Whenever he thought of Ferro, his heart ached. He knew it was too late for his brethren. Ferro knew it as well. He would never embrace a modern woman, and no way would a lifemate be born in this time for him. Even a Carpathian woman brought up in the ways of his people would be exposed to the modern world and the way women were and be discontented.
“What’s wrong?” Lorraine asked abruptly. Her fist closed tightly on his shirt. “Tell me.”
“Ferro plans to leave when he rises. He will return to the monastery. He will be accompanied by Afanasiv Balan. Everyone refers to him as Siv if you do not recognize the name. He was at the meeting of the ancients. Most consider him extremely dangerous. He will be the gatekeeper as long as he is able.”
“Then Tariq will lose two of his best hunters.”
She looked close to tears, and his heart turned over. “I am well aware of that, but better Ferro turn far from here where those he cannot feel love for, but that he knows he does love, are away from him and safer.”
“You didn’t ask him to leave, did you?”
“No one would ever ask him to leave, sívamet.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m ready. Just do it now, Andor. Before I can think too much more and fear takes hold of me.”
Immediately, Andor felt elation rise. In only a short time, she would be wholly in their world. When next they rose, they would rise together as Carpathians. He found a seat on the ground and pulled her onto his lap. He was going to hold her as long as he was able. It was a mere touch of his mind and their garments were gone, but he shrouded them in flowing mist. One hand went to the nape of her neck, anchoring her to him. He kissed his way from the corner of her mouth to the tip of her breast and then back up to the top of the curve. His teeth sank deep, and she cried out.
Her blood held that perfect taste he craved. He took enough for a blood exchange and then opened a line right above his heart across the heavy muscle and pressed her mouth to him. The way she moved her body into his and didn’t hesitate to draw his blood into her set him on fire. He let it happen, feeling joy that he responded so completely to her.
When he stopped her from feeding, he lifted her chin, forcing her head up so he could take her mouth in a soul-destroying kiss. He would always crave her. This woman who was giving herself into his keeping even when she had to be terrified.
She had quite a lot of Carpathian blood in her system. The men who had tied themselves to her soul were powerful ancients. That blood would mix with his and the conversion would start rather rapidly, he was certain. He wasn’t wrong. Almost within moments, a ripple of unease went through her body.
Her body is preparing. Already, I feel it. He sent the alert to the others. At once they responded, their voices swelling with the healing chant. They had been using the lesser healing chant to aid a human woman or in Liv’s case, a child, in coming into their world. He shared her mind, entrenching himself there so he could monitor what was happening to her.
Lorraine dug her fingers into Andor’s shoulder, nails biting deep as something that felt incredibly like a blowtorch was turned on her stomach. The next pass hit her even harder. Then she was writhing, convulsing as wave after wave of excruciating agony took her without letup. At once he felt the worry of Dragomir and Tariq.
It was not this severe.
It was the combination of the ancients’ blood. So many of us, Gary explained. I should have considered this might happen. We have powerful blood. She has to be able to accept it.
She had no way to catch her breath. No way to rest. The waves kept coming, each one worse than the one before. Had he not had her in their sacred healing ground or the other Carpathians surrounding them trying to bear the brunt of the pain, Andor doubted if Lorraine would have survived.
She vomited repeatedly, and the toxins left her body, draining away into the soil. He kept the area clean, but once the convulsions continued, it was all he could do to stop her body from breaking bones with the violence of the seizures.
Emeline’s conversion was not this violent and she had your blood as well as mine, healer. Andor seconded Dragomir’s opinion of the healer’s assessment.
She did not have Ferro’s blood. There was the softest of sighs accompanying that revelation.
Andor closed his eyes. He should have known. The conversion seemed to take an hour or more, each minute seeming like a thousand minutes. Eventually the waves of convulsions and agony lessened enough that he thought it was safe to put her in the ground.
You have done well, he praised her, brushing kisses over the little beads of red dotting her forehead. You did not make a sound, Lorraine.
My father always told me to suck it up when I was in pain, but I never want to experience that again. Nor, if asked, would I ever recommend it. That was a distinct warning.
Andor thanked the other Carpathians, knowing the night was at its end and they needed to find sleeping arrangements. He waved his hand toward his woman and Lorraine’s eyes closed, her long lashes fanning her cheeks. Andor breathed a sigh of relief and opened the earth deep. He floated them both down, knowing the sun was already rising and the others hastened to get to their sleeping quarters. Most did not use the healing grounds to sleep. It was reserved for those in need. The Carpathians scattered around the compound as the sun rose, and even beneath the house, Andor winced, feeling the burn of the light against his skin.
He sank into the rich soil, laying Lorraine out gently onto her back. He lay beside her and watched as the earth began to fill in over their legs. Her body moved. Jerked. Andor frowned and leaned over her. She should be in a deep sleep. There it was again, that same jerk, her back moving back and forth as if rubbing into the soil. Suddenly, her eyes went wide, lashes lifting. Shock was there. Horror. He had sent her to sleep, but she was experiencing fear. Not just fear. Total terror. Her eyes stared into his.
