Raven busied herself with the turkey, basting it again, even though there was no need. “When did Gabriel start becoming upset about the two of you going off alone?” She kept her voice casual, but out of the corner of her eye, caught the girl’s sharp glance.
“Since the attack on the prince.”
There is nothing to fear out here, Raven. One of the males taking a run in the forest decided to drop by, but saw we had company. I am going to see my brother. Do not allow Skyler back into the forest without an escort.
Should I be worried about something, Mikhail?
Raven felt the brief hesitation. I do not know. I am uneasy, but have no real reason to be.
Be careful, Mikhail. Be safe. Tell Shea I’ll see her soon. What are you discussing with Jacques?
Raven felt his sudden amusement. The image of Gregori dressed up as Santa Claus surrounded by children.
2
Mikhail leaned down to kiss Shea Dubrinsky on her cheek. “You look just a little bit pregnant there, lady.”
His sister-in-law blew strands of bright red hair from her face. “You think? If I don’t have this baby soon, I swear I’m going to explode.”
“You’re also looking harassed. Is something wrong?” He glanced around the room looking for his brother. Jacques rarely strayed from the side of his lifemate.
A slow smile lit Shea’s face. “He’s in the kitchen—baking.”
Mikhail’s eyebrow shot up. “I do not believe I heard you correctly.”
“Yes, you did. My back has been hurting on and off tonight and I’m having trouble with this recipe. The worst thing is—Raven, Corrine and I came up with most of the recipes for everyone. They were childhood favorites of Raven’s and a few I remembered. Corrine filled in the rest and now I can’t manage it. It’s a little humiliating to admit, but I seem to be emotional. I keep crying, so Jacques took over the baking.”
Mikhail choked and turned away to politely clear his throat. “Jacques is cooking?”
Her smile widened. “Well—trying to. We aren’t having a lot of success at the moment and I think he’s learning new words.” She tilted her head, the bright red hair falling around her face, emphasizing her classic bone structure. “Perhaps you’d like to give him a hand. Go on in, he’ll be happy to see you.” She rolled her eyes. “His Majesty has given me strict instructions to lie down for a while.”
Mikhail gave her a fierce scowl. “Then do so immediately, Shea. You are not in labor, are you? I will call Francesca and Gregori to examine you.”
“I’m a doctor, Mikhail,” Shea reminded him, “I’d know if I was in labor. I’m close, maybe the start—but it isn’t happening yet.” She waved as she started toward the concealed door leading to the basement. “I promise to call them if I need them. I’d never take a chance on anything happening to the baby. I’m just tired.”
Mikhail watched her disappear before making his way through the spacious house to the kitchen. He stopped abruptly in the doorway to stare at his brother in shock. A cloud of white particles choked the air and fell to the floor like snowflakes. The powder was everywhere, on the floor, on the dishes and bowls covering the counters and in the sink. Jacques stood at the counter, an apron over his clothes, a dusting of white powder over his face, in his eyebrows, tipping his lashes and coating his midnight black hair.
Mikhail burst out laughing. Even with Raven, who constantly amused him, he rarely gave a deep, roaring belly laugh, but the sight of his usually grim-faced brother covered in flour and sweating bullets was too much even for him.
Jacques spun around, eyes glittering with warning menace—a fierce scowl, which should have intimidated the strongest and most courageous of warriors, on his face. A thin white scar circled his throat and marred his jaw and one cheek, bearing evidence of his past. It was extremely rare for a Carpathian body to scar, as they healed so easily, but Jacques’s body bore evidence of brutal torture and probably always would, the thin scar around his throat and the jagged round hole in his chest marking where a stake had been driven deep into his body. “It is not funny.”
“It is very funny,” Mikhail insisted. It was the first time Mikhail could recall his brother ever looking so disconcerted. Shea had not only saved his life and his sanity, but had brought Jacques back to life with her joy and humor. Mikhail shared the image of his brother with Raven. Her soft laughter filled his mind and poured over him with love woven deep in the rich tones. There was such intimacy with Raven, an intimacy he knew his brother shared with Shea—and it had saved Jacques’s life. For that alone Mikhail would always treasure his sister-in-law. “Even Raven finds the situation amusing.”
