“I don’t know. No future is ever certain, Gary.”
He took a breath and then he kissed her. Hard. Hot. Hungry. She tasted incredible. She kissed him back, opening her mouth to his, taking him just as hungrily, just as in need. Just as filled with despair. They clung to each other in silence until he lifted his head.
“Gary, I honestly don’t know if I can make it without you,” she whispered against his throat. “I don’t know how to live without you in my life.”
He understood because he felt the same way. He tightened his arms around her, pressing her body tightly to his. Even though he feared he might be in danger of crushing her, she didn’t protest. She held him just as tightly.
“Please come away with me,” she whispered. “I’m afraid without you. You steady me. You make me feel as if I have an anchor in a world I don’t understand. If you leave me alone, I’ll just dry up and blow away.”
He closed his eyes, his heart weeping. “Give me time to figure out whether we’ll have the time to raise a family and be together before I lose my ability to feel. I won’t put you through that, Gabrielle. I need to talk to Mikhail and Gregori . . .”
“No,” she said sharply, her hands going to the lapels of his jacket. “You know they’ll tell you to let me go. You know they will. This is between the two of us. Our decision, not theirs.”
“Honey, you persist in thinking they’re the enemy.”
“In a way, they are, Gary. They’re my enemy. They’ve taken you from me. You were always mine, the only person I’ve ever really had.”
“Gabrielle.” He caught her chin and tilted her face up toward his, compelling her to look into his eyes. “You come from a loving family. You adore your sister and brother. You love your parents.”
“Very much,” she admitted. “But I don’t fit anywhere. Not with them. They don’t know me. They don’t understand me. They never have, as much as they’d like to. These people”—she swept her hand around the field to indicate the Carpathians—“they don’t even try to get to know me. I do research and I keep to myself. I don’t mean anything at all to them. But you . . . you see me. I matter. I exist.” She shook her head, tears swimming in her eyes again. “You can’t take that away from me, Gary. What will I have left?”
He took a breath. “All right, honey. I want you to take some time and think about this realistically. If in a week you still feel like we can make a go of it, we’ll revisit the issue, but you need to really think about what could happen if I lose my emotions so abruptly and have all the past history of hundreds of years of loneliness poured into me all at once. That could be dangerous to us.”
“You’re a man of honor, Gary. You would tell me what was happening and we’d face it together. You know that’s what you’d do.” She was absolutely certain.
He crushed her to him again, knowing he would have to give her up, that she wasn’t his. She believed that much in him. He was the one who didn’t have a family anymore. He’d given up being in the human world in order to try to help Gregori. He admired him. At first he’d been intrigued by the Carpathians, but then it became a compulsion, a need to aid them. The species was in danger of extinction in spite of their longevity. With no women and their inability to conceive or carry children, something had to be done, and Gary had been determined to do it. He’d led the research projects, with Gabrielle and Shea, a doctor, to aid him. In a short time, they’d come a long way.
He was in the middle of working on how to permanently remove all the mage-mutated microbes spreading throughout the soil. Xavier, a mage the Carpathian people had believed was their friend, had plotted to bring the entire species down and had nearly done so.
Carpathians were diligent about cleaning the soil where they slept, and about removing any of the microbes they found in their bodies that would kill the unborn children or the babies in their first year. Gary was certain, if Xavier could mutate the microbes to do his bidding, they could reverse the process. He was close, too. He felt it. He always felt something before a major breakthrough.
Gary had never once regretted his decision to help the Carpathian people. Never. He was fully committed to them. Until now. This moment. Giving up Gabrielle was nearly impossible. He took a deep breath and brushed his mouth over the top of her head, savoring the feeling of her in his arms. He wanted to commit this moment to memory. The scent of the flowers. The night sky. The way she looked in her gown. Her hair done so intricately, flowers woven through the silken strands. Even the bracelet, burning red-gold flames captured in the links, circling her delicate wrist.
“I know what you’re doing,” Gabrielle whispered. “I’m doing the same thing. I won’t change my mind, Gary. I choose you. Every time, I choose you. It will always be you.”
He didn’t answer. He was a Daratrazanoff and he felt the heavy responsibility of his bloodline. He had a duty to the prince, to his people. He was a shield now. A protector of his people. He had all the power and skills, but he also had the brain he’d been born with. He knew he was a huge resource to the Carpathians, and Mikhail and Gregori recognized him as such.
Gabrielle was correct when she said the prince and Gregori would discourage any romance between them. Still, he also knew, when he dropped from vivid, real emotion to absolute nothing at all, they would try to cushion that fall. It would be brutal. He was intelligent enough to know why the Carpathians’ emotions faded over time and why, when they were restored and their lifemate was taken from them, that abrupt nothingness sent them into a dangerous killing frenzy known as the thrall.
He wouldn’t endanger Gabrielle. He had to find out when it would happen. How much time he had. If he had fifty years, he would take those years and give them to her. If he didn’t have at least that many, he would have to give her up. She wouldn’t forgive him. That would be the price he would have to pay to keep her safe. She would always feel as if he abandoned her. Rejected her.
“Think about it, Gabrielle. I’ll do some research and see what we’re looking at. We’ll talk in a few days.”
She shook her head, clinging to him. “If I let you go now, I’ll lose you. Make love to me. Give me that.”
Sheer torture. He felt as if his heart was being ripped out of his body. “Honey, if I touch you, I will never have the strength to walk away. I think you know that. We have to know what we’re getting into before we make a decision.”
She tore herself out of his arms. “You’ve already made up your mind. God. I hate them. I hate what I am. I hate that I have to live my life according to their rules. That some man I don’t know or love can dictate to me what I can or can’t have. I don’t know if he even exists and he’s ruling my life.”
She turned and ran away from him, charging through the field of Night Star flowers. The stalks bent toward her, as if bowing as she passed, and then sprang back up. Gary watched her flee, hearing her weep as she raced down the mountain, her gown flowing behind her. He wept with her, his tears bloodred, dropping on the petals of the flowers surrounding him. Even as he looked at the droplets, the red faded to a dull gray.
Gary blinked rapidly to clear his vision. With Gabrielle’s departure, all color was gone from his life. She’d taken it with her. He stood there a long time. Minutes. Hours. He didn’t know. Staying still. Knowing if he moved, he might shatter. She took her bright light and left him in darkness.
“Gary.”
He closed his eyes. The voice held too much compassion. Mikhail Dubrinsky, prince of the Carpathian people, stood to one side of him. Gregori was on the other. Guarding. Watching over him. To protect the others, or defend him? He didn’t know, but Gabrielle must have returned while he stood alone and they had come to him.
“You knew.” It was an accusation.