Stroke of Midnight (Nightcreature #1.5)(11)

He kissed the top of her head as he pulled another towel down to dry her hair.

Pandora hated herself for falling apart like this. She was normally calm and collected. But it was beyond her ability to cope now.

All she wanted was her life back. One day where she was again in charge of her body and her destiny.

One day of clarity.

What her people had done was wrong and she knew it. She hated all of them, Arcadian and Katagaria, for forcing this on her.

No woman should ever have her choice taken away from her.

She tried to stop crying as Dante rocked her gently in his arms. He was being much kinder than she deserved. Not even her own father would be so understanding of this breakdown. He'd never been the kind of man to tolerate emotional outbursts well and he'd trained all his daughters to suffer in silence.

Yet Dante didn't say anything. He just held her quietly while she cried.

"I don't know what to do," she said, stunned when the words came out of her mouth. It wasn't like her to confide in someone and to admit that she was in over her head…

She couldn't believe what she was doing.

Maybe it was because she didn't know where else to turn.

Or maybe it was just after the time they had shared where he hadn't hurt her that she was willing to almost trust him with the truth of her situation and feelings.

"We'll figure something out for you," Dante said as he rubbed her back. "Don't worry."

"Why would you help me? Your brother said you were a selfish bastard."

He gave half a laugh at that. "I am selfish. I'm cold and vicious. I don't have any friends and I spend all my time looking for Arcadians who bother me so I can pick a fight and hurt them. Hell, I even killed my own brother when he sold my pack out to the Daimons. Truly, I am every bad thing you think of when you hear the term 'Katagaria.'"

And still he hadn't hurt her.

He gently laid his hand against her cold cheek to wipe away her tears. "Yet I don't want to see you cry."

She shivered at his hypnotic words.

"Get dressed, Pandora, and we'll go find something to eat and talk about what we can do to help you."

"Really?"

"Really."

She pulled him down so that she could give him a scorching kiss. "I'm sorry I called you an animal, Dante."

"It's okay. I am one."

No he wasn't. In that moment, he was her hero. Her champion. She would never insult anyone so kind.

As soon as she pulled on her jeans and a red shirt, he led her from the room, downstairs to the lobby that was packed with even more people than earlier.

"This is some party, huh?" she asked as she saw a group of four women dressed only in warning tape wrapped around their bodies surrounded by a group of Storm Troopers, cross the lobby.

"It's definitely something," he said, holding her hand as they passed a woman who was leading a man around on a leash.

"Do you come here often?"

He shook his head. "First time."

Before she could speak again, Pandora felt a vicious pain sear across her palm. Hissing, she jerked her hand back at the same time Dante started shaking his own hand as if he'd burned it.

Pandora frowned as a bad sense of foreboding went through her.

She looked at her hand and watched as an attractive geometrical design formed over her palm, confirming her worst fear.

She was mated.

And there was only one male it could be…





CHAPTER 3


? ^ ?

Dante stared in horror at the sight of his mating mark. No. This couldn't be real and it damn sure couldn't be happening. Not to him.

He took Pandora's hand and held it up against his so that he could compare their palms.

There was no denying it. The marks were identical.

She was his.

Damn.

"You bastard!" she snarled angrily. "How could you be the one meant for me?"

"Excuse me?" Dante asked, baffled by her rage. If anyone had a right to be angry it was him. After all, he'd been minding his own business when she traipsed into his sensory circle. Had she just stayed put, neither one of them would be in this situation.

"In case you didn't notice, sweetheart, I'm not exactly thrilled by this either."

She glared at him for two seconds before she whirled on her heel and headed off into the crowd.

Part of him was tempted to let her go, but that wouldn't accomplish anything. Neither Katagaria nor Arcadian had any say in who the Fates chose as their mates. Any more than they knew when or where they'd find the one person who was designated for them.

The only way to find a mate was to sleep with him or her and to wait for the mark to appear.

Whenever it did, they only had three weeks to perform their mating ritual or they would spend the rest of their lives sterile. For a female, it wasn't such a bad thing since she could continue to have sex with any man who caught her attention; she just couldn't have children with any male other than her designated mate. But for a male…

It was worse than death. The male was left completely impotent until the day his mate died.

Dante shivered at the thought. Him, impotent? Those were two words that would never be said together.

He would die first.