“It’s loose, Andor,” she whispered. The same horror that was in her eyes was in her voice. “It was in his talons and he put it into my skin. Now it’s loose in the healing grounds. There’s no getting it back.”
There was no way to resolve the situation. Andor knew whatever Sergey had managed to release into the healing soil would have carte blanche for a few hours. His first guess would have to be a parasite that would kill all children or the ability for their women to conceive. How had they all missed that? It had been placed into her skin. Right on the surface. The wound had been cleaned and healed. No one, least of all him, had noticed anything amiss.
He closed his eyes and sank into the soil beside Lorraine, urging her to lie her down. Sleep for now. We will hunt at the next rising.
19
Andor burst from the soil the moment after he checked on his sleeping lifemate. He wanted her to stay asleep, although a part of him feared the parasite would enter her and prevent them from having children. Still, the most important thing was to go on the hunt. All of them.
We need to know what we are hunting for. That was Tariq, and he was not happy.
Andor couldn’t blame him. They had all checked Lorraine’s body repeatedly. She had been patient with them. She had wanted them to check her. He should have paid more attention to the little clues she gave him. She’d even mentioned that her back itched, right between her shoulder blades. He had thought that the itch meant the shallow laceration from the crow’s talons was healing.
She had been uneasy. The sight of the crows seemed to bother her more than they should. Even the children hadn’t paid as much attention to them. There were warning signs, but he hadn’t read them correctly. None of them had. Emotions got into the way.
O jelä peje terád. He swore in his own language. Furious at himself. Furious that one of the Malinov brothers had managed to fool every one of them. If Tariq had been the target . . . He brought himself up short.
“Go feed before we start this thing. I’ve called in Matt and his security force. T
hey are willing for us to use them for sustenance when needed. This is a need,” Tariq said. He stood on the edge of the healing grounds, looking it over, his hands on his hips.
“You could be the target, Tariq,” Andor warned. “It waited until Lorraine was here. Sergey knew I would convert her, and he programmed that thing like a missile to wait until she was in the ground.”
“Andor,” Tariq said patiently. “Go feed.”
Andor cursed again. “You cannot set one foot onto those grounds. Not one. Until your security force, and I do not mean the humans, get here, I am not taking any chances with your life.”
“Yet your woman still sleeps beneath the soil.”
“If he was targeting her, she is already dead and there is nothing any of us can do. I do not believe she is the objective. If that were so, he would have killed her when he had the chance. He could have used that crow to drive right through her head with his beak. You know that as well as I do.”
Gary appeared right beside Tariq and Siv emerged on the other side, both coming out of a mist. Gary inclined his head toward Andor. “I am sorry. We all looked where he knew we would.”
“Could it be a sliver of himself? Is it possible to put it in the skin?”
“It is possible, of course, but improbable. It would not be able to control the host at all. He wouldn’t have use of her eyes or ears. There would be no point,” the healer replied. “You need to feed, Andor.”
Andor didn’t want one more person to mention that he looked like hell without coming out and using those terms. He sighed and dissolved, hurrying quickly into the air outside where he saw several of Tariq’s human security force sitting on the ground or giving blood to one of the ancients. He chose one who looked healthy and fit. The man turned toward him as he approached. It was normal to wave a hand, take control of the mind and just feed. He did so without thinking and only realized after he had taken his fill that the blood had been freely given. He reawakened the man and thanked him as he helped him to the ground.
At once, Genevieve was there, handing out a glass of orange juice. “Why is everyone so upset?”
Andor realized these humans had thrown their lot in with Tariq. Each of them had agreed to have barriers put in place to keep any vampire from knowing they were part of Tariq’s force. Their brains also were shielded from allowing them to talk about vampires or Carpathians to anyone but a recognized part of the security force. Safeguards also had been added. Even Genevieve had shields to keep her from accidentally blurting out what she knew of the Carpathian people.
He wasn’t used to living with them, or trusting them. Tariq did both. He trusted them to watch over the compound and his children. Lorraine had asked a good question when she was worried about the babies. If they couldn’t go to ground with their parents, who would watch over them? Who would raise them? In that moment, he understood why humans such as Gary had been, before he became fully Carpathian, revered. They had done everything necessary to ensure no harm came to a member of the Carpathian race.
“Lorraine was attacked by a crow during the encounter with the vampires. We realized early on that the entire skirmish had been orchestrated just for that purpose. He had not tried to acquire her, or kill her, so that meant he put something in her to bring back here.” As he laid out the scenario to Genevieve, he found it helped to think it through.
“How horrible for her. I can’t imagine how she must have felt.”
“We searched, all of us, over and over, and we could not find it,” Andor continued. “We all came to the same conclusion—that he had to have planted something on her—but none of us, after repeated attempts, could find it. We looked inward, where he was most likely to plant something. A sliver. A parasite. Something that might eventually kill her. We looked at every organ, her bones, her bloodstream. Not one of us thought to look outside her body, in her skin, where he carefully planted what he wanted to get inside.”
