Dark Prince - Feehan Christine. Страница 42

“So do you.” Jacques waited for Mikhail to draw the sheet over Raven before he offered his wrist. “Drink while you can.”

Gregori touched his shoulder. “Forgive me, Jacques, but my blood is stronger. It holds immense power. Allow me to do this small thing for my friend.” At Jacques’s nod, Gregori drew a single mark over his vein.

There was silence as Mikhail availed himself of Gregori’s rich blood. Jacques sighed softly. “She has exchanged blood on three occasions with you?” He forced his voice to be neutral, not wanting to appear to reprimand his leader and brother.

Mikhail’s dark eyes flickered warningly. “Yes. If she lives, she will most likely be one of us.” It was left unsaid that she might live to be destroyed by the very one who had converted her.

“We cannot seek human medical aid for her. If our way does not work, Mikhail, her doctors will be useless anyway,” Jacques cautioned.

“Damn it, do you think I do not realize what I have done? You think I do not know I failed her, that I failed to protect her? That by my selfish actions I put her life in jeopardy?” Mikhail stripped off his bloody shirt, balled it in one hand, and threw it to the farthermost corner of the room.

“This is senseless, looking back,” Gregori said calmly.

Mikhail’s boots hit the floor, his socks. He dragged himself onto the bed beside Raven. “She cannot take blood our way; she is too weak. We have no choice but to use their primitive transfusion methods.”

“Mikhail...” Jacques said warningly.

“We have no choice. She did not take all that she needed, not even close. We cannot afford the delay of argument. I ask you, my brother, and you, Gregori, as my friend, to do this for us.” Mikhail cradled Raven’s head in his lap, sat back among the pillows and closed his eyes tiredly while they began the primitive process.

If he lived another thousand years, Mikhail would never forget that first stirring of unease in his mind while he lay as dead beneath the earth. Knowledge had exploded in his brain, spread terror in his heart and fury in his soul. He had felt Raven’s rippling fear. Jacob’s hand on her precious body, the brutal blows, the tearing sensation of the knife as it sliced through skin and into her soft insides. So much pain and fear. So much guilt that she had failed to protect Eleanor and her unborn child.

Raven’s weak touch had slipped inside his mind, so whispery, edged with pain and regret. I’m sorry, Mikhail. I’ve failed you.Her last coherent thought had been for him. He loathed himself, loathed Eleanor for not having the discipline to learn mental communication, focused and pure.

In that one second of understanding, as he lay helpless, locked in the soil, the very foundations of his life, his beliefs, had been rocked. As he burst free, Jacques rising with him, he had mentally reached for Jacob, had buried the bloodstained knife to the hilt in the murderer’s throat.

The storm enabled Vlad to break Eleanor and him free without the fear of blindness or that one moment of complete disorientation that would have given the assassins the time to kill his laboring wife.

Mikhail sought Raven’s mind, crawled to her with warmth and love, his arms a shelter. The needle jabbed the inside of his arm, pierced hers. He had no doubt that his brother would monitor the transfusion closely. Jacques held Mikhail’s life along with Raven’s in his hands. If she died, Mikhail followed her. He knew in his heart, the black fury that remained would endanger anyone near him, Carpathian and human alike. He could only hope that Gregori was up to the job of dispatching Carpathian justice to him swiftly and accurately if Raven should die.

No.Even in an unconscious state, she was trying to save him.

He stroked her hair in long caresses. Sleep, little one. You are in need of healing sleep.Using his mind, he breathed for both of them, in and out, forcing oxygen into his lungs, her lungs. He kept the rhythm of their hearts together. He took on as much of the mechanics of her body as he could to enable her to heal.

Jacques knew Mikhail’s mind was made up. If this woman failed to live, they would lose Mikhail. Right now Mikhail was using his power to keep her blood flowing, her heart pumping, and her lungs working. It was a draining process.

Gregori met Jacques’s eyes over Mikhail’s head. He was not going to allow the couple to die. It was up to them to heal her. “I will do it, Jacques.” It wasn’t a request.

The air stirred beside them and Celeste materialized with Eric. “He chooses to follow her,” she said softly. “He loves her that much.”

“It is already known?” Jacques asked.

“He is withdrawing,” Eric answered. “All Carpathians can feel it. Is there a chance to save them?”

Jacques looked up, his handsome face haggard, his dark eyes, so like Mikhail’s, grief-stricken. “She fights for him. She knows he will choose to follow her.”

“Enough!” Gregori hissed, bringing them all to attention. “We have no choice but to save them. That is all that can be in our minds.”

Celeste reached toward Raven. “Let me do this for her, Jacques. I am a woman; I carry a child. I will make no mistakes.”

“Gregori is a healer, Celeste. You are with child and it is difficult,” Jacques denied softly.

“Both of you are supplying blood for them. You could make a mistake.” Celeste pushed the sheet from Raven’s stomach. Her gasp was audible, her horror very real. Involuntarily she stepped back. “My God, Jacques. There is no chance.”

Furious, Jacques elbowed her out of the way. Gregori stepped between them, his pale eyes flowing over Celeste like mercury, glittering with a calm, cold menace, with a terrible rebuke. “There is no question that I will be the one to heal her. And she will be healed. While I perform this task I want only those who believe completely to attend. Go now if you cannot give me this aid. I must have only complete conviction in my mind and the minds of those around us. She will live because there is no other alternative.”

Gregori placed his hands over the wounds, closed his eyes, and went seeking out of his own body and into the one lying so hideously wounded, as still as death.

Mikhail felt Raven’s stirring of pain. She flinched, tried to move away, tried to fade so that this new, painful sensation could not touch her. Mikhail surrounded her effortlessly, held her still for Gregori to do the intricate work of repairing damaged organs. Relax into it, little one. I am here in this place with you.

I can’t do this.It was more a feeling than words. So much pain. Choose for us, then, Raven. You will not go alone.

“No!” Jacques’s protest was sharp. “I know what you do, Mikhail. Drink now or I will not continue the transfusion.”

Fury welled up, shook Mikhail out of his semistupor. Jacques met the rage in his dark eyes with deliberate calm. “You are too weak from loss of blood to oppose me.”

“Then let me feed.” There was cold fury, black as night in those words. Pure menace, the threat of death.

Jacques exposed his throat without hesitating, managing to prevent a groan of pain as Mikhail bit deep, fed hungrily, ferociously, like a savage animal. Jacques did not struggle or make a sound, offering up his life for his brother and Raven. Eric moved toward them as Jacques’s knees buckled and he sat down hard, but Jacques motioned him away.

Mikhail lifted his head abruptly, his shadowed features so haunted and grief-stricken, Jacques ached for him. “Forgive me, Jacques. There is no excuse for my treatment of you.”

“There is nothing to forgive when I offer freely,” Jacques whispered raggedly. Eric moved immediately to his side, supplying Jacques with blood.

“How could anyone do such a thing to her? She is so good, so courageous. She risked her life to help a stranger. How could someone want to harm her?” Mikhail asked, raising his eyes toward the heavens. Silence was his only answer.