Shea fought the compelling voice, a weaver of spells. “I want to leave. You can’t keep me here.” Jacques, please, don’t do this. Don’t make me stay when we know it’s impossible for me. You know me, know me inside and out.
Stop it, Shea,Jacques pleaded with her, knowing he was holding on to his intellect and reason by a thread. Nothing has changed.
Everything has changed. These people are your family.She tried to take a deep, calming breath. Jacques, I was your doctor, nothing more. I don’t belong here. I don’t know how to live like this.
You are my lifemate.Thewords were firm in her head. You are tired, my love, tired and afraid. You have every right to be. I know that. I know I frightened you, but you belong with me.He did his best to keep his voice a soft whisper of sense, but it was difficult with the beast rising and the fragments in his brain confusing him.
She lay looking up at his strong, harsh, uncompromising features, the warning in his furious eyes. I don’t even know what it means to be your lifemate, Jacques. You know I want the best for you, I want you well and whole again, but I can’t be with all these people. I need time to sort out what’s happened here. What I am. I can hardly breathe right now, let alone think things through.
She was telling the truth. Merged as he was with her, Jacques could feel the familiar pattern in her brain, her intellect leaping forward to protect her from any overwhelming emotion. She was too tired and drained to succeed at her attempt. He struggled once again to reassure her. You are my lifemate. It means we belong together, never apart.
She shook her head adamantly. “No way.” Her enormous eyes jumped to the others. All at once they looked sinister, beings too powerful for their own good. “I want to leave this place.” It was somewhere between a demand and a plea for help. Instinctively she looked toward Mikhail. His fingerprints were on her swollen throat. She had saved his brother’s life. He owed her.
Raven tightened her fingers around Mikhail’s, feeling his tension, his indecision. Clearly the woman was asking for help, and Mikhail could do no other than offer his protection. But Jacques was already warning them off, a low growl rumbling in his throat. He sensed Shea was looking to the others for assistance, and it triggered his predatory instincts. At once he was dangerous, violence swirling close to the surface, aggressive toward Shea, clearly demanding submission.
Byron nearly leapt forward, but a show of Jacques’ gleaming fangs held him motionless. He glared at Mikhail. “I told you she had not chosen. Take her from him. She must be protected.” Hope was shining in his eyes.
“Jacques.” Gregori’s voice was pure black velvet, a caressing, compelling tone impossible to ignore. “The woman is overwhelmed. She needs rest, a healing sleep. Both of you should go to earth.”
Shea’s heart nearly stopped. She shoved hard at Jacques’ immovable chest, caught the picture of the earth opening, accepting them. Buried alive. A scream of alarm caught in her throat. She flung herself off the bed in an attempt to get away.
Jacques caught both fragile wrists, pinned her to the mattress. Do not fight me, Shea, there is no way to win.Jacques struggled to stay in control. Shea was trembling, her mind filled with fear of him and what he was, what he represented. The loss of freedom, the horror of being a vampire preying on human victims for sustenance as portrayed in old novels, the terror of ever needing a man the way her mother had—to survive.
“Take her from him,” Byron demanded.
Jacques turned his head, eyes glittering like black ice. His voice was hoarse, a growling representation of his long-silent vocal cords. He made a supreme effort to stay in control for Shea’s sake. She had been there for him; he had to do the same for her. “No one will take her from me and live.”
There was no doubt he meant it. Shea lay shocked, unable to absorb that he had spoken aloud. There would be a bloody war here, and someone would die. Please, Jacques, please let me go. I can’t live like this.There were tears in her eyes, tears in his heart.
Jacques tried to reach her, calm her with his mind, but she was panic-stricken, too petrified to think.
“Send her to sleep. She is weak and worn. You must care for her health.” Gregori’s voice was always the same, as pure as the sound of crystal-clear water running over rocks.
“No!” Gregori frightened her more than anything. She was always in control. Always. No one had ever taken her decisions out her hands, not even her mother. She just needed to be alone, have time to think. Shea struggled in desperation against Jacques’ hold “Let me go!”
The purity of Gregori’s voice was finding threads of fragments in Jacques’ head, weaving them together. Shea was so frightened, small, and vulnerable lying beneath him, pinned helplessly. It is all right, my love.Jacques bent his dark head and kissed her temple. You will sleep and heal. I will ensure that you come to no harm. In this you can trust me.The command was firm and strong. He heard the echo of her anguished cry in his mind fading as she succumbed to his order.
Chapter Eight
The storm moved in slowly, blanketing the land in a peculiar, dreary drizzle. All day it blotted out any chance of sunshine and hid the mountain range in sheets of silvery rain and a shroud of thick fog. In an abandoned shack, three men huddled by the fire and tried to escape the water leaking through the cracks in the roof.
Don Wallace sipped at the scalding-hot coffee and stared uneasily out the window into the gathering dusk. “Unusual weather for this time of year.” His eyes met the older man’s in a long, knowing stare.
Eugene Slovensky hunched his shoulders against the cold and regarded his nephew with reproach. “The weather is like this when the land is unsettled. How could you allow the woman to slip through your fingers, Donnie?”
“Well, you had her when she was a mere baby,” he retorted. “You let her escape you then. You couldn’t even trace her mother between Ireland and America. I was the one who did that, nearly twenty years later. Don’t act like I’m the only one who bungled this.”
The older man glared at him. “Don’t take that tone with me. Things were different all those years ago. We didn’t have the advantages of all the modern technology you have now. Maggie O’Halloran had people help her escape with her little demon whelp.” He sighed and glanced once more out the window at the fog and rain. “Do you have any idea the risk we’re taking coming into their territory?”
“I believe I was the one who tracked and killed those vampires we got a few years back while you stayed safe in Germany,” Don snapped, irritated.
“You weren’t very discriminating about who you marked as vampire, Don,” Eugene pointed out waspishly. “You enjoyed yourself whenever the mood struck you.”
“I was the one taking the risks. I should be allowed to have some fun,” Don snapped back. “Well, this time concentrate on why we’re here. This is dangerous work.”
Don’s eyes flattened, hardened. “I was with you when we found Uncle James’s body, remember? Happy fifteenth birthday, Donnie. Instead of a real live vampire to stake, I get my uncle’s body buried in a pile of rubble. I know how dangerous it is.”
“Never forget that sight, boy, not ever,” Eugene cautioned. “Twenty-five years it’s been, and we still don’t have his murderers.”
“At least we made them pay,” Don pointed out.
Eugene’s eyes burned. “Not nearly enough. It will never be enough. We have to wipe them out. All of them. Wipe them out.”