Slovensky lifted the stake higher, poised it over Raven’s breast. “This gives me more pleasure than you will ever know.”
“No!” Shea attempted to launch herself at Slovensky, unable to bear the thought of them defiling Raven’s body with a crude wooden stake.
Focus! Gregori snapped, his voice so powerful, even over the distance, that it brought Shea up short, where all Don Wallace’s slaps and punches had hardly fazed her.
Shea stared at Slovensky, the picture etched in her mind. She saw the glee in his face, the hatred, the sick, perverse pleasure he was deriving as he held the stake aloft above Raven’s body. Then suddenly she saw his expression change from pleasure to alarm. His face grew crimson, then a dark shade of purple. He coughed, and blood trickled from his mouth, his nose. He coughed again, and his arm fell to his side, the stake dropping from nerveless fingers.
“Uncle Eugene?” The grin faded from Wallace’s mouth. He took a step toward his uncle. “What is it?”
Slovensky tried to speak, but the only sound that emerged was a wheezing groan. More blood bubbled up around his mouth. Red foam dribbled onto his chin.
Shea looked away, her stomach lurching.
Look at him! Gregori made his order impossible to ignore. One of the most powerful ancients alive, he forced her compliance without a qualm, holding her mind focused exactly where he wanted it. Jacques and Mikhail had thrown their strength and power squarely behind him.
Shea’s terrified gaze returned to the older man as bidden. He was gray, his body swaying unsteadily. Suddenly he fell to his knees.
“Damn it, old man!” Wallace sounded scared. “Don’t do this to me. What the hell is wrong? Are you having a heart attack?” He didn’t go near his uncle. In fact, he backed up, dragging Shea with him, looking wildly around as if afraid they weren’t alone.
Slovensky was strangling, choking on the blood pouring from his mouth, literally drowning in it. He clutched his throat, trying to pry imaginary fingers from around it. Then his hands went to his heart as his chest began to literally rip open.
Shea cried out but could not look away with Gregori forcing her to obey his command. Then suddenly, as Slovensky’s heart exploded violently out of his chest and he slumped forward, face down onto the floor, she was released.
Wallace made strange sounds, little mewling noises interspersed with curses. He dragged Shea to her feet, forced her with him toward the door. Her back was to him, and for a moment Shea was curiously thankful. She had never killed or injured another human being in her life. She had taken an oath to save lives. Every instinct in her was to go to Raven, see if there was anything she could do. Even to go to the sick old man and try to aid him. Killing was utterly out of her realm.
You did not kill him, Jacques said soothingly.
I was the instrument you used, she protested. As Wallace dragged her outside, the light hit her eyes, and she cried out as a thousand knives seemed to pierce her skull.
Look at this man, his hand on you, anything I can use, Jacques ordered gruffly. He could feel her horror, her reluctance.
I can’t, Jacques. I can’t think. It was true. Her mind was consumed with grotesque images of blood and death.
This time it was not Gregori who took charge. Jacques gripped her mind in a hold of steel, forcing her compliance. He was far stronger than she had ever imagined him to be, and supremely confident in his abilities, even in the morning hours. The Carpathians men were coming closer, too. Even with the burden of protecting Byron, they were moving rapidly as a group toward the cabin.
Mikhail reluctantly split off from the rest of them, Byron a dead weight in his arms, his path away from the forest and toward the cave of healing. But his concentration on his wife and child was total. He had no room for any other emotion. He kept their waning life force flickering in his mind, held them locked to him, giving them no chance to die before the healer was there to aid them.