Carpathian 17 - Dark Celebration

to the life of our son. He will survive.
    The blood of the ancient line runs in his veins."
    She rubbed her face over Jacques's heart. "I know. Every day I think about how you survived those seven years—trapped so close to the earth that would have saved you, starving and tortured and so alone—but you refused to succumb." She lifted her chin to look into his dark, tormented eyes. "He has your blood, my beloved wild man. And your iron will. I'm so grateful that you're my lifemate, Jacques. If anything keeps our son alive, it will be because you are his father." She rolled onto her side and framed his face with her hands. "I feel you in him."
    He groaned softly, a small smile flirting with his mouth. "Then God help us when he is a teenager, Shea. Have you ever been introduced to Josef?"
    "Byron's nephew? The young rapper?"

    "That would be the one. I fear we have been given a brief glimpse of our future."
    Shea laughed, the worry fading from her eyes. "Oh, dear. I believe Josef has been practicing to perform tonight."
    "It will be almost as good watching Mikhail's face when Josef does his rap tonight as it will be watching Mikhail break it to Gregori that he is expected to play the part of Raven's Santa Claus."
    Shea shook her head, her green eyes dancing. "You're a very bad man, Jacques."
    "I keep telling you that, but you persist in thinking I am cute and cuddly."
    The desire and hunger in his eyes took the breath from her lungs, and Shea circled his neck with her arms. She pressed kisses along the corner of his mouth. "I'll pretend around the others, Jacques, if that makes you feel better, but when we're alone, you'll just have to put up with my thinking you're extraordinarily cute and cuddly."
    He heaved a sigh, amusement creeping into the depths of his eyes. "I have no idea how I ever existed before you came into my life."
    Her answering smile lit up her face. "I feel the same way about you, Jacques." She laid her head against his chest over his heart. "I wouldn't be able to get through this without you.
    I've never been so afraid, but you steady me."
    He stroked a caress over her shiny ribbon of hair. "And all this time I thought it was the other way around." Above her head, the smile faded from his face, leaving the lines deep and his eyes once more dark with worry. "This woman we are meeting tonight, Shea…" He hesitated, trying to choose his words carefully. "You must be very, very careful. We cannot have her suspecting even for a moment that you are anything but a human."
    Shea rolled away from him in a small spurt of temper. "You know, Jacques, not all humans are monsters. Look at Slavica and Gary and Jubal. Why should she be suspicious that I am anything but human? Do you think most people go around thinking there are vampires and Carpathians in the world? I thought I had a rare blood disorder for years and I'm a doctor."
    His fingers shaped the nape of her neck. "Do not be upset, Shea. I have a duty to protect our people."
    "You mean Mikhail didn't like me contacting her."
    "I mean I didn't like it. Maybe I have had you to myself these years and the idea of sharing you with an outsider sets my teeth on edge."
    She turned her head in time to see his white teeth snap together, very reminiscent of a wolf. She began to laugh again. "I love you very much, Jacques Dubrinsky. I really do."

    Her hands framed his face. "Are you ever going to get over that silly jealous streak?"
    "Is that what it is? I thought it was feelings of inadequacy—that you might suddenly wake up one morning and realize I am more trouble than I am worth." He turned his head to brush her fingers with a kiss.
    "That could never happen, Jacques, not in a million years. Don't worry about Eileen Fitzpatrick. I'll know if she's lying to me."
    "You want family so much, Shea, maybe you will not be able to tell."
    "I have a family, Jacques. You are my family. You and our son and Mikhail and Raven and Gregori and Savannah. I am not deprived. And despite my hormones running amok, I would not endanger our loved ones for a stranger even if she is a relative. I had hoped she would have stories of my mother's childhood, but if not, I will only be disappointed, not devastated."
    Jacques turned his face away, happiness bursting through him like the unexpected eruption of a volcano. "Roll over," he instructed gruffly. "I'll rub your back for you." He couldn't look at her, couldn't face her when his vulnerability would be so starkly naked.
    Men just