“Raven. Do not say her name to me right now. She’s the one who got me into this.” Jacques blew upward in the hope of clearing the flour from his lashes.
“I believe it is Shea you are helping,” Mikhail pointed out, the grin refusing to leave his face.
“Shea was in here crying. Crying, Mikhail. She sat in the middle of the floor and wept over a stupid loaf of bread.” Jacques scowled and looked around him, lowering his voice. “I could not bear to see her like that.”
For one moment, Jacques looked utterly helpless, rather than the dangerous hunter Mikhail knew him to be.
“Who would have ever thought bread could explode? The dough rose up over the top of the bowl and became a volcano, crawling down the sides and across the counter until I thought it was alive.” Jacques shook a flour-covered piece of paper. “This is the recipe and it says cover with a tea towel. The tea towel did not have a prayer of containing that horrific bubbling brew.”
Mikhail pressed a hand to his side. He hadn’t laughed so much in a hundred years. “I can only say I am glad I did not see it.”
“Quit laughing and get in here and help me.” There was an edge of desperation to Jacques’s voice. “For some reason that makes no sense to me at all, Shea is determined to make this bread for the party. She wants it braided and made into loaves and put in the oven. This is my third attempt. I thought people went to stores and bought this stuff.”
“You hunt vampires, Jacques,” Mikhail said. “Making a loaf of bread cannot be that difficult.”
“You say that now, only because you have not tried it. Come in here and close the door.” Jacques rubbed his arm across his face, smearing more white flour everywhere. “I need to talk to you anyway.” He touched Shea’s mind to ensure she was a distance away. His gaze shifted back to the dough, avoiding his brother’s piercing eyes. “Shea’s been corresponding with a woman who thinks she may be a distant relative.”
The smile faded from Mikhail’s face. “How long?”
“About a year. The woman found photographs in her attic and apparently is into genealogy. She wrote Shea asking if they could be related. She thinks Shea is Maggie’s granddaughter rather than her actual daughter. Shea wanted the pictures of her mother and wrote back to her.”
Mikhail stifled the groan that threatened. “Jacques. You know better. How could she have tracked Shea in the first place? We are careful not to leave a trail.”
“It is not so easy now with computers, Mikhail, and Shea needs them to do research. The path takes her many places.”
“She should never have answered the contact.”
“I know. I know. I shouldn’t have allowed it, but she’s given up so much to be with me. I’m not like the rest of you and I never will be. You know that.” Jacques’s gaze shifted from his brother and pain rippled in the air between them. “She deserves better and I wanted to give her one small gift. Corresponding with someone who may be a relative and who claimed to have pictures of her mother—how could she possibly resist? And I could not bring myself to deny her.”
“You know it is dangerous. You know we cannot leave paper trails. Any contact with humans is risky, especially one on paper. It endangers all of us.”
Jacques slammed the dough hard onto the counter. “Shea has been researching why we lose babies even as she is carrying our child. S
he has investigated the deaths of thirty children under the age of one. What do you think that does to her?” His fist smashed into the dough. “She is about to give birth and she is terrified. She tries to hide it from me, but I have never been able to allow her even limited privacy.” The admission of weakness shamed him, but Jacques wanted his brother to know the truth. “She carries the burden of my sanity every moment of her existence.”
“Jacques, you love Shea.”
“Shea is my life, my soul, and she knows it, Mikhail, but it doesn’t make it easy to live with me. I cannot stand other men near her. I’m always a shadow in her mind, and I have nearly driven us both crazy worried about this pregnancy—worried about her. If something should happen to her…”
“Shea will give birth and the child will be healthy,” Mikhail said, sending up a silent prayer that it was true. “Both Francesca and Gregori will see to it that Shea is in good health. I have every faith that you will not allow anything to happen to your lifemate during this time.”
