She thought it was all Manolito. He didn’t know whether to laugh or simply grab MaryAnn and get out before she could find out he was a fraud. He needed to give Solange blood, and it would take strength to force her. He was already ravenous. And the bright colors around him were fading into much duller spectrums, as if he couldn’t keep his mind from wandering back to the land of shadows.
MaryAnn’s gaze collided with his, and for a moment he couldn’t move or breathe. She could never stop looking at him like that. The trust and belief, the absolute faith shining in her eyes, was a gift he would never forget. The shadows receded. “I need to give Solange blood. See if you can get her to accept what I offer. It will heal her faster and make her stronger. I will not exchange with her, merely give her enough to survive.”
He sounded so tired. The lines in his face were etched deep. She wanted to put her arms around him and hold him, comfort him, give him whatever he needed to help him continue. She read the determination in him.
“Hurry, Manolito. I know you’re tired, but Luiz can’t last much longer.”
His gaze flicked to the hand stroking Luiz’s furred head. For a moment a flicker of black jealousy raked at his gut. He tasted ashes in his mouth, and once again the shadows drew close. Faintly, he heard voices calling to him. Join us. Join us. Shaken, he touched MaryAnn’s mind and instantly found those fingers were really stroking his head; it was Manolito who consumed her thoughts. He sent her a quick smile before slashing his wrist and forcing the female jaguar to swallow his offering.
Jasmine made a small sound of distress and turned her head away.
“It is okay, little sister. She will not become anything else. Once she has enough of my blood mixing with hers, she will survive and be strong again,” he reassured her, his voice gentle.
“I know. I do, really. I just feel a little sick. Thank you for doing this. It can’t be easy. She may not show you appreciation, but what you’ve done matters,” Jasmine said.
“I do not need her appreciation. She is under the protection of our family, as are you, little sisar, and we would never let her die if we could save her.”
Manolito was matter-of-fact, uncaring of the cost to him. He worried more about the cost to MaryAnn. She would have to provide for him, and the innocent faith he read in her eyes might fade for all time. He couldn’t let himself think about that, or falter in his duty just to make his own life easier.
Solange was a family member, and as such was guarded with all care whether she wanted it or not. After this fiasco, Zacarias would issue a decree to the women and they would be forced to obey. He would want them close, where all the De La Cruz brothers and their people could help protect them.
He closed the wound on his wrist himself and turned his attention to Luiz. It took a little more effort to shed his body, as his hunger had built to an alarming need. He could scarce keep his teeth under control, and the scent of blood was a constant torment. The jaguar-man’s body was ripped to pieces, powerful jaws having cut through tissue and bone. Blood was filling the lungs, the man slowly dying. Even if he repaired the damage and gave Luiz blood, there would be no saving him.
Manolito came back to his own body and shook his head with regret. He respected Luiz. “I am sorry, päläfertiil, I cannot save him. It is a great loss to the jaguar people.”
“Of course you can save him. I talked to Gabrielle at great length when I was in the Carpathian Mountains. Do you remember her? She was working for the prince to try to come up with a solution for so many stillbirths. She was human. When her injuries were so severe, one of the men saved her life by converting her. You would have converted Solange had you needed to. I could read that in your mind.”
“That was different.” He was so weak, his body swaying. He blinked rapidly to stay focused, but his vision blurred. The moment it did, colors dimmed.
“How is it different? If Luiz is jaguar, he must be psychic. Isn’t the jaguar species the origin for a lot of the psychic abilities?”
“You do not understand.”
“What I understand is if Luiz was a woman with psychic ability, you would move heaven and earth to save her life. He’s a man, so he isn’t as valuable to you.”
The jaguar nuzzled MaryAnn’s hand. It is all right. I am tired.
“No,” Jasmine said suddenly. “Save him. He saved Solange. If he hadn’t come when he did, Solange would be dead, or those terrible men would have her. Please. If you are my brother as you say, I’m asking for this favor.”
