Blood Destiny (10 page)

He despised the way she thought of the house as a prison, almost as if she were an inmate on death row awaiting execution. He felt the unbidden horror she had experienced as a result of Marquis's behavior and the absolute revulsion she had experienced at the sight of his own animal nature, the changes in his body when he had confronted Marquis. He shifted uncomfortably on the sofa beside her, even as he forced himself to smile, sending her strong waves of reassurance in an effort to combat what he had just uncovered.

Moving further back into the forest, he recognized the trust she was beginning to feel as they were walking, and to his delight, he saw the strong physical attraction she had for him, despite her worst aversions.

He resisted smiling at the pleasing revelation: Jocelyn found him incredibly sexy. It was elemental. After all, she had been created for him, even if she didn't yet understand the connection.

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And then he saw her terror.

He actually felt her distress as she ran from the canyon in a desperate attempt to get away from—what?—her mind a tormented cauldron of muddled thoughts and broken images.

She was desperately seeking to draw rational conclusions to something that could not be rationalized, but since she had no internal frame of reference from which to begin, her mind just spun out of control in a free fall of disbelief and horror.

But what had caused such fragmentation?

Nathaniel followed her much further back now, going deep into the endless labyrinth of tunnels with their musty, damp hallways, until he finally arrived with her in the chamber.

The sacrificial chamber of the Dark Ones.

He almost jolted but immediately caught his reaction. The last thing he needed was to frighten her further. There was musty water, with the strong stench of sulfur, on her clothes—in her hair—and the freezing cave floor was hard beneath her belly as heavy, damp rocks loomed over her head. He felt her holding her breath...trembling...fighting back the impulse to scream. She wanted to run. Her muscles were primed to fight. Her stomach roiled.

And then Nathaniel saw the depraved son of Jaegar: Valentine Nistor. His heart turned hard as stone, his spirit colder than black ice on a winter road, as he watched it all unfold. The greedy hands of death claiming the firstborn infant, an infant with black and red striped hair like a human cobra. The hideous laughter of a depraved mind reveling in the pain of a tortured woman. And a beautiful, helpless 93

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female with flowing black hair and deep, green eyes lying on—

Dalia!

Shelby's Dalia.

Nathaniel jerked back, breaking the telepathic connection at once. He withdrew his mind as absolute shock and revulsion crashed into him like a tidal wave against the shore.

Devoid of reason, he sprang to his feet and turned away from Jocelyn. He could feel his fangs exploding in his mouth and struggled to maintain control.

She couldn't see him like this.

Not now. Not when he was supposed to be comforting her.

Not when she was already so afraid. He shook uncontrollably.

Jocelyn appeared stunned by his reaction. She scampered to the other end of the sofa and stared up at his shaking form, her eyes wide with fright. Nathaniel shook his head.

Good Lord, she had seen such an atrocity. No wonder she was terrified! But she couldn't possibly have known how personal the violation was...to him.

Nathaniel spared her a glance: She didn't speak a word.

She didn't dare to even move.

He ran his fingers through his thick mane of hair, pacing restlessly back and forth across the hardwood floor in front of the fireplace. He distorted his image with a masking technique and waited for his fangs to recede, all the while, struggling to put the pieces of the puzzle together: Ramsey Olaru, one of the three sentinels who guarded Dark Moon Vale, had reported directly to Napolean that Valentine had killed Dalia—that he had taken her from Shelby 94

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following a trip she had made into the nearby town of Silverton Park. The sentinels had found her body days later in a washed-up river-bed, thrown carelessly behind a group of thorny bushes at the edge of the creek. The corpse had been mutilated and drained of blood.

Napolean had immediately given the order to have Dalia cremated so that her soul would be released from the taint of the Dark One as it traveled to the next world. So that Shelby would never have a chance to see her bruised and battered body. As powerful as his little brother had been, Shelby could never have defeated one such as Valentine on his own, and Napolean knew that all the Silivasi brothers would have gone to his aid, setting off an all-out vampire war over a personal blood vengeance. Too many humans would have been caught in the fall-out.

