Waiting for the surge of pain to pass was agony for him. He breathed through it, trying to take in enough air for both of them. He noticed each bout lasted longer and seemed harder. He waited until he could see recognition in her eyes before he tried again.
“Marguarita. You cannot continue this way. It is getting worse. Let me in. I can take away the pain.”
Temper smoldered in her eyes. I don’t want your help. I’d rather suffer. I want to never forget, never ever forget this lesson of yours.
He needed her to keep talking. Telepathic communication went directly from her mind to his. He found her thread and used a very delicate touch, weaving his thread to hers.
“This was not meant as a lesson, Marguarita. You knew I would bring you into my world. This was consequence. To protect both of us. To protect my brothers from having to hunt me. To protect your family here from a monster unlike any other.”
I can do this myself. You can say it isn’t a punishment, but you meant it that way.
He shoved both hands through his hair. “You knew I would bring you into my world and you consented,” he reiterated, keeping his voice very low, nearly holding his breath as he carefully and very gently wrapped more of himself around that tiny thread she used to access his mind.
I thought you would introduce me with love and care, not in such a cold, unfeeling manner. Not with such pain. She gasped again, her hands flying to her stomach. I don’t want you. Go away.
Once again she rolled over, struggling to her hands and knees. The vomiting was explosive, horribly wrenching as she expelled all the toxins in her body. Her body convulsed again, contorting, driving her forward until she hit the wall, and rolled over again, drawing her legs up to her belly.
Horrified at her lack of control she buried her face in her hands when she became aware of the mess everywhere. Please go away.
His tenacious hold on the thread between them was growing stronger with every contact. It was only a matter of time before he could ease into her mind and seize control without her consent.
“Did you forget what would happen if you were killed, Marguarita?” He asked the question in that same low voice. “You knew my legacy. You uncovered a secret few have knowledge of, my darkest secret, and yet still you persisted in your disobedience.”
He couldn’t keep the hurt of betrayal from rising. He made every effort not to feel it, to distance himself once again from all overwhelming emotion, but now that the dam had been punctured, he was unable to stem the tide. He cared nothing for the rest of the world. To him, everything and everyone was still separate from him, lost to him, unless he could feel through her. But Marguarita was different. He saw her in full, vivid color. He felt her and through her, his emotions, everything lost to him all those centuries—both good and bad.
She had become his world and he had believed in her. He believed in himself because of her—for the first time thinking he could actually live a life with another. He had spent centuries living only on honor and yet, with a single decision, she could have destroyed and nullified everything he’d ever done—everything he’d ever been.
He didn’t remember his father as the man who had raised and shaped his life. He remembered him only as the undead, that rotting, soulless vampire who would have killed his own sons. Marguarita would have made him that same memory for his brothers—the ones who would have had to hunt and kill him. It was more than possible that he would have murdered his own brothers.
A single sound of despair escaped from the back of his throat. He brushed one hand over his face as if he could remove the knowledge of her betrayal so easily.
Just leave me to this.
There was weariness in her voice. She was weakening, the fight between human and Carpathian taking its toll. But even with his reminder, she didn’t seem to understand what a terrible betrayal it had been. He couldn’t afford to think of himself right now. She was in trouble and he wanted—no, needed—to ease her through the change. This terrible, traumatic episode could not continue.
“You know I cannot.” Silently he willed her to answer him. Each time she did, she opened her mind just a little more, giving him a stronger hold on the thread that would allow him to seize control without harming her.
I’m too tired to argue. Do what you want. What I want obviously doesn’t matter to you.
The weariness in her voice alarmed him. If he knew anything about her with certainty, it was that she was a fighter. In that moment, he sensed she gave up, her life, him, all of it. She was willing to allow it all to slip away.
He was so focused on her that he saw the wave approaching almost before she did. This time was even more intense. Unseen hands picked her up and threw her down like a rag doll. She fell on her back, her hands flying to her throat. Zacarias had to grip her writhing body and turn her over to keep her from choking.
Zacarias couldn’t coax her, or plead anymore. He needed this to stop almost more than she did. Waving his hands, he removed all traces of vomit and expelled toxins from her body and the floor. A breeze cleared the room of all scent. Candles sprang up, bringing the soft fragrance of lavender through the entire house.
In desperation, he took control, following those threads straight back into her mind. Complete chaos reigned. Fear uppermost. Hurt. Her sense of betrayal was every bit as strong as his. Her motivation for disobeying him had nothing to do with equality, or asserting her independence. In part it had been a vow imprinted from birth, the lifemate bond and her own character refusing to allow her to take a chance of putting his life in danger.
She had disobeyed out of love for him.
Zacarias groaned aloud, trying to grasp the enormity of what that meant. He still didn’t truly understand that emotion. He had felt it long ago—so long ago—but the emotion was so far removed from him that he no longer recognized it for what it was. Marguarita knew how to love. She had given herself into his care, trusting him to do the best thing for her.
