There, she’d said it. That was the strict truth, and Joie needed to know how she truly felt.
Joie’s eyebrows came together as she frowned. “You mean you want to move away from here? Where your laboratory is set up? You love working here. You want to move away from the Carpathian Mountains? From the prince? From Gregori?”
Gabrielle straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Especially away from the prince and Gregori.”
Joie shook her head, looking shocked.
“I don’t belong in the Carpathian world, I just don’t. Only Gary seems to understand that about me. He doesn’t mind that I’m not a fierce warrior woman. The thing is, Joie, I don’t want to be different. I’m a book person. I like to live quietly.”
“Gabrielle, you are so far off track about yourself and Gary. Where is this coming from? You love adventures. You’ve gone ice climbing with Jubal and me a million times. You’ve gone caving. Hiking in remote, third world countries.”
Gabrielle nodded. “I went caving because you and Jubal did, and I enjoy spending time with you, but I don’t live for adventures the way you do. I’m really a homebody.”
“Are you crazy, Gabby? You’re a genius who thrives on studying hot viruses. Newsflash, sister. Playing with that kind of virus without a way to fight it can get you killed. If you didn’t like adventure you would never, under any circumstances, study them.”
“You fight the world’s injustices your way, and I fight them mine. Viruses make sense to me. I can solve the puzzle and try to help with things like finding a way to stop the Ebola virus from being let loose on the world. Vampires make no sense. None.” She gave a little shudder. Joie would never understand that she escaped into a lab, that once she focused on whatever she was studying, everything around her disappeared and she didn’t have to think about anything else at all.
“You have crazy, mad skills in a lab, Gabby,” Joie said. “You’re a genius. It isn’t just Gary. He isn’t smarter than you.”
“Actually he is. Most men bore me silly after two minutes alone in their company. I can talk to Gary for hours. More, I can just listen to him when he talks to others. He’s brilliant. He’s also the kindest, sweetest man I know.”
Joie shook her head. “He’s a Daratrazanoff. Every bit of power, of knowledge, their blood, their ancestors, all of it was given to him in the cave of warriors. You know that. You were there. He was powerful before, Gabby. He’s even more so now.”
Gary always took the back of the hunters and he’d never let any of them down during a battle, not once. Gabrielle knew it because when he’d nearly died, their best hunters came in to give blood and to pay their respects. She knew it because Gregori Daratrazanoff had made him his brother, his own flesh and blood. The power of the Daratrazanoff family ran in his veins. Was in his heart and soul. Was there, in his mind.
Okay, she had to admit to herself she shied a little away from the sheer power there at times, but still, he was always her Gary. Gentle and kind with her. Seeing her when others couldn’t—or wouldn’t. She’d tried to tell Joie and Jubal that she was different, not at all wild or willful, but they laughed and said she didn’t know herself very well.
Maybe she didn’t. But she knew what she wanted—what she’d always wanted—and that was Gary. “I don’t care what his last name is, or whose blood runs in his veins, he’s mine,” she declared firmly. “He’s always been mine, and I want him back. His life shouldn’t be fighting vampires. He’s such a genius and I miss him in the laboratory. I want him back there. Once we’re married and we find a home, we can set up a lab and he can research for solutions to all the Carpathians’ problems away from the Carpathian Mountains and vampires and anything else that is monstrous.”
Joie cleared her throat, and Gabrielle’s gaze jumped to her younger sister.
“Just tell me, Joie,” she said. “We’ve always talked straight with each other.”
“You can’t change him, Gabby. Gary is a man who will put himself in harm’s way over and over if it comes to his sense of right or wrong. He has a clear sense of honor, of duty, and that’s why Gregori accepted him from the start—from the very beginning when he first met Gary. Gregori didn’t associate with humans, but Gary already had the same values. He was willing to put himself on the line. Like Gregori, he’s a man of action, and he’s decisive about it.”
Gabrielle shook her head. “They’ve forced him to become like them. He belongs in a laboratory. He loves research and he’s got the mind for it, Joie. You know he does, but more and more they’re pulling him off that work to go hunt the vampires with them. He’s with the prince and Gregori all the time.”
“Because they value his advice, Gabby,” Joie said gently. “You should be proud of him.”
“I am, superproud,” Gabrielle assured her sister, and she was proud of Gary. “He’s a brain. Gregori changed him.”
Joie bit down on her lip, her eyes shadowed. “He didn’t, Gabby. Gregori wouldn’t have changed him—he couldn’t. Fundamentally, Gary is the same man he always was. Gregori looked into his mind and he saw a brother—a man who thinks as he thinks. Gregori accepted Gary because Gary is exactly like he is. Of course Gary didn’t have the skills or knowledge to fight the undead, but he does now. He is Carpathian through and through. You have to be very sure you know him and you accept who he is, not just a small part of him.”