Manolito closed his eyes briefly. “You do not know the heart of this man.”
“But you do,” MaryAnn said. “You drove the vampire from his mind. You saw his memories, saw what he was like. Is he worth saving?”
11
“You do not know what you are asking for him, MaryAnn. Longevity is not always a good thing. The life of a Carpathian male is extremely difficult. You may be asking for something he wouldn’t want.”
“Then ask him. Don’t let him die simply because he’s a man.”
Manolito sighed. She had a point, but then, she couldn’t know what it was like for a Carpathian male to know just how low the odds were of finding a lifemate. She hadn’t lived centuries alone.
“I’ll need to feed, MaryAnn. Are both of you willing to contribute? Because I cannot do this without blood.” He was desperate to feed. The world around him was fading fast. He was fading. When he looked down at his hands, they were gray and growing transparent.
MaryAnn looked at Manolito’s glittering eyes, saw the tiny red flames and felt her heart jump. She always forgot he wasn’t human, even when she was asking him to do things that weren’t at all human. She took a deep breath and nodded.
Manolito switched his attention to Jasmine. The girl sat on the floor, petting the spotted fur more to comfort herself than to keep Solange calm. “I think I can do it,” she agreed, without looking at him. “Tell me what to do.”
“Give me your hand.”
Jasmine slowly extended her arm. Manolito’s fingers settled around her like a vise. The whispers began in his head. Soft. Insidious. Temptation eating at him.
She gasped and tried to jerk away. “Wait. Wait. I forgot to tell you. I’m pregnant. Will this hurt my baby?”
Manolito dropped her hand as if she’d burned him. His gaze went obsidian black, his mouth set in a firm line. “You have no business offering blood, or fighting jaguars. No, I will not take your blood. You must take great care to guard the child.”
Before Jasmine could reply, Luiz gave a gasping wheeze and the jaguar shifted, bones crackling, body contorting as death reached for him.
MaryAnn gave a soft, alarmed cry and knelt, leaning over the broad chest to listen for a heartbeat. She immediately started CPR. “Do something, Manolito. You can’t just let him die.”
She had no idea what she was asking. The other world was so close. He was starved. Weary. Shadows moved everywhere in the room. MaryAnn looked at him with her wide, dark eyes, so trusting. She had so much faith in him. More than he had in himself with the whispers pushing at the back of his mind and his own body fading. He blinked and forced himself to focus.
Hear me, jaguar-man. I can make you Carpathian. You will never be jaguar, yet you will live and be able to shift. Know that this gift is a dark one. If you do not find the other half of your soul, you will eventually lose emotion and color and live only on memories. You will need blood to survive. You will have to live under the rule of our prince and pledge your allegiance and protection, your very life, to him and to our people. I will hold your life in my hands. I will be able to touch your mind at will and find you no matter where you are. If you betray us, I will kill you without remorse as quickly as possible. You have the choice of going to another place and seeking peace or remaining in this world and continuing your fight.
This was no small matter. He would forever be responsible for anything Luiz chose to do. It was an obligation few males wanted. They knew the risks, and knew what it was li
ke to hunt and kill former friends. He allowed Luiz into his memories, into that long, seemingly endless corridor of darkness. There could be no way to describe to the jaguar-man what it would be like; he could only show him the fading emotions, the centuries of hunting and waiting, relying only on honor and then memories of honor. He was as honest as he was able.
I have not yet finished my fight to save my people.
Luiz was far away, but he clung to life. Strangely, the further Luiz’s spirit retreated, the more clear the misty world around Manolito became. Voices grew louder. The room became still. Shadows with stretched skin and gaping mouths, with sharpened pegs for teeth, slithered across the walls and floor. Hunger burned and raked, clawing at every cell and organ in his body. He felt thin and stretched beyond endurance.
Manolito made an effort to concentrate only on Luiz. They will no longer be your people. Your blood will be Carpathian. Jaguar will avoid you. Be very certain you understand what you are getting into before you choose.
