hesitated. The prince was close by and had to be protected at all costs.
Her form shimmered and her smile faded. “They’re doing something nasty to me, I can’t hold the projection.”
He sat up, bit back a groan as the embers beneath his skin burned fiercely. “Do not go yet.”
“I’m sorry.” She looked down at her arm, looked back at him, tears swimming in her eyes. “They’re cleaning my wound. It hurts like a bear.”
“I have to be able to find you. Where are you?”
She frowned again. “I don’t know. The hospital.”
“Romania. These caves are in Romania. I can’t lose you.” He held out his hand to stop her.
She tried. He could see her make an effort. She said something he couldn’t hear, her body fragmenting.
“I have to be able to find you. Tell me your name. Your name.” He could find her with that.
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out and then she was gone. That fast. Vanishing without a trace. He sat there alone in the dark of the cave, astonished at how life could change in the blink of an eye. She was real. Her psychic abilities were strong. He had shared her space, shared her mind, and the path was imprinted on his brain. She would not escape him, but it wouldn’t be easy without her name, with no starting point.
He became aware of his heart hammering out a rhythm of joy. A lifemate. It was the last thing he had expected on this long journey back to his homeland. She wasn’t Carpathian, which was shocking, but the prince had been mated to a human so it was possible. He needed this woman to survive. He had to find her. It was difficult to force discipline on himself and not try to rush like a madman out of the cave into the rising sun.
He let his breath out with a long slow hiss of promise. The woman belonged to him. She had the other half to his soul. He should have bound her to him right then, but the distance was too great and if it took too long to find her, the ritual words would wreak havoc with both of them. No, he had to heal first and then his only mission would be to find her.
Traian lay back and waved his hand to close the small amount of soil and mud he’d discovered over him, stilling his heart, his breath, allowing the song of the earth to send him into a deep, healing sleep.
Chapter Two
Jubal Sanders glanced up at the sky, heavy with clouds, the temperature dropping alarmingly. “Night’s going to come fast when it does,” he announced. “Maybe two hours to sunset. If we don’t want to camp up here on the side of the mountain, we’ve got to start down.”
“You’re losing it, Joie, there’s nothing here.” Gabrielle Sanders sank gracefully to the ground and drew up her knees as she regarded her sister with cool gray eyes. “Stop making yourself crazy and enjoy the view. It’s breathtaking up here. You’ve been in a frenzy for hours now.” Tipping her head back, she stared up at the sky. “We’ve been climbing forever. If you were going to find anything, you would have done so by now.”
“I’m not losing my mind, Gabrielle,” Joie insisted. “Or, truthfully, maybe I’ve already lost it.”
There was a sudden silence. The wind paused. A hawk screamed as it missed its prey. Gabrielle exchanged a long look with her brother. They both stared at their younger sister. She seemed focused entirely on the rock surface she was studying.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Gabrielle replied, laughing. “All this time I thought I was the abnormal one.”
Joie let her breath out slowly. She knew she was acting crazy, almost out of control. What was she going to tell Gabrielle and Jubal? That she really had lost her mind some weeks ago and this was a last-ditch effort to hold on to her sanity? That she wasn’t joking, and she belonged locked up somewhere on heavy medication?
She’d woken up in the hospital in Austria with a strange buzzing in her head. Whispers that never ceased. A man’s voice, not just any man’s voice, but his voice, her mysterious, sexy stranger. She could imagine telling Gabrielle and Jubal she’d met a hot man during one of her numerous astral projection jaunts. Oh, yeah, and he was deep beneath the earth in a network of unexplored caves in Romania. They’d lock her up and throw away