Dark Symphony (15 page)

 Antonietta circled his neck with her arms. Byron took her into a world of hunger and passion and light. Where her music came from. Her deepest joys and sorrows and erotic dreams. Her every want. She couldn't help wanting to be closer, wanting to feel the incredible heat of his skin. She slipped her hands beneath his shirt to feel his defined muscles. She ached with wanting him, her body already turning liquid and needy.

 "Byron," she whispered his name, the voice of a siren. An invitation to paradise.

 His teeth nipped her full lower lip. "Do you want me to make love to you, Antonietta? That would be so simple for you. No attachment. No love between us to get in the way." His hand shaped her breast, his thumb leasing her nipple into a hard peak. He bent his head to the temptation right through the thin fabric of her blouse. Her breasts were luxuriously soft and full. She had a woman's curving body and was generously endowed. His mouth closed over the soft, luscious mound, hot and moist and suckling strongly so that Antonietta arched back and caught his hair in her hands to drag him closer to her.

 Her knees went weak, and she cried out, afraid she would have an orgasm right there, just from his mouth on her breast. His tongue licked along the valley between her breasts up toward her throat. "Is this what you want? Just a physical relationship?" He lifted his head, and she felt his eyes burning like lasers. "This is good enough for you?"

 Antonietta's fingers bunched in his hair, nearly desperate to pull him back to her. There was no reason to feel guilty, but she did. "It has always been good enough in the past," she said defiantly, and then was instantly ashamed that he had managed to rattle her when it was none of his business what she did or even what she preferred.

 Byron straightened slowly, his hands slowly releasing her. His body withdrew from hers, leaving her feeling cold and alone and bereft. "It is not good enough for me."

 Antonietta pushed an unsteady hand through her hair deliberately stepping into the passageway to give herself space.

 "You can't possibly want a long-term, permanent relationship with me. You don't even know me."

 "That is not precisely true, Antonietta. There is very little about you I do not know. I took the time, sitting quietly in your home, listening to you. Hearing the music you play, watching you with your family. I know you far better than you think. You have not taken the time to get to know me. You thought you could have me for a lover, and your perfect world would remain intact. You wouldn't have to do anything different at all, but in truth, there is always change and consequences."

 She didn't like seeing herself through his eyes. He made her feel shallow and self-centered. "There is nothing wrong with a woman being practical, Byron. Men take lovers and walk away all the time. They've been doing it for centuries. I'm practical, not unemotional. I have a family depending on me, I have a full-time career. Can't you see that I'm making sense? You're not in love with me." She dared him to lie to her and say he was.

 He paced away from her, returned to stand over her. She felt his shadow even in the darkened passageway. Felt his presence, not the man she was so comfortable with, not the man she had come to think of as sweet and courtly, but a dangerous predator stalking her in the narrow confines of the Scarlett! passageway. She had the impression of lips drawn back in a silent snarl and fangs exposed. "How would you know what I feel or do not feel?" His voice was so low it could barely be heard, yet there was a note in it that increased her fear even more.

 Antonietta put out her hand. A test. Byron instantly caught her hand, drew her palm to the warmth of his chest. She could feel his heart beating. Steady. Strong. A perfect rhythm, and her own heart seemed to want to follow. "I didn't mean to hurt you." She stepped closer to him. "I did, didn't I? I hurt you by saying I didn't want a permanent relationship with you. I didn't mean it the way it came out." Why had she been so afraid? How could she ever think that Byron, with his impeccable manners, would be anything but generous and courteous? She was becoming fanciful after her misadventure in the night.

 "No man wants to be told he will be discarded gladly."

 Byron said. "It is a bit hard on the ego." He brought her fingers to his mouth.

 Antonietta expected a brief kiss. His mouth closed over her finger. And it was hot and moist and everything it had been when he had been lavishing attention on her breast. She thought she might fall down, simply melt into a puddle on the floor. "I think my hormones are in overdrive, Byron." She had no other defense besides humor. "If you keep that up, I might have to consider ripping your shirt right off of you."

