Light was streaking the sky now, gray patches despite the dark, roiling clouds and the steady drizzle of rain. "Go, Mikhail," Raven insisted softly. "You have to. Otherwise I would always feel I killed him. If you do not go, it will be because of me."
"You have to," Shea added, looking into Jacques' black eyes. He did, too; Shea felt it with great conviction. There would come a time when Jacques would remember his childhood, his great friendship with Byron, and how he had backed away from Byron's attempt at reconciliation. He needed to do this for the sake of his own sanity.
I know.
His reply was a soft assent in her mind as he shared her thoughts. "I will go, Mikhail," he said aloud. "You stay and protect the women. It is the only way."
"It could very well be a trap," Gregori cautioned. "More than likely it is a trap. Otherwise this would be very careless on the part of one so cunning."
"That's why all of you should go," Raven said. "Shea and I will wait here. We can destroy all evidence of her research while we wait."
Shea could not prevent the gasp that escaped her. She lifted her chin defiantly. She was not going to be intimidated by these powerful creatures. Her eyes flashed from one to the other. "I spent several years of my life gathering that data," she said hotly.
Raven caught her hand and squeezed it in warning. She tugged Shea away from Jacques and right up to the door of the cabin. "All right, Shea, we'll talk about it."
"You are to leave this place and go to safety if the hour becomes too late or you receive warning from us," Mikhail cautioned his lifemate. "No playing the heroine. On this I will have your word."
Raven smiled into his eyes, an intimate, tender acknowledgment. She nodded. "I would never endanger our child, my love."
Mikhail reached out and touched Raven's face, trailing his fingertips tenderly down her skin even as his form wavered, contorted, began to snap and pop. Fur shimmered along his arms, his back. His powerful frame bent, and he leapt away, landed running, a large black wolf.
Shea's eyes widened, astonished at the quick change. Seeing the man become a wolf was incredible. Her heart was slamming so loudly she was afraid it might burst. She was uncertain whether it was from excitement and awe or from sheer terror.
Jacques!
It is all right, my love.
To calm her he leaned close, brushed her forehead with his mouth.
It is the way of our people to utilize the animals around us. It is natural for us. And it helps to protect our skin and eyes from the sun.
I'm fine now, wild man. It was a shock.
Shea breathed deeply to overcome her trembling. She found she was clinging to Raven's hand and self-consciously dropped it.
Jacques dropped another kiss on her forehead before he deliberately walked off the porch and into the dense forest, making sure he was out of her sight before his body began to change.
Gregori's silver eyes moved over both women, then settled on Shea. "The child must be protected. It is no use appealing to Raven for logic, as she has none, and Mikhail is so besotted with her that he does not see his first duty, so it is up to you. For the sake of all of us, you must protect this child. Do you understand?"
Shea felt ensnared by those molten eyes. She might not fully comprehend his reasons, but she felt his genuine urgency. She nodded. "I'll watch over her, healer."
"It is not for my sake only, but for humans and Carpathians alike. This child must live, Shea," he reiterated. "She must."
Shea clearly felt the warning, the plea from his otherwise damned soul. This child was his only hope. For the first time she believed he was not the vampire, that his fear of turning was great, the child his only chance of survival. She nodded, meeting his eyes steadily so that he could see she comprehended the dangers.
Out of respect for her, Gregori, too, walked into the forest out of Shea's sight before shape-shifting and loping away toward the ruins of Jacques' old home.
Raven opened the door to the cabin and stepped out of the storm into the shelter of the room. "You'll get used to it. When I first met Mikhail, I didn't have a clue what he was. I thought he was a psychic like me. Believe me, it was a real shock when I found out. I had no idea such a species even existed."
Shea managed a small smile. To be back in her cabin was comforting, with all her familiar things around her. "I'm still not certain I believe any of this. I keep expecting to wake up in my office back in the States." Snagging a towel, she tossed it to Raven and caught up another for herself. Her hair was dripping wet. It was soothing to her to do something so mundane as towel it dry.
