Carpathian 02 - Dark Desire

words into the silence, felt her shock, her pain, her instant withdrawal. I want you to tell me this yourself, Shea. I could look into your memories, but it is not the same as your trusting me with something so personal. He had already seen her childhood, the terrible way she had grown up alone. Jacques wanted her to share it with him, to give him the priceless gift of her trust.
    Shea could hear the strong, steady beat of his heart, a soothing rhythm. It seemed only fair that she share her nightmare when she had glimpsed the dark stain on his soul. "I became aware something was wrong with my mother at a very early age. She would withdraw for weeks at a time, never noticing if I ate or slept or was hurt. She had no friends. She almost never left the house. She rarely showed interest or affection."
    Jacques' hand slid over her hair in a caress, found the nape of her neck in a comforting massage. The distress in her voice was almost more than he could bear.
    "I was six years old when I discovered I was different, that I needed blood. My mother had forgotten me for several days in a row. She just lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. I would go into her room every morning to kiss her good-bye before going to school. She never seemed to notice. As the days went by, I became so weak I couldn't walk across the room. She came to me, and I watched as she cut herself and bled into a glass. She told me I had to drink it—to drink blood often. After she died, I only used transfusions, but…"
    She was silent for so long that Jacques touched her mind, felt her childhood self-loathing, her fears, and her sense of isolation. His arms tightened, drew her closer to his powerful frame, wanting to shelter her for all time. He knew what it meant to be alone. Totally alone. He never wanted her to feel like that again.
    Shea felt the light brush of Jacques' mouth on her forehead, at her temple, in her hair. His tenderness warmed her when she was shivering inside. "My mother wasn't like me. No one was like me. I could Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    never tell anyone, ask anyone about it. She took me toIreland to hide me because when I was born, my blood was so odd it stirred interest in both the medical and scientific fields. I had to be transfused daily, but I still grew weak. When I was a few years old, two men came to our house and asked her a lot of questions about me. I could hear their voices, and I was afraid. I hid under the bed, afraid she might make me see them. She didn't. They scared my mother as much as they did me. She packed us up and moved us away."
    You are certain your mother never touched blood? He probed gently, afraid she would stop sharing what were obviously painful memories. He had no real way to ease her hurt except with the strength of his arms and the closeness of his body.
    "Never. She was like a beautiful shadow already gone from the world. She thought only of him. Rand.
    My father."
    The name touched a painful fragment of memory in him. It was so intense, he let it slip away before "he could catch it. You never met him? The mere thought of the man she called her father brought splinters of glass stabbing through his head.
    "No, he was married to a woman named Noelle."
    Shocked recognition, an inconsolable grief, a woman once beautiful, beheaded, a stake through her heart. The memory was so vivid, so intense, Jacques choked, shoved the information far away from him.
    But he had recognized her. Noelle.
    Shea lifted her head, green eyes searching his black gaze. "You know her." She shared the memory in his mind, saw the same fragments of images. The glimpse sickened her, the brutality of that death. The woman had been murdered using the ritual "vampire" slaying techniques. Beheaded. The stake.
    She is dead. He said it with certainty, with sorrow. She was my sister.
    Shea's face went white. "Did she have a son?"
    A male child.
    "Oh, God!" Shea tore herself out of his arms as if burned, leapt up and away from him, her arms covering her breasts, her eyes wild. "This gets worse every minute. My father was probably your sister's husband." She backed away from the bed in horror.
    You do not know this. It is a big world.
    "How many Rands are there from the Carpathian Mountains, someone like you? Someone married to a woman named Noelle, who gave birth to a boy? It was all in my mother's diary."
    Vampire hunters drove a stake through her heart. Years ago. Years before they