"We were given a choice. All warriors were told of what was to come and how we were needed. We could have stayed, but honor would never have allowed that. Our family was considered as having among the best fighting skills."
"But you could have," she said, persisting. "Your fighting skills must have been needed there as well."
"Considering what happened, yes," Manolito agreed.
For the first time he tasted bitterness on his tongue. They had agreed to go when the prince had put out the call to his oldest warriors, thinking, believing, the prince knew the future, knew what was best for his people. When the ranks thinned and their enemies moved in the prince had aligned himself with humans. All had been lost when they had tried to protect their human allies.
Centuries later, now, when he could once again feel, he was still angry over that decision, still disagreeing and not understanding how Vlad could have made such a mistake. Had sentiment overruled reason? If so, no De La Cruz would ever make such a mistake.
"You're angry," she said, feeling the waves of his antagonism washing over her.
He turned around to lean his hip against the railing. "Yes. I had no idea I was angry with him, but yes, I am. After hundreds of years, I still blame the prince for going into a battle they couldn't win."
"You know that wasn't what decimated your people," she pointed out as gently as possible. "You said yourself, as young as you were, growing up, you noticed the lack of women, and babies weren't surviving then. The changes were already happening."
"No one wants to think their species is slated by nature, or by God, for extinction."
"Is that what you think?"
"I do not know what I think, only what I would have done. And I would not have taken our people into that battle."
"How would the outcome have been any different?"
" Vlad would still be alive," Manolito said. "He would not be among the fallen. We would not be left adrift with so few women and children the sheer odds make it impossible to keep our people alive. Add to that our enemies, and we are lost."
"If you believe that, why did you save Mikhail's life? I heard about it, of course. Everyone was talking about what you did for him in the caves when he was attacked. If you don't believe he's capable of leading the Carpathian people, why risk your life for his? Why die for him? Especially if you had already seen me and knew you had a lifemate. Why would you bother?"
He folded his arms across his chest and looked down at her from his superior height, a frown on his face. "It is my duty."
"Manolito, that is ridiculous. You aren't a man to blindly follow someone you don't believe in. You may have questioned your prince's decision, but you believed in him, and you must believe in his son or you would never have gone into battle with him, pledged your allegiance to him or given your life for his."
"I did much more than question my prince's decisions," he said.
She watched the shifting of shadows across his face, the flicker of torment in the depths of his eyes. Now they were getting somewhere. Now he was going to reveal his deepest guilt. She knew what he was going to say before he said it, because his mind was deeply merged with hers and she could see the guilt there, the fear that he had betrayed a prince he admired, deeply respected and even loved.
He didn't see it that way, and that fascinated her. He didn't realize how much he admired Vlad Dubrinsky and how upset he had been at the prince's ultimate defeat and death at the hands of their enemy. More importantly, he didn't realize that his anger was at himself, for going, for choosing to fight in a remote land for people who cared nothing for the Carpathians.
"I betrayed Vlad every time I sat down with my brothers and questioned his judgments and decisions. Riordan and I told you some of it earlier, but it was a very watered-down version of our talks. We made an art of it. Picking apart the prince's every command and examining it from every angle. We believed he should listen to us, that we knew more than he did."
"You were young, not yet grown and still able to feel emotion." She knew that much because his emotions then had been very strong. He had felt superior, both physically and intellectually, to many of the other fighters. His brothers had all been the same, and they enjoyed their debates on how best to serve their countrymen, how best in steer the Carpathian people through the perils of each new century. "Was it betrayal, Manolito, in your hearts and minds, when you debated, or was it merely trying to discuss ways to better the lives of your people?"
"It may have started that way." He pushed both hands through his hair. "I know we clearly saw the fate of our people when few others could see the future. We did not need to have precognition, only our brains, and it was irritating that others could not see what we saw."
"Did the prince listen? You must have gone to him."