I cannot allow the vampire to continue to prey upon my people whether my blood is Carpathian or human or jaguar. We are all the same, struggling to find a life and live it well. I choose life.
It will be painful. Very painful.
And MaryAnn would be witness. How could it not scare her to death? Everything in him ached to stop, to take his lifemate and leave, but there was no doing so, not after merging so deeply with Luiz, knowing what kind of man he was and the hard fight he’d waged to save his people, to honor his women. Manolito could not abandon him to lamti ból jüti, kinta, ja szelem, the meadow of night, mists and ghosts, nor could he wait much longer or the man would be half-dweller, as Manolito was certain he was.
I choose life.
Manolito put a restraining hand on MaryAnn’s shoulder to stop her from continuing CPR. He simply took over with his mind, keeping Luiz’s heart beating and the air moving through his lungs. “I cannot do this without blood.”
MaryAnn could see that Manolito had grown weak and pale, his skin nearly gray. He was swaying with weariness. It was a frightening thing to stretch out her arm and offer her wrist, but she trusted him; even with the red flames flickering in the depth of his dark eyes, she trusted him with her life.
Ignoring her wrist, he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. “I could never harm you, sivamet.”
The way the last word rolled off his tongue was sensual and alluring. More than that, she caught the meaning in his mind. My love. Was she his love? Did he already feel more than physical need for her? Having been in his mind, she realized that the sharing of memories and the inability to hide from each other made the relationship so much more intimate than she could ever have imagined. If he was courting her, he was doing a good job, simply by being himself.
She went into his arms willingly and nuzzled his throat. He tilted her chin so that her gaze met his, was captured by his, mesmerized and lost in the dark depths of his eyes. Lost in the seduction of stark need and raw hunger. He never tried to disguise or lessen the way he felt about her. Her breath caught in her throat. Her heart did a curious melting as her stomach flipped and her womb clenched.
This man could be hers—was hers. She hadn’t claimed him back. She didn’t even know if she could live with what and who he was, but she admired and respected him. She could feel the hunger beating at him. The weariness. He was torn between two worlds, and to stay in hers drained him. His sense of honor toward Solange, and to her, had only added to his burden.
“Take what you need.” Her lips whispered over his.
Temptation. Oh, lord, the temptation she was inadvertently offering him. His tongue was a velvet rasp over her pulse. She was warm, living silk in his arms. No one had softer skin. His emotions had long been frozen in a place deep inside him, buried so deep he thought it impossible to taste or feel or know the pleasure a woman’s shape could bring to a man’s body. Her touch, the sound of her voice, her very breath had awakened him. She had given him life again. He wanted her with him for all time. He wanted to ensure she was always by his side.
Temptation. He now knew what it felt and tasted like. He knew temptation was a woman and that he would have to use every ounce of control to keep from whisking her away to a place where they could be alone.
His teeth sank deep, and the taste and essence of her flowed from her to him, completing him body and soul. A sultry, smoky flavor and so MaryAnn. His arms tightened, and he closed his eyes to better savor her. At the same time, he allowed one hand to wander down the curves of her body to her leg. She was curled up in his arms, her legs in his lap, and he could easily find the tears in her flesh.
No one, woman or man, should have been able to push aside the pain and function, not only sitting, as she was doing now, but running as she had earlier in the rain forest. The pain should have dulled her thinking and affected her ability to manipulate energy. The pain was there in her mind. She felt it. But she pushed it into a center of her brain he was unfamiliar with. He’d never seen the pattern before. He was ancient. He had used mage, jaguar and human for sustenance at one time or another, and as the species mixed, the patterns became less distinct over the ages. He ran his hands over her thigh, an intimate exploration. She shivered in his arms, her body moving restlessly against his.
She is yours.
Yes. She was his. Made for him. Shaped for him. The other half of him.
She was made for you.
Of course she had been, her body curved just so, soft and pliant, hot silk moving in his arms so that he would know what it would be to bury his body deep within her, drive them both over the edge into ecstasy.
