The blood pumped out as Byron became even more upset. Gregori’s voice softened until it was the wind and the water, the earth itself. “Jacques has exchanged blood with you many times. He can give you his if you prefer to safeguard your pact with him. Do not fear for us; there is no trap the vampire can devise that I cannot unravel. Sleep now, and let us get on with it.” The voice was a command.

Although Byron’s mind was impossible to control, the voice made anyone hearing it want to comply. Byron was exhausted and wracked with pain. He felt his hold on consciousness slipping away. His life was draining away, and he couldn’t convey to them the monstrous, diabolical plot the vampire had outlined to him as he lay so helpless. He could only hope they would figure it out in time. Byron shut down his heart to stop the draining of his blood. His lungs labored for a moment, then, with a little sigh, gave up, and he lay quiet, as if dead.

Gregori breathed a sigh of relief. “I could feel his pain.”

“I have felt it before,” Jacques replied grimly. “He is better off not feeling or knowing until we can see to his wounds.”

“He does not want my blood,” Gregori pointed out in his soft, calm tone. Nothing ruffled him; nothing moved him to emotion. He killed or healed as calmly as he talked.

“I am aware that I have entered into a pact with him. I will honor it,” Jacques said. “Let us find this trap so we can take him out of here. This place is evil.”

Gregori was examining the coffin itself, looking for hidden trip wires or a bomb of some kind. He ran his hand carefully along the outside of the crude wooden box. “The human left here knew nothing; they set him up as expendable. This has to be a death trap.” Very cautiously Gregori inspected the body lying so still. “He is in bad shape. He should have put himself to sleep immediately. He must have wanted to die quickly, or he knew they were expecting us and wanted to warn us. Whatever the answer, the day is creeping upon us fast, and we must get him to a cave where we can supply him with blood and the healing earth he needs.”

“Stand back, healer, and allow me to lift him. He is my friend, although I do not remember him. I can do no other than honor my commitment to him.”

“Go slowly, Jacques. The bomb, if there is one, must be beneath him.” Gregori, instead of moving away, moved closer so that he could grab anything that looked harmful and dispense with it if needed.

Hurry, Gregori. The light grows stronger, and I am uneasy,Mikhail instructed from outside.

Jacques very carefully felt under Byron’s body, a slow, cautious sweep, taking his time as if the morning light was not affecting any of them. The smell of blood assailed his nostrils, and the stench of charred flesh made his stomach lurch. Near Byron’s hips he felt the smallest of resistance. Instantly he stopped. “It is here, Gregori, a trip wire, razor sharp. It is cutting into my wrist. Can you see it? I dare not move until we know if it is connected to some kind of explosive device.”

Gregori crouched low and examined the intricate wiring. “A crude bomb, rather pointless. The vampire knows how easy it would be for me to dismantle it.”

“Perhaps this is a present from the two humans. It is a rather human trap, after all,” Jacques commented, waiting patiently for Gregori to deal with the problem. His superior strength allowed him to hold Byron’s dead weight with one hand and not notice any strain. “Is there a second device? Perhaps the first one is really a dummy.”

Gregori was more than uneasy now. He was a master of deceit, of cunning. This was far too elaborate a plot to have been set up in a matter of an hour. This had been planned for a long time. Someone had waited for the opportune time to carry it out. For what purpose? Mikhail felt uneasy also, as did Jacques. Something here was very wrong, but what was it? Puzzled, he examined the device again, not wanting to miss anything.

Chapter Fourteen

Shea stared out the window of the cabin into the driving rain. The droplets looked like tiny silver threads streaming from the gray sky. She shivered for no reason and crossed her arms protectively across her breasts.

“What’s wrong, Shea?” Raven asked softly, not wanting to intrude.

“Jacques just cut himself off completely from me.” Shea swallowed hard. All this time she had been so certain she needed her freedom from the continuous bond between them, but now that Jacques had withdrawn, she felt almost as if she couldn’t breathe. “I can’t reach him. He won’t let me.”

Raven sat up straighter, her face going very still. Mikhail?

Leave me for now,heordered. Raven caught the impression of fear for Jacques’ sanity, the swirling, violent rage that had welled up in the Carpathian males just before Mikhail broke the mind contact with her. She cleared her throat cautiously. “Sometimes they try to protect us from the harsher aspects of their lives.”

Shea whirled around to face her, eyebrows up. “Theirlives? Aren’t we bound to them? Haven’t they done something to irrevocably bind us to them so that there is no way to leave them? It isn’t just theirlives. They brought us into this, and they have no right to arbitrarily decide what we can and can’t know.”

Raven swept a hand through her blue-black hair. “I felt the same way for a long time.” She sighed. “The truth is, I still feel the same way. But we persist in judging them by our human standards. They are a different species of people altogether. They are predators and have a completely different view of right and wrong.”

Raven shoved a hand through her hair, frowning as she did so. “I wanted to wait to have a baby. But Mikhail has been noticing differences in Gregori, and we both knew he needed some hope to continue. It worries me, though, because I still have such a hard time fitting into their world.”

Shea crossed the room and sat on the bed beside Raven’s chair. She could hear the fear in the woman’s voice, and something in her instantly responded. “At least there are two of us now. We can gang up on them.”

Raven laughed softly. “It’s such a fight all the time, maintaining any kind of control in my life with Mikhail. I have this feeling he’s only going to get worse with this pregnancy.”

“And you’re obviously going to have the healer on your back,” Shea pointed out. “He’s more daunting than Jacques’ brother.”

Raven sighed. “I wish I could say that wasn’t true, but he’s going to be horrible, really horrible. I can’t blame him, though.”

“I don’t understand what he meant exactly, but I could tell it was imperative I take good care of you.”

Raven tucked her feet beneath her. “Carpathians rarely have children. There’s something that prevents them from having a female child when they do conceive.”

Shea’s mind instantly focused on amassing data. “Can you tell me more?”

Raven obliged. “About eighty percent of all children conceived are male. No one knows why. Only about seventy percent of pregnancies are carried to term. Most miscarry, and it isn’t even within the first three months. It can happen at any time. Of those children born, only a handful survive the first year. Again, no one knows why. The last female child to survive was born over five hundred years ago.” Raven sighed. “The men are desperate. Mikhail and Gregori have a theory that only human women with true psychic ability can make the change and have the right chemistry to be a lifemate. Even if they’re right, you can see the magnitude of the problem. Without women and children, the species cannot survive. The males turn vampire because they have no hope.”

“Perhaps it’s nature’s way of population control. They’re able to live so long,” Shea mused, more to herself than to Raven.

“The species will be extinct soon if they can’t find out what’s wrong,” Raven said sadly. “Gregori is a great man. He’s given so much to his people and suffered for so long. He deserves a better fate than turning vampire and being hated and feared by the world. Out of respect, Mikhail would never allow any other to hunt and destroy him, yet doing so himself would be agony. I’m not even certain anyone could actually destroy one such as Gregori alone. It would be a terrible thing for Gregori to be hunted by the very people he protected and healed.”