"As head of our family, Zacarias did. Of course he listened. Vlad listened to everyone. He led us, but he always allowed the warriors to speak in counsel. We may have been young, but he respected us."
MaryAnn watched the raw emotions chase across his face. Manolito faced vampires and mages with poisoned knives stoically, his features stone, yet now he was upset, his past too close to the surface. She wanted him to understand that the boyhood memory wasn't one of betrayal. She sought the right words, the right feelings…
Do not! The command was sharp and pushed at the walls of her mind. "I do not deserve the warmth you send to me. Nor do I deserve the feelings you are trying to plant in my memories."
She blinked at him, shocked that he would think she would try to plant anything in anyone's mind.
"We came up with a plan, MaryAnn. In our arrogance and superiority, in our belief that we knew more than any other, we came up with a plan to not only destroy the Dubrinsky family, but all enemies of the Carpathian people. The Carpathians would rule all species. And the plan was not only brilliant and possible, but it is being used against our prince as we speak."
His voice broke on the last word, and he hung his head in shame.
Chapter Fourteen
MaryAnn took several breaths, unable to see into his mind. She didn't know if she had pulled away or if he had, but she could only stare at him in disbelief. Manolito De La Cruz was loyal to Mikhail Dubrinsky. She had seen his heroism. She could see the scar on his throat where he had nearly been killed. It took a great deal to kill a Carpathian, but someone had managed to do so while he had been protecting the prince. She would not believe even for one moment that he was involved in a plot to destroy the Dubrinsky family.
"I don't understand your thinking, Manolito. My friends and I talk politics all day and we often don't agree with our government, but that doesn't mean we are traitors to our country or people."
Enclosed as she was inside the bubble preventing sound from escaping, MaryAnn couldn't hear the birds or insects. The silence seemed deafening. His misery was overwhelming. It was strange that she couldn't read his mind, yet she could feel his emotions, so strong and deep. The shame. The anger. The guilt. Even a sense of betrayal.
"Tell me." She made it a command this time. If she was his lifemate as he claimed, then he needed to share this with her. It was eating him alive, and she began to realize, as she watched him stare down at his hands in a kind of wonder, that at that moment, he was more in the realm of the other world than with her.
She caught his hand and tugged until he sank beside her on the cushion of flowers. "Manolito. This is destroying you. You have to resolve it."
"How does one resolve betrayal?"
She tightened her fingers around his. "Did you set out to make a plan to overthrow your prince?"
"No!" His denial was instant and strong.
And the truth. She could hear the ring of honesty in his voice.
"Not my brothers and certainly not me. We were just talking, complaining perhaps, debating certainly. But that was all." He dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his temples as if they were aching. "I honestly do not know how we began to flesh out the details. I do not know how or why an actual
plan to overthrow our prince began, but later, when we were angry, we spoke of it for real."
Ever since his brother Rafael had killed Kirja Malinov, he had tried to remember. All of his brothers had tried to remember. At first they sat quietly around a campfire debating the pros and cons of all decisions Vlad had made. "There was only one other family with children as close together as ours: the Malinovs. When our mother gave birth, so did theirs. We grew up together, my brothers and the Malinovs. We played together as children, fought together as men. The bond between our families was so close. We were different from other Carpathians. All of us. Maybe because we had been born close together. Most Carpathian children are born at least fifty years apart. Perhaps there is a reason for that."
"Different in what way?"
He shook his head. "Darker. Faster. Stronger. The ability to learn to kill came too fast, long before we were out of our normal childhood. We were rebellious." He sighed and leaned over to rub his chin in the wealth of her hair, needing the feeling of closeness. "The Malinov brothers were lucky. There was a beautiful female child born to their family about fifty years after Maxim—the youngest boy—was born. Unfortunately, their mother did not survive long after the birth and their father followed her into the next world. The ten of us became her parents."
