Christine Feehan: Dark Possession

Juliette cast her lifemate a quelling look. «It's important, MaryAnn. Manolito is in trouble and we need information fast. Riordan loves his brother and he was using a shortcut that is expedient for our species, but not very respectful. I'm sorry for that.»

MaryAnn blinked up at her, tears swimming again in spite of her resolve. «He's dead. I saw him die. And I felt it, the poison spreading through him, the last breath he took. I know he's dead. I heard people talking that even Gregori couldn't bring him back from the dead. And you brought his body back with us on the plane.» Just saying it aloud was difficult. She couldn't add, in a coffin. Not with her heart feeling like a heavy stone in her chest.

«We're Carpathian, MaryAnn, and not so easily killed.»

«I saw him die. I felt him die.» She'd screamed. Deep inside, where no one could hear, she had screamed her protest, trying to hold him to earth. She didn't know why a stranger mattered so much, only that he had been so noble, so completely heroic to insert his body between danger and a pregnant woman. More, she had heard a rumor he had done the same with the prince of the Carpathians. Selfless in his protection, he had sacrificed himself for Mikhail Dubrinsky as well. And none of them seemed to care. They had rushed to the pregnant woman, leaving the fallen warrior down.

Juliette gave her lifemate another long, telling look. «You felt Manolito die?»

«Yes.» Her hand moved up to her throat, and for a moment it was hard to breathe. «His last breath.» It had been in her throat, in her lungs. «And then his heart stopped beating.» Her own heart had stuttered in answer as though it couldn't beat without the rhythm of his. She moistened her lips with her tongue. «He died and everyone was more alarmed over the pregnant woman. She seemed so important, yet he died. I don't understand any of you. Or this place.» She pushed back the wild mass of hair and rocked gently. «I need to go home. I know I said I'd work with your sister, but the heat is making me sick.»

«I don't think it's the heat, MaryAnn,» Juliette objected. «I think you're having a reaction to what happened to Manolito. You're depressed and grieving, yet you hardly knew him.»

«That doesn't make sense.»

Juliette sighed. «I know it doesn't seem to, but were you ever alone with him?»

MaryAnn shook her head. «I saw him a few times in the crowd.» He'd been so good-looking, it had been impossible not to notice him. She considered herself to be a very sensible woman, but the man had stolen her breath away. She had even delivered the verbal smack-down to herself when she realized she was staring at him like a starstruck teenager. She knew Carpathians only had one partner. He might have used her for food, but beyond that, there was no hope for anything else.

In any case, she couldn't live with a man like Manolito De La Cruz. He was overbearing and arrogant, an ancient Carpathian male influenced in the worst possible Neanderthal ways by centuries of living in South America. She, on the other hand, was a very independent woman raised in an upper-middle-class family in the United States. And she'd seen way too many battered women to ever consider being with a man who had a domineering attitude toward women. But even knowing all that, even knowing Manolito De La Cruz was the last man in the world she could ever have a relationship with, she'd still looked.

«You were never alone with him? Not even for a short period of time?» Juliette questioned, this time looking her in the eye.

MaryAnn could see tiny red flames in the depths of those turquoise eyes. Cat's eyes. A huntress inside the body of a beautiful woman. Behind Juliette stood her lifemate, and nothing at all could conceal the predator in him.

MaryAnn felt a hard «push,» not from Juliette, but from Riordan, once again pressing to get past her natural barriers to find her memories. «Stop it!» she said, her voice sharp with sudden fury. «I want to go home.» She didn't trust any of them.

She looked around at the opulent wealth and knew she was in a silken trap. She could barely function with the terror building. «I can't breathe.» She pushed past Juliette and staggered toward the bathroom. She could see the killer in both of them, monsters lurking beneath the smooth, civilized facade. They had sworn to protect her, but they had brought her to this place of heat and oppression, away from all aid, and now they were stalking her. She needed help and everyone was too far away.

Juliette held up her hand, a frown settling over her face. We're scaring her, Riordan. Stop pushing at her. Listen to her heart. She is very frightened, beyond what should be normal. Is it possible whatever is affecting Manolito is affecting her?

Riordan was silent a moment. MaryAnn had always struck him as a strong, courageous woman. Although he didn't know her very well, she seemed to be acting out of character. If she is his lifemate, then it might be so. But how could she be his lifemate'? Why wouldn't he make his claim on her and put her under the protection of our family? It makes no sense, Juliette. He should not have awakened. Gregori locked him to earth, and when we brought him home, we took him to the richest soil in the rain forest and Zacarias ensured he would stay in the ground. I know of no others more powerful. How is it possible Manolito awakened before his time?

Could the bond between lifemates override a binding command from the healer or from the head of our family?

Riordan rubbed his chin. The truth was he just didn't know.

Well she's scared to death and we have to do something. Juliette took a deep, calming breath. «MaryAnn, I can see you're very distraught. I'm going to ask Riordan to step out of the room and we can talk about what's bothering you.»

MaryAnn ignored her and ran the last few steps to the huge bathroom, slamming the door closed and locking it. She raced to the sink and turned on the water, hoping it would deter Juliette from following her. Splashing cold water on her face helped to clear her mind, although she was shaking, frightened at the thought of what she had to do. It wouldn't be easy to escape from the Carpathians. She had little defense against them, but Gregori, second in command and guardian of the prince, had been the one to put her under his protection, and he had given her a few safeguards. She just had to use them and keep from panicking until she could find her way back to the airstrip.

She had always had a sixth sense about danger, yet she hadn't seen this coming. Now the fear was growing inside of her, blossoming into full-blown terror. She couldn't trust these people. They weren't at all what they seemed. Everything was wrong. The huge estate, with its layers of beauty, was only designed to lure the unwary into the hands of the monsters. She should have seen through them all. Gregori should have seen through them all. Was it a huge conspiracy? Were they all involved?

No, she would never believe it of her best friend, Destiny, or Destiny's lifemate, Nicolae. They needed to be

warned. Maybe they were already in trouble, or maybe it was just the De La Cruz family who had aligned themselves with the vampires. Spies in the Carpathian camp. All along there had been something different about them. She shouldn't have trusted them.

She stared at herself in the mirror, the red, swollen eyes, the signs of grief ravaging her face. The spot over her breast that never quite healed throbbed and burned. She had been certain it was a bite of some kind that she was allergic to. She'd had it ever since she'd been in the Carpathian Mountains, but now she feared it was far more. Perhaps Juliette or Riordan or Rafael De La Cruz had marked her in some way.

She had wanted to go home, desperate to be away from the violence of the Carpathian world, but Juliette had come to her with a story about her younger sister, one MaryAnn had been unable to brush aside, even though her grief and despair had been overwhelming. Was Jasmine even real? MaryAnn doubted it. They were supposed to be at a huge cattle ranch in Brazil, one where during the day many people surrounded them, but Colby and Rafael, Juliette's brother-in-law and his lifemate, along with Colby's brother and sister, had gotten off the plane at a private airport, and MaryAnn had continued on with Riordan and Juliette to an island.