Christine Feehan - Dark Secret

She felt the drain, actually felt the blood rushing from her body into his. Her wrist burned and throbbed and she could feel the puncture of his teeth. She couldn't prevent the involuntary tug as she tried to get her hand back. His grip tightened painfully, fingers digging into her skin with bruising force. Colby closed her eyes and tried not to look or feel anything at all.

Stop him. Nicolas's voice was so distant and faint Colby could barely catch it. Force him to stop before it is too late.

"Rafael." She yanked at her wrist hard, trying to break loose from his grip. "Let go of me. You're hurting me." Her legs went out from under her and she sank down.

"Don Rafael." Juan Chevez shoved the barrel of his rifle beneath Rafael's jaw. "Let her go or I will shoot."

There was a moment of silence. Colby's heart pounded. Inside, she could hear herself screaming a denial. She'd rather be dead herself than lose him, but fear lived in her as Rafael stoked his tongue across her wrist and lifted his head to look at Juan. There was death in the black eyes and little else.

Colby's arm fell free of his grip. Before she could think she leapt to her feet and shoved the rifle away from Rafael. "No, Juan. He doesn't know what he's doing." She tried to touch Rafael's mind, but she could only hear a strange roaring and, very distantly, a wrenching cry of sorrow. Rafael's fingers wrapped around her throat. Time stopped. Her heart beat too fast and the air rushed from her lungs.

Without warning Rafael collapsed, going down hard and taking her with him. He was gone from her mind. Colby frantically took his pulse. "Is he dead? Juan, there's no pulse. He can't be dead." She tried to roll him over to give him CPR.

Juan stayed her with a hand on her shoulder. "It is the sun. He is too weak and he must be protected, put in the ground. We have to attend his wounds as best we can and cover him with earth. When Don Nicolas rises this evening, he will take him somewhere safe."

She lifted Rafael's head and to her shock, his black eyes stared at her, filled with intelligence and remorse. He seemed paralyzed, unable to move. His heart and lungs appeared not to be working, but he was alert. "Should I pack his wounds like I did last night?" She didn't want to look into Rafael's eyes and she didn't want to touch his mind.

While Juan dug a place in the cool earth near the pond, she packed the wounds with soil and her own saliva. He never spoke and she felt numb. His wounds were terrible. It didn't seem possible for anyone to recover from such a thing. She hated helping Juan roll him into the shallow grave and had to look away when his body was covered.

Colby staggered to her feet and began to run through the brush, uncaring that the jagged branches and prickly thorns tore at her skin and clothes. She needed to find Paul and Ginny. She needed to be with someone sane, someone normal. Her mind couldn't accept what Rafael could do. He should be dead, yet he had ripped out a heart with his bare hands. He had nearly killed her and might have killed Juan. Instead of taking him to a doctor, she had packed the gaping holes with dirt and saliva and buried him on her ranch.

Paul and Ginny sat in the small grove of pine trees, Julio standing guard. Both looked tired and dirty and so familiar she burst into tears.

Rafael couldn't comfort her, locked beneath the earth, his body already leaden and his heart ceasing to beat. He could hear her crying, knew he had nearly killed her and that she knew it as well. Juan had obeyed him, putting her protection above all else, and for that he would always be grateful. He was so close, the monster growing in him when the ritual words should have made him safe. Had he waited too long? He wanted to reach out to her, hold her, kiss the tears from her face and reassure her he would never harm her, but he no longer knew if that was true. Lying beneath the earth, he found his anguish over Colby hurt far worse than any of his physical wounds.

Aboveground, Colby clung to Paul and Ginny, desperate to get them away from a world she didn't understand. Ginny began to tell her all about her frightening experience, following the sound of a hurt animal and being trapped in a deadfall. The sound of her voice did nothing to help the terrible dread that invaded Colby's heart.

We've got work to do," Paul shouted, hitting the flat of his hand on Colby's bedroom door. "Are you going to lie in bed forever? Half the day is gone! Julio drove Ginny to visit the Everetts and Juan's already bringing in the hay. Let's go!"

Colby threw back the covers, her hands shading her eyes. With each passing day her sensitivity to the sunlight seemed to get worse. She showered quickly in cool water, trying to make the terrible heaviness that invaded her body disappear. Three nights had gone by since Rafael had been left to heal in the ground, three days and nights of sheer hell. She tried to sleep during the day, from ten in the morning until about four in the afternoon. It should have been a relief, but she was plagued with endless nightmares. She had even visited the area where she and Juan had buried him, but he was gone, taken somewhere else by his brother to heal.

Colby had dream after dream of Nicolas drawing the vampire's blood from Paul's body. It was a ghoulish nightmare that left her shaky and frightened. The moment she closed her eyes, she could see blood pressing through Paul's pores, and some sort of parasite in his bloodstream, wiggling like worms over his body. When she wasn't dreaming of Paul, she dreamed of Ginny lying in a shallow grave, her eyes wide open and accusing. Sometimes she had dreams of Rafael smiling at her as he ripped her throat open with his teeth. Most of the daylight hours she lay in her bed, waiting for the lethargy to pass, trying not to think of Rafael and how terribly hurt he was. She prayed for undisturbed sleep, her mind always racing to find a way to keep her sister and brother safe.

She often woke up crying, her heart a painful ache in her chest, her mind numb with grief. She was sick to death of grieving and being afraid. And she hated the way everyone watched her, as if she might do herself harm at any moment.

"Come on, Colby, you've got to wake up! You told me to get you up no matter what, so haul it out here." The kitchen door banged hard and Colby winced. With Ginny visiting at the Everett ranch with her new friend, Paul's dishes from breakfast and lunch were in the sink. Just the sight of the partially eaten food as she made her way slowly through the kitchen made her nauseous. Her body hated to work this time of day, no matter how much she willed it to be normal.

Colby could barely cope with the separation from Rafael. Half the time she felt as if she were going crazy. Nicolas reassured her through the long nights, and the Chevez brothers reassured her during the day. She was certain Nicolas was sharing her mind, helping her through the waking hours, and it felt like an invasion whenever she thought about it too much. She silently screamed for Rafael, thought of him, needed him; and having another person know just how obsessed she was with him was humiliating. She could barely function she was so grief-stricken.

Rafael had a lot to answer for. How the hell did he expect her to run a ranch and take care of two children when she was such a mess? She might need to see him, but she dreaded the moment she would have to face up to him and tell him it was over. It had to be over. She couldn't live in his world. It was far too dangerous and violent.

She stumbled across the yard to the corral where Paul held the bridle of a mean-looking bay. She was so sensitive to light now, she wore sunglasses to protect her eyes even in the evening. It took courage to face the light and she found herself wondering how Rafael had managed to stay with her when the stable had burned, and worse, when Ginny had gone missing. He must have been in agony. She was only partway into his world and it felt as if a thousand needles were poised to stab her eyes.