She felt the sorrow in him, sorrow that hadn't dimmed through the centuries in spite of the intervening years when he could no longer feel emotion. It was still there, eating at him, tightening his chest, roiling in his gut, choking him until he could barely breathe with it. She saw a child, tall, gleaming black hair, straight and thick, flowing like water down to a small waist. Huge, bright eyes, emeralds shining from a sweet face. A mouth made for laughter, nobility in every line of her body.
"Ivory," Manolito whispered her name. "She was as much ours as theirs. She was bright and happy and caught on to everything so fast. She could fight like a warrior, yet use her brain. There wasn't a student that could outthink her."
"What happened to her?" Because that, after all, was what had led up to the bitterness she often sensed in Manolito's mixed emotions toward his prince.
"She wanted to go to the school of mages. She was certainly qualified. She was bright enough and could weave magic that few could break. But we, all of us, her brothers and my brothers, didn't allow her to go unescorted anywhere. She was a young woman and chafed under ten brothers telling her what to do. It didn't matter to us; we wanted to see her safe. We should have seen her safe. She was the beauty that we were fighting for, striving to protect. Her laughter was so contagious that even the hunters who'd long ago lost their emotions had to smile when she was around."
He pressed her hand to his heart so hard she could feel it pounding in her palm. "We forbade her to go to the school and study with the mages until we could go with her and see to her protection. Everyone knew our wishes and should never have interfered. But, while we were away at a battle, she took her plea to the prince."
A shudder went through his body. He actually rocked his frame just once for comfort, but MaryAnn felt it and knew that the bite of sorrow was deeper than most would have conceived. Time certainly hadn't healed the wound. She wondered if the loss of emotion all those years kept the pain fresh, so that when the males could feel again, even past emotions were enhanced and vividly alive to them.
"The prince had no right to usurp our authority, but he did. Even knowing we had forbidden it, he told her she could go." His voice trailed off to a whisper, and he pressed her hand harder against his chest, as if to ease the terrible ache there.
"Why would he do that?"
"We believed that his oldest son, one we do not name, was already showing signs of illness. The Dubrinsky line holds the capacity for vast power, but with that comes the need for a vaster power to control it. Madness reigns if discipline does not. Vlad's eldest son had been looking at Ivory, though he was not her lifemate. We would have slain him had he touched her. The tension was becoming palpable every time he returned to our village. I myself pulled my blade on two occasions when he had cornered her near the market. It was strictly forbidden to touch a woman who was not your lifemate, yet there was no question it was in his mind to do so, given the opportunity."
"I thought Carpathian men didn't ever look at women other than their lifemates."
"When they are young, some do, and there is an illness in others, a need for power over the opposite sex, that taints them. It is a type of madness that often takes the very powerful. Our species is not without its anomalies, MaryAnn."
"Why wasn't he stopped?"
"I do not think many wanted to believe a son of the prince could have the sickness in his veins, but we knew it. Zacarias, my oldest brother, and Ruslan, the eldest Malinov, went to Vlad and told him of the danger to Ivory. The prince sent his son away, and there was peace for some time. Vlad's son was returning, and when Ivory asked tor permission to attend the school, it was an easy way for Vlad to get rid of an immediate problem. He thought, without her there, his son would be okay."
He ran his hand through his hair. "In truth, he knew better. Vlad should have come to terms with his son's illness and given the order to kill him. Without Ivory there, he had more time to study the matter and perhaps find a different resolution."
"So he allowed her to go."
"Yes. He sent her away without one of us to protect her. He neglected to send word to us, either, because he knew we would return at once."
She shifted, circling her arms around him to hold him close. "What happened?"
For one moment he dropped his head onto her shoulder, nuzzling his face against the warmth of her skin. He was cold and couldn't seem to get warm. With a small sigh of resignation, he forced his head up, forced himself to look her in the eye. "You are my lifemate. Destiny decreed what is between us. I am many things, MaryAnn, and know myself well. I will not let you go. You will have to learn to live with my sins, and I owe it to you to tell you the worst of it."
