Christine Feehan 5 CARPATHIAN NOVELS

by Christine Feehan

  “Tell me about your childhood,” Manolito said, his dark gaze holding hers, his voice gentle.

  She looked uncomfortable, shifting slightly away from him. “I had a normal childhood. You’d think it was boring, but I enjoyed it. My parents are great. Mom’s a doctor, and Dad owns a little bakery shop. I grew up working there and earned most of my money for college. No brothers or sisters, so it was a little lonely, but I had a lot of friends in school.”

  His gaze drifted over her face, noting her eyes, the pulse beating so frantically in her throat. “There were things that happened. Unexplained things. Tell me about those.”

  Her heart began to thunder in her ears. She felt her breath catch in her lungs. She didn’t want to think of those moments, and yes, there had been plenty, incidents there was no explanation for. MaryAnn pulled away so her body didn’t touch his, just in case he could read her. She felt a shift inside of her, something moving and nudging at her almost in inquiry. Do you need me? What is it?

  She gasped, bit down hard on her lip and tried to thrust the truth back into that deep abyss where she never had to face it. Out here in the rain forest, where everything was wild and it was kill or be killed and she faced enemies unknown in her safe world, she could no longer contain that other being unfolding inside of her.

  Manolito remained still, not moving a muscle, sensing her sudden withdrawal, not only from him, but from something that had been close enough for her to see. She had slammed that impenetrable barrier between them again to keep him from seeing it. The moment she withdrew her mind from his, he was aware of that other world he still dwelled in.

  The colors around him dimmed significantly and the noise of the rain forest disappeared until silence surrounded him. Strangely, his sense of smell was even more acute, as was his hearing. He not only could detect the position of animals and birds around them, but he also knew exact locations. He didn’t need to reach with his mind to find those surrounding him; his nose and ears gave him the information. The longer he dwelled in the shadow land, the more heightened all his senses became—well, almost all of them. His vision seemed different, familiar in the way of when he shifted to animal form, but still, he caught movement instantly. He just didn’t like the graying in the color, as it reminded him too much of the centuries of darkness.

  He curled his fingers around hers and held tight. He had been vaguely aware of the land of mists creeping into his mind and vision since he had sent Luiz to ground, but it had been distant, as if he had made his way closer to the world where MaryAnn lived. Now, without her mind merging with his, everywhere he looked the gray was consuming color.

  Manolito squeezed her hand in reassurance, although he wasn’t altogether certain who was reassuring who. “You are safe here with me. Whatever it is you fear, share it with me. Burdens are much less when shared.”

  He was aware of every detail about her in that moment, and she was very much afraid. He heard her heart, saw the frantic beat of her pulse. She had insisted on standing by him, refusing to leave him alone in the meadow of mists, even when she was unsure of him. He wanted her to know he would do no less.

  She shook her head even as she began to speak, obviously not wanting to remember the incident, or speak of it aloud, yet almost compelled to share, needing at least someone to know she wasn’t crazy. “There was one time when I was in high school that I went out for track. My parents really wanted me to play sports, but I had no interest. I’m a girlie girl, always have been, but my dad thought if I got involved in sports I’d be less inclined to follow the latest fashion trends.”

  He stayed silent, watching the shadows chase across her face, waiting for her to make up her mind to tell him the entire story, not the watered-down version.

  “I showed up for practice and took off running. At first all I could think about was how I was going to fall on my face, or trip and humiliate myself. But then I forgot myself and how uncomfortable it was running and I felt…free.” She let her breath out, obviously remembering the feeling. “I wasn’t aware of what I was doing at all, but I outdistanced everyone and ran without thought. I didn’t feel pain at all, only a type of euphoria.”

  He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingertips. “Don’t stop, sivamet. What else did you feel? Obviously this made an impression on you.”

  “At first it was wonderful, but then I began to notice things.” She pulled her hand away, as if she couldn’t bare her soul while touching him. “My bones began to hurt, my joints cracked and popped. Even my knuckles ached.” She rubbed them, clearly remembering the feeling. “My jaw throbbed, and I had the sensation of stretching thinner and thinner. I could hear tendons and ligaments snapping. I ran so fast, everything around me was a blur. My vision changed, my hearing and sense of smell were so acute, I could tell where every single runner was behind me. Exactly where they were, without looking. I could hear their breathing, the air rushing in and out of their lungs. I could smell their sweat, and hear their hearts beating.”

  How could she explain to him what had happened that day? How she felt something changing and growing and reaching to get out of her, to be acknowledged and recognized. It wanted out. She moistened her lips and clung tighter to his hand.

  “I was different in that moment, completely different, yet the same. I could leap over obstacles without even slowing down. Every sense was alive in me. My body was—singing, as if it had come alive for the first time. I can’t even explain how it felt, every sense so open and gathering information. And then things began to pour into my mind, visions I couldn’t stop or make sense of.”

  He brought her hand to his chest in an effort to comfort her. She didn’t seem to realize she was becoming agitated and that her state of mind was affecting the monkeys in the surrounding trees. Wings displaced air overhead as birds stood on branches and beat them, squawking and chirping anxiously. He slid the pad of his thumb over the back of her hand and felt hard knots under her skin as her tension mounted. “What did you see?” Whatever it was had terrified her.