"We live relatively normal lives, Shea. Mikhail and I have a beautiful home in this breathtaking land. Mikhail has several businesses. We have friends, good friends. We travel. What happened to Jacques was a terrible tragedy for all of us. I'm glad he has you now, all of us are." Raven curled up in a chair. Daylight was taking its toll on her pregnant body.
Shea leaned against the bed and studied Raven. She was a beautiful woman, a little pale, with unusual blue-violet eyes. "Jacques is still quite ill. He's struggling to remember his life. It's difficult." She paced restlessly. "I worry about him. He doesn't believe he is always sane. There is such torment in him."
Shea? you need me?
Jacques' voice was clear in her mind, anxious, as if he had caught her thoughts.
She realized that Jacques was unable to release her completely. She should have felt resentful, cornered, but the truth was, she felt safe. Already she was becoming accustomed to their closeness.
I'm fine, Jacques. Just take care of yourself.
It was an exhilarating feeling that she could talk across time and space, that she could touch him whenever she wanted or needed, that he would always know when she was troubled.
Shea watched Raven and, noting her elevated breathing, automatically walked over to her to take her pulse. Raven laughed and pulled away. "My husband is being naughty. He likes to keep me thinking about him while he's away from me. I'm fine. They'll drive you crazy, but they're always intriguing and usually lots of fun. It's a good thing, as they have long life spans. Wouldn't it be hell to be stuck for centuries to someone you found incredibly boring?"
"How dangerous is the healer?"
Raven inhaled sharply. "The truth is, Gregori is the most dangerous of all Carpathians. Mikhail thinks Gregori is more powerful than he is, and that's saying quite a bit. He knows things, more than any other. Mikhail fears for him all the time now. If he turned vampire, we'd all be in grave danger. Mikhail loves him. We both do. That's why we decided to try for a baby now rather than later. To produce a lifemate for him. Carpathians never have female children anymore. No one knows why, but the children that are born rarely survive the first year of life. Mikhail and Gregori both believe a human lifemate can produce them a female child, and I guess they're right, since Gregori says this child is a girl. He would know."
"That's why my father wanted a female child so much. My mother never got to tell him she was pregnant, but in her diary she said he had been disappointed when Noelle gave birth to a male child."
"I met your father briefly," Raven said softly. "He was very distraught over Noelle's murder. He wanted to hunt the assassins, but Mikhail told him it was too dangerous, he was too involved. He was sent to sleep for several years."
"He just went to sleep?" Shea was furious for no reason she could actually name. To think of the man sleeping while his wife lay murdered, his mistress pregnant and alone, and some one else raising his son, made her very angry. She had a feeling she would not like her father very much.
"You need to understand these people, Shea, the kind of power they carry, the kind of devastation they're capable of. They can command the land, cause an earthquake that could destroy whole cities. Control is a huge issue with them at all times. Someone like Gregori is a time bomb. He knows it, Mikhail knows it, all of us do. Rand was so distraught, he was dangerous to everyone around him. Mikhail did what he thought was right for the protection of humans and Carpathians alike. Rand obeyed because Mikhail is their chosen leader. He never seemed very attached to anyone, least of all his son. Even now, he is a loner rarely seen. He spends most of his time in the ground."
"And Rand neglected to say anything about my mother to anyone," Shea said bitterly. "My mother's life was destroyed. He could have prevented that."
"I'm sorry, it must have been terrible for you growing up. If your mother was Rand's true lifemate, then she would have been unable to live without him. It is a bonding of the soul." Raven sighed, looked away from the distaste on Shea's face. "Noelle was not Rand's true lifemate. I would like to think she loved him, but by all accounts she was simply obsessed with him. I have no idea why Rand went along with it. Noelle was a foolish woman not to have waited for her true lifemate. Rand is a very good-looking man. She mistook lust for love."
"I have wanted to tell Rand what a worm he is from the first day I ever read my mother's diary. And I don't want to feel about Jacques the way she felt about Rand. Not to the extent that I would neglect a child, live as if I was already dead, just waiting until she was old enough to be on her own."