“She begged me to promise to stay in the world and raise my child should something happen to her.” Jacques raised anguished eyes to his brother. “After her own terrible childhood, you can understand why she would need such a reassurance from me.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, looking tired and weighed down with sorrow. “You know I cannot exist without her. She is my sanity. It is the only thing she has ever asked of me, and I cannot safely comply no matter how much I wish to reassure her.”
“What do you know of this woman?”
It was the only apology Jacques could give his brother. By allowing Shea correspondence with a stranger, a human unknown to their species, he had opened the door to endanger their entire race. “The woman, Eileen Fitzpatrick, sent Shea numerous photos of Maggie, Shea’s mother, and a woman Eileen claimed was Maggie’s half sister. Apparently the half sister is Eileen’s grandmother.”
“How would she find Shea?”
Jacques shrugged. “The internet. Shea researches genealogy all the time.”
Mikhail’s eyebrow shot up. “Why? She is no longer human, but Carpathian.”
“And apparently genealogy still matters in her research, Mikhail,” Jacques said. “Not only for Shea, but Raven and Alexandria and Jaxon—all of them as well as our families too. Gregori and Francesca take care of the Carpathian genealogy necessary for the research into the deaths of our children.”
“And this Eileen found her through the genealogy site Shea was working on?” Mikhail prompted.
Jacques nodded, all too aware of Mikhail’s continuing censure. “Eileen was born in Ireland, but she happened to be living in the States. I asked Aidan to look into her discreetly. She owns a bookstore in San Francisco and spends a great deal of her time looking up her family history in the library, using their computers.”
“So at least this woman is far away.” Even as he said it, Mikhail scowled, his dark brows coming together and thunder rolling over his face—cracking in the skies. He read the truth on Jacques’s face. “She’s here?”
“She will be at the inn this evening. Eileen asked Shea what she would be doing for Christmas, and Shea thought it was natural for a human to be cooking food for the children and having a Christmas party, so she mentioned it.”
Mikhail watched Jacques roll a wooden pin over the dough to flatten it. “I like nothing about this party. I should have told Raven no. It has occurred to me many times lately that sooner or later our enemies will strike at our women and children. What better time than now with so many of us gathered in one place?”
“Raven was right, Mikhail. After the last attempt on your life, we all needed something to lighten our spirits. I will admit I have been more uneasy than usual, but I suspect it is because Shea is so close to giving birth.”
“Maybe,” Mikhail said. “Maybe.”
“I do not think our enemies will be able to rally this quickly to launch another concentrated attack on us, Mikhail, but of course we will take every precaution.” Jacques rolled the dough out with more enthusiasm than expertise and threw a handful of flour over it, sending another cloud of white particles into the air.
Mikhail couldn’t pull his fascinated gaze away from the mess his brother seemed to be making. “Where’s Shea now?” He lowered his voice another notch.
“She had better be lying down. She is not feeling very well.”
“It is possible the vampires cannot rally, but the society working against us has always found us here in the mountains. They have spies, and it is entirely possibly they have heard of this gathering. One or more of the locals has to be in their pay. And of course, we cannot ever forget that the dark mage is still alive.”
Jacques’s black eyes glittered with menace, ice cold and dangerous, reminding Mikhail that even with Shea to steady him, Jacques was a lethal and frightening man. The white flour dusting his face and on the tips of his lashes did nothing to soften the threat emanating from him. “We should begin regular sweeps through the town and surrounding areas and see what we can pick up.”
Mikhail inhaled sharply, and immediately began to cough as the flour particles entered his lungs. He liked most of the townspeople, had a genuine friendship with a few, and the idea of continually invading their privacy was repugnant to him, even though he knew it was necessary.
Jacques scowled at him. “I can handle it myself.”
“You know as well as I do that our enemies have been able to find a way to keep us from detecting them. Continual scanning or taking blood deliberately to monitor them will only rob our neighbors of the privacy they are entitled to. We would not want such a deliberate invasion of our privacy.” It was an old discussion, but one he always made to remind himself of right and wrong.
