Bolt after bolt of lightning slammed to earth. A tree exploded, rained fiery sparks. The earth heaved again, rolled, came apart at the seams. Gregori loomed over them, the darkest of the Carpathians, his pale eyes ice cold and holding the stark promise of death.
“The wolves did their job,” Eric reported grimly. “The lightning and earthquakes will do the rest.”
Jacques ignored him, gripping Mikhail’s shoulder. “Enough, Mikhail. You grow too weak. She has lost too much blood. She has internal injuries.”
Black rage filled Mikhail. He threw back his head and roared his denial, the sound exploding through the forest and mountains like the booming of the thunder. Trees burst into flames around them, exploding like sticks of dynamite.
“Mikhail.” Jacques refused to relinquish his hold. “Stop her now.”
“She has my blood; it will heal her. If we can keep blood in her, get her into the soil and perform the healing ritual, then she will live.”
“Enough, damn it!” Jacques voice held very real fear.
Gregori touched Mikhail gently. “If you die, my old friend, we have no chance of saving her. We must work together if we are to do this thing.”
Raven’s head lolled back, her body limp like a rag doll. Mikhail’s blood ran unchecked down his chest. Jacques leaned into his brother, but Gregori was there before him, closing the gaping wound with a single stroke of his tongue.
Mikhail was nearly oblivious to his surroundings, he was directing his entire being, his entire disciplined focus on Raven. She was slipping away from him, fading slowly but surely. Her heart beat erratically, one beat, a miss, a single beat. There was an ominous, eerie silence.
Swearing, Mikhail laid her flat, physically breathed for her, manually stimulated her heart. His mind sought the trail of hers, found a small, huddled light, dim and fading. She floated on a sea of pain. She was weak beyond his imaginings. Breathe, massage. Call her back, reinforce it with an order. Repeat the process.
A torrent of water raced down the rocky canyon behind them, a solid wall gathering speed and force. The ground shook again. Two trees exploded into fiery conflagrations despite the heavy rains.
“Let us help,” Gregori ordered softly.
Jacques moved his brother gently aside, took over CPR while Gregori breathed for Raven. In and out, Gregori filled her lungs with precious air. Jacques forced her heart to continue. It left Mikhail free to concentrate on his mental quest. A stirring in his mind, the lightest of touches, but he knew it was her and he locked onto that trace and followed it ruthlessly. You will not leave me.
She tried to move away from him, up and away. There was too much pain in the direction in which he called her.
Panicked, Mikhail screamed her name. You cannot leave me, Raven. I cannot survive without you. Come back to me, come back to me, or I follow you where you lead.
“I have a pulse,” Jacques said. “It is weak, but it is there. We need transport.”
There was a shimmering in the gathering darkness. Tienn appeared beside them. “Eleanor has given birth, and the child lives,” he announced. “It is a male.”
Mikhail let out his breath in a long, slow hiss. “She betrayed Raven.”
Jacques shook his head in warning when Eric would have spoken, would have tried to defend the woman. Mikhail was in a killing rage. The slightest mistake might provoke him. Mikhail’s fury was triggering the turbulent weather, the raging storm and heaving earth.
Mikhail sank back into his mind, holding Raven to him, taking as much of her pain as he could. The trip home was a blur to him, the rain pelting the windshield, lightning sizzling and snapping. The village was deserted and dark, the electricity out in the terrible ferocity of the storm. Inside their houses, people were huddled and praying, hoping to live through the ferocious storm, not understanding their very lives could depend on one small human woman’s courage and tenacity.
Raven’s body, so limp and lifeless, was stripped of her bloodstained clothing and placed on Mikhail’s bed. Healing herbs were crushed, some lit. The poultices were replaced with newer, stronger ones to try to stem further blood loss. Mikhail touched the dark bruises on her face with trembling fingers, the dark marks that stood out starkly against her full white breasts where Jacob had deliberately hurt her in his jealous, drugged rage. Fury seized Mikhail and he longed to crush Jacob’s throat beneath his hands. “She needs blood,” he said abruptly.
“So do you.” Jacques waited for Mikhail to draw the sheet over Raven before he offered his wrist. “Drink while you can.”
Gregori touched his shoulder. “Forgive me, Jacques, but my blood is stronger. It holds immense power. Allow me to do this small thing for my friend.” At Jacques’s nod, Gregori drew a single mark over his vein.
There was silence as Mikhail availed himself of Gregori’s rich blood. Jacques sighed softly. “She has exchanged blood on three occasions with you?” He forced his voice to be neutral, not wanting to appear to reprimand his leader and brother.
Mikhail’s dark eyes flickered warningly. “Yes. If she lives, she will most likely be one of us.” It was left unsaid that she might live to be destroyed by the very one who had converted her.
“We cannot seek human medical aid for her. If our way does not work, Mikhail, her doctors will be useless anyway,” Jacques cautioned.
“Damn it, do you think I do not realize what I have done? You think I do not know I failed her, that I failed to protect her? That by my selfish actions I put her life in jeopardy?” Mikhail stripped off his bloody shirt, balled it in one hand, and threw it to the farthermost corner of the room.
“This is senseless, looking back,” Gregori said calmly.
Mikhail’s boots hit the floor, his socks. He dragged himself onto the bed beside Raven. “She cannot take blood our way; she is too weak. We have no choice but to use their primitive transfusion methods.”
“Mikhail...” Jacques said warningly.
“We have no choice. She did not take all that she needed, not even close. We cannot afford the delay of argument. I ask you, my brother, and you, Gregori, as my friend, to do this for us.” Mikhail cradled Raven’s head in his lap, sat back among the pillows and closed his eyes tiredly while they began the primitive process.
If he lived another thousand years, Mikhail would never forget that first stirring of unease in his mind while he lay as dead beneath the earth. Knowledge had exploded in his brain, spread terror in his heart and fury in his soul. He had felt Raven’s rippling fear. Jacob’s hand on her precious body, the brutal blows, the tearing sensation of the knife as it sliced through skin and into her soft insides. So much pain and fear. So much guilt that she had failed to protect Eleanor and her unborn child.
Raven’s weak touch had slipped inside his mind, so whispery, edged with pain and regret. I’m sorry, Mikhail. I’ve failed you.Her last coherent thought had been for him. He loathed himself, loathed Eleanor for not having the discipline to learn mental communication, focused and pure.
In that one second of understanding, as he lay helpless, locked in the soil, the very foundations of his life, his beliefs, had been rocked. As he burst free, Jacques rising with him, he had mentally reached for Jacob, had buried the bloodstained knife to the hilt in the murderer’s throat.
The storm enabled Vlad to break Eleanor and him free without the fear of blindness or that one moment of complete disorientation that would have given the assassins the time to kill his laboring wife.
Mikhail sought Raven’s mind, crawled to her with warmth and love, his arms a shelter. The needle jabbed the inside of his arm, pierced hers. He had no doubt that his brother would monitor the transfusion closely. Jacques held Mikhail’s life along with Raven’s in his hands. If she died, Mikhail followed her. He knew in his heart, the black fury that remained would endanger anyone near him, Carpathian and human alike. He could only hope that Gregori was up to the job of dispatching Carpathian justice to him swiftly and accurately if Raven should die.