  “A man calling to a woman, telling her to take the baby and run. The baby was—me. I was lying in a crib, and she wrapped me in a blanket, kissed the man and clung to him. I could hear voices and saw dancing lights outside the windows. The man kissed me, too, and then her one last time and jerked open a trapdoor in the floor. I felt dread and fear. I didn’t want to leave him and neither did she. I think we all knew it was the last time we’d see each other.”

  She licked her dry lips. “The infant was surrounded by forest while I was running the track, hearing my heart, my footfalls, smelling the others, and I remember stars bursting around me. But they weren’t really around me at the school; the lights were flashing around the woman and me, the infant in the forest. I could hear something whistle as it went past us, and then the woman flinched, stumbling. The next thing, I was running on the track, yet at the same time the woman was running through the trees with me—the baby.”

  “Was the woman your mother?”

  “No!” MaryAnn nearly shouted more denial, but caught herself, breathing hard, trying to push down the shock of what that would imply. “No, I don’t know who she was, but she wasn’t my mother.”

  He reached out and tugged until she lay against him, her head pillowed on his shoulder. “Do not be upset, sivamet.” His voice was soft, that mesmerizing sweep of velvet whispering over her skin. “Be calm. It is a beautiful night and we are simply talking, getting to know one another. I am very interested in this dual run you had. Do you think it really happened? How old do you think you were when this flight through the forest took place? And where were you? The United States? Europe? What language was spoken?”

  MaryAnn sucked in her breath and lay very still, absorbing his warmth and strength. She could feel it flowing over and into her, as if Manolito was sharing himself and who and what he was with her. He didn’t probe her mind, but he sent her complete understanding and acceptance. He was accepting something in her that she cou
ldn’t seem to accept in herself.

  “Not English. I don’t know. I was afraid. Very afraid.” And every single time she entered a forest, that fear nearly choked her. “They wanted to kill us. I knew that, even as an infant. Whoever was torching the house wanted all of us dead, even me.”

  She was barely able to breathe, her chest tight, her heart pounding. “The woman ran and ran, but I knew something was wrong with her. Her rhythm was off and her breath came in great gasps. We both knew the exact moment the man who had stayed behind in the house was killed. I heard her silent scream, and it echoed mine. Sorrow consumed her and then me, almost as if we shared the same emotions. I knew she was desperate to get through the forest to a neighbor’s house. The place was usually empty, but they were there, on vacation.”

  A shudder went through her and Manolito gathered her closer. Her skin was ice cold, and he turned, fitting his body around hers. “You do not have to tell me any more, MaryAnn, not if it is too painful.” Because he was fairly certain he knew the rest of the story. He wanted her to trust him enough to give him the details, but her distress level was rising, and with it, he noted with interest, the animals in the surrounding trees grew even more agitated.

  MaryAnn had never told anyone, and she wanted to tell him. The constriction in her chest had grown; the feeling of being drawn inside was terrifying, almost as if the very essence of her was being sucked into a small, dark place, to be held in tight confines. She wanted to throw out her arms and kick her legs to prove to herself she was still in her own body and not tucked inside a box.

  “I tried to tell my mother, and she told me it was a dream—a nightmare that perhaps I’d remembered as I ran. She didn’t want me to go running anymore and neither did I. I never did it again. And I never went into a forest after that.” It had taken all of her courage to come here to this place to help Solange and Jasmine, to find Manolito and try to get him out of wherever his mind had locked him. Her courage was waning, and she wanted the comfort of home.

  “Because it triggered the memory?”

  “The feeling of terror and being unable to breathe. The fear of being locked away and unable to get out.” MaryAnn moistened her dry lips, her hand creeping up to his neck, fingers curling around his nape. She needed to feel the strength of his larger frame, the heat of his body and the steady beat of his heart.

  Manolito remained silent, simply holding her while she stared up at the stars and ignored the animals surrounding them. Surprisingly, she felt no threat from them, only a kind of kinship, a rush of sympathy and concern toward her. She took a breath and let it out. She was going to tell him all of that memory because she was absolutely certain it had occurred, and it was the only real way she could face it.

  “The woman clawed her way through the brush. We were being chased and she was sobbing. I knew she was hurt, but she clung to me, forcing herself to cover the miles until we came up to a house, a vacation home for a lady and her husband who had been friends with the woman carrying me. The lady came out. I remember her face, frightened, concerned, shocked when she saw blood everywhere. The woman handed me to her and told her they were trying to kill us, that they would kill me. She pleaded with the woman to save me.”

  She had to stop because her throat constricted again and there was that terrible tightness in her chest that came more and more often. She buried her face against him, a shudder going through her body.

  “MaryAnn.” He stroked a hand down her hair, rubbed circles of comfort along her back. “Did you recognize the lady? The neighbor? Was she familiar to you?”

