What should I do?
Fane says the woman is his lifemate. What is she doing with you?
This was getting worse by the moment. Still, there was something in his tone that compelled her to answer. I need to sort myself out. She’s someone I can talk to. Maybe she can help me.
Fury. Hot. Wild. Intense. It poured into her. Filled her mind. O jelä peje terád, emni. Sun scorch you, woman. Get rid of her. You talk to me. We sort you out together. Not an outsider. You. Me. Together.
She held herself very still. She knew she’d gone pale, she could feel the blood leaving her face. You swore at me. In Carpathian. That’s considered swearing, isn’t it? And you keep saying the word peje to me.
Scorch. Scorching. Like the more modern fuck.
She winced. Not only did he get angry with her, over the top, crazy angry, but he swore at her. She was trying to sort herself out, for him. Okay, she’d screwed up royally, but she was trying. She wasn’t at all certain he was.
Well, I don’t like it. She would have settled for scorch or scorching if he hadn’t compared the word to fuck. Scorch didn’t sound half as bad. And she got the implication. Sun scorching a Carpathian was burning him to death or sending him to hell, or in this case, saying fuck you.
Not fuck you.
I still don’t like it.
Get used to it. Get rid of her. Now.
Gabrielle gritted her teeth. Trixie is no threat to us. Clearly. You can’t dictate to me who I can see or talk to or be friends with.
Are you my woman?
Her breath hissed out between her teeth. I didn’t say I would obey.
Are you my peje woman?
“Gabrielle?” Trixie said, drawing her attention. “Are you all right?”
Gabrielle nodded. Yes, I am. But I’m the biggest mess in the world right now and I need to sort things out. You just make me crazy. I can’t talk to you about what I’m feeling because my feelings make you crazy. Both of us can’t be crazy.
Get. Rid. Of. Her. This is between us. I warn you, Gabrielle. You do not want to test me over this. Abruptly he was gone.
Gabrielle took a deep breath and let it out. Okay. That was scary. Beyond scary. But he wasn’t going to dictate friendships to her. Trixie was making sense. Helping her. Listening to her when she needed it.
“I’m okay, Trixie. I’m trying to figure out how to explain what a lifemate is to you. It’s rather complicated. Fane isn’t human. He’s a Carpathian. Just as Andre is and Aleksei. They live very long lives. Very long,” Gabrielle emphasized.
Trixie took a deep breath and stared into Gabrielle’s eyes. She believed every word she was saying. Knots began to gather in Trixie’s stomach. Fane had used the word centuries more than once. She’d overlooked it because quite frankly, he was gorgeous and she was already so far under his spell she didn’t want to hear anything that might bring her out of it. But if that was true along with sleeping in the ground . . .
“He’s a vampire,” she whispered.
“No.” Gabrielle said it sharply. “Absolutely not. He hunts vampires. He’s devoted his life to hunting them. Carpathian males live very difficult lives, Trixie. They lose their ability to feel emotion or see in color after so many years have gone by. There is only one woman for them. One. She can restore those things to him. Without her, he has only two choices. He can give in to the darkness, lose his honor and become vampire, or he can walk out into the sun and die a hideous death. His lifemate is everything to him. He binds her soul to his and he is safe.”
Trixie was beginning to get a really bad feeling. “How does he do that?”
Gabrielle hesitated.
Trixie shook her head. “That doesn’t bode well, you looking at me like that. You know something I need to know.”
“You have a psychic gift, don’t you?” Gabrielle said softly. “Like Teagan. Like me. You have a gift.”
Trixie couldn’t deny that. She heard songs in people. Gabrielle’s song was sad. Fearful. Fane’s song was beautiful and every single cell in her body responded to it. “Yes. Why?”
“The Carpathians are nearly extinct. They began to have fewer and fewer female children born. And then those children died before they were much more than toddlers, or the women miscarried. Soon, there were too few women and a child that lived was rare. I was helping to research along with Gary in order to help them. Their prince discovered a human woman with psychic abilities could not only be a lifemate to a Carpathian, but she could become Carpathian. She could be converted.”
Trixie didn’t like the sound of that. “Is that what happened to you? Is that why you didn’t realize you have a lifemate? You weren’t Carpathian? You were human?”