“W-what?” Raven croaked.
He pushed her away with such force that she fell back and hit the concrete, scraping her hands and elbows as she tried to break her fall.
His eyes, thin slits, glared at her with a violent force. The searing heat bore into her skin. His magick was at work. “Your fate is sealed now. Get her in the plane. If she so much as flinches, change her to Lamai and we’ll watch her die.” Laroque’s angry aura lingered in the air like a foul stench.
Raven’s mind raced. It was clear he’d somehow found out Jade was indeed a Lamai now, and Raven was responsible. It must have taken even longer than she’d anticipated for Jade to go through the transformation. The blood transfusion. Otherwise Laroque would have known already that his daughter was not the same young woman. Raven’s blood had caused Jade’s wounds to heal immediately, so there were no puncture marks on her neck or wrists.
Oddly, Raven experienced a certain feeling of calm. She stood, wiped her hands on her jeans and followed Mick to the seaplane.
“You did it, didn’t you?” Mick asked, his voice a low rumble. “That’s why you saved Laroque, because of what you did to his daughter. Damn, girl, you really pissed him off now. He was seriously considering allowing you to live and work with him. I don’t know what he’s going to do now.” Mick shook his head. “Is there a way to change her back to human? I mean, with all your DNA and RNA experiments, is it possible?” he asked as he led her to her seat.
Raven looked at the hulking man next to her. She was beginning to see why he’d gotten into the healthcare field. He truly cared about people. “No. No way to reverse the effects-at least, not without magick.”
“You’re fucked, honey,” he whispered.
“I know.” She paused then started her own inquiry. “How did you become Lamai?”
“I was born a Lamai.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
The rest of the passengers, which included a few of Laroque’s cronies along with the strange man to whom Laroque had been talking, sat in their seats. It was a large amphibious plane, and Raven could still carry on her conversation with Mick without Laroque overhearing-that was, if she spoke softly.
She whispered, “What did you do for blood?”
“Animals, mostly, then, as I got older and went to school for nursing, I had a connection in Hematology-a fellow vampire.”
“Love those friends with access to blood,” she commented.
“Raven, what are you going to do? He’s planning on taking you back to Mirabelle Cove. That’s where we’re headed now. He hasn’t told me anything else.”
“What can I do?”
“He’s got to be planning something big to take place at the ritual. That can work in your favor. At least there you’ve got an island full of friends who are on your side,” Mick whispered.
Raven held her head in her hand. “Yeah and do what? We don’t know anything for sure, except that he wants me dead.”
“Are you certain? Maybe he wants to torture your father a while. Do you think he would jeopardize his relationship with Jade?”
“I don’t know anything at this point.”
“You can’t give up,” Mick said.
“If it’s my time to die, then I accept that.” Sadness wrapped itself around her like the suffocating humid air outside the plane.
Mick tensed, but he kept his voice low. “You’re giving up on a life with the man you sacrificed everything for and are just going to crawl into a ball and wither away?”
“Mick, I gave up my birthright as a Lamai. I’m mortal and eventually I’ll die. Bo will live well beyond my life span. Why should I shackle him to a woman who’s going to age and die?”
Mick sighed, shaking his head. “I guess you don’t think too much of your man, then. Is he that shallow? From what I’ve heard about him, he’s not that kind of guy, and you know it.”
She bit the inside of her cheek to tamp down her anger. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’ve made up my mind. I want him to be happy and he won’t be happy for long with me. Trust me, what we had is gone.”
The plane started its engines and slowly gained speed as it moved out into open water. Soon they were airborne.
Laroque sat in his seat at the front of the plane and thought of the many ways he could kill Raven. The most appropriate would be for Jade to turn her. But he couldn’t do that to his daughter. It would be just, but it would be much too cruel for Jade to have her sister’s death on her conscience.
He could infect her with the Ebola Zaire virus, which was the deadlier strain. No one knew Laroque had gotten his hands on it. A Russian scientist supplied him with the virus. There would be a ninety-percent chance of fatality upon infection, and since Raven had just transformed to human, her immune system would be no match for the killer virus. Its capacity to spread was too unpredictable, though, and as much as he wanted revenge, he did not want to kill innocents.
Then, out of nowhere, the answer appeared as he gazed toward the window and over to his longtime friend, Henri.
The dam of Bo’s emotions was collapsing as he stood at the docks of Garrison Bight Marina in Key West. He knelt to the ground and caught the scent of Raven’s blood where Laroque had pushed her. His hackles rose, and he felt the calling of his wolf counterpart to go after her and bring her home, to claim her once more as his mate.
Her essence oozed with fear. Her scent burned his nasal passages. His fists clenched, and he let out a howl of pain and misery. A growl emanated from deep within his soul, and thoughts of his beloved swirled within his heart and mind. Bo’s fingers clenched at the spot where traces of her blood and skin lay. He began to shimmer, wanting desperately to morph and pursue her.
“I’ve failed her!” he cried out. “She saved my life, and I cannot even find her!”
In a flash, he was a black wolf, growling and snarling, relentlessly sniffing the small patch of blood. Laroque’s scent was in the air as well, and Bo turned his gaze upon Jade. Still snarling, he circled her. She carried an aroma similar to that of her father. Bo found it harder and harder to keep from lunging at her and tearing out her throat.
“Bo!” Tobias commanded attention, standing between Bo and Jade. “It’s not her fault. She’s trying to help us. Don’t let your anger for her father cloud your judgment. It will not get us any closer to Raven.”
Bo continued to growl.
He knew that with a flick of his arm Tobias could send him clear across the pavement and into the water or squish him like he was a tiny bug. He also realized Tobias would resort to that treatment only if he attacked. Bo was operating on pure adrenaline and raw emotion.
Jade stood behind Tobias, visibly afraid of what would happen if the large black wolf lunged at her. He was strong. And he had Raven’s blood coursing through his veins.
But then again, so did she.
“No sudden movements,” Tobias warned her. “He’s lost in his emotions and grieving. He’s acting totally on instinct now.”
Jade slowly knelt so she would be at eye level with the wolf. Her eyes flashed for a second to their preternatural state.
“I want to find her, too. After all these years, I want to get to know my sister. Really know her, not just through her blood memories. You don’t think this is tearing me apart? This is my father we’re talking about. To me, he was never a monster. I don’t want to lose the opportunity to know my sister. She’s the only other family I have. And when I think about Frank’s betrayal…I’m hurting, too.”
The wolf turned away, looked toward the water and let out a heart-wrenching cry. In an instant, he shimmered back into his human form, clothes and all. He wiped the tears from his eyes.
“I love her more than I can express in words. I feel like my heart’s been gutted out of me. If I can’t find her soon…”