Genevieve gave a little shiver. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “What was it? What is its purpose?”
None of them knew, other than perhaps it was the parasite to prevent them from having children. Still . . . it had waited to infect the ground. The healing ground. If a woman was giving birth, or pregnant, she would most likely rest in that soil, the best they had around them. “I do not know, Genevieve. We hope to find that out. We’ll be searching for it, but we have no way of knowing what it is.”
“How do you know it’s there, then?”
His head snapped up. He flashed her a small smile. “You are a brilliant woman, Genevieve. No wonder you are guarded carefully. We cannot lose your great mind.”
He turned and was gone, streaking back to the main house and moving beneath it to where Tariq had set up the healing grounds. The Carpathian hunters had gathered. They didn’t want their women near the contaminated soil. It was too late for those already lying beneath it.
“Lorraine might know what to look for. She woke when it escaped her skin. She would have a feel for it, perhaps even be able to identify it.”
“If you wake her too early and she isn’t ready,” Tariq cautioned, “she might still feel the pain of the transformation.”
It was a risk. The others waited patiently for him to decide. He let his breath out slowly. He had to make his decision based on what Lorraine would do. She would want to be awakened and apprised of the situation. From there she would be able to tell them whether or not she could help.
“I will wake her,” he said. He opened the soil over where his beloved was sleeping, remembering at the last moment to cleanse and clothe her before bringing her to the surface. He caught her up in his arms, cradling her close to his chest. “Awaken, Lorraine. We have need of your help.”
Her long lashes fluttered against her pale skin. It took a moment before she lifted them so he could stare into her green eyes. The impact was immediately and nearly overwhelming, a visceral feeling that cut right through him, gutting him. She did that with one look. He smiled down at her, seeing the confusion in her eyes, feeling the wince when she moved her body just slightly. It was too soon and her body wasn’t fully healed.
She woke starving, every cell crying out for nourishment. He hadn’t considered that, either. She would be waking without control. I am going to feed you, Lorraine. Take what is freely offered. He turned his body to try to give her privacy from the others. He was a big man and sheltered her against his chest.
She glanced over his arm and saw the others. “Tell me what is going on.”
He looked down at her face. There was nothing there but concern. Certainly, no panic or after the fact wanting to take her decision back.
I will tell you after you have fed. He used his teeth to open his wrist. He pressed it to her mouth, giving her no choice but to drink him down.
She caught at his arm, holding it in place, her need pushing aside her fear of anyone seeing her feed. Tell me. What is wrong?
At sunrise, I put you to sleep. The transformation was particularly difficult for you.
There was a lot of pain, she agreed.
There still is. He couldn’t afford to be weak from blood loss. He had to watch the amount she consumed.
Not like there was last night.
To his shock, she swept her tongue across the laceration and sat up in his arms. “Tell me, Andor. Something’s terribly wrong for all of you to be gathered together like this, wearing your grimmest faces.”
“Do you remember, just as I put you to sleep, what you said to me?”
She frowned, and he couldn’t help brushing a kiss across her nose, even though he knew it might be distracting. As he raised his head, her eyes went wide and one hand went to her throat defensively. She remembered. She had that haunted look in her eyes, the one she got every time Sergey was mentioned or she thought about him.
“Yes. I felt something moving on my skin.” Her frown deepene
d and she gave a little shake of her head.
Andor carried her back from the center of the healing grounds to the edge where the others waited. They needed to hear what she had to say.
“No, that’s not right. It was in my skin, and I knew the moment it moved that the crow had put it there. It felt dark and ugly. When it moved across my back, I could actually feel my cells shrinking away, trying to avoid it.”
Sandu nodded. “That is the abomination of the undead. They are soulless creatures and wholly evil. Your body would shrink from all contact.”
“Why couldn’t I feel it when he put it in my skin? It had to be touching me. I could see, if he’d gotten inside me, how I wouldn’t know, but if he planted it into my skin, I should have felt it, right?”
“You actually did,” Andor said. “You thought a couple of times that you itched between your shoulder blades but you put it down to being a target. I caught those thoughts.”
“Maybe, but it should have been more, something dark and ugly like when it emerged,” she argued.
There was a moment of silence and then they all began talking at once to one another, putting out all kinds of theories. It was Petru who held up one hand for silence. When the others quickly subsided, the ancient put forth his own opinion. “She would not have felt this, if at the time it was planted, it was benign.”
Andor was stunned. He should have thought of that—considered that whatever Sergey introduced into Lorraine wouldn’t in any way appear threatening or harmful. She would have known immediately where it was if it were malicious. She had said her back itched, right between her shoulder blades.
“Lean forward, csecsemõ, I want to look at your back,” he said. He had seen her back before, that smooth, sleek expanse of silky skin.
Lorraine complied immediately, and he pushed her T-shirt up to expose her skin. The others gathered around to stare at the blackened cells. The evidence was damning. They knew something of Sergey’s had escaped into the healing soil—it was no longer a matter of speculation.
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