“Livy?” he asked, the question uppermost in his mind.
“She’s through the worst of the turn. She should come through okay now,” he said solemnly.
Paul took a relieved breath, and then asked the other question most important to him. “And Jeanne Louise?”
“She’s upstairs feeding. The blood and drugs arrived last night, but she wouldn’t leave Livy to feed until she was sure she was going to make it.”
Paul nodded, not terribly surprised to hear that. He then asked, “Who are you?”
“I wondered when you’d get to that,” the man said with a smile, and then answered, “Nicholas Argeneau. Jeanne Louise’s brother.”
Paul stared at him blankly and then dropped back in the bed with a muttered, “So you no doubt hate me too.”
“No.”
The answer made him lift his head again. Eyebrows rising, he asked, “Why not? I kidnapped your sister. And she’s used her one turn on my daughter.”
“Well, since I’ve been poking around in your head for the last several minutes, I know you kidnapped Jeanne Louise out of a desperate desire to save your daughter, and that you did your best to not hurt her and to make her as comfortable as possible. I also know she wasn’t a captive long, but was willing to stay, that you love each other and that the two of you planned for her to turn you and then for you to turn Livy so that you could be a family. But events have interfered and now she can’t turn you.”
Nicholas sighed and rubbed the back of his neck wearily, and then admitted, “I don’t hate you, Paul Jones. I pity you. I pity both you and Jeanne Louise right now.”
“We’ll be all right,” Paul said gruffly, though fear had slid through him at the words. “Livy will get better, and we’ll be a family. Just not for as long as we hoped.”
“You really think Jeanne Louise wants to watch you wither and die any more than you wanted to watch Livy wither and die?” Nicholas asked solemnly.
“I’m not dying,” Paul protested.
“You’re mortal,” Nicholas said simply. “All mortals are dying. It may be slower than Livy or someone else with a disease will. You may have twenty to forty years before you go, but that’s a heartbeat to us and you are dying. Every day takes you closer to the grave, and if the two of you stay together, Jeanne Louise will have to travel there with you and watch you go.”
Paul stared at Nicholas, his words echoing in his head. They raised the terror in him that Jeanne Louise might leave him now, that she’d avoid him to avoid being dragged to the edge of the grave with him and watch him be planted in the ground.
“That won’t happen,” Nicholas said quietly. “You’re her life mate. She won’t be able to drag herself away from you. She’ll cling to you until your last breath, and then be crushed and heartbroken when she loses you, probably withdraw to relive the moments you shared. It’s what I did after losing mine.”
“You lost your life mate?” Paul asked quietly.
Nicholas nodded. “But I found another.”
“Maybe she will too,” Paul said.
“She might,” he acknowledged. “But immortals can go centuries, even millennia before finding another, and if her next one is mortal too . . .” He shook his head. “She goes through it all over again, the love, the loss, the despair.” Nicholas fell silent, his expression sad. He was obviously hurting for his sister. He didn’t see much happiness ahead for her.
And it’s all my fault, Paul realized.
If he had just stopped to think, and not bought those water wings and the raft on the credit card when he’d got gas at Canadian Tire, her family never would have thought to search the coastal towns . . . and their plan would have gone ahead as they’d intended. They’d be a family.
Aware that Nicholas was sitting unnaturally still, Paul glanced toward him, eyebrows rising when he saw that he was peering toward the door as if listening to something. Several minutes passed that way and then he suddenly stood. “I’m sure you want to see Livy.”
“Yes.” Paul sat up and swung his legs off the bed at once. When the other man moved to the door, he followed quickly, eager to see both Jeanne Louise and Livy. However, when he followed Nicholas into the next room, Jeanne Louise wasn’t there. Eshe alone sat by Livy’s bedside.
Paul hesitated, but moved to the bed to peer down at Livy. She looked much better than she had when last he’d seen her, better even than she had in more than a month. She actually looked healthy, her cheeks filled out and rosy, her face peaceful. A small sigh of relief slid from Paul’s mouth and then he glanced to Eshe.
“Where is Jeanie?”
“Upstairs,” Eshe said, standing. “Nicholas and I have to go up too. You’ll have to sit with Livy and change the blood bags. I’ll show you how.”
“Jeanne Louise?”
Turning from her contemplation of the contents of the refrigerator, Jeanne Louise raised her eyebrows as she peered at her father over the bag of blood stuck to her teeth. After watching over Livy all night she was hungry for both blood and food. Blood was the first thing she’d attended to. Food would be the next. She’d get Paul something to eat too, she thought as she waited for her father to speak. No doubt Paul would be hungry when he woke up. Along with relieved to know Livy was going to make it.