Dark Celebration Page 0,11

the rest of you and I never will be. You know that." Jacques's gaze shifted from his brother and pain rippled in the air between them. "She deserves better and I wanted to give her one small gift. Corresponding with someone who may be a relative and who claimed to have pictures of her mother-how could she possibly resist? And I could not bring myself to deny her."

"You know it is dangerous. You know we cannot leave paper trails. Any contact with humans is risky, especially one on paper. It endangers all of us."

Jacques slammed the dough hard onto the counter. "Shea has been researching why we lose babies even as she is carrying our child. She has investigated the deaths of thirty children under the age of one. What do you think that does to her?" His fist smashed into the dough. "She is about to give birth and she is terrified. She tries to hide it from me, but I have never been able to allow her even limited privacy." The admission of weakness shamed him, but Jacques wanted his brother to know the truth. "She carries the burden of my sanity every moment of her existence."

"Jacques, you love Shea."

"Shea is my life, my soul, and she knows it, Mikhail, but it doesn't make it easy to live with me. I cannot stand other men near her. I'm always a shadow in her mind, and I have nearly driven us both crazy worried about this pregnancy-worried about her. If something should happen to her..."

"Shea will give birth and the child will be healthy," Mikhail said, sending up a silent prayer that it was true. "Both Francesca and Gregori will see to it that Shea is in good health. I have every faith that you will not allow anything to happen to your lifemate during this time."

"She begged me to promise to stay in the world and raise my child should something happen to her." Jacques raised anguished eyes to his brother. "After her own terrible childhood, you can understand why she would need such a reassurance from me." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, looking tired and weighed down with sorrow. "You know I cannot exist without her. She is my sanity. It is the only thing she has ever asked of me, and I cannot safely comply no matter how much I wish to reassure her."

"What do you know of this woman?"

It was the only apology Jacques could give his brother. By allowing Shea correspondence with a stranger, a human unknown to their species, he had opened the door to endanger their entire race. "The woman, Eileen Fitzpatrick, sent Shea numerous photos of Maggie, Shea's mother, and a woman Eileen claimed was Maggie's half sister. Apparently the half sister is Eileen's grandmother."

"How would she find Shea?"

Jacques shrugged. "The internet. Shea researches genealogy all the time."

Mikhail's eyebrow shot up. "Why? She is no longer human, but Carpathian."

"And apparently genealogy still matters in her research, Mikhail," Jacques said. "Not only for Shea, but Raven and Alexandria and Jaxon-all of them as well as our families too. Gregori and Francesca take care of the Carpathian genealogy necessary for the research into the deaths of our children."

"And this Eileen found her through the genealogy site Shea was working on?" Mikhail prompted.

Jacques nodded, all too aware of Mikhail's continuing censure. "Eileen was born in Ireland, but she happened to be living in the States. I asked Aidan to look into her discreetly. She owns a bookstore in San Francisco and spends a great deal of her time looking up her family history in the library, using their computers."

"So at least this woman is far away." Even as he said it, Mikhail scowled, his dark brows coming together and thunder rolling over his face-cracking in the skies. He read the truth on Jacques's face. "She's here?"

"She will be at the inn this evening. Eileen asked Shea what she would be doing for Christmas, and Shea thought it was natural for a human to be cooking food for the children and having a Christmas party, so she mentioned it."

Mikhail watched Jacques roll a wooden pin over the dough to flatten it. "I like nothing about this party. I should have told Raven no. It has occurred to me many times lately that sooner or later our enemies will strike at our women and children. What better time than now with so many of us gathered in one place?"

"Raven was right, Mikhail. After the