“I’m going to tear out your heart, bitch,” Bobby screamed, bucking wildly. The branch creaked ominously. “What the hell are you anyway?”
She smiled up at him. “In some circles I’m known as the black widow.”
The two men gasped and rocked hard, bundled in their cocoons.
Trap came up behind her, his eyes as cold as ice as he surveyed her handiwork. He loomed over her, close. The heat of his body warmed her cool skin. She leaned back into him as his arms came around her.
“They like to kidnap people, honey,” she said softly. “Apparently your aunt wasn’t their only victim. They were easy though. Really easy. Made noise, weren’t in the least bit stealthy. Wyatt’s girls could have taken them.” She raised her eyes to the wriggling bodies. “The girls are toddlers, and they would have killed you both.” There was contempt in her voice and no mercy. She had none for them.
Trap was silent, staring at the two men who had helped to change the course of his life. He didn’t say a word to them because he had nothing to say. His uncles cursed and demanded, but as time stretched out and he continued to remain silent, their fear began to mount to terror – so much so that it was tangible.
“Drop the first one, baby,” he said, after watching the two men wear themselves out with struggling against their bonds. “Just looking at them makes me sick.”
She didn’t hesitate, but yanked Bobby’s anchor line. He fell hard, feet first, to the ground, broke through the thin crust, the force of his fall taking him all the way to his chest. Mud covered the silk and splashed up, thick and nasty, smearing his face. Water leached to the surface, and his eyes widened with terror.
“Trap. Get me out of this.” Bobby didn’t have the use of his hands. Entirely helpless, the water and mud sucked at his body, slowly pulling him deeper. “Trap. Come on, get me out.”
Richard had stopped moving, staring at his brother with horrified eyes as more water seeped to the surface and Bobby slipped deeper until his shoulders were mostly in the mud and the water splashed up his neck and into his mouth.
“Richard,” he called. “Do something.”
“Richard has a little problem of his own,” Cayenne said. “I don’t think he’s going to be thinking too much about helping you, Bobby.”
She cut the anchor on Richard’s silk casing, and he dropped like a stone, much as his brother had. He went into the thick, greedy mud up to his waist. Water leaked all around and took him down at a much more rapid speed than his brother. The two men stared at each other in utter horror. Helpless. Like their victims. They were unable to do anything at all – the water kept rising, and the mud continued to suck them deeper.
Trap watched without changing expression as first their chins went under and then their mouths. Noses went next. Eyes disappeared. Eventually even the top of their heads vanished beneath the surface. An alligator bellowed again, and another one answered. The barred owl gave its low, mournful hoot.
“Funny to think, after all this time, they’re really gone out of my life and with no real fuss. Just gone. Done.” Trap tightened his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “I expected to feel something.”
“Like what?”
“Remorse. Triumph. I don’t know. That what we were doing was wrong, but I was going to do it anyway.” He nuzzled his chin through the silk of her hair. “I don’t feel it was wrong. I feel good. Like I can breathe easy for the first time in years.”
She tipped her head up and looked at him over her shoulder. “Let’s go home, honey. I want a bath. A long one. Maybe a soak in the hot tub with you. I haven’t tried that yet.”
He dropped his arms from around her waist so he could thread his fingers through hers. They turned back to their house, walking close, hand in hand. Neither looked back. Neither thought about the two men who had died hard, sucking mud and water into their lungs.
“I’m all for that, baby, but I would like a repeat performance with those silks of yours. That was so fucking hot.”
She laughed softly. “I told you you’d like my ideas.”
“You were right.” Trap brought his wife’s hand up to his mouth, turned it over and kissed her wrist. “I’m man enough to admit that, babe.”
“Oh, no, look.” She held out her arm – the one she deliberately snagged on brush. There was a faint red line about two inches long. “I got a scratch. I’m in so much trouble, aren’t I?”
She laughed again, the sound like music, mingling with the rhythm of the swamp at night. Trap’s heart jerked hard in his chest. His cock did the same. He found himself smiling and happy – actually at peace – contented as they made their way home.
Keep reading for an excerpt from
the next exciting Carpathian novel
by Christine Feehan
Dark Promises
Available March 2016
from Piatkus!
