“Don’t, Gary. Please. Please, don’t let them take you away from me.” Gabrielle wept uncontrollably, her arms around him. Clinging. Pressing herself even closer.
If there was a hell, this was it. Gary dropped his head down to rub his face in her soft hair. Breathing her in. Breathing in her sweetness. Trying to make a memory that couldn’t be ripped from him in just a few moments.
“I can make you happy,” she whispered softly. “I can, Gary. I know it. We can leave here, go far away and marry. Have a family. We can live a human lifetime together. After that, after we’re supposed to be dead and gone, maybe then we’ll have had enough of each other, but I can’t imagine my life without you. I can’t.”
“I know, Gabrielle. I feel the same.” He heard the regret in his voice. She heard it, too, because she stiffened.
Gabrielle pulled back, putting space between them, her hands curling into two tight fists. Her face tipped up toward his and he could see the anger and hurt there. He could feel it vibrating in the air between them.
“You’re refusing me. Rejecting me. On. My. Wedding. Night.”
“It’s a matter of honor, honey. You know it’s the right thing to do.”
“For them. It’s always about them. I can’t believe you’re willing to sacrifice us. Sacrifice me. For them.”
Tears ran down her face unchecked, breaking his heart further. More color bled away. Gary reached for her. She stepped back, shaking her head.
“I have to tell you what’s happening, Gabrielle, so that you’ll understand.” If his ability to see in color was fading so fast, it stood to reason he would lose his emotions just as abruptly. He couldn’t risk her.
“I know what’s happening, Gary. This is our wedding night. You made promises to me, and now you’re walking away. Rejecting me. Jilting me.”
She sounded close to hysterical and she jammed a fist in her mouth, stepping back even farther from him. His gut tied into hard, bitter knots. Gary murmured her name and stepped toward her. Gabrielle threw her hand between them, palm out.
“Don’t. Not unless you’re going to leave with me. Go away from here and live out our lifetime as humans while we can. We can have that. At least that, Gary.”
He wanted to give that to her. He wanted to give that to himself. She was right there, standing in front of him, everything he’d ever dreamed about. He loved her with every beat of his heart. Every breath he took.
“Honey, just for a moment, listen to me. I’m already losing my ability to see in color. It’s happening fast. Everything’s fading to gray. When the ancients in the Daratrazanoff lineage accepted me as theirs, they poured their knowledge into me. They gave me tremendous gifts, their power, their skills, even their abilities to fight vampires. All of it, just as if I was born with those abilities and power.”
She bit her lip, her gray eyes swimming with tears. He could see the teardrops sparkling on the ends of absurdly long lashes. At that moment, with the flowers surrounding her and the night sky above her, she was more beautiful than ever. “How can that be?” she whispered.
His heart turned over at the concern in her voice. “I don’t know how it’s done exactly, I only know they have a collective conscious. Mikhail has access to them there in the cave of warriors. When they come together like they do, all the warriors, past and present, they are very powerful. That power runs through Mikhail. I felt it. He’s some sort of conductor, or rather, a receptacle for that combined power.”
Gabrielle stepped into him again, her arms circling his waist, her head on his chest. “What have they done to you?”
“I love you, Gabrielle,” he admitted. The words felt wrenched from him, leaving him naked and exposed. He couldn’t have her. He would have to allow another man to have her, and that would kill him. The warrior in him protested.
“I know you do,” she whispered. “I love you, too. There has to be a way. If you feel love for me, you can still feel emotion, even if you’re losing your ability to see in color. We could still go away and live together. Have that life. Most humans get forty, fifty years together. We can take that time for ourselves, couldn’t we? What would be so wrong about that?”
He held her close, feeling his body heat surrounding her. Inhaling her scent. The temptation of keeping her—having her for himself—was alarming in its strength.
“We can’t make a decision like that without really thinking it through, Gabrielle. We would have to leave. Live far from here, far from other Carpathians. If your lifemate came along, or mine . . .”
“I once asked Mikhail what would happen if a Carpathian male found his lifemate and she was human, married with a family and happy. He said a man of honor would either meet the dawn or wait it out, hoping her spouse died before she did. He would never come between them. A lifemate makes his other half happy.”
“Exactly, Gabrielle. You’re not thinking how you would feel. If your lifemate happened to find you, you would be compelled to make him happy.” He kept his voice gentle as he explained a reality he was certain she hadn’t considered.
“I wouldn’t know because I’d be happy with you and he wouldn’t reveal himself,” she pointed out.
He’d always known she had a stubborn streak. That was part of what made her so good in a laboratory. She fought so fiercely for them. She would make a fantastic mother, one who would fight for her children with a ferocity that he would admire always. She took care of those she loved.