Nathaniel turned his attention to Jocelyn, who was still sitting in stunned silence on the far end of the sofa. She was watching him intently, and he didn't hesitate to read her mind. She was dissecting the situation like a computer, analyzing the obvious internal battle he was waging to remain in control...even as her own private fears threatened to consume her. She was frightened...and waiting for a response...and she had no idea, whatsoever, why he was so upset.

As far as the intelligent human was concerned, Nathaniel had to know the nature of his own kind; surely, he had seen such a thing before. That stone slab had far too much blood on it for the woman she saw to be the first. She thought he 95

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was angry because she had witnessed the perversion, like she had somehow ruined his plans...for her.

Oh, gods! Nathaniel cursed beneath his breath. This had to be what Jocelyn feared all along—that Nathaniel was going to do the same thing to her that Valentine had done to Dalia. His stomach rolled, and he had to fight to restrain his rage.

Although he couldn't fault her for her logic, he was furious with the conclusion. Staggered by the whole revelation. Dalia had been defiled by a Dark One, and now Jocelyn—his very own destiny—made no distinction between him and the evil son of Jaegar. Made no distinction between him and Valentine Nistor. And as if that weren't enough, she was terrified of experiencing the same fate at his hands.

Before Nathaniel could find the words to address her unfounded fear, Jocelyn jumped up from the couch. In his distress, he had momentarily released the barrier, forgotten to keep his image blurred, and she was seeing him exactly as he was. She was staring at the fire in his eyes, blanching at the involuntary contractions of his body, literally gawking at the points of his fangs...and her fear had finally gotten the best of her. She began to scan the room for an exit—prepared to fight to the death if necessary.

Nathaniel turned to face the terrified female and cursed in the ancient language.

"Jocelyn, don't!"

He made it a harsh command, taking momentary control over her body with his mind, effortlessly tossing her back onto the couch and holding her there. And then he held up his 96

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hand, his palm facing out. It was an apology. A universal request for patience.

"Please, just give me a moment."

He needed to collect his thoughts. To understand hers. To try and process the enormity of what he had just seen. The beast within him was far too aroused with fury to deal with a physical confrontation, and he was well aware of the fact that she was prepared to physically fight him if that's what it took.

"Be still," he warned. "Do not provoke me."

He released his hold and reconstructed the barrier, once again blurring his image. He was pacing even faster now as he analyzed more information:

Nathaniel knew Ramsey Olaru well. Ramsey would no more lie to Napolean than he would slit his own throat.

Valentine must have staged everything. He had to have murdered some anonymous woman and drained her body of blood to stage the crime, knowing they would cremate the body.

He could have easily gotten away with creating a replica of Dalia using a single cell of her blood to interpret her DNA.

From that one cell, he would then possess the genetic material needed to project an image of the whole—to create a holographic replica. Valentine was an ancient. Cloaking the woman's body to appear as Dalia would have been an easy feat to accomplish. He must have hidden her until the cremation and then taken her home...to breed.

Shelby's woman! Shelby's wife! Raped and mutilated.

Tossed aside like garbage. Made to endure the unthinkable in order to produce Valentine a son—an abomination of evil who 97

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would take countless innocent lives in his lifetime.... And they had allowed it to happen! They had failed to save her from such an agonizing fate. The anguish was overwhelming. The reality of it beyond comprehension.

Nathaniel clasped his hands over his eyes, desperate to get the picture out of his mind. He removed the barrier and turned to face Jocelyn. He spoke as calmly as he could: "The woman you saw in the chamber was my brother's wife." His voice trembled in spite of his effort.

Jocelyn looked up at him, stunned. "Marquis's wife?"

"No," he muttered, "my youngest brother's...Shelby's. He was killed last week as a result of losing her. His burial was this morning. I was at his grave site earlier when I heard you cry out."

Jocelyn blinked and her features softened. "Nathaniel...I'm sorry."