It is your right.
He had every right to her body. He owned her, body and soul, just as she did him. He could take pleasure when and where he wanted. His hand slid along her thigh, moved toward heat—his heat—she belonged to him. He knew exactly the things that would please her, would bring her to a fevered frenzy of sexual need.
Why bring the jaguar-man across? He will only turn vampire and you will have to hunt and kill him as you have so many others.
It was madness to consider bringing another male into their world when there were so few lifemates. He might try to steal MaryAnn.
He was alone with her. Naked. Showing her his body in order to lure her away from you. He wants her. He’ll do anything to take her from you.
The jaguar-men had all proven to be deceivers. They did lure women and hold them captive, treat them brutally.
He touched her. He touched your woman. He saw your mark, smelled your scent all over her, yet he touched. You saw him standing over her. He was stark naked. What do you think he was trying to force her to do?
She defended him. Said he’d saved her life.
She wants him. Make her yours. Take her now. Take what belongs to you. Bring her to your side for all eternity.
He couldn’t stop. He needed this. He was starving. Starving. The hunger drove him mad. Nothing could sate him but his lifemate. The rich, hot blood burst through his system with the rush of the most powerful drug.
He needed her body submitting to his, all heat and fire, sating the desire that had him so hard and hot and beyond caring of anything but sinking deep into her. He wanted to hear his name called out in a storm of need. He wanted to see her eyes glaze over with passion; he wanted to hear her beg for him to join them. He had waited an eternity through darkness and hell, and now she was there, in his arms, her body ripe and ready for his, her blood mingling with his.
Take her. It is your right. She cannot deny you. Anything you want she must provide. Yours. Take her now before the jaguar claims her. You cannot stop now when you are so close. Take enough to convert her and she cannot leave you. Taste her. The whispers grew. Voices joined in.
For one moment, his arms tightened possessively and his body urged hers backward so that he bent her beneath him. For what? Would he take her right there with Luiz dying beside them? With Jasmine and Solange there as witnesses to his madness?
Yes. Yes. You take her now before it is too late and you lose her.
Fear rose in him. Fear that he couldn’t control the addiction to her taste, that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—stop. He was losing his mind, and he was going to harm the one person he had sworn to care for. He shouldn’t be listening, but the voices were insidious, creeping into his mind and preying on his worst fears and his worst traits.
His worst traits. The need to dominate. The need for her to see only him and no one else. The terrible need to force his will on her, so that she not only wanted to but needed to do everything he wished. He wanted her on his terms and knew he could control her through a sexual relationship. He knew her desires and fantasies, and he knew how to exact every erotic response. Not for pleasure—hers or his—but for control.
He would not only dishonor himself and everything he stood for if he took her blood and her body, if he brought her wholly into his world, but he would ruin any chance he had of gaining MaryAnn’s affection. That was not what lifemates were all about. He was her lifemate and would be in every sense of the word.
The voices became louder, more persuasive. The shadows around him lengthened and grew. He caught at MaryAnn’s arms, prepared to wrench her away from him, but she moved in his mind, a soothing warmth, a feeling of well-being.
That is not so, Manolito. I hear them and they speak falsely. Of course you feel I am yours. If I am your lifemate, I am the other half of your soul. MaryAnn was grateful that Destiny had taken the time to try to explain the bond between Carpathian lifemates. Naturally you would want me wholly in your world. They are preying on your instincts, but you are stronger than they are. We are stronger than they are.
You can hear them? He was desperate for her to know that he walked in two worlds. It seemed so implausible. And yet he was surrounded by the shadows, the voices and the cold chill he couldn’t shake, when a Carpathian could control body temperature.
Of course I hear them. She wouldn’t let them take him. Whatever was happening was real, not imagined. She was an urban bush woman, and she could handle whatever the trash wanted to throw at her or her man.
Christine Feehan 5 CARPATHIAN NOVELS Page 173