Christine Feehan - Dark Possession

«Tell me.» She made it a command this time. If she was his lifemate as he claimed, then he needed to share this with her. It was eating him alive, and she began to realize, as she watched him stare down at his hands in a kind of wonder, that at that moment, he was more in the realm of the other world than with her.

She caught his hand and tugged until he sank beside her on the cushion of flowers. «Manolito. This is destroying you. You have to resolve it.»

«How does one resolve betrayal?»

She tightened her fingers around his. «Did you set out to make a plan to overthrow your prince?»

«No!» His denial was instant and strong.

And the truth. She could hear the ring of honesty in his voice.

«Not my brothers and certainly not me. We were just talking, complaining perhaps, debating certainly. But that was all.» He dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his temples as if they were aching. «I honestly do not know how we began to flesh out the details. I do not know how or why an actual plan to overthrow our prince began, but later, when we were angry, we spoke of it for real.»

Ever since his brother Rafael had killed Kirja Malinov, he had tried to remember. All of his brothers had tried to remember. At first they sat quietly around a campfire debating the pros and cons of all decisions Vlad had made. «There was only one other family with children as close together as ours: the Malinovs. When our mother gave birth, so did theirs. We grew up together, my brothers and the Malinovs. We played together as children, fought together as men. The bond between our families was so close. We were different from other Carpathians. All of us. Maybe because we had been born close together. Most Carpathian children are born at least fifty years apart. Perhaps there is a reason for that.»

«Different in what way?»

He shook his head. «Darker. Faster. Stronger. The ability to learn to kill came too fast, long before we were out of our normal childhood. We were rebellious.» He sighed and leaned over to rub his chin in the wealth of her hair, needing the feeling of closeness. «The Malinov brothers were lucky. There was a beautiful female child born to their family about fifty years after Maxim-the youngest boy-was born. Unfortunately, their mother did not survive long after the birth and their father followed her into the next world. The ten of us became her parents.»

She felt the sorrow in him, sorrow that hadn't dimmed through the centuries in spite of the intervening years when he could no longer feel emotion. It was still there, eating at him, tightening his chest, roiling in his gut, choking him until he could barely breathe with it. She saw a child, tall, gleaming black hair, straight and thick, flowing like water down to a small waist. Huge, bright eyes, emeralds shining from a sweet face. A mouth made for laughter, nobility in every line of her body.

«Ivory,» Manolito whispered her name. «She was as much ours as theirs. She was bright and happy and caught on to everything so fast. She could fight like a warrior, yet use her brain. There wasn't a student that could outthink her.»

«What happened to her?» Because that, after all, was what had led up to the bitterness she often sensed in Manolito's mixed emotions toward his prince.

«She wanted to go to the school of mages. She was certainly qualified. She was bright enough and could weave magic that few could break. But we, all of us, her brothers and my brothers, didn't allow her to go unescorted anywhere. She was a young woman and chafed under ten brothers telling her what to do. It didn't matter to us; we wanted to see her safe. We should have seen her safe. She was the beauty that we were fighting for, striving to protect. Her laughter was so contagious that even the hunters who'd long ago lost their emotions had to smile when she was around.»

He pressed her hand to his heart so hard she could feel it pounding in her palm. «We forbade her to go to the school and study with the mages until we could go with her and see to her protection. Everyone knew our wishes and should never have interfered. But, while we were away at a battle, she took her plea to the prince.»

A shudder went through his body. He actually rocked his frame just once for comfort, but MaryAnn felt it and knew that the bite of sorrow was deeper than most would have conceived. Time certainly hadn't healed the wound. She wondered if the loss of emotion all those years kept the pain fresh, so that when the males could feel again, even past emotions were enhanced and vividly alive to them.

«The prince had no right to usurp our authority, but he did. Even knowing we had forbidden it, he told her

she could go.» His voice trailed off to a whisper, and he pressed her hand harder against his chest, as if to ease the terrible ache there.

«Why would he do that?»

«We believed that his oldest son, one we do not name, was already showing signs of illness. The Dubrinsky line holds the capacity for vast power, but with that comes the need for a vaster power to control it. Madness reigns if discipline does not. Vlad's eldest son had been looking at Ivory, though he was not her lifemate. We would have slain him had he touched her. The tension was becoming palpable every time he returned to our village. I myself pulled my blade on two occasions when he had cornered her near the market. It was strictly forbidden to touch a woman who was not your lifemate, yet there was no question it was in his mind to do so, given the opportunity.»

«I thought Carpathian men didn't ever look at women other than their lifemates.»

«When they are young, some do, and there is an illness in others, a need for power over the opposite sex, that taints them. It is a type of madness that often takes the very powerful. Our species is not without its anomalies, MaryAnn.»

«Why wasn't he stopped?»

«I do not think many wanted to believe a son of the prince could have the sickness in his veins, but we knew it. Zacarias, my oldest brother, and Ruslan, the eldest Malinov, went to Vlad and told him of the danger to Ivory. The prince sent his son away, and there was peace for some time. Vlad's son was returning, and when Ivory asked tor permission to attend the school, it was an easy way for Vlad to get rid of an immediate problem. He thought, without her there, his son would be okay.»

He ran his hand through his hair. «In truth, he knew better. Vlad should have come to terms with his son's illness and given the order to kill him. Without Ivory there, he had more time to study the matter and perhaps find a different resolution.»

«So he allowed her to go.»

«Yes. He sent her away without one of us to protect her. He neglected to send word to us, either, because he knew we would return at once.»

She shifted, circling her arms around him to hold him close. «What happened?»

For one moment he dropped his head onto her shoulder, nuzzling his face against the warmth of her skin. He was cold and couldn't seem to get warm. With a small sigh of resignation, he forced his head up, forced himself to look her in the eye. «You are my lifemate. Destiny decreed what is between us. I am many things, MaryAnn, and know myself well. I will not let you go. You will have to learn to live with my sins, and I owe it to you to tell you the worst of it.»

She kept her gaze fixed on his, reading more sorrow than betrayal. His love for Ivory had been strong, as had, she suspected, the others' in both families. With so few women, such strong, protective males would have felt it was their duty and pleasure to protect and serve that one small child. To fail must have been intolerable.

«When word came that a vampire had attacked and killed her, we were all devastated. Worse, we were in a killing rage. Ruslan and Zacarias for the first time were not the cool heads they always had been. They wanted to slay the prince. We all did. We blamed him for countermanding our orders and ultimately causing Ivory's death.» Manolito slowly shook his head. «We could not find her body to even try retrieval from the