Not him. You know I can't stand to be in the same room with him. He's rude and obnoxious, and I hate him." Tasha stared at her reflection in the mirror of the vanity. "Why would you have a mirror in here? I've never understood that."

She turned sideways and held her breath, checking her flat stomach.

"It came with the furniture," Antonietta said. "What man are you talking about? I don't spend hours with any man." She turned away from her cousin to hide the sudden color she knew was spreading into her face. She couldn't think too much about the time spent with Byron. About her reactions to him.

"The policeman, Antonietta," Tasha snapped impatiently. "For heaven's sake, follow along. This is important.""This is all over a policeman?" Antonietta sighed with a mixture of relief and exasperation. "Tasha, you're engaged to be married. You have a fiance, a very wealthy fiance, I might add."

"What does that have to do with anything? I'm going to marry Christopher, but he's so boring. And he's so jealous. It's tiresome. His entire life is his family and church and business. All he can think about is s.h.i.+ps and religion."

"His family does own the second largest s.h.i.+pping company in the world, Tasha," Antonietta said. "And Italian families are nearly always close."

"Mama's boys," Tasha sniffed, "or in Christopher's case, a daddy's boy. They insist I have to go to church with him."

"You knew going into the betrothal he wanted you to convert to his religion."