Shea burst out laughing. “Just being with you is dangerous, you idiot. You’redangerous.” 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. Iheard 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.”