Chapter 17 #2
“It worked itself out over time, but Zacarias carries a shadow in him. Without Marguarita close, colors and emotions are lost to him. He becomes the relentless hunter. He insists that his lifemate is stashed somewhere safe. I know his father used to take his mother along when he was hunting. If he had that same shadow, it would make sense.”
“But Zacarias doesn’t take his lifemate.”
“No, he won’t risk her. She once told Riordan’s lifemate that she knew Zacarias was safer hunting without emotion.
She’s right. When I’m in the rainforest without you close, I shut down all ability to feel.
If I were battling a vampire, I wouldn’t want him to even know about you. The risk would be too great.”
“But you intend to leave here.” Sarika finally got to the subject she was very afraid of.
Strangely, leaving the rainforest felt more difficult to her than accepting that she would become Carpathian.
She wanted to ensure that her jaguar was safe, the way Solange’s had been.
She intended to talk to hers and explain every step of the way.
If it became apparent that she would lose that well of feminine magic she attributed to her jaguar birth, she wouldn’t go through with the decision to become Carpathian.
“Yes, we can’t stay. I promise to bring you back as soon as the situation with Justice is resolved.”
There was that name again. Justice. He was the reason the Carpathians were on edge.
He was the person they believed was planning to kill the prince and destroy the Carpathian people.
He wasn’t vampire, but he was more. She knew he had escaped the underworld after being held there for centuries.
He was feared by those above- and belowground.
The strange thing was, she could never actually catch a glimpse of him in any of their minds.
As if he were a phantom they all chased.
“You don’t think Justice is vampire, yet he somehow is able to get vampires to do his bidding?” She caught glimpses of the battle with Gustov and Tomas’ conclusions.
“If Justice has turned vampire, there would be the kind of brutality that you saw with Mitro.”
“But Mitro was still Carpathian, not vampire, during the time he was committing such atrocities.” Sarika struggled to understand.
She also realized the conversation was making Tomas increasingly uncomfortable.
Was he hiding something important from her?
He had been careful to tell her the strict truth and answer any question she’d asked.
It occurred to her she hadn’t asked the right questions.
“He had not turned vampire, although many said he was acting like a vampire.”
She listened carefully to his neutral tone.
He wasn’t giving anything away. “But he wasn’t yet vampire.
” The jaguar amulet grew warm against her skin.
Her hand crept up to cover it, to hold it against her.
“What is it that you’re not telling me, Tomas?
I know you’re holding something very important back from me. ”
His arm tightened around her, an involuntary movement, as if he thought she might run from him when he revealed the important detail he had kept hidden.
“A Carpathian leads a very long life. It isn’t true that we can’t be killed. We can. It is just extremely difficult. Most hunters who do not find their lifemates seek the dawn rather than risk turning vampire. It is an accepted practice.”
“By seeking the dawn, you mean they stay out in the sun, and that kills them,” she clarified. She tried not to think of those honorable hunters living centuries and then choosing such a horrific death to ensure they kept that honor. It hurt.
The amulet pulsed in her palm, grew hotter as if trying to protect her from the overwhelming wave of empathy she experienced.
She didn’t know any of the men who had faced that decision, but the grief overpowering her made it seem very personal.
It took her a few moments to realize it wasn’t just her empathy; she was feeling Tomas’ grief.
He didn’t seem to be aware he felt so deeply about those lost brethren.
A part of her acknowledged that she felt even more for Tomas, knowing he was grief-stricken losing so many of his friends.
“Yes, that is how they die,” Tomas acknowledged.
“Not all of us believed that was the right thing to do if we truly had a lifemate. It was our duty to find our lifemate even if she was reborn several times throughout the centuries. That meant finding ways to stay alive and keep our honor no matter how difficult. A number of us chose to continue long past the time we should have ended our lives.”
Sarika listened to every nuance of his voice.
He sounded matter-of-fact. He always spoke in a low, velvety tone.
The way he talked appealed to her. Everything about Tomas appealed to her.
The reluctance to continue was there, but she felt she knew him far better than either of them realized.
He would tell her the things he would prefer she didn’t know, and he would do so honestly.
It was something that was desperately important to her in their relationship.
She could handle bad news as long as her partner shared with her and allowed her the necessary time to process.
She wanted to be heard in their relationship.
And respected. Tomas, despite the advice from his brothers and Luiz, seemed to do both.
“Those of us who chose to remain found strange changes taking place. Where before, we continually heard the whisper of temptation, voices insisting if we killed while feeding, we would feel something, a rush after centuries of nothing, those whispers ceased. Completely and utterly stopped. What was worse? Hearing the continual temptation, or the absolute silence that followed for centuries? We found ourselves living in a complete void.”
Sarika deliberately used her ability to see into others to merge with Tomas, tuning her energy to his to allow her to feel what he had experienced for so many centuries—what his brothers and Luiz were still suffering.
Most of the time when she connected with those close around her, she didn’t do so deliberately.
It just happened, usually when they were experiencing strong emotions. Or there was danger.
She didn’t want her privacy invaded without consent, so she was as careful as she could be not to intrude on anyone else’s privacy as a rule.
This was so important, too important not to miss whatever it was that Tomas was feeling.
He distanced himself so much, and she understood why he would.
Emotions weren’t helpful when battling a vampire.
After centuries with no awareness of feeling, the intensity was overwhelming.
Toning them down, or putting them aside altogether, was the intelligent thing to do.
“We noticed as we continued to hunt our enemies that our skills, reflexes and awareness became more and more acute. We could heal our wounds faster. We seemed to be evolving, although it was slow, and we didn’t notice immediately.
And then, little by little, we found that we could feel when in battle.
It was a rush unlike anything we remembered.
There was joy in battle. The longer the fight lasted, the longer that rush.
The temptation, obviously, was to prolong the battle, draw it out so we could continue to experience emotion as long as possible.
That rush was addicting, much, I’m certain, as it is for vampires when they kill while feeding. ”
She felt that emotion, that high, with him as he was recalling the various master vampires he had hunted and destroyed.
After the centuries-long emptiness, that feeling was impossible to ignore.
She caught glimpses of the discussions the triplets had over the best ways to stay safe as well as keep to their code of honor.
She saw their struggles, felt them, that pull, the need of battle—and she understood.
“It would have been bad enough had it ended there, but we realized there were changes taking place in us as well when we destroyed our enemies. Before, we were aware we were sacrificing pieces of our soul, but we knew our lifemate could make it all right. The scarring the kills are leaving on us is different, and it appears to be permanent. What that means for our future, I don’t know. ”
Tomas sighed and stroked another caress along the left side of her face.
“I don’t know what it means for us as a couple or for future generations.
I tried to have a discussion with my brothers about the possibility of not claiming our lifemates because we didn’t have a clear future, but the moment I heard you, I saw you, all good intentions went out the window. ”
She felt the conflict in him. The worry.
The guilt. He had claimed her because the compulsion to do so was too strong to overcome.
She could have told him it wasn’t just a compulsion.
It was centuries of conditioning. Of culture.
Of believing in the Carpathian bond between a man and a woman.
She was struggling to understand it and could testify how complex that bond really was.
She wasn’t Carpathian, but she was as caught in it as Tomas.
“I intended to reveal all of this before our third blood exchange, but I should have done so before making my claim.”
Sarika didn’t like the way he held himself so responsible for events he had little control over.
In theory, it sounded good that he wanted to have a perfect code of honor, but that was never going to be reality for anyone.
She was grateful. She could never live up to such perfection. She was anything but that.