You will not do this, Jacques. I need you sane right now. I’m doing my best to hold it together, but if there’s a fight, I’ll go crazy, I swear it. Please help me now. Please.Therewere tears in her mind, a vulnerability Jacques had never seen in her.

Jacques’ arms swept around her, cradling her close as he struggled to regain control. Her distress seemed to give him added strength. He lifted his head, black eyes moving warily over the two males. Mikhail and Gregori looked perfectly at ease, yet Jacques sensed their alertness. He forced himself to smile, then shrug casually. “I am afraid my mind has not healed as my body has. You will have to have patience with me. Please enter our home as our guests.” The formal words came out of nowhere.

Mikhail swung the door closed. “Thank you, Jacques. We want only to help you and your lifemate.” He deliberately seated himself, placing himself in a vulnerable position. Raven perched comfortably on the arm of his chair. Gregori moved across the room with a deceptively lazy stride. He walked with fluid grace, an animal sensuality, but Jacques was well aware that the healer was subtly placing his body between the couple and Jacques.

Gregori. The ancient one. The dark one.The words shimmered in his mind. Gregori was a very dangerous man. “I remember little of my past,” he admitted softly. “Perhaps it would be better for all of us if Shea and I kept to ourselves. I am well aware I am unstable, and I would not want anyone to get hurt.”

Shea turned in his arms to face the Carpathians. “We appreciate your help. It’s just that this is all so new to both of us.”

Gregori’s silver eyes studied her pale face, seeming to look right through her into her soul. “You are a doctor?”

Shea shivered. The healer’s voice was incredibly compelling. The man had far too much power. “Yes, I’m a surgeon.”

A smile curved the healer’s sensual mouth. He was charismatic, but Shea was well aware that his silver eyes had not warmed in the least. They were cool and watchful. “You are very good. Carpathians do not respond well to human healing. Jacques was healing despite the odds against it. We are all indebted to you.”

“You were able to do in an hour what several days of my care could not accomplish.” In spite of herself there was a note of admiration in her voice.

“How is it you found Jacques when we could not?” Again Gregori’s voice was casual, but she sensed the question was a trap.

Her chin lifted, her green eyes defiant. “Seven years ago, while studying, I was overcome with pain. Pain there was no medical explanation for. The agony lasted for hours. From that night on, I had dreams of a man tortured, in pain, calling to me.”

“Where were you?” Gregori questioned.

“In the United States.” Shea swept her fingers through her hair, found her hand was trembling, and put it behind her back. Those glittering pale eyes were disconcerting. They seemed to see right into her soul, see every mistake she had ever made. “I know it sounds bizarre, but it’s true. I had no idea there really was a man, that he was suffering.” Guilt washed over her. “I should have found him sooner, but I didn’t believe...” She trailed off, tears welling up.

Do not do this, my love,Jacques commanded, his arms tightening protectively. They have no right to judge you. None of them came for me. You did, across an ocean. And I did not treat you gently.He touched the warmth of his mouth to her bruised throat. “Yet you returned to me in spite of the way I attacked you.” He said the last aloud deliberately, a warning to the Carpathians to back off from questioning her.

“You must have been terrified,” Raven said softly.

Shea nodded and sent Jacques a small smile. “He was definitely something I had never encountered in my practice.” She was striving for normalcy in a world that was turned upside down.

“You are young to be a doctor,” Mikhail observed.

Shea made herself really look at him for the first time. Jacques and Mikhail shared the same powerful build, the thick mane of hair, the ice-black eyes. They both carried the hard edge of authority, self-confidence, and the trace of arrogance that came with it. Jacques’ finely chiseled features were more worn from his ordeal. “You look young to be centuries old,” she countered, remembering the feel of his fingers on her throat.

Mikhail acknowledged her with a slight grin and a nod.

Beside her, Jacques fought down the snarling beast the memory of Mikhail’s attack triggered. Shea ignored him. “A woman named Noelle had a child, a son, with a man named Rand. Do you know where the boy is? He would be twenty-six now,” she asked.

Mikhail’s features stilled, became a mask. A slow hiss escaped, and Jacques instinctively edged around Shea so that she was behind him.

Be very careful, Mikhail,Gregoriwarned.

“Noelle was our sister,” Mikhail stated softly, “murdered just weeks after the child was born.” Shea nodded. The information confirmed what Jacques had already told her. “And the child?”

I do not like this, Gregori. Why would she wish to know of Noelle ‘s child? Humans murdered her. They have a network with far-reaching tentacles. Perhaps she is a part of it after all.Mikhail’s voice shimmered in Gregori’s mind.

Jacques would know.Gregori was certain. Maybe not. His mind is shattered.

He would know. She could not hide it. You fear for your brother. You do not look at her with your eyes and mind open. There is much sorrow, tragedy in her eyes. She is tied to a man she does not know, a man who is extremely dangerous, one who has hurt her on more than one occasion. She is highly intelligent, Mikhail; she knows what she has become, and she is struggling to accept it. This woman is no assassin.

Mikhail inclined his head at his oldest friend’s assessment. “Noelle’s son was murdered seven years ago, probably by the same assassins who tortured my brother.”

If it was possible for Shea to grow any paler, she did. Her body swayed slightly; and Jacques gathered her close. The boy had been his nephew, but Jacques had no memory of the child or the man, so the pain he felt was Shea’s. Her half-brother, her only chance at a family.

I am your family,Jacques comforted her gently, his chin rubbing lovingly over the top of her head.

He was the young man in the second photograph Wallace and Smith showed me. I know he was.Shea laid her head wearily against his chest. I felt such wrenching pain when I saw the photograph.

I am sorry, Shea. So much has happened. You need time to absorb all this.

Puzzled by her obvious distress, Mikhail glanced at Gregori, who shrugged his broad shoulders rather elegantly.

“What of Rand, his father?” Jacques voiced the question for Shea, although the name sent pain splintering through his head, evoked a black, empty hole where memory should have been.

“Rand went to ground for a quarter of a century. He rose last year, but he keeps to himself. He sleeps most of the time,” Mikhail answered.

Shea’s fingers curled in Jacques’. “He did not raise his own son?”

When Mikhail shook his head, Shea swallowed the hard knot of protest blocking her throat and glanced accusingly at Jacques. Children and the women who live with them seem to be left alone rather easily by your race.

We are not Rand and Maggie.Jacques stated it firmly.

Shea bit her lip as she studied Mikhail. “What does ‘go to ground’ mean?”

“Carpathians rejuvenate in the soil,” Gregori explained, watching her closely. “The human sleep does not allow quick healing or real rest. We may go through human practices—showering, dressing, all the little habits to protect what we are, although there is no real need—but we sleep the sleep of Carpathians. The earth heals and protects us during our most vulnerable hours when the sun is high.”