Jacques found himself laughing again. His mouth brushed the nape of her neck, sent a shiver rushing the length of her spine. “How easily you get around me.” He couldn’t help the surge of possessive triumph sweeping through him. Shea might admire the healer for his abilities, might even wish to learn from him, but his attitude definitely grated on her independent nature. Jacques found he was particularly fond of that independent streak in her.
“You’re a mere man, what do you expect?” she asked straight-faced. “I, however, am a brilliant surgeon and a woman of many talents.”
“The bats are beginning to get very nervous. I am not certain I can keep them from charging us,” he teased wickedly.
An involuntary shiver ran through her, but she simply tugged at his hand, assuring herself he was close, and returned to the matter before them. “Think of where we can take Byron when we find him.”
“The cabin is too dangerous. It will have to be a cave or the ground itself. We can turn him over to the healer and find a safe place to rest, perhaps make it back here.”
“That thrills me, it truly does.”
“Where did you learn to be so sarcastic?”
Jacques meant the question to be teasing, but a bitter smile curved her soft mouth, and her eyes reflected pain. “You learn fast to protect yourself when you’re different, when you don’t dare bring a classmate home because your mother forgets you exist, forgets the world exists. Sometimes she stood at the window for days, literally days. She wouldn’t even acknowledge me.” She stopped. “Could I be like her, Jacques? Because I’m with you, could I be like her?”
“Not in the same way,” he answered as honestly as could. “Some things are so fragmented in my mind, I have to piece together information. I do know most lifemates choose to live or die together. But if a child was in need, the lifemate remaining would see to its well-being, emotionally as well as physically.” He did not tell her of those children given to other couples to raise because the remaining lifemate could not face existence without the partner. They knew the child would be well looked after, well loved, because most Carpathian women miscarried or lost their newborns within the first year of life. “And I know you, Shea. No matter how difficult something is on you, you always see it through. You would not abandon our child the way your mother did you. Our child would be loved and guided every moment of its life. I know that absolutely.”
She caught his arm, preventing him from stepping out into the rain. “Promise me, if we have a child together and something happens to me, you will stay and raise it yourself. Love it and guide it as someone should have me. Promise me, Jacques.”
“A Carpathian child is protected and loved above all things. We do not mistreat children.”
“That is not what I asked of you.”
He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, unable to lie to her. He had been alone too long. He would never want to remain without her. “Lifemates happen to us only once, little red hair.”
“Our child, Jacques. If it should happen, I don’t want a stranger raising it.”
“Sometimes, Shea, another couple, one hungering for a child, is a better choice than a remaining, grief-stricken lifemate.”
Her swift indrawn breath, the slam of a mind block so strong it was frightening, made him realize this was no small matter to her. “Did it never occur to you people that the child might also be grieving? That a parent to comfort it and see it through such a time would be of more value. This need you have to choose death when there is a child or other family members left behind is selfish and morbid.”
“You persist in judging us by human standards,” he said gently. “You have no idea what our bond entails.” His strong fingers laced through hers, and he turned her knuckles up to brush the warmth of his mouth along her soft skin. “Perhaps we should save this discussion for a more appropriate time, when we are safe and we know Byron is also.”
Her eyes refused to meet his. “I’m sure you’re right, Jacques.” Tears burned, and Shea chose to attribute them to her sensitivity to the dawn, not to their conversation.
She followed Jacques down to the timberline without a murmur, carefully keeping a strong block up so that he could not read her mind. She could understand why he felt he would have to choose death should something happen to her. He had been too long alone and could not face life without his anchor. Maybe he was right; maybe he would be too dangerous to the world. But if she had to accept that, she knew that there could be no children in their future together. Eternity was a long time to live with such knowledge. But she could not bring a child into the world, given how Jacques felt. She would never take such a risk.
Shea bit her lip, stumbled a little in weariness. Automatically she grabbed at Jacques’ waistband for support. For one moment she’d thought she had a chance at a normal life, perhaps not normal as others knew it, but with a family structure, a child and husband.
Do not, Shea. I do not have the time now to comfort you properly, to allay your fears. Leave this.
Startled that he had penetrated her block, she looked up at his face, so mesmerizing, so handsome and seductive, yet ravaged by torment no human could imagine. His eyes, unprotected by the dark glasses he held in his hand, moved over her face. She could see love there, and possession, a dark promise for all eternity.
His fingers brushed her chin, sending a dancing flame spiraling along her spine. His thumb touched her bottom lip, and a shiver of sexual awareness curled in the pit of her stomach. You belong with me. Shea, two halves of the same whole. You are the light to my darkness. I may be twisted, even mad, but I know in my heart, in my very soul, that I cannot exist without you.His mouth brushed her eyelids gently. “I am not easy to kill, red hair, and I do not surrender what is mine. Lying in torment these years has given me a strength of will not easily matched.”
She rubbed her face along his side, wanting to burrow close for comfort. “We are so far apart, Jacques, in every way we think. It’s easy to say in the heat of passion that everything will be fine, but living together may be extremely difficult. We’re so different.”
His arm circled her waist, urging her forward into the comparative shelter of the trees. Rain was slashing down, soaking them. Clouds, dark and massive, swirled above them. But he could feel the first pinpricks of the sun as it began to climb above the clouds. The early morning light always made him uneasy, always made him aware of his own terrible vulnerability. Replacing his dark glasses, he pushed forward with quick, long strides. If only she had taken nourishment from the healer, they could shape-shift and be at the cabin in an instant.
Jacques knew she had thought her mind block sufficient to keep him out, but he never was able to quite let go of her. Some part of him always dwelled in her mind, quiet, like a faint shadow, but there all the same. She had always dreamed of having a child, to give it the love she’d never had. Now she felt there was no hope of such a thing. The question of the child had been very important to her, but lifemates could not lie to one another, could not cheat on one another. He could only pray he would choose death instantly, without a qualm, without a doubt, if something happened to Shea. Otherwise he feared he would become the monster lurking inside him, so close to the surface, a monster the world of humans and Carpathians alike had never known. There was something very wrong with him, and only Shea stood between that something and the rest of the world.
There was no way for her to break their bond. He knew that with his every instinct, and it brought him a measure of com fort. The rage, always so close, so deadly, was leashed and under control for the time being. As long as Shea was with him.