“J
oie, can you believe this night?” Gabrielle Sanders stared out the window at the stars scattered across the sky. The night was almost a navy blue with so many stars overhead it would be impossible to count them. The moon was rising, a beautiful half crescent of shining light. “It’s perfection. Everything I dreamt of.”
Her wedding night. She’d dreamt of it for so long. At last, this was the evening she’d waited for and the weather was cooperating, just as if it knew she was marrying the man of her dreams.
“We’ve got to get you ready, Gabby,” Joie answered. “Come back here. I need to make certain you have everything you need and give you the ‘talk.’”
Gabrielle turned back with a short laugh. “I’m marrying Gary, Joie, the love of my life. I certainly don’t need the ‘talk.’ I love Gary Jansen with every breath in my body,” Gabrielle Sanders whispered as her sister smoothed a hand down the filmy ivory and lace gown and stepped back to survey her handiwork.
“Daratrazanoff,” Joie corrected, a hint of worry in her voice. “You still persist in acting as if you’re human, Gabrielle. You aren’t. Neither is Gary. Both of you are fully Carpathian. When Gary rose Carpathian, he rose as a true Daratrazanoff. He’s from one of the most powerful lineages the Carpathian people have. You can’t pretend he isn’t.”
“He’s still Gary,” Gabrielle protested gently. She took both of her sister’s hands in hers. “Be happy for me. Truly, I’ve never been happier than this night. We’ve waited so long to be together.”
“I am happy for you,” Joie said immediately, smiling at her sister. “You look so beautiful. Like a princess.”
Gabrielle looked at herself in the mirror. Her dress was exactly right. The perfect fit, a lovely fall to her ankles, swirling around her so that she appeared to be ethereal. She loved the square lace neckline and the fitted bodice showing off her small waist. She was tall enough to pull off elegant, and the gown did just that.
Joie didn’t understand. None of them did. Only Gary. He knew. He saw inside of her. Way down deep where no one else had ever looked.
“Joie, I’m not like you or Jubal,” she admitted, referring to her brother. “I’m not a woman who craves adventure. I’m not a warrior who wants to go fight the injustices of the world. I’m just Gabrielle. No one special, but I like my life simple. Peaceful. I like to sing when I wake up and hum all day long. I like picnics. Horses. Galloping across the fields and jumping over tree trunks and streams. I love sitting on a porch swing and talking quietly with someone I love. That someone is Gary.”
“Oh, Gabby.” Joie put her arms around Gabrielle. “I didn’t realize you’ve been so unhappy. You have, haven’t you?”
Gabrielle hugged Joie back, feeling lucky to have a sister and brother who loved her so much. She felt their love at all times. Their support. More than anything, she wanted Joie’s support now in the biggest moment of her life.
“I don’t fit in this world, Joie,” she said gently, trying to find a way to carefully explain. Joie pulled back and looked at her with liquid eyes. Gabrielle’s heart beat louder. She didn’t want to hurt her sister, but she wanted to be honest. “I like to observe people from a distance, not be in the middle of some kind of crazy battle between vampires and shifters. I didn’t even know there were such things as shifters or vampires in the world. Carpathians. Lycans. Mages. Jaguars. It’s all crazy, like a mad nightmare, Joie. Violence and war aren’t big on my agenda. In fact, the entire Carpathian way of life is totally foreign to my nature.”
She had, thankfully, never heard of Carpathians when she was growing up. And she’d always thought vampires were a myth. She still wished she thought that. Carpathians never killed for blood, but they slept in the rejuvenating ground, couldn’t be in the sunlight and existed on blood. They hunted the vampire who lived to kill their victims.
Gabrielle gave a little shiver. She’d had enough of battles. Of wars. Of seeing someone she loved – such as Gary – nearly lose his life when it wasn’t even his fight. She had nearly lost him. Gregori had converted him, bringing him fully into the Carpathian world – as if they hadn’t already brought him there.
Gary had somehow become an integral part of Carpathian life, so essential to them that even the prince sought his opinion on matters Carpathian. Gregori, second to the prince, was always with Gary now. It wasn’t as if Gary was born a Daratrazanoff. He was born Gary Jansen, a genius, off-the-charts intelligent; a tall, thin reed of a man with glasses and a thirst for knowledge. A geek. Like her.
Now he was a tall, completely filled-out, walking warrior. He went into battles without flinching. Even before Gregori had converted, he had. She’d watched him slowly change from her nerdy geek to a completely different man as the Carpathians put more and more demands on him.
