Fury filled him. He’d spent centuries looking for his woman. Centuries of bleak loneliness. Hope faded, and all he had left was his honor. She would not take that from him because she was afraid. Carpathian women knew their duty. They understood what could happen when a lifemate was stripped of his other half.
She dared to love another man? Choose another man? She was his. His reward. His anchor. His only hope. She had no right to refuse him. He felt the bloodlust rising in him, felt his teeth lengthen. He didn’t hesitate, not when a Daratrazanoff was trying to take his woman. Not when she was too frightened to do right by him. Not when dishonor was a breath away.
“Te avio päläfertiilam. Éntölam kuulua, avio päläfertiilam. Ted kuuluak, kacad, kojed. Élidamet andam. Pesämet andam. Uskolfertiilamet andam.”
“Stop! Stop it!” Gabrielle screamed the words. Frantic. “Mikhail, please. Stop him. You have to make him stop.”
He heard the tears in her voice and that tore at him, but he couldn’t stop. There was no way to stop. Not even to comfort her. Not even to reassure her that she would be safe with him. Rage was still there. The bloodlust hadn’t subsided.
“Sívamet andam. Sielamet andam. Ainamet andam. Sívamet kuuluak kaik että a ted. Ainaak olenszal sívambin. Te élidet ainaak pide minan. Te avio päläfertiilam. Ainaak sívamet jutta oleny. Ainaak terád vigyázak.”
He spoke firmly, in a deep, commanding timbre. He used his ancient language and felt every word ripped from his soul. Even as he uttered the binding words imprinted on him before he was born, he felt the ties binding them together. His soul to hers.
She cried out with each completed vow. As if he’d struck her. As if, somehow, he’d ripped out her heart and soul. Before he could step close to her to soothe her, he heard the warning growl from the Daratrazanoff on the ground. And it was a growl.
“Gabrielle.” The single name was spoken softly. The raw love was so strong it hurt to hear it. The sound made the man exposed, vulnerable, and showed his loss. His despair. The knowledge that she was lost to him for all time.
Aleksei jumped back as Gary Daratrazanoff leapt from the ground. He was even more shocked when he looked at the man’s face. He’d witnessed the killing thrall of a Carpathian male who had lost his lifemate on more than one occasion. Each time, he’d been the one to deliver the mercy killing to prevent them from dishonor.
“Gary!”
His woman—Gabrielle—cried out, more frightened than ever. She couldn’t fail to recognize the way the man shut down completely. It was a terrifying thing to see darkness claim a good man. Aleksei moved his body squarely between Gary and his lifemate. The man was in a killing rage. The thrall was impossible to stop, but it was only brought on when a lifemate died. What was going on? Surely his woman couldn’t have been Gary’s lifemate as well.
He’d had enough. He’d taken all he was going to take from any of them. He whirled, snatched up his woman, tossed her over his shoulder and was inside the gate before anyone could stop him. Behind him, his brethren joined him, sealing the safeguards against all outsiders.
He cared little what the prince, Gregori and Andre would have to do to the Daratrazanoff who had tried to take his lifemate from him. Lock him down, send him to the earth to heal or simply kill him. None of that mattered now. Only his lifemate. The woman who had betrayed him with another man.
He set her down, and she flung herself back toward the gate. He caught her in an iron grip around her waist and walked her backward. Her back hit the wall of their gathering building. Instantly he caged her there, using his large frame to hold her in place. He put one hand on her belly and the other beside her head. She looked up at him with tears swimming in her eyes and a look of utter terror on her face.
His eyes blazed down at her. He refused to be swayed by her fear. “Now you will explain your unseemly conduct and know this, woman, you will suffer punishment should you not obey me.”
4
Gabrielle glared defiantly up into Aleksei’s face. She hated him with every cell in her body. She detested the fact that his face was purely masculine and she noticed. She hated that she felt the heat of his body, or saw that his eyes were a clear, startling green. He wasn’t handsome in the accepted sense of the word; he was far too dangerous and rough-looking for that. He didn’t try to hide the fact that he was a predator from anyone, least of all her. And she didn’t care. Not one little bit.
“Obey you? That’s what you expect? That’s never going to happen.” She spat the words at him, hoping to goad him into killing her. “You took everything from me. I will never do anything you say.”
His breath hissed out and his eyes went flat and cold. Hard. Terrifying. His hand wrapped around her throat and for one moment she thought he’d actually break her neck. Or strangle her. Her pulse beat into the palm of his hand. She held his stare, but it was difficult. Very, very difficult. The gaping wound in his chest was already closed, his shirt clean of all blood. How he’d managed that she didn’t know, but it made her all the more angry at him.
“Do not ever say I did not give you a chance to explain.”
She stuck her chin in the air. “I don’t owe you an explanation. I have nothing at all to say to you. Nothing.” She nearly spat the last word at him.
Her heart nearly stopped beating when he transferred his hold from her throat to her hair. He bunched the long strands in his fist, and there was nothing gentle about the way he twisted his hand so that his grip was anchored close to her scalp. He turned and walked rapidly in the opposite direction, forcing her, by her hair, to go with him.
She bit back a scream of pain and beat at his hand and arm. When that didn’t slow him down—in fact he didn’t even appear to notice—she tried to concentrate on activating the bracelet. Even that let her down. She fought, but the hold on her hair was relentless and every movement she made, from attempting to kick him to hitting him as hard as possible, only increased the agony in her scalp.
Aleksei thrust his lifemate inside the walls of his home. Each of the ancients had their own personal space and this was his. The bare bones of a house. Nothing on the walls. No furniture. What was the need? The ground was the floor. The soil his bed. He waved his hand and instantly there was a soft carpet covering the dirt. That was all she was going to get.
He would have killed her outside. Before. Before he’d uttered the ritual binding words and bound her soul to his. He should have. Another mistake on his part. A big one. Now, he couldn’t kill her. It was impossible to kill one’s lifemate after the ritual words bound them together. He either had to keep her or meet the dawn, something that was so against his nature that he had come here to this monastery, where others like him viewed it as a cowardly act.
He’d lived a life of honor to be brought to this, so close to his downfall he could feel it. The darkness spreading like a virus through him. A breath away. Waiting to take him. He had lived too many centuries and had skills not many had. He would make a terrifying vampire, one that would kill hundreds if not thousands before he was brought down. He knew that. He knew it with every fiber of his being.
He shoved the woman away from him, down to her knees. She had brought him to this. She was Carpathian and she knew the consequences of her actions to her lifemate should she betray him. Even her tear-streaked face couldn’t stop the rush of fury at her. She would not only bring him down, but she would be indirectly responsible for the innocents he would kill should he turn. And he would turn if he didn’t finish this and make this treacherous wench fully his.
He tried to shut down his emotions so her tears wouldn’t get to him, wouldn’t soften him, but his fury was too great, the darkness taking hold of him so firmly he feared if they didn’t complete the bonding he would lose it and kill her and as many others as possible. Should the ancients have to destroy him, they would turn as well. Because of her. This harlot. She put them all in danger.
“Take off your clothes.”