“We have more than a right, we have a duty to protect our women and children, Mikhail, and I shouldn’t have to tell you that. You nearly lost Raven three times now.”
Mikhail tamped down his own rising beast. It would do no good to turn a useful discussion into an argument. Jacques had a valid point—as did Mikhail, and in the end, they would do what they had to do to protect their race.
Mikhail studied his brother’s snarling face. Jacques had been on the verge of insanity when Shea rescued him, and after all the years with her, the demons still lurked very close to the surface. At the slightest hint of danger to Shea, the monster rose quickly, and anyone too close to Jacques could be in danger.
“Jacques?”
They both turned at the sound of Shea’s voice. She stood in the doorway, her bright red hair tumbling around her face, drawing attention to her emerald green eyes and the dark circles beneath them. I felt your need of me. What is it, wild man? She sounded gently amused even as she wrapped him up in her warmth and love.
Jacques took a breath, calmed his mind, suddenly aware that he had inadvertently tightened his hold on Shea. I seem so sane to others, yet I am still fragmented without you. I am sorry I disturbed you. His voice was intimate and gentle, a wash of emotions as he took in the love of his life. Something softened inside, eased the roaring of the demons rising in him—the deep rage that never quite left him no matter how hard he struggled to overcome his past. He would never be easy in the company of humans as his brother was, and he couldn’t quite suppress the thought that invasion of privacy was well worth not only his own peace of mind, but his need to keep this woman safe for eternity.
“You look so cute,” she said.
Jacques blinked, avoiding his brother’s eyes. “Carpathian men are not cute, Shea. We are dangerous. I look dangerous at all times.”
“No, honey,” Shea insisted, brushing past Mikhail as she entered the room. “You look so cute, I wish I could take your picture and show all the others how sweet you really are.”
Jacques turned on her, swooping her into his arms before she could protest, dragging her close, so that the flour rained down on her, looking like snow in her bright hair, coating her clothes and dusting her chin. He buried his face in her neck, deliberatel
y rubbing against her as he nuzzled the warm bare skin, teeth nipping playfully.
Shea laughed, her arm circling his head, protesting even as she held him to her. Jacques’s much larger frame nearly dwarfed her, and his long hair, tied with a leather thong, fell down his back in a wild mane in which she tangled her fingers to hold him even closer.
Mikhail felt emotion welling up, choking him. A rush of affection, of genuine respect and love, flooded Mikhail, and he shared that small moment with Raven. Shea O’Halleran had not only saved his brother’s life and sanity, but she, with Gregori, had saved Raven and their child. Shea looked so fragile, with her small, delicate features and rounded stomach, but he knew the core of absolute courage and commitment, the iron will that lived and breathed inside her. While human, she had been a renowned surgeon and researcher, a brilliant woman as a human, and now, as a Carpathian, she turned all those skills to her work to try to save their species from extinction.
“In all honesty, Jacques, the flour and the apron does take away from the image of the dangerous predator,” Mikhail said, joining forces with her immediately, teasing his younger brother though laughter and jokes were rare between them these days.
Jacques turned back to his brother, far more relaxed than he’d been seconds earlier. Shea’s calming influence had the tiny red flames receding from his eyes and the snarl gone from his lips. “Do not encourage her,” he protested.
Mikhail winked at Shea. She remained locked in his brother’s arms, her head thrown back against his chest, uncaring of the white flour covering both of them. “I do not think she needs much encouragement at all,” Mikhail said. “I will leave you to your baking as I have to go. I want to talk to Aidan and Julian.”
You are checking on the woman claiming to be related to Shea.
Mikhail barely inclined his head. “Julian was friends with Dimitri at one time, wasn’t he?”
“A few hundred years ago,” Jacques said, eyes suddenly wary. “Why?”
Christine Feehan 5 CARPATHIAN NOVELS Page 120