 "I do not think that is designed to stop me, Antonietta." There was a hint of laughter in his voice. His teeth nibbled at her finger, scraped along the pad of her thumb. "How did you discover this room? You do not come into the passageway that often, do you?"

 His tone sounded mildly curious, yet she had the impression he was waiting for her answer. That his tone was quite at odds with his emotions. "Most of my life I could manage to read people, Byron. I've always thought it was because I was blind, and I had to rely on other senses to get by. You're very difficult, because you don't say very much and I can't rely on your voice to give away your emotions." She reached up to touch his face, gently mapping his expression with her fingertips.

 "I have never been blind, Antonietta, although for a long time I was color-blind. I saw the world in shades of gray and white and charcoal. It is a condition in the males of my people. Most lose the ability to see in color when they come into full power, but I took much longer."

 Byron seemed so sad, suddenly she pressed closer to him. "What is it? What are you thinking of?"

 "A time long ago when I had a childhood friend. More than a friend. In my world, our siblings can be quite a bit older. My friend was my family. We were never far apart from one another, and he made life bearable for me. I worked with jewelry, and Jacques would try his hand at it." His mouth curved at the memory of Jacques's antics. Byron was a gem-caller, able to sing the stones of the Earth into revealing themselves, and Jacques often accompanied him into the deepest caves. "My friend disappeared for several years and was presumed dead. My life was hell after that. I felt alone, and maybe I was even angry with him for dying and leaving me behind. I felt lost, without an anchor. And one day I saw a woman. I could see her in color. I knew she had red hair and green eyes. When that happens, the male of our species knows she is the one woman. But I could not see anyone or anything else in color, which did not make sense if she were my life mate, as colors are fully restored to us through our life mate. I should have known better, should have taken the time to think things through, but I was not so patient back then."

 The sadness weighed so heavily on him, it seemed a burden, a great sorrow. Antonietta felt it in her heart, in her mind, but she remained silent, hoping he would continue. She had a feeling he had never told the story to anyone else.

 Byron turned his head to kiss her fingertips. "Later, I realized my friend Jacques and I were so close I was picking up visions from his head. He had been tortured, and he was half mad. He did not remember any of us, so it did not occur to me, at the time that I was still connected to him, still seeing through his eyes as we had often done, sharing information on our personal path. But by the time I figured out what was happening, it was too late; I had ruined our friendship and instilled a deep distrust of me in him. He needed me, and I let him down. I have regretted those rash days bitterly."

 "How sad, Byron. I hope your friend is better now. And if he was such a good friend, I'm certain as he heals, he'll forgive anything you might have done."

 "The connection between us is still there, should either of us decide to use it, but I no longer saw in colors. My life returned to grays and shadows. Until I met you."

 The way he said it, starkly, honestly, tugged at her heartstrings. Until I met you. It had to be his voice that affected her so completely. "What changed?" There seemed to be a lump in her throat. Antonietta gave herself a stern warning. He was a man, just like other men, one who would come and go just as they all did. It mattered little what sweet words he came up with, in the long run, the prenuptial agreement always told what they were after. And it was never Antonietta, the woman.

 "My entire life," he said simply.

 And there in the absolute darkness, she wanted to believe him. "Kiss me, Byron. Just kiss me again." Her arms slid around his neck, and she pressed her body close to his. An offering. A hunger. A need. She might not want him to be special, might not want to believe he was different from all the others to her, but she needed him to kiss her. And she had never needed anyone.

 He murmured something in a language she had never heard before and bent his head to hers. His lips feathered over her face, along her cheekbones, a soft assault on her senses. There was tremendous strength in his hands as he pulled her even closer, fitting her body into the cradle of his hips. His mouth teased hers. His teeth tugged at her bottom lip, a sweet temptation that left her helpless to resist had she wanted.

 Antonietta moved restlessly, a deliberate enticement. When he was with her, when he was near, she had a difficult time thinking of anyone else. Anything else. She craved him in the way an addict might a drug. "A compulsion," she murmured. "That's what you are. A sorcerer, and you've cast a spell on me."

