Carpathian 17 - Dark Celebration

fear of losing them.
    Skyler entered the kitchen, inhaling the aroma of gingerbread. The pieces were already shaped into the walls and roof of the houses. They just had to put them together.
    There was no warning at all. As she pulled the various colored frostings from the refrigerator, devastating sorrow nearly drove her to her knees. She kept the door open to prevent Francesca and Gabriel from seeing the tears welling in her eyes. Grief was sharp and painful—a blade cutting into her heart. Her throat swelled as the sorrow seemed to expand and take over every cell in her body until she wanted to weep uncontrollably. Rage crept in, dark and terrible, a savage need for vengeance, a need to strike back—to kill. The feeling was so strong, her hands shook and she dropped one of the bowls, shattering it.
    "Skyler?" Francesca was there in a moment, wrapping her arm around Skyler's waist and pulling her away from the glass.
    The frosting was white, but the bowl had been red and with the shards embedded in the icing, it looked to Skyler like bloodstained snow. She felt the urge to run to the window and check that no one was hurt outside. Her breath caught in her throat and she pressed a hand to her aching heart. Not just anyone—Dimitri. She had connected to him—she was certain of it—and he was suffering.
    "Francesca? I have to find him. I have to find Dimitri." Her voice was barely a whisper.
    She had no idea tears streamed down her face until Francesca touched her cheeks. "He's—
    it's so terrible. I can't explain it. I have to go to him. You have to go to him and ease his suffering."
    "I'm sorry, baby, I can only ease your suffering. He has to find a way to live with the emotions he is now feeling. He had knowledge before, but could not feel emotion." She leaned close to Skyler to murmur softly, to ease her burden, "I can provide distance for you and it will help."
    Skyler abruptly pulled away. "No." She shook her head. "You and Gabriel always shield me. Not this time. If I did this to him, I want to be able to feel it as well. I need to know these things, Francesca. I am already Carpathian in my heart. I need knowledge as well as emotion."

Chapter 5
    Mikhail streamed through the forest—a white vapor trail concealed by the snow—
    staying high up in the trees as he tracked the wolf loping across the ground beneath him.
    Mikhail could see that, in spite of taking the form of the wolf, Dimitri was in trouble. The wolf paused every now in then, shuddering in pain, the shaggy fur, usually so shiny with health and strength, dull and wet with sweat. In spite of the animal form, waves of grief poured off the man, and to Mikhail's horror, small beads of blood were left behind in the paw prints in the stark white snow.
    Mikhail dropped down through the canopy to fall more gently with the drift of the snowflakes as he approached the Carpathian male cautiously. Dimitri had gone through hell in the forests of Russia with his beloved wolves. Hunted by vampire and mortals alike, pursued by poachers and superstitious people, he had faced endless centuries of protecting both humans and wolves alone without the comfort of his homeland—the soil—or its people.
    The wolf stopped running and stood with sides heaving, head hanging and blood-red tears dripping into the snow. He suddenly threw his head back and howled his unrelenting sorrow to the heavens and whatever deities might hear him. As the mournful notes faded into the night, he resumed his own shape, the wolf falling away to reveal the man. Dimitri covered his face as he sank down onto a boulder.
    "You are feeling her pain," Mikhail said softly. "It is both a miracle and a curse for you."
    Dimitri sprang up, whirling to face the prince, his fangs exposed in a snarl, his eyes glowing with red flickers of flame. He stood in a fighters stance, hands up, the air around them charged with electricity—with danger. "I had no idea I was not alone," Dimitri said. "I would not have displayed such emotion."
    "Allow me to summon Gregori to you," Mikhail offered. "He could help to ease this suffering."
    "No one eased it for her," Dimitri growled. "I knew when they laid their filthy hands on her and I knew when they hurt her, and beat her and cut her. I even knew when they burned her, but I never felt it. Not the pain, not the rage, not her despair. When I touched her, drew her into my arms and merged my spirit with hers, it was there, behind the wall Francesca and Gabriel built