"Not everyone is strong, Shea," Raven counseled gently. "Look at how long Gregori has lasted without his lifemate. Mikhail and Jacques, Aidan and his brother Julian, have all lasted far longer than most of the others. There have been so many over the years that have turned, not strong enough to hold out. Why? Why Gregori and not this vampire? What happened to your mother would not happen to you because you are not the same person. You're very strong. And your mother had no way of knowing what was happening to her."
Shea paced the length of the room, suddenly restless. The conversation was giving her a knot in her stomach. Was Gregori really capable of creating an earthquake that could destroy cities? Keeping the unborn child safe was even more important than she'd thought. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives could depend on it. That was what Gregori was trying to convey to her. He needed this child in order to survive much longer without turning vampire.
"I'm sorry, Shea, you've been thrown into deep water and told to swim without a lesson. I wish I could help you," Raven said softly.
"I feel as if I've been afraid for so long now, I don't know any other way of life," Shea confided. "Jacques depends on me to keep him sane, and now all this is happening. I hope you're right, Raven. I hope I'm very strong."
Chapter Thirteen
Jacques reached the edge of the meadow at the timberline to find Mikhail pacing carefully across a patch of earth. "Wolf traps," he said tersely and continued his inspection.
"Watch for thin wires, perhaps not visible to our eyes," Jacques cautioned. "He must be able to do something to hide the wires from us."
Gregori's form shimmered into solidity. He stood very still, inhaling the early-morning air. "This is one giant trap, my friends. I am very uneasy finding only one human with Byron."
"If Byron is even inside," Jacques agreed. "Where are the others?"
"The vampire must be in the ground, away from the sun," Mikhail said. "There is nothing that could allow him to see the light of day once he has turned."
"So where is the human's partner?" Jacques asked aloud.
Mikhail shrugged uneasily. "I suggest we approach soundlessly and invisible to the human eye.
"Spread out so we can help one another should there be need."
"The wire." Gregori's voice was a mere thread of sound. "It is strung crisscrossed throughout the meadow at various heights. A thin, garrote-like affair meant to slice through the throat, but also hung in such a way as to cut us in many places, making us weak. Obviously no thought was given to other humans or animals who might venture near this place." .
"Ah, yes, I see them now. Very clever, our vampire," Mikhail said. "We are definitely expected, though not, I should think, until tonight. Perhaps his human friends have gone for supplies, thinking they have the entire day to torment Byron without fear of interference."
"I do not know, Mikhail. Something here makes me uneasy," Gregori warned. "Something not quite right."
"I feel it also," Jacques agreed, "although I cannot explain what it is exactly. It is as if this is all prearranged, and we are walking into a spider's web. I know this place. I can feel the pain and torment as if it was happening all over again." And he was, his insides writhing and his gut clenching. It was difficult to maintain his outward calm when his flesh crawled and pain tore at him, splintering his mind so that he didn't know what was real and what was part of his never-ending nightmare.
"Perhaps you are feeling Byron's pain," Mikhail suggested with concern. Jacques' face remained impassive, but the lines in his skin deepened, and crimson smeared his forehead.
Jacques, are you hurt? I will come to you.
Shea's soft voice swirled in his mind, caught fragments of his thoughts and seemed to piece him back together. She was, as always, his one and only anchor to reality.
Stay there, but stay connected to me, Shea. Being so close to this place is disorienting me. I need you to keep me together.
He was begging, but Jacques had no choice. She was his lifemate, and her presence in his mind could mean the difference between success and failure to their mission. He did not want to be the cause of the others' deaths.
A grim smile touched Gregori's sensual mouth, his silver eyes humorless and pierced with dangerous light. "They mean to capture us, Mikhail. Us, the two most powerful-of our kind. Perhaps they need a real demonstration in power."
Jacques glanced at Mikhail uneasily. Maybe it was the way his body was remembering every burn, every slash. With age the pain became more intense, if one could feel. Unlike a vampire, a Carpathian was capable of tremendous sensation. Jacques had suffered what no man, human or Carpathian, should have endured. It wasn't even in the name of science, just a sadist bent on inflicting as much pain as possible.