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done, maybe there was a reason why. A good reason. She'd been rash to push them into it. She buried her hot face in the pillow, feeling tears burn. Luiz was going to suffer, and somehow she knew Manolito would suffer right along with him. She wanted to hold onto her fury at his highhandedness in locking her in her room, forbidding her, as if she was a small child, from witnessing the change, but because a part of her was still there, with Luiz, with Manolito, and she felt

their agony, she couldn't sustain her anger.

She went into the bathroom and ran hot water in the tub, needing to relax her cramped, hard muscles. Her stomach was in knots. She caught impressions of convulsions, of Luiz's body contorting, wrenched into the air and dropped down hard. She could get glimpses only and realized Manolito was blocking her from merging with him. It had taken a bit to get the trick of their connection, and most of the time when she tried, she simply wasn't that good at it. But now it seemed impossible.

She took a deep breath and let it out. She would not desert Luiz at this stage, not when he needed her most. Manolito was trying to shield and protect her, but whether he knew it or not, he needed her, too. She concentrated on him. The feel and texture of him. The layers in his mind. The intimacy of the path between them-such an unexpected gift. As much as she thought him arrogant, she knew him better now, the gentleness he hid from the rest of the world. She saw his compassion as he held Luiz, felt the way he had reached to calm him.

She felt the cat rake and claw, fighting for survival, and then the sensation was gone. She let her breath out slowly and continued to picture Manolito holding the jaguar-man. She caught a small wave of compassion from both Riordan and Manolito and then the cat again, the alarm building to panic, snapping and biting as it defended itself against the onslaught of Carpathian blood.

She went to her knees, stomach heaving. She knelt, hands and knees on the bathroom floor, gasping for breath as pain rippled through her. She caught Manolito's startled awareness that she was with him, and he once again put her firmly away from him.

There was an agony in being alone, knowing Luiz was suffering and Manolito needed her with him. She felt the need, but couldn't do anything to help either of them. Manolito had been uncompromising, not realizing, or maybe he did, that he was asking her to go against her nature. Once more she pushed away fear and concentrated on Manolito, because in that moment she had connected with him, she felt his struggle with the shadow world. She might not be able to reach Luiz, but she could Manolito. The connection between them was incredibly strong.

And then she was solidly in his mind, in Luiz's mind, and saw for herself the true horrors of conversion. The agony wrenching at the jaguar-man as death called, as the cat fought. Manolito took way too much on himself, shouldering as much of the pain as nature would allow. Both men were stoic, each fully aware of the other, Luiz trying to bear it all with great dignity. Manolito strove to be compassionate and comforting while allowing the jaguar-man his self-respect. In that moment, with tears running down her face and her body writhing in the shared pain of the two men, she knew she could love Manolito wholly, with everything in her.

The attraction may have been started with some ancient ritual. She may have been obsessed physically with him, but in the end, she saw his true character. He was open to her as he tirelessly worked to help Luiz come fully into his world, and her heart responded in the only way MaryAnn knew-completely.

Chapter Twelve

The conversion was the most frightening thing she could imagine, a dark, painful death and rebirth. She

knew she was facing it and that Manolito, watching what Luiz had gone through, was not as certain as he had been that he wanted to risk her. Strangely, for the first time she did consider risking everything, because what she had learned here today was that Manolito De La Cruz was far more than a gorgeous man with a too-arrogant attitude, and she was already more than halfway in love with him.

She French-braided her hair in