 "And here I thought it was the other way around." He whispered the words against her lips.

 Before she could answer, his mouth took possession of hers, and the world turned upside down. It didn't matter that there was no light, colors burst behind her eyes and exploded like fireworks in her mind. Beneath her feet the earth rippled so that she clung to him. She lost all ability to breathe, yet he was the very air for her. Antonietta clung to him, unprepared for the way her body simply went soft and pliant and needy. "This has never happened before."

 He kissed her again. Thoroughly. Hungrily. As if she were the only woman in the world, and he had to kiss her. Needed to kiss her. And then, abruptly, he lifted his head. His eyes glittered a fiery red above her head and for just a moment fangs gleamed white in the stark black of the passageway. "There is someone coming this way," he said. His tone was free of all menace, but she caught a brief glimpse of the inherent violence in him. A beast roared for release, struggled for supremacy. His calm demeanor never wavered, but she felt it just as if it were in her.

 She felt him reaching out with all his senses, inhaling deeply as if he could scent an enemy. "No one comes in here, Byron," she whispered. "We store great treasures, artwork, and jewels. The rooms are designed to keep them in the precise temperatures needed to preserve them. Not even family comes in here without first getting permission from Nonno or from me."

 He placed his lips against her ear. "Someone is in the passageway and moving stealthily, not with confidence. I doubt they have permission." He saw the glimmer of a light moving toward them. "They are nearing us. I can hide us from his sight, but the passage is too narrow for him not to bump into you. We will have to go into your history room and close the door."

 Byron felt her swift intake of breath in reaction to his words. The involuntary clenching of her fingers into a fist in the fabric of his shirt. His arm tightened around her. "You will be safe with me. I know the space is small, but I can get out, should something go wrong with the mechanism."

 There was complete confidence in his voice. Antonietta could not tell him of a world of suffocating darkness. Of waking up choking, strangling, her throat closed, fighting desperately for air. Her heart pounded with alarming force. She nodded wordlessly, not trusting her voice. She abhorred the mind-numbing fear that inevitably caught hold of her when she was on unfamiliar ground.

 Byron drew her into the small confines of the little room and nudged the door until it swung shut, sealing them in. He dragged her close beneath the protection of his shoulder. With the door closed, the light was gone, hiding the Scarletti secrets as it had for centuries. Byron ran his fingertips along the wall. The carvings were smooth and precise, a work of art, even as it was a kind of diary of each generation. He caressed the figure of a shape-shifter, first in human, then half and half, and then fully in cat form. The Jaguar. A sad ending to a species. The blood was so diluted it was doubtful if more than a handful remained with full abilities. So many species gone or nearly gone from the earth.

 Antonietta's fingers found him, tracing over the same beautifully drawn figure. If you are not, Jaguar, what are you, Byron? Instinctively she used the more intimate form of communication. Somewhere on the other side of the wall someone skulked about the passageway with a hidden agenda of their own.

 I am of the earth. My people have been in existence since the beginning of time, in one form or another.

 Then you do shift shape! You can, can't you? She was very excited.

 His breath was warm on her face. His lips touched her cheekbone. If I were to answer yes, would it in any way influence you to consider adding me to the Scarletti gene pool? He was listening to the furtive footsteps as they moved past their hiding place.

 That's not funny. But laughter bubbled up anyway. And joy. It was true. She wasn't losing her mind as she often imagined when the beast rose up strong within her, roaring to be set free. I'm too old to even consider having a baby. She said the last to sober up. She was too old to consider a permanent relationship, even if the man intrigued her and made her feel beautiful and young and filled with happiness. It was infatuation, physical attraction, a crush that would soon pass. It had to pass soon.

 His palm slid down the length of her hair, weighed the heavy braid in his hand. You do not know what old is, Antonietta.

 There was a wealth of amusement in his voice. I would like to find out who is out there. He is male, and a member of your family. Normally I can easily scan human thoughts, but the Jaguar influence is prevalent in this area. He feels like Paul, but I cannot scan many of the people here as easily as most others. If I press, he will feel my presence. But I can follow him and see what he is up to.