He continued to pace like a caged animal then, completely aware of the terrifying power he exuded but entirely unable to stop it. "I had no idea that he had her..." He was rambling.

"She should not have died like that! Not that way!"

His voice thundered through the room, shaking the rafters above them. He tried to steady his breathing, but he just couldn't hold it together.

Nathaniel could not contain such grief.

He was hanging on by a thread as the rage continued to swell, threatening to explode at any moment. It was like trying to juggle a grenade with a loose pin in it; eventually, it was going to blow. And it could not be in front of Jocelyn.

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He whirled around to face her. "Jocelyn, I have to go out for a while. I will call for Marquis to watch over you while I'm gone."

Jocelyn sprang to her feet then and threw up her hands.

"No, Nathaniel! Please, don't leave me with him. Anyone but him!"

Nathaniel hissed. He did not have the patience to coddle her right now; he no longer possessed the self-control. He knew his eyes were a deep, feral red and his fists clenched almost convulsively. There was little he could do anymore to hide the rage that was overtaking him: Every muscle in his body was rippling in violent waves of fury...just itching for a fight. His top lip drew back into a snarl, and he lowered his head trying to avoid her piercing gaze.

Jocelyn sat back down. "Are you afraid you're going to hurt me, Nathaniel?"

"I'm not going to hurt you," Nathaniel snarled. His lips twitched as he tried, unsuccessfully, to pull them back down over his fangs.

Jocelyn looked like a frightened child, obediently still.

"Your anger," she whispered, "is it at me? Are you mad because I saw what that vampire did?"

Nathaniel shook his head; the room was spinning now.

"No, Jocelyn. Never at you." He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he looked back up, he felt oddly disconnected. "What you saw in that chamber was an abomination." His voice was eerily steady. "What that woman suffered was unspeakable. Evil. Believe me, Jocelyn, when I tell you: That is not your fate with me."

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Nathaniel could see the relief wash over her face; she opened her mouth and tried to speak, but nothing came out.

He glided closer then, careful to keep his hands at his sides as he locked his gaze with hers. "You have seen me at my worst, Jocelyn...you know the creature that I am. Yet even in this moment, when my need to kill...my thirst for blood...is burning a hole through me, you must know that I am incapable of such an act as you saw in that chamber. I could never hurt you like that." His voice deepened. "Never."

Jocelyn shuddered, clearly overwhelmed by his words.

Nathaniel felt the beast rising again, and he resumed his wild pacing.

In an effort to keep his claws from extending, he tore a gash in his fist with his razor-sharp fangs and absently sucked the blood from the wound. Dear gods, it tasted good.

And then the earth began to shake beneath them with powerful, violent tremors. Jocelyn clutched the corner of the couch and nervously eyed the room. She glanced up at the rafters as if she expected to see the high, spinning ceiling-fan come crashing down at any moment.

"Nathaniel," she whispered, a clear urgency in her voice.

"Calm. Down."

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All at once, Nathaniel's great room lit up with soft, iridescent light, and a host of translucent colors danced through the air, narrowing into various distinctive forms, until a sparkling image of Marquis shimmered into view in the form of a hologram.

"Nathaniel, what is it?" Marquis asked. "Has something happened with Jocelyn?"

Nathaniel shut his eyes and slowed his breathing. He did not care to upset Jocelyn any further, but he definitely did not want to upset Marquis! "I cannot discuss it right now, brother, but I would ask a favor of you: Would you call the sentinels for me? I will need them to watch over Jocelyn while I step out."

"What could possibly make you want to leave your destiny so soon after the Omen?" Marquis snorted. "No, we will discuss it now—tell me what has happened, Nathaniel." As expected, Marquis made it an order.

Nathaniel sighed in frustration. Just as he feared, his brother would not be put off. Marquis had undoubtedly felt the quake, even from his own home ten miles away on the northeastern side of the gorge. But more than that, he had to have felt Nathaniel's rage: He had to know something was terribly, terribly wrong.