  She didn’t know. How could she know? Her heart pounded wildly and her breath came in ragged gasps. The admission burst out of her without her consent, without her permission, the declaration shocking her. “She was my grandmother.” She choked, gasped for breath, her fingernails biting deep into his skin. “The neighbor, who took me, was—is—my grandmother.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, protectively, one hand shaping the back of her head, fingers moving in her hair gently as he massaged her nape to soothe her. He hadn’t expected the feelings—the emotions—that assailed him. He was shaken by the sheer intensity of sensation coursing not through his body, but through his heart and mind. He murmured softly to her in a mixture of Carpathian and Portuguese languages as she wept in his arms.

  She felt small and lost to him, and far too vulnerable. MaryAnn was a woman of confidence, not this soft bundle so shattered curling in his arms, burrowing into him and not even aware she did so. Her distress was so great that waves of it burst over him and spread throughout the rain forest, disturbing all the creatures.

  “How could they do that to me?”

  He waited. She still kept that barrier firmly in place, not allowing him access to her mind—to her pain—or even to memories. And he suspected she had more.

  “My parents should have told me. That woman…I know her. I feel her here,” MaryAnn pressed a trembling hand to her heart. “I ache thinking of her. She sacrificed her life to save me, just as the man did.”

  “Most parents would willingly sacrifice their lives for their children, MaryAnn. There is no greater love.” He kept his voice gentle, hypnotic, although he was careful to keep from pushing or adding a compulsion. He kept her wrapped in warmth and safety in the only way he could, outwardly, when his every inclination was to push forward, to soothe and make everything all right for her. It was difficult to suppress his instincts to take her over. She was not a woman to be taken over.

  Manolito nuzzled the top of her head with his chin and then brushed dozens of small kisses into her hair. A mixture of emotions poured from her. Grief. Anger. Feelings of betrayal. Guilt for thinking even for a moment anyone else might have given birth to her.

  “I love my parents. We’re a normal family.”

  She opened her mind again to him, and images of her childhood leapt into his brain. She was attempting to prove to him, and to herself, that her memories of growing up within her family were true and real, and everything else was simply an illusion, or a bad nightmare. He could see her parents holding and kissing her, swinging her into the air, laughing and happy with her. She had been surrounded by happiness and love her entire life.

  “They love me.”

  There was satisfaction in her voice, but she was clutching his hand and her nails bit deep into his flesh. He looked down at their joined fingers and could see the hard knots beneath her skin, the curve of her nails, thick and strong, one not covered in polish.

  “It is obvious they love you,” he agreed and brought her hand to the warmth of his mouth, pressing his lips to the knots, smoothing them, gently tugging with his teeth until the nail piercing his skin was lifted and she relaxed a little more.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to think,” she said, sounding vulnerable and lost.

  His heart reached for hers instinctively. “No matter what your past was, MaryAnn, you are still you. Your parents loved you and raised you surrounded in that love. If they are not your birth parents, it does not in any way change that fact.”

  “You know there’s more to it than that.” She jerked her hand out of his and sat up, facing away from him, toward the treetops. She could see the highway in the canopy, the branches touching, serving as a long strip from tree to tree where even the larger animals could travel quickly.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat threatening to choke her. “My whole life has been built on a lie, Manolito. I don’t have the history my parents have given me. I don’t have the stability of all the structure I thought I had. I don’t know who I am. Or what I am. Growing up, I sometimes had flashes of memories, and each time, my parents explained it away as inconsequential, when really, it was very important.”

  “Maybe they had reasons, sivamet. Do not judge them harshly when you do not yet have all the facts.”

  “It isn’t happening to you. Your entire life isn’t being ripped apart.” She flashed him one smoldering look over h
er shoulder and turned away again. “And then you come along and add to it all by claiming me, by binding us together in a ritual I don’t have a choice in. And now I’m becoming something else. How do you think you would feel if it was happening to you?”

  “I don’t know, but is becoming a Carpathian so terrible?” He swept a hand through his hair, wishing he had his entire memory back. “You will be able to do so many things that you cannot do now. You will see, in time, that there is no reason to worry.” Her life as his lifemate would be perfect. He would make it perfect. “It seems unreasonable to be upset over something you cannot change.”

  His voice was so calm it set her teeth on edge. He spoke as if they were having a philosophical discussion, not contemplating irreversible and dramatic changes to her life. Fury burned through her. “Reasonable? I shouldn’t worry about being forced out of my own body? You’re taking me over, telling me what I have to do, and I should just go along with it because you say so. How nice for you to live in your comfortable skin and know who and what you are. Claiming me doesn’t change your life at all, does it?”

  “It changes everything.” His voice was gentle with emotion—emotion he could feel because she’d given him that gift.

  He didn’t understand the enormity of what he had done by binding them together. He didn’t seem to even understand how her life would be affected. She would have to watch her family die. She would no longer be the person she’d always been. Even the chemistry of her body would be different. Everything about her would change, and she had no choice in the matter. Manolito would remain the man he’d always been, only he would have color and emotion restored to him. He might think it would all come right in time, but the change wasn’t happening to him.

  Adrenaline pumped through her body and with it—fury. How could someone else arbitrarily decide her life for her without her consent? Without asking her? Manolito. Her parents. Even her beloved grandparents. How could they just decide what was best for her and not only leave her out of the decisions, but even withhold knowledge?