Jacques made his way outside into the cool night air. The wind tugged at his clothing, raked at his long hair. A lone wolf howled, endlessly calling for a mate. The sound caught at him, touched a spot in him, and he lifted his head and crooned softly into the night. The wolf was wandering far from its companions, alone, an outcast to those who did not understand its predatory nature.
A sound alerted him, a mere rustle in the underbrush, but it was enough to draw his mind away from the wolf and back to the enemy stalking him. He lowered his body into a crouch, centering himself for the attack. When he turned his head, Rand moved out into the open. He was smeared with blood, his fangs exposed, his eyes red-rimmed, and his nails long, clawed tips. His skin, flushed from his recent kills, was stretched taut against his skull so that he had the look of death clinging to him.
“I knew you would leave your bride to feast upon the humans. You could not resist when blood was there for the taking,” Rand said in a voice edged with contempt.
Jacques’ eyebrows rose a fraction. “You seem to help yourself to whatever you desire. Does that include other men’s lifemates?”
Rand’s mouth twisted into an ugly snarl. “You took my lifemate from me. You and your brother. Yet now both of you have found the very thing you would never allow me to have. I will destroy Mikhail and his woman, and I will take back from you what is rightfully mine.”
“Maggie is dead, Rand, and only you are responsible. You left Noelle to the human butchers while you rushed out to see your lifemate, yet you did not have the courage to bring her before Mikhail and announce her as such. She would still be alive if you had.”
“Noelle would have murdered her. She threatened to do so many times.”
“Mikhail would never have allowed such a thing, and you know it. It was your own lack of courage that killed her. Any Carpathian male worth anything will stand up for the one he chooses for his lifemate. Is it possible, Rand, that you were so warped with all your womanizing that you simply did not want to make a full commitment to Maggie? Perhaps you liked having the two women, liked to taunt Noelle. Perhaps the two of you had a twisted, perverted relationship, and you could not quite bring yourself to give it up for something so right and pure.”
Rand roared, his head back, the sound issuing forth one of anger and agony. “You go too far, dark one. You think I cannot see what you really are? You are a killer. It is plain to those of us who see you with clear eyes. Do you not feel the need to destroy? Do you not enjoy the power? You are one with me, whether you choose to see it or not. Your nature is dark and ugly, like the world you and your brother forced me to occupy. I do not need to destroy one such as you—you will do so on your own. The woman will see what you are eventually.”
“Shea knows exactly what I am, and she is willing to live with me. You chose your own life and your own fate, Rand. You rose before your time—”
“I felt the rending tear when my lifemate chose death!”
“That does not excuse your responsibility in the matter. She would not have chosen death had you been man enough to take her before Mikhail and show the world she belonged to you. And you could have chosen to follow her to her fate, but again you left her to face the unknown by herself. Instead you blamed others for your inadequacies and set out to revenge yourself. Tell me, Rand, why did you deliver your own son into the hands of those butchers? He was a boy, a mere eighteen. What had he done to deserve such a terrible fate?”
Rand’s face twisted into a snarling mask of hatred. “I gave him a chance to join me, to seek retribution for what Mikhail and you had done to me. I went to him, his own father, and explained my plan. He was so brainwashed by you, by Mikhail, that he called me vampire. I could see you had twisted his mind. He would not listen to me. I could not allow such a traitor to live. My slaves dealt him with. They thought they controlled me, but I put thoughts into their heads at will. They named me Vulture and thought to destroy me after they had used me. It was amusing to turn them against one another, to force them to set each other up for the kill. Wallace and Slovensky were evil men and easy to ensnare. Smith was weak, a follower, a good sacrifice.”
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