“No, he wouldn’t, Gabrielle, but he would suffer. He might even take his own life because we were giving ourselves a few years together selfishly.”
She lifted her head and stared into his eyes. “You’re a genius, Gary. What are the odds of both of us finding our lifemates?”
He knew so many of the ancients were still out there, looking, hoping. Hanging on by a thread. She had been in the Carpathian Mountains and met many of them. None had claimed her. The odds were far less for him. She saw the answer in his eyes.
“Exactly,” she said. “Gary, we have a right to be happy. Both of us. We’ve helped the Carpathians. You know we have. This is our time.”
His hands came up to frame her face. “And if I lose my emotions? My ability to feel love for you, what then, Gabrielle? What happens to you? To our children?”
“I don’t know. No future is ever certain, Gary.”
He took a breath and then he kissed her. Hard. Hot. Hungry. She tasted incredible. She kissed him back, opening her mouth to his, taking him just as hungrily, just as in need. Just as filled with despair. They clung to each other in silence until he lifted his head.
“Gary, I honestly don’t know if I can make it without you,” she whispered against his throat. “I don’t know how to live without you in my life.”
He understood because he felt the same way. He tightened his arms around her, pressing her body tightly to his. Even though he feared he might be in danger of crushing her, she didn’t protest. She held him just as tightly.
“Please come away with me,” she whispered. “I’m afraid without you. You steady me. You make me feel as if I have an anchor in a world I don’t understand. If you leave me alone, I’ll just dry up and blow away.”
He closed his eyes, his heart weeping. “Give me time to figure out whether we’ll have the time to raise a family and be together before I lose my ability to feel. I won’t put you through that, Gabrielle. I need to talk to Mikhail and Gregori . . .”
“No,” she said sharply, her hands going to the lapels of his jacket. “You know they’ll tell you to let me go. You know they will. This is between the two of us. Our decision, not theirs.”
“Honey, you persist in thinking they’re the enemy.”
“In a way, they are, Gary. They’re my enemy. They’ve taken you from me. You were always mine, the only person I’ve ever really had.”
“Gabrielle.” He caught her chin and tilted her face up toward his, compelling her to look into his eyes. “You come from a loving family. You adore your sister and brother. You love your parents.”
“Very much,” she admitted. “But I don’t fit anywhere. Not with them. They don’t know me. They don’t understand me. They never have, as much as they’d like to. These people”—she swept her hand around the field to indicate the Carpathians—“they don’t even try to get to know me. I do research and I keep to myself. I don’t mean anything at all to them. But you . . . you see me. I matter. I exist.” She shook her head, tears swimming in her eyes again. “You can’t take that away from me, Gary. What will I have left?”
He took a breath. “All right, honey. I want you to take some time and think about this realistically. If in a week you still feel like we can make a go of it, we’ll revisit the issue, but you need to really think about what could happen if I lose my emotions so abruptly and have all the past history of hundreds of years of loneliness poured into me all at once. That could be dangerous to us.”
“You’re a man of honor, Gary. You would tell me what was happening and we’d face it together. You know that’s what you’d do.” She was absolutely certain.
He crushed her to him again, knowing he would have to give her up, that she wasn’t his. She believed that much in him. He was the one who didn’t have a family anymore. He’d given up being in the human world in order to try to help Gregori. He admired him. At first he’d been intrigued by the Carpathians, but then it became a compulsion, a need to aid them. The species was in danger of extinction in spite of their longevity. With no women and their inability to conceive or carry children, something had to be done, and Gary had been determined to do it. He’d led the research projects, with Gabrielle and Shea, a doctor, to aid him. In a short time, they’d come a long way.
He was in the middle of working on how to permanently remove all the mage-mutated microbes spreading throughout the soil. Xavier, a mage the Carpathian people had believed was their friend, had plotted to bring the entire species down and had nearly done so.
Carpathians were diligent about cleaning the soil where they slept, and about removing any of the microbes they found in their bodies that would kill the unborn children or the babies in their first year. Gary was certain, if Xavier could mutate the microbes to do his bidding, they could reverse the process. He was close, too. He felt it. He always felt something before a major breakthrough.
Gary had never once regretted his decision to help the Carpathian people. Never. He was fully committed to them. Until now. This moment. Giving up Gabrielle was nearly impossible. He took a deep breath and brushed his mouth over the top of her head, savoring the feeling of her in his arms. He wanted to commit this moment to memory. The scent of the flowers. The night sky. The way she looked in her gown. Her hair done so intricately, flowers woven through the silken strands. Even the bracelet, burning red-gold flames captured in the links, circling her delicate wrist.