The rain beat down into the silence; the wind shook the trees. Jacques stared sightlessly into the forest. Fragments of memory teased and whispered at him. “Blood. So much blood.” The words came out of their own accord. His fingertips stroked absently over his neck, a frown creasing his forehead. “It was a hunter’s trap, a crude, nearly invisible wire. It cut my throat.”
Nobody moved or spoke, not wanting to break Jacques’ concentration. Shea found herself holding her breath. Memory was so important to Jacques, and right now it might save Byron’s life. She could feel the pain splintering through his mind, felt him blocking it out, focusing his will to remember. He rubbed his thumb back and forth across an eyebrow, then frowned slightly. “I was weak. He came then, offered his blood. I did not want to offend him, but I was reluctant. He was… he disturbed me.” Jacques broke off, gripping his temples hard with his fingertips. “I cannot see him.” He looked at Shea with desperate, anguished eyes. “I do not know who he is.”
She wrapped her arms around him both mentally and physically, hating the worn, tortured lines etched into his beautiful face. Two days ago you could barely stand, could not remember anything. This is a miracle, Jacques. What you’ve accomplished is a miracle. She tried to reassure him, reading accurately that he loathed the fact that he could not eke out another detail.
“It is enough to piece it together,” Gregori said, his voice a soothing balm. He touched his fingertips to Jacques’ temples, inhaled slowly, and focused, sending himself outside his body.
Shea could actually feel the pain melting away, leaving Jacques whole and calm. The healer’s power was extraordinary.
She wanted it, felt it moving within her, rising to follow where the healer’s light led.
Gregori’s voice broke the spell. “You must have accepted his offer. The poison was in the betrayer’s blood.”
“What prevents the betrayer from being paralyzed?” Mikhail hissed it, a venomous sound that sent a shiver through Shea. There was something very lethal about all these men, something far different from their human counterparts. They accepted violence as easily as the animals in the surrounding forest did. They were predators. It was in the way they moved, in the way they held themselves, in their very thoughts.
Gregori made a slow circle of the porch. Shea found it interesting that all three men had positioned their bodies between the dawn and the women. “There are ways, but we have no time for such a discussion, for we must act now if we are .to do this. Raven, while you were connected to Byron, could you get a sense of direction, anything at all?”
“He was not alone. He was somewhere underground, a cave maybe. It was damp, musty. He was not so very far from us.” Raven looked up at Mikhail with sad eyes, afraid she had not come up with the information they needed to find the Carpathian in time. One day in the company of the two human butchers and Byron was surely going to die a hideous death. Mikhail laced his fingers through hers, brought her knuckles to the warmth of his mouth in understanding and unity.
“The cellar, Jacques,” Shea suddenly said, excited. “They took him to the cellar. They can’t know this land very well, and they would go where they had already been successful. I know what they’re like, very arrogant, particularly the one called Don Wallace. It would be just like him to use the same place, thinking he was thumbing his nose at all of you.”
“It would be damp and musty all right, but they would find Jacques’ coffin gone. They would know the place had been disturbed recently,” Mikhail argued thoughtfully.
“True, but wouldn’t the vampire tell them Jacques is alive? He saw Jacques and me in the forest earlier with Byron,” Shea said. “They would feel safe because you’re all supposed to be under cover during the day, I’m telling you, this is exactly the kind of thing a man like Wallace would do. He believes you’re all vampires and can’t move in the daylight hours.”