She kept her gaze fixed on his, reading more sorrow than betrayal. His love for Ivory had been strong, as had, she suspected, the others' in both families. With so few women, such strong, protective males would have felt it was their duty and pleasure to protect and serve that one small child. To fail must have been intolerable.
"When word came that a vampire had attacked and killed her, we were all devastated. Worse, we were in a killing rage. Ruslan and Zacarias for the first time were not the cool heads they always had been. They wanted to slay the prince. We all did. We blamed him for countermanding our orders and ultimately causing Ivory's death." Manolito slowly shook his head. "We could not find her body to even try retrieval from the shadow world, although any and all of us would have gladly followed her to make the attempt."
MaryAnn's heart jumped. The shadow world, land of mists, the place where the Carpathians went after death. Where Manolito still partially dwelled. "How can you follow someone to such a place?"
His gaze flickered. "Rumor was, only the greatest warriors or healers attempt such a feat, or a loved one—a lifemate—but any of us would have gladly gone. And obviously it can be done. Gregori did it and then you."
She hadn't realized what she was doing when she'd stepped into that other world. At times she still didn't want to believe it was real. "I didn't know what I was doing."
"Apparently it is dangerous to one who is not yet dead."
She sent him a small, reluctant smile. "Maybe it was a good thing I didn't know that. But none of you could follow her path, because you didn't have her body."
"If the spirit leaves the body, the body must be guarded until the spirit returns and enters it; otherwise our enemies can trap us in the other world for all time." He shrugged his shoulders. "Suffice it to say, only the dead go there. The reason must be great for a living person to attempt it."
"That's what Gregori and your brothers did, then. They followed you into the land of mists and shadows and brought your spirit back," MaryAnn reiterated, wanting to unders
tand. He was still partially there. If that was so, she had to find a way to bring him wholly into their world again. This was far beyond her realm of expertise.
"Yes, but we did not have that chance with Ivory. She was lost to us for all time, and we seriously began to question Vlad Dubrinsky's judgment. He had no right to interfere in family matters. It made no sense to us. If his son was mad and he did nothing, was it possible the madness was in him as well? The more we'd discussed what he'd done, the stronger our anger became. We began to think of ways to end his rule. One step led to the next. We realized the other species who were allied with us might fight with Dubrinsky to keep him as ruler, and the Carpathian people would be divided, so we figured out how to get rid of everyone else. The jaguar-men never stayed with their women. The women already were mating with humans and choosing to stay in that form. It wouldn't be difficult to turn the remaining women against their men and to capitalize on the brutality of the animal form."
"Which is what eventually happened."
He nodded. "Worse, MaryAnn, there is no hope of saving the jaguar race. Even if ten couples survived, it is too few to save them."
"Evolution may have played a larger part than you think. Because you spoke of a plan, one, by the way, you reasoned out intellectually by observing what was already happening, doesn't mean you had the responsibility of the destruction of the species. You aren't a god."
"No, but we did nothing to aid the jaguar in seeing their own destruction. We left them alone, and while we did, the Malinov brothers implemented the plan and helped to push the jaguars to their own extinction. If they have done that, what other parts of the plan have they begun?"
MaryAnn waited, watching the shadows chase across his face, watching him flex his fingers as though they were aching. There was a new note in his voice, the soft rumble of a growl, every bit as sexy as his hypnotic velvet voice, maybe more so. The notes played over her skin, making her feel edgy.
"The humans fear Carpathians because they fear vampires; The legends had to come from somewhere. Whispers and rumors of killings and the loathing and fear grew until the Carpathians were no longer allies of humans. We are now hunted and killed. And with the werewolf, the one ally that we knew had the power to stop us, it would be easy enough to do the same thing, to drive a wedge between the species, divide and conquer. The werewolves were elusive anyway, and driving them underground or secretly stamping them out by arranging killings would slowly dwindle their ranks as well. Eventually someone would have to step into the seat of power to clean up the mess."
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