"So this betrayer cannot help the humans as long as the sun is up."

"Absolutely not." He said it with conviction.

"But the dawn does not have such an effect on us. We can stand it, Jacques. If we move now, we can find them. All we have to do is get Byron back and hide him until around five or six this evening when we are strong again. We can do it, I know we can. There are only so many places he could be. We can stand the early-morning sun, and no one will be expecting us. The humans who have him can't come into this cave; they can't go into the earth. They have to have shelter somewhere. You know this area, and if you don't, the others do. Let's get Byron back. The vampire might get so angry he'll quit hiding, make a mistake, and the others can get him." She was tugging at his arm, trying to drag him back toward the entrance to the cave.

"I will not expose you to these men.""Give it a rest, Jacques. I mean it. We're in this thing together. I hate to brag and put you at an obvious disadvantage, but I can take more of the sun than you."

His hand caressed the nape of her neck. "That doesn't mean I will allow you to be exposed to danger."

Shea burst out laughing. "Just being with you is dangerous, you idiot. You're dangerous." She shook back her hair, her chin lifting a bit defiantly. "In any case, I can feel the vampire and you cannot. Neither, it seems, could Byron. Maybe the others won't be able to either. You need me."

Reluctantly Jacques was allowing her to pull him toward the cave entrance. "Why do I never win an argument with you? I cannot allow you to be in danger, yet we are walking into the dawn and facing brutal killers when we are at our lowest strength. In the afternoon, Shea, we will be completely vulnerable, at their mercy, at the mercy of the sun. Both of us will be."

"Then we'll just have to be in a safe place by then. Contact the others, Jacques, tell them what's going on."

"I think you just want to get out of this cave. You would rather face a vampire and human killers than a few little bats." He tugged at her wild mane of hair.

She flashed him a grin over her shoulder. "You've got that right. And don't you ever turn into a bat." She shuddered. "Or a rat."

"We could get kinky and see how bats and rats make love," he suggested in a whisper, warm breath against her neck.

"You are a sick man, Jacques. Very, very sick." The passage was narrowing again, taking her breath. At least Jacques was complying, even if he was grousing a bit.

Jacques separated his mind from his body, thought of Gregori, the way he moved, the way he felt when his essence moved through Jacques, healing mortal wounds from the inside out. He built the feeling and sent a mental call.

Hear me, healer. I have need that you hear me.

Your trouble must be great that you reach out to those you do not trust.

The voice was startling clear in his head; the answer came so quickly that Jacques felt a surge of triumph. He was much stronger, so much more capable than he had been even the day before.

Gregori had given him blood; it flowed in his veins, pumped through his heart, restored damaged muscle and tissue. He had forgotten how easily one could communicate. I heard Byron scream. The betrayer has taken him. He must turn him over to the humans before dawn.

Dawn approaches now, Jacques. Gregori sounded calm, undisturbed by even such news as this.

Then we must find him. Do any of you have the ability to track Byron? Has he exchanged blood with any of you?

Only you made a pact with him. If he turned and was unable to seek the dawn himself, he wanted you to hunt him, and vice versa. You did not want your brother or me to have the responsibility for your destruction.

I cannot find the path for him. Jacques could not keep the frustration and self-loathing out of his voice.

You are certain this scream was Byron's?Without a doubt. We had been talking together only minutes earlier. Shea became distressed; she said someone was watching us. I could detect no one, and Byron showed no uneasiness.

Jacques and Shea were moving through the narrowing rock passage upward toward the entrance.

Jacques felt the normal restlessness of his kind at the approaching light. We will do our best to seek him as long as we are able.

Mikhail's woman can sometimes track those we cannot. She is very gifted. We will meet you at the cabin. Do you both have dark glasses and protective clothing?

Shea does, and I can fashion mine easily enough. She is still too weak to attempt shape-shifting, and she will not go to ground. Nor will I. Jacques heard the echo of Gregori's derision. Women were to be protected from their own foolish desire to be in the thick of conflict. When you find your lifemate, healer, your own clear thinking perhaps will cloud, Jacques defended himself.

