"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 couldn'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 her 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?
She leapt up before Manolito had an inkling she was going to move. There was no slight movement of her body to indicate a shift. She simply moved all at once, leaping to her feet and over the railing before he knew what she intended. Heart in his throat, he leapt after her. They were one hundred and fifty feet in the air. The fall would kill her.
MaryAnn! He called her name even as he pursued, sending air to keep her floating as he streaked downward, but she was already on the ground, crouched low in a fighter's stance.
He slowed his descent to study her. Her hair was thick, long and wavy, gleaming a blue black as it cascaded down her shoulders and back. Her hands curled into claws, and the amazing bone structure in her face stood out beneath her taut skin. She backed away from him as he settled in front of her.
"I want to go home."
He knew she was in good hands—his hands—yet her voice trembled and she looked so frightened he felt terrible.
"I know you do, MaryAnn. I will get you back to your home as soon as I can." And he realized it was true. For the first time, he realized she might need Seattle. She might need that cold, rainy city just as much as he needed the rain forest. "I promise, csitri, when I can fully leave the land of shadows, I will escort you home."
MaryAnn drew a deep, shuddering breath. "You promise?"
"Absolutely. I give you my word, and I have never broken it in all my centuries of existence." He held out his hand to her. "I am sorry I cannot understand what you are going through." If she opened her mind to his, he could feel her emotions, not just visibly see them, but she held tight to her resistance.
MaryAnn looked around her. "I don't know how I got here." She looked up at the top of the canopy. She couldn't even see the deck he had constructed. "How did I do that, Manolito?"
He kept his hand extended to her. The leaves were rustling around them. Shadows moved. He took a step closer to her. MaryAnn put her hand in his, and he pulled her into his arms and took to the air, taking them to the protection of the deck he'd woven. She stood on the platform, her arms around his neck, her face buried against his shoulder, trembling with the truth.
"The truth," he murmured softly.
MaryAnn jerked away from him. She knew it was the truth. She had been that infant someone had hunted through a forest and nearly killed. Her parents had hidden the truth from her for years. The foundation of her solid world was shaken, and she needed to find a way to quiet the growing thing inside of her so she could come to terms with what was happening, but she didn't want Manolito to throw the truth of her life in her face.
Manolito looked around at the various leaves. Some broad, some lacy, some small and others large, all a dull silver instead of gleaming as they should. The safeguards were in place, keeping out all enemies so he could spend time with her, trying to ease her into his world. He had intended to bring her fully over so she, too, was wholly Karpatii. Instead, he had forced her to bare her soul to his, to risk everything for him. Now he needed to give something back. Something of equal value. She had given him truth; he could do no less.
He paced restlessly across the small confines of space. "You gave me truth, MaryAnn, when it cost you. I have something to tell you. Something that shames me, and not just me, my entire family. What is inside you is noble and strong, and I doubt you need fear it. I have no such secret to share with you, although I wish it were so."
She blinked away tears and looked at him, somewhat shocked. He appeared nervous. It was the last thing she expected of a man as confident as Manolito. Her natural compassion rushed through her, and she put her hand on his arm, flooding him with warmth and encouragement.
"Do not aid me in this," he protested, shaking his head, but once again she had opened her mind to his, surrounding him with the brilliant colors and her soothing personality. "I do not deserve it."
He didn't deserve to be so smug about claiming her, but she pushed that sudden thought down and gave him a look of support. Manolito continued to pace, so she sank down onto the flowers, surprised that once again they released their fragrance, filling the air with soothing scent. Drawing up her knees, she wrapped her arms around them and rested her chin on top, waiting for him to continue.
Manolito took a slow, careful look around and wove more safeguards, this time enclosing them within a sound barrier to give them even more privacy. "Sometimes the forest has ears."
She nodded, not interrupting, but somewhere in the pit of her stomach she was beginning to believe that what he was going to tell her was of monumental importance to both of them.
Manolito rested his elbows on the railing and looked down at the forest floor beneath them. "My family was always a little different from most of the other warriors around us. For one thing, most families never have children within fifty to a hundred years of one another. Of course it happens, but rarely. My parents had all five of us with no more than fifteen years separating us, other than Zacarias. He's nearly a hundred years older, but we were raised together."
She could instantly see the problems that might go along with such closeness, particularly young boys feeling the first taste of powe
r. "You had a gang mentality."
There was a small silence while he absorbed that. "I suppose that could be so. We were above average in intelligence and we all knew it; we heard it enough times from our father as well as the other men. We were fast and learned quickly, and we heard that, too, as well as it being drilled into us what our duty was to be."
MaryAnn frowned. She'd never thought about Manolito or his brothers being children, growing up in uncertain times. "Even then, were more males being born than females?"
He nodded. '"The prince was concerned and we all knew it. So many children died. The women were beginning to have to go above-ground to give birth, and some children could not tolerate the ground in infancy; others could. Changes were happening, and the tension grew. We were trained as warriors but given as much schooling as possible in all the other arts. Resentment began to grow in us when others, not quite as intelligent, were given chances at higher learning while we had to hone our fighting skills on the battlefield."
"Do you believe, looking back, that you had reason for that resentment?" she asked.
He shrugged, his powerful shoulders rolling, the muscles in his back rippling. "Maybe. Yes. At the time we did. Now, as a warrior and seeing what has happened to our people, certainly the prince needed us to fight. The vampires were growing in numbers, and to protect our species as well as the others, our fighting skills were needed perhaps more than our brains."
He sighed as he looked down from the treetops. "When we first came here, you have to remember, there were few, almost no, people at all. We were alone, only occasionally pitting our skills against an enemy. Five of us with our emotions growing dim and the memory of our people and our homeland fading along with the colors around us. We thought that was bad. And then we began to face more and more old friends who had turned. Our lives as we had known them as Carpathians were long gone."
MaryAnn's teeth bit at her lower lip. "Did your prince give you a choice to leave the Carpathian Mountains? Or did he just send you?"
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