Beau shoved a hand through his hair in agitation, looking out across the familiar water. Gregori stirred, drawing the captain’s attention. Those peculiar silver eyes caught his gaze and held it. Instantly Beau felt calm, centered, protected, disconnected. The tale he was relating became just that, a story that had happened to someone else.
Gregori felt the strange shifting in the captain’s mind, like a hazy veil that produced a programmed reaction. He focused and followed the trail, the pattern of evil he was so familiar with. He recognized Julian’s healing touch, the safeguards he had set for the mortal to prevent the tainted shadow from spreading. Beau La Rue had been touched by a vampire. He had escaped, but not unscathed.
Savannah’s soft little gasp in his mind betrayed her presence. He found himself smiling that she could slip in and out of him, so much a part of him that he could no longer tell where he started and she left off. She had access to his memories and his knowledge. The more time she spent in his mind, the better she was at acquiring the lessons centuries had taught him. More than you know.Savannah sounded smug.
Beau was much more relaxed, not the happy captain of earlier, but his tension had definitely eased. “There was nothing we could do for any of them. We had entered the monster’s playground, and he was in the mood to play. He didn’t try to drown any of them right away, or kill them outright. He tossed them into the air and ripped parts of them away. Pieces of bodies were floating in the water. A girl’s head bobbed up and down near the bank. I remember the way her hair was spread out like a fan on the surface of the water.”
Gregori touched the man’s shoulder. Enough. There is no need for you to remember the details of this atrocity.
Beau shook his head, the vivid picture in his mind suddenly dimming to a hazy recollection. “We almost didn’t make it out ourselves. It came at us, as big as any of those crocodiles on the Nile. He didn’t want food, he wasn’t protecting his territory, he just liked to kill. We had penetrated into his lair, his domain, while he was amusing himself, and he was angry. My father threw the oil lamp on the water and set the whole thing on fire. We didn’t look back.”
“You were very lucky,” Gregori said softly, his voice like a fresh, cool breeze. It seeped into La Rue’s mind, his pores, and dissipated the sickness gripping him.
You can heal him,Savannah said. He is mortal.
You can do it,she insisted. Julian protected him, ensured the poison wouldn’t spread, kept the nightmare away, but you can remove it.
The hard edge to Gregori’s mouth softened, almost a smile. She was doing it again. There was no way to convince her he couldn’t do what she wanted. She believed it implicitly. He brought her hand to the warmth of his mouth, pressed a kiss into her palm. Je t’aime, Savannah,he whispered into her mind like a caress.
Savannah leaned into him. I love you, too, lifemate.
Gregori turned his attention to cleansing the mortal’s mind, washing away the memory of the encounter with the loathsome creature, the undead. He didn’t remove it completely because it was firmly entrenched in the captain’s soul; the man had lived with the experience for too many years. But Gregori whitewashed it, toning it down, extracting the remnants of the vampire’s tainted touch, the evil punishment for the intrusion, for the ability to escape the snare. The nightmares would be gone, the vivid horror would fade, and the terrible dread and fear Beau had lived with would be gone from his life for all time.
Gregori sighed softly and rubbed the nape of his neck where it tightened after such a mental excursion. Removing the taint of vampire from a mortal, from anyone, was difficult; it took tremendous energy. But looking down into Savannah’s shining eyes made it all worthwhile. She was looking at him as if he were the only man on earth.
Youare the only man as far as I’m concerned,she whispered softly, the words brushing away the weariness in his mind. The sound of the ancient healing chant was soothing, as her voice, beautiful and pure, rinsed away the ugly touch of the vampire’s depravity from his own mind. To walk in Beau’s mind and heal it, he had had to see every memory in vivid detail. Gregori had to enter the ugliness of the vampire’s sick spells to unravel them and heal from the inside out. He found his hand gripping Savannah’s, a kind of humbleness sweeping through him. No one had ever done that before—looked after him, worried about his well-being, helped heal him. It was a unique experience for the master healer of their race.
“You took Julian to this place?” Gregori asked the captain.
Beau nodded. “We have gone several times over the years. We never encountered the old man again.”
“Did it feel the same to you? His territory? Was it still evil?”
Beau nodded slowly, a faint frown on his face. “But I knew he wasn’t there. It was evil, but not quite the same. Of course, with Julian, I always felt different. Everything was different.”
“Different?” Savannah echoed. “How?”
Beau shrugged. “He’s hard to explain, but you should know. He is like this one.” He indicated Gregori. “He’s invincible. Man or beast, natural or supernatural, nothing could harm Julian. That’s how he makes you feel.”
Savannah exchanged a small smile of complete understanding with Beau. She knew exactly what he meant. “Do you think the alligator is still after all these years? Surely they die natural deaths.”
“He’s alive all right,” Beau said. “But I don’t think he stays in his pool all the time. I think he has a new hideout. Julian really hunted for him. We spent a lot of time on it, but we never uncovered his other lair.”
“Have there been any recent sightings of him?” Gregori asked. “Even a rumor, a drunk talking big? Or strange disappearances?”
Beau shrugged, the easy bayou casualness of accepting everyday life. “There are always disappearances in the swamps, unexplained odors, and weird occurrences. No one thinks it unusual. No one believes in the old man anymore. He has become a legend, a scary tale to frighten the tourists. That’s all.”
“But you know better,” Gregori said softly.
Beau sighed. “Yes, I know better. He’s out there somewhere in these miles of swamp, and he’s hungry. All the time hungry. Not for food, but to kill. That’s his hunger, that’s what he lives for, just to kill.”
The boat was carefully maneuvered into its berth. Gregori thanked La Rue and tried to pay him. When the guide refused, Gregori momentarily blurred his memory of time and placed a quantity of money in the captain’s wallet. He had been in the man’s mind, knew his financial problems, knew he was worried for his wife’s health.
Savannah curled her fingers into Gregori’s back pocket as they wandered up the road and back toward civilization. La Rue called to them. “Where’s your car? These roads aren’t always safe after dark.”
Gregori glanced over his shoulder, his pale eyes glittering ominously, picking up a hint of a blood-red moon. His eyes resembled those of a wolf hunting prey. “Do not worry. We will be safe.”
Beau La Rue laughed happily. “I wasn’t worried about you. I was worried that any who attempted to mug you might be friends of mine. Don’t hurt them too badly, eh? Perhaps just give them a little lesson in manners.”