“I cannot,” Andre said quietly, and indicated something to her left and then to her right.
Gabrielle turned her head, and her breath left her body in a rush. For a moment she went still, her heart pounding so hard it nearly came out of her chest. There were others. Others like the one called Aleksei who had claimed she belonged to him. She felt their darkness. It was oppressing. Frightening. Sad. So sad that even in the midst of her fear for Gary, she felt the weight of their sorrow pressing down on her.
She could see they were watching the combatants intently, and they also were very aware of the blood trickling down her wrists. They could smell it. Sometimes eyes would move over her and then become riveted on her wrists. Terror mounted. If Gary didn’t save her, these horrible ancient Carpathians were going to feast on her. Devour her. Drink her blood until there was nothing left of her.
“Gary.” She whispered his name. Her only salvation. Her love. Her fear. “Please, God, help him.”
She didn’t care if every one of these horrible ancients ripped her to pieces. If Andre wouldn’t help Gary, then she would. She turned her head and stared at the bracelet on her wrist. She’d seen her brother Jubal’s bracelet become a weapon. He did it by tuning himself to the metal. It worked only for him.
Gabrielle closed her eyes and tried to block out what was happening around her. She concentrated on the delicate links of metal surrounding her wrist. At once she heard the low hum that she’d noticed before. Instantly she locked on to that and sent her own command. She needed the vines gone. Right. This. Moment.
Gary Daratrazanoff hit him with the force of a freight train, driving him back toward the wall of flames. Aleksei dissolved and came up behind Gary, re-forming, catching at his head and wrenching with enormous strength to break the neck. Gary shifted out from under him, becoming a huge, powerful python, coiling around him fast, the head eye to eye, the constriction deadly.
Aleksei didn’t fight it; instead, he shifted his body to that of a python as well, a feat many Carpathians weren’t able to do. Few could shift when they were being held captive in any form. The two snakes coiled and thrashed, upright, standing on their tails, facing each other with big, angry, curved teeth. Once those teeth sank in, it would be difficult to extract them, even in his present form.
The head of the python came close and, without warning, small, wiggling snakes erupted from its mouth, leaping to fill his. Aleksei allowed the rain of fire to stop in order to combat the multitude of snakes leaping at him, trying to get inside his body. He turned his snake’s head to buy a couple of seconds, all the while following the beat of the heart inside the snake. There was always a heart, no matter how one tried to protect it. No matter how withered and black it had become.
He concentrated on the sound until he pinpointed it perfectly and then he shifted, one hand shooting out from his python’s body to slam into Gary’s python, his fist penetrating deep.
Gabrielle screamed, the sound piercing the night. A wail of utter despair and terror. Her terrified screams filled his mind. Filled his heart and soul. Still, to fight a Daratrazanoff with the kind of power and skills they had, he would have to shut her terror out. He couldn’t feel anything at all. Nothing. Only the power running through his body. The confidence born of centuries of battles. He knew fighting and killing this man was dangerous to him as well. One more kill, even with his lifemate to anchor him, could send him over the edge into madness. He was in the monastery to prevent having to hunt and destroy lives—even the undead.
Once he penetrated the chest cavity, he shifted, and to his shock, Gary shifted as well, something extremely difficult under the circumstances, but it didn’t matter. Aleksei had him now. He knew it. And then Gary’s eyes held triumph, and Aleksei knew he was fighting something altogether different than the vampires he had fought over the centuries.
Gary’s fist smashed through his chest toward his heart, coming from an altogether different direction, and the form in front of him simply disintegrated. Gary had deliberately misled him with the python, with the heartbeat. A genius in battle. Now it really was life or death, and Aleksei had no intention of dying now that he had found his lifemate.
Genius didn’t mean experience in battle. Aleksei slammed his head into Gary’s forehead, shifting just enough to put a sledgehammer there. Gary fell back and down, and Aleksei went down to one knee, his fist going in for the kill. Something hit him from behind and he caught the attacker with one arm behind his back, circling the small waist and nearly hurtling the featherlight body toward the gate of the monastery. At the last moment he realized his attacker was his own lifemate. Simultaneously he heard the low protest of his brethren and Andre’s sharp command to stop.
He set Gabrielle down gently and rose slowly, shocked at her behavior. He could see that his brothers were stunned as well—all but Andre, who appeared to stare at her with compassion. Her wrists were bloody and he could smell her, the faint, almost elusive feminine scent that called to every cell in his body.
She had betrayed him. With another man. The man she was trying to protect. The man that wasn’t him. No Carpathian woman would do such a thing. She stood there, staring at him with huge, frightened eyes. He knew why. Everyone knew why. There was absolute silence. Even the wind held its breath while he decided whether to kill her, or keep her. She didn’t deserve to live, and neither did Gary Daratrazanoff. He had been betrayed by his own kind. By a family he knew and respected.
He let his breath out slowly, his eyes on her. She was beautiful even in her fear. Her entire body trembled. She lifted a small, delicate hand to her mouth and he could see that it shook. She was tall, with a lot of curves, but she seemed fragile to him.