The dawn was streaking across the sky, pressing through the clouds. Rain was still coming down in sheets, and winds were whistling fiercely through the trees below them. In the opening to the cave they were sheltered, but once they moved away from the cliff face, they would be hit with the full force of the elements.

Jacques leaned close to Shea's ear. "The storm will lessen the effects of the sun on us. I can feel the healer's touch in this squall."

"There is no sun. Will the vampire be able to be out in this?"

Jacques shook his head. "He cannot see the dawn, not even through the cover of clouds. We often use weather such as this to move in the early and late part of the day. It allows us to blend better with humans, and our eyes and skin take less punishment."

He felt her shiver and immediately swept her beneath his shoulder. The weather didn't bother him; any Carpathian could regulate body temperature easily. Shea had so much to learn, and she needed to overcome her aversion to feeding to gain her full strength. "The healer is right, you know. This is far too dangerous to allow you to do. I do not know what I was thinking."

"The healer can mind his own business." Shea sent Jacques a haughty, over-the-shoulder glare.

"The healer may be an intelligent miracle-worker, but he does not know the first thing about women. Don't make the mistake of listening to him in that particular department. Even with your memory lost, you know far more than that idiot."

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.

But now he had to find Byron; he owed the Carpathian that much. The drive in him to do so was strong, almost overwhelming, as if some part of him, not his mind but something deep within him, remembered their shared friendship. He should have placed Shea in a trance and demanded that she sleep while he did this thing, but the truth was, he simply couldn't bear their separation, and he wanted her close, where he could protect her. And he wanted her happy. Women!

Shea heard his disgruntled complaint clearly in her mind. A small smile tugged at the corners of her reluctant mouth. "Am I complicating your life, Jacques?" she asked sweetly, hopefully.

He stopped so abruptly that she was jerked to a halt. Jacques caught her wet hair in his fist and pulled her head back so that the rain ran along her soft skin like honey. "The truth is, Shea, you make me feel so much, I do not know if I can stand it sometimes." His mouth found hers almost blindly, desperately, feeding voraciously as if he might devour her, take her into his body forever.

Nothing can ever happen to you! His hands were biting into her skin, his body taut with tension, his mind a whirling confusion of fear and determination and so much hunger.

Almost without thought Shea reacted instinctively, her slender arms circling his neck, her body soft and pliant against the aggression in his, her mind calm and loving, a warm, safe haven for his fragmented, tortured mind. She kissed him without reservation, pouring every ounce of love and support she could into her response. He lifted his head reluctantly and rested his forehead on hers.

"Nothing is going to happen to me, Jacques. I think you're having anxiety attacks." She tousled his hair as if he were a small boy, gave him a teasing grin. "Do Carpathians have shrinks, too?"

He laughed softly, astonished that he could do so when he had been so terrified only moments earlier. "You are as disrespectful as a woman can get."

"I'm not just any woman, silly, I'm a doctor and terribly brilliant. Everyone says so."

"Do they now?" He held her tight against his hard frame, thinking to take her into his very body, his arms protectively sheltering her.

"Is this going to be too much for you, Jacques? Facing those horrible butchers again? Are you certain you can do this?"

He raised his head so that she couldn't see the wolfish smile that didn't reach his ice-black eyes. "I am looking forward to renewing our acquaintance."

Shea touched his mind with hers, found a grim satisfaction at the thought of a confrontation, but Jacques was too strong to allow her to see the rage and hatred welling up, threatening to spew forth violence and revenge. Shea was a healer, a gentle woman who could not conceive of an evil such as he had seen, such as he himself possessed. She took his hand, her fingers lacing tightly with his. She might not ever have a child, but she had Jacques. She wanted him far away from pain and torment, far from men or creatures who might try to destroy him again. She was very determined to see him safe.

Chapter Twelve

Raven stood in the comparative shelter of the porch, her face turned up toward the sky, eyes closed. Tiny beads of perspiration dotted her forehead, and her fingers twisted together compulsively over her stomach. She was not with the others, rather somewhere out of her body and concentrating on attempting to find Byron's location. Beside her stood her dark, intimidating husband, his mind obviously locked with hers. Mikhail was so like Jacques that Shea could not tear her gaze from him. As she moved onto the porch a step behind Jacques, she could clearly see that Mikhail was furious. He was seething with anger, violence swirling very close to the surface, yet his posture was purely protective. He had placed himself between Raven and the ferocity of the storm.