Her love enveloped him. Swamped him. Lifted him. Once again, warmth poured through the ice of his mind and body, finding the shadows, bridging the gaps where connections should have been. He felt her inside him—where she belonged—cementing them together with her love. With the essence that was her.
She had made a bad decision in refusing to obey him, yes, but she didn’t understand the enormity of the repercussions. He could tell her, but her knowledge wasn’t the same as his. He knew evil walked in the world, knew what it could and would do, he had battled it for centuries. She had been raised in a loving environment where vampires were the thing of legends. Yes, she’d faced one, and she had the courage to defy it, but she had never really seen the destruction they could cause on a massive scale.
Zacarias had no time to examine the revelations in her mind. The terrible toll on her body had to be stopped. He pushed away all thoughts of himself and his own reactions to the way her mind worked, the depth of her ability to give and feel. That couldn’t matter. Only stopping the crushing pain. He shed his body, flowing as pure spirit into hers, using that delicate thread to find his way.
Just as in her mind, chaos reigned in her body. He could see clearly what was happening, the reformation of her body, the changes taking place in order for her to become Carpathian. He should have realized it would be a near-death experience; she would have to die as a human to be reborn as a Carpathian. And she was fighting it. Refusing. That, too, was unexpected.
He hadn’t come to comfort her when she needed it. He’d added to the trauma instead of gathering her into his arms and holding her. She rejected him and his ways as adamantly now as he clung to them. She had closed off access to her mind deliberately, knowing she would suffer, yet not wanting his help to aid her passage. No longer wanting his comfort or him.
He had thought her a lunatic for seeing him as anything but a dangerous predator, too long in the shadows, his soul already blackened, pierced through with a million tiny holes until it was impossible to repair. And yet, she had seen past th
e dark shadows to the man clinging to life somewhere on the edges. Lost. He’d been so lost. He didn’t know anything other than to hunt and kill. She had been the one to give herself freely to him, trusting that he would honor his ritual binding vow.
Zacarias summoned his energy until he was all power and healing light. The reshaping of organs could be speeded up, but the only way to stop the pain was for him to shoulder as much as he could. Share it with her. Feel it with her. She resisted. He knew she would, but she was weak, he was strong and his blood heeded his call.
“Rest as much as possible in between the waves,” he said gently as the pain receded from her body. He kept that thread, his one link to her.
She sighed and turned her head away from him as he lifted her into his arms off the floor. The room felt and smelled clean, the scent of lavender and chamomile drifting around them. The bed had cool sheets with the scent woven into them lightly. He placed her in the exact center and lay down beside her, his arms trapping her body to give her an anchor.
“I know you do not want me to help you through this, Marguarita,” he said gently, brushing the damp hair from her face. Her lashes lay in two thick crescents, a stark black against the white, almost translucent skin. She shivered continually, uncontrollably. Even her teeth chattered. “But I have to. I know right at this moment you cannot understand, but I have no choice.”
The thought was barely out of his mouth before the revelation followed. Was it possible? Maybe Marguarita had no choice, either. That love she felt, so strong, so deep, sharing parts of him he couldn’t even see or touch without her could have made their bond much deeper than he realized. She was in him. His mind, yes, but she tapped into his soul. She saw things in him that he didn’t. And those traits she’d relied on had to be there or she couldn’t have felt such strong emotion for him.
She turned her head toward him. Her lashes fluttered and she looked directly into his eyes. The impact of her gaze hit him like a punch. He could see the change in her eyes already, the color deeper and richer. Before she could speak, her eyes went wide. He felt the wave as it consumed her, faster and harder, a shock to his body when it had been centuries since he’d acknowledged actual pain.
The sensation of a thousand knives stabbing at the insides of his body, slashing and cutting all at once burned through him. His insides felt shredded and tangled, tied into thick, hard knots. The breath left his body and the punch came, a tidal wave like a battering ram, slamming through him. His skull was suddenly too small for his brain, an explosion of shrapnel bursting in his head sending shock waves through his body.
Beside him, Marguarita’s body convulsed. He held her to him, skin to skin, sharing the agony, riding on top of it with her, his body sweating tiny beads of blood that smeared over the matching ones dotting her body.
He hadn’t known. How could he not have even asked his brothers? Had each of them shared information, told one another just how bad conversion could be?
“It is fading, sívamet,” he whispered. By sharing the pain with her, at least he had lessened the violence of the seizures. “Try to breathe evenly. Your heart is beating too fast. Let your body follow the rhythm of mine.”
Deliberately he matched the frantic, accelerated pounding of her heart, the gasping, ragged breathing of her body, and very slowly, holding her to him, began to slow both their rates. Her gaze clung to his. His heart stuttered for a moment. She looked defeated, not at all like the Marguarita who went alone into a rain forest at night with a predator stalking her. Marguarita who would smile at him when he was at his worst.
Marguarita. He breathed her name, holding her close to him, inside his mind.
She didn’t fight him this time, far too weak to make much sense of what was happening to her. He lay there beside her and listened to the rain falling on the roof, amplifying the sound enough that she could hear the soothing sound through the roaring in her head. Deliberately he added small bursts of a breeze to change the pattern of sound against the windows and walls.
