Dark Promises (Dark 25)

Dragomir's attention seemed wholly focused on Teagan as she came close to him, his golden eyes--and they were absolutely gold--boring right through her. His teeth were very white. Gabrielle could tell because he clenched them tightly as if Teagan invading his space hurt him in some way. Since he couldn't feel, Gabrielle knew it was because he was holding himself back from harming her. He looked as if ice ran in his veins--the coldest arctic temperature ever recorded. He was more than terrifying.

Gabrielle gripped Aleksei's hand as Dragomir's body shuddered, and a low, rumbling growl emerged. Andre halted Teagan's progress abruptly by stopping and clamping her to his side. Dragomir's rumble made it clear, the distance was as near as he could tolerate. Her bracelet had definitely gone warm, as if it had become watchful. She tried to block out the low hum emerging from it, but fortunately it was low enough that the ancients didn't do more than glance her way.

Teagan knelt in front of Dragomir, a stone in her hand. It was round and flat and unpolished. Still, it gleamed as gold as old and ancient as the gold of Dragomir's eyes. Gabrielle felt the instant connection, the pull. At the same time, she felt compelled toward the maps drawn in the soft, rich dirt. She moved away from Aleksei and crouched close to the ground, her hand hovering over the lines there. Trixie's swift indrawn breath told her that she was seeing what she called a song emerging from Dragomir.

Teagan began a soft chant, her eyes closing. To Gabrielle's complete shock, she could see Teagan's aura begin to expand from where she was kneeling in front of Dragomir to surround and encompass his aura. His aura was layer after layer of unrelenting dark. Teagan's aura was a cool, fresh green, like the springtime. As her aura stretched and enveloped his, a rainbow of colors began to infiltrate the darkness.

The sight was so amazing and unexpected that Gabrielle could barely pull her gaze away to observe the effect on the other ancients. They were staring impassively, but she could see their eyes beginning to go from dead to something else. They wouldn't be able to see the actual color, but they could see light moving in streaks through the gray.

The one called Sandu, the complete opposite of Dragomir with fire in his eyes, rather than ice, seemed to call up flames so that his black eyes burned a deep red. Isai, with his sapphire blue eyes, leaned forward to watch more closely. Petru had eyes that were mercury in color and right now they were an eerie liquid, as if deep inside of him a volcano had erupted and sent heat throughout to turn him fluid.

Gabrielle glanced at Aleksei, her fingers on her bracelet, that warmth there. He, like Andre and Fane, stared at Teagan as if she were a miracle. It was awesome. More colors were added into the layers of darkness, infusing Dragomir's unrelenting gray world with streaks of brightness. Gabrielle realized no one could live in that world for long without suffering the effects. To know that these men had done so for centuries made her respect them all the more.

Aleksei had done that. Her Aleksei had lived in that terrible, unrelenting gloom. A shadow world where he could never connect with anyone. And her Gary had been dropped abruptly into it with no slow conditioning. After having emotions and colors for his entire life, how could he experience the loss of emotion and color of every single warrior who had gone before him in the Daratrazanoff lineage and not go insane?

She wanted to weep. She was weeping. So was Trixie. They all felt it. The burden these men had carried for far too long. Aleksei's hand found her shoulder and slid to the