“What are you thinking, Shea?” she whispered. “A vampire? You think this man is an honest-to-God vampire? You’re losing your mind.”
A shudder shook her slender frame. Jacques had said blood exchanges bound them together. Had he somehow managed to make her completely like him? Shea’s tongue ran along the inside of her mouth, explored her teeth. They seemed the same, small and straight. Hunger burned, rose sharp and voracious.
At once she could hear the heartbeat of a small rabbit. Her heart sang with exultation. A fierce, predatory joy rushed through her, and she turned toward her prey. Against her tongue, fangs exploded, sharp incisors, hungry and waiting.
* * *
Chapter Five
Contents – Prev | Next
Jacques knew the precise moment Shea discovered the truth. Her heart beat frantically; her silent cry of denial echoed through his mind. She believed herself to be vampire. She believed him vampire. What else could she possibly deduce with so little information? Her thoughts were desperate, even life threatening. He lay very still, gathered his strength should it be needed to stop any foolish decision she might make. He simply waited, monitoring her thoughts and the telltale signs of her body.
To be alone was a kind of agony in itself. Jacques would not have been able to bear it if his mind was not a shadow dwelling in hers. Sweat broke out, bathing his skin in a fine film. His every instinct was to force her back to his side, and he was gaining strength daily now. But a part of him wanted her to return to him on her own.
What had she said to him? Her mother was Irish. Shea did not believe she was like him. What if she hadn’t been? What if he had inadvertently turned her? Jacques had never considered that possibility. Their bond was strong. It had crossed man’s boundaries. Jacques had assumed he had known her all of his existence, long before the betrayer had delivered him into the hands of the two human butchers and into madness, into the absence of memory. His suffering, his agony, had been hers. He had felt her with him. He wasn’t mistaken about that. He had been certain he had always known her, that she was his lifemate. When she did not come for him, his every waking moment had been spent gathering his strength to bend her will to his in his eternity of hell. What if she had been human? He had been carelessly cruel that first day, wanting her bound to him, under his domination.
Jacques called on his fragmented memories. Three blood exchanges. Psychic ability. A human possessing psychic ability might be converted under the right conditions if three blood exchanges were made. He closed his eyes against the guilt and remorse sweeping through his head. If she were human, that would explain her strange feeding habits, her human ways. She never took necessary precautions, never scanned before leaving the cabin. She didn’t know how. She had said she could not shut down her heart and lungs. She never slept the rejuvenating sleep of a Carpathian.
He cursed himself eloquently. The night she had been so sick, her body had gone through the conversion. There was no other explanation. She had believed she’d contracted a very virulent strain of the flu. He loathed himself for his inability to remember important information. It came only in fragments, and she was suffering because of his ignorance.
Shea’s bond with him had been so strong, it had never occurred to him that she was not Carpathian. He thought her courageous as a Carpathian woman to dare venture into his prison and save him. It was nearly impossible to believe a human female had been so compassionate and brave to return to his gravesite after the callous way he had treated her. She had been terrified, yet she had returned to him.
A scent drifted in with the night breeze. Game, fairly close. It wasn’t human, but the fresh, living nourishment would help. If he could feed enough, he could safely make an exchange and try to keep Shea alive. She was refusing food. Or perhaps not refusing. Perhaps she was unable to feed. He focused, inhaled deeply, and sent forth a call. Closer, closer, on the porch, the first step into the cabin. First one, a doe, usually a shy and skittish animal, padded across the floor to the side of the bed, her dark, liquid eyes fixed on him. A second doe and then a third followed, bunched together, awaiting his attention.