Beside him, Marguarita slowly relaxed, the tension easing from sore, knotted muscles enough to allow her to breathe in the soothing mixture of lavender and chamomile scents. She didn’t fight him again and Zacarias found the terrible knot in his own gut easing.
He stroked her hair in a gentle caress and murmured nonsense in his own language. Or maybe it wasn’t nonsense, maybe he tapped into those feelings of that stranger dwelling deep inside of him, the one who knew he couldn’t lose her, not for the burden of his soul, but for the overwhelming emotion that welled like a tsunami he couldn’t stop.
She couldn’t possibly know what he was saying, he hardly knew. But when the next wave hit, she turned her head and looked at him, focusing on him, rather than turning away. Her eyes went wide, glazed, as the pain hit. This time, Zacarias was prepared and knew exactly how to take most of it from her. Her body was cleansed of all toxins and well on its way to becoming fully Carpathian. As the pain receded, he sensed it would be safe to put her in the healing earth.
“I can send you to sleep, Marguarita. When you awaken you will feel hunger and the need for blood, but you will not be in such pain.”
Her gaze jumped to his as his palm wiped those tiny dots of blood from her forehead.
“You will awaken fully Carpathian.”
Her tongue touched her dry lower lip in an attempt to moisten it. It doesn’t matter. I just want this over with.
He detested the defeat in her. Marguarita was all fire to his ice, not outwardly, not in the sense of temper and picking fights, in fact, just the opposite. But she was passionate about what she believed in and who and what she loved. She poured herself completely into everything she did, just as she had wholly given herself to him.
She was worn out, her body and mind exhausted. He couldn’t blame her. He felt wrung out and he hadn’t suffered as she had.
“I do not want you to think I am doing anything else without your knowledge.” He waited, but she didn’t respond. “I will command your first sleep, and after that, your body will take over and sleep on its own when you command. You have my blood running in your veins. It is ancient blood, very powerful, and you will learn quickly to wield that power.” He had to hurry before the next swelling pain came.
“You know the earth will rejuvenate you.” He made it a statement.
Her lashes fluttered and fear crept into her eyes, but she nodded. What do I do if I find myself trapped beneath the earth?
He brushed another caress through her hair more because he needed to touch her than because it was in her face. “You will it to move. Command it. Picture the soil in your mind, doing what you wish. It may take a few times, but if you do not panic and think as a human, that you are buried alive, then you will be fine.”
Her heart accelerated when he used that phrase, buried alive, but she nodded.
“I will be with you to ease your way,” he assured.
It’s coming. She didn’t plead with him to take her away. There was no asking, no pleading. Marguarita made it clear, even in her exhausted state, that she would not be asking anything of him.
He felt the swell just as she did and he took command instantly, demanding she sleep deeply, the healing, rejuvenating sleep of his people. Carpathians shut down their hearts and lungs and lay as if dead while Mother Earth used her rich nutrients and minerals to aid them to full recovery and strength. He stopped Marguarita’s heart and lungs as gently as possible.
He lifted her into his arms, cradling her gently against his chest, his eyes burning and his heart shredded. She lay limp, her long hair sweeping to one side, revealing the curve of her cheek and her long lashes. She looked so young and innocent, a beautiful woman, ravaged by the conversion, disillusioned by the man sworn to cherish and protect her.
Zacarias carried her through the house to the master bedroom, waving his hand to move the bed out of the way. The hand-woven rug followed and the floor opened to the sleeping chamber deep beneath the structure. Another
wave of his hand opened the beckoning soil, almost a black loam rich with minerals. He felt the earth reaching for her as he floated them both down into that warm cocoon of an environment.
Very gently he laid her down, careful of her hair, bending to brush his mouth over hers. She wouldn’t feel him—wouldn’t know how silly he was acting when she was in a deep sleep, but he felt free to stroke his fingers down her arm to her hand. He threaded his fingers through hers, tenderness welling up unexpectedly.
Could he have lost her? She had pulled away from him. Rebuffed him. It hurt. Plain and simple, her rejection had been so complete, when she’d needed him the most. She would rather have suffered than allowed him into her mind, melding their spirits. His refusal to enter into the modern world could have cost him everything.
He sank down beside her, his eyes burning, his chest aching. He kept possession of her hand, his fingers caressing hers. He’d had everything in Marguarita. She’d offered him a world he could barely conceive of, let alone long for. He hadn’t known how much he wanted it. Not the people, not the friends; he knew himself. He was a loner, but he could tolerate others for her sake. He should have paid attention to what those ritual binding words meant. Her happiness. Her care.
He was a man who was confident for a reason. He couldn’t shove his responsibility off on Marguarita. If he expected her to follow where he led, he needed to place blame where it belonged. None of this would have happened if he had taken Solange’s blood when it had been offered. He didn’t want anything to do with the new world and its modern ways. He wanted to stay where he was comfortable. There would have been no question of taking command of the situation and protecting his lifemate. He didn’t have the tools available to him because of sheer stubbornness.