Joie moved to a chair as if Gabrielle were delivering a terrible blow, and she probably was. She hadn’t told anyone but Gary her true feelings. Her beloved Gary. He was quiet and solid. He could always,
always
be counted on. Everyone counted on him, but especially Gabrielle.
She kept trying to make her sister understand. “Joie, you and Jubal belong in the Carpathian world. I don’t. I don’t even want to be here. Not anymore.”
Joie inhaled sharply. “Gabby…”
Gabrielle shook her head. This had to be said. She wanted Joie to understand just what Gary meant to her. What he’d been for her in the past and what he would be in her future. “I hope, after tonight, after I marry Gary, we’ll go away together and live in a beautiful little house. Nothing big. Nothing fancy. Just small and snug and filled with love. That’s it. That’s my dream. Gary and my little house tucked away someplace where there are no such things as vampires, and women carry their children to full term and give birth to healthy, happy babies. No wars. Just peace and happiness.”
There, she’d said it. That was the strict truth and Joie needed to know how she truly felt.
Joie’s eyebrows came together as she frowned. “You mean you want to move away from here? Where your laboratory is set up? You love working here. You want to move away from the Carpathian Mountains? From the prince? From Gregori?”
Gabrielle straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “
Especially
away from the prince and Gregori.”
Joie shook her head, looking shocked.
“I don’t belong in the Carpathian world, I just don’t. Only Gary seems to understand that about me. He doesn’t mind that I’m not a fierce warrior woman. The thing is, Joie, I don’t
want
to be different. I’m a book person. I like to live quietly.”
“Gabrielle, you are so far off track about yourself and Gary. Where is this coming from? You love adventures. You’ve gone ice climbing with me and Jubal a million times. You’ve gone caving. Hiking in remote countries.”
Gabrielle nodded. “I went caving because you and Jubal did, and I enjoy spending time with you, but I don’t live for adventures in the way you do. I’m really a homebody.”
“Are you crazy, Gabby? You’re a genius who thrives on studying hot viruses. Newsflash, sister. Studying that kind of virus without a way to fight it can get you killed. If you didn’t like adventure you would never, under any circumstances, study them.”
“You fight the world’s injustices your way, and I fight them mine. Viruses make sense to me. I can solve the puzzle and try to help with things like finding a way to stop the Ebola virus from being let loose on the world. Vampires make no sense. None.” She gave a little shudder. Joie would never understand that she escaped into a lab, that once she focused on whatever she was studying, everything around her disappeared and she didn’t have to think about anything else at all.
“You have crazy, mad skills in a lab, Gabby,” Joie said. “You’re a genius, it isn’t just Gary. He isn’t smarter than you.”
“Actually he is. Most men bore me silly after two minutes alone in their company. I can talk to Gary for hours. More, I can just listen to him when he talks to others. He’s brilliant. He’s also the kindest, sweetest man I know.”
Joie shook her head. “He’s a Daratrazanoff. Every bit of power, of knowledge, their blood, their ancestors, all of it was given to him in the cave of warriors. You know that. You were there. He was powerful before, Gabby. He’s even more so now.”
Gary always took the backs of the hunters and he’d never let any of them down during a battle, not once. Gabrielle knew it because when he’d nearly died, their best hunters came in to give blood and to pay their respects. She knew it because Gregori Daratrazanoff had made him his brother, his own flesh and blood. The power of the Daratrazanoff family ran in his veins. Was in his heart and soul. Was there, in his mind.
Okay, she had to admit to herself she shied away from the sheer power there at times, but still, he was always her Gary. Gentle and kind with her. Seeing her when others couldn’t – or wouldn’t. She’d tried to tell Joie and Jubal that she was different, not at all wild or willful, but they laughed and said she didn’t know herself very well.
Maybe she didn’t. But she knew what she wanted – what she’d always wanted – and that was Gary. “I don’t care what his last name is, or whose blood runs in his veins, he’s
mine
,” she declared firmly. “He’s always been mine and I want him back. His life shouldn’t be fighting vampires. He’s such a genius and I miss him in the laboratory. I want him back there. Once we’re married and we find a home, we can set up a lab and he can research solutions to all the Carpathians’ problems
away
from the Carpathian Mountains and vampires and anything else that is monstrous.”