Gregori was as still as a statue, his face a blank mask, his silver eyes as empty as death, yet Shea gave him a wide berth. There was something dangerous in his utter stillness. Shea felt she had no way to sorting out the complexity of the Carpathian male's nature. Gregori was watching Raven through narrowed, restless eyes, eyes that saw far too much. Suddenly he cursed, low and vicious, startling from someone of his stature and power. "She should not put herself at risk. She is with child."

His eyes met Jacques', silver lightning and black ice. Total understanding between the two men.

Shea merged her mind with Jacques' quickly to try to understand the hidden currents. Raven's pregnancy, if she was pregnant, changed everything as far as the men were concerned. Shea could see no evidence of a child-Raven appeared as slim as ever-but she couldn't believe the healer would be wrong. He seemed so infallible, so completely invincible. The child was everything, all- important to the men. It surprised, even shocked her, the way they regarded the pregnancy. It was a miracle to both of them. The baby was more important than any of their lives. Shea was confused.

Despite Jacques' fractured memories, his protective streak was extremely strong.

"He's aware of his surroundings, but he can't move. Even his mind is locked and still. He is paralyzed somehow." Raven's voice startled Shea, brought her back to the stormy weather and their rescue mission. Raven was clearly speaking of Byron. "He can't move or call out, not even mentally.

It is dark and damp, and he knows he will suffer greatly before they are done with him." Raven swayed, her hands protectively covering her stomach.

The healer moved, a blur of speed, catching her arm and wrenching her out into the driving rain.

Gregori snagged Mikhail's shirt, too, and yanked him into the fury of the storm. "Break off now, Raven," Gregori commanded. He shook her, shook Mikhail. "Let go of him now!"

Jacques leapt forward, grabbed his brother, and hit his face, once, twice. "Come back!" It was a hoarse cry.

Shea bit her lip, suddenly terrified. The couple seemed somehow bound, caught in the vampire's trap with Byron. Gregori pulled Raven farther into the driving rain. Jacques pushed Mikhail after them. It was Mikhail who recovered first. He blinked at his brother, looked around him as if unaware where he was. Then, instinctively, he reached for Raven.

"Bring her back, Mikhail. Go after her. Guide her back. This is too dangerous for her. Even with my connection to her, she is trapped," Gregori said. "We are dealing with more than just any vampire.

This one is skilled in the black arts and the use of herbs and power stones. I know what he has done and how he is doing it."

Mikhail pulled Raven tightly against him, his black eyes hard with mental strain. Raven blinked, looked around her, seemed surprised to find herself in the rain. Her hand went to her temple in a gesture of pain. "Stop staring at me. I feel like some kind of freak show." She sounded hurt, hid her face on Mikhail's chest.

His arms circled her, drew her into the shelter of his body, his head bent lovingly toward hers. It was such an intimate gesture, Shea had to turn away. To her dismay, she found the healer studying her. Shea moved closer to Jacques, unconsciously seeking protection from the scrutiny.

"You need nourishment." The healer spoke gently.

"When I'm hungry, I'll eat," Shea told him haughtily. "You don't need to worry about all of us. I know how to care for myself."

The silvery eyes slashed through the lie. "Your hunger radiates from you, and your weakness could place all of us in jeopardy." He turned his powerful stare on Raven.

Raven squirmed visibly. "Oh, shut up, Gregori," she snapped, her blue eyes flashing fire at him.

A faint smile curved his mouth, failing to light his eyes. "I did not speak."

"You spoke volumes, and you know it." Her chin went up belligerently. "Your male sense of superiority is enough to make a woman want to scream. Honestly, Gregori, all that cold logic makes a person crazy." She allowed Mikhail to lead her onto the porch.

"Logic works, unlike emotional women," Gregori returned unruffled. "Your first duty is to protect your child. Our first duty must be to protect you." His silver gaze clearly censured Mikhail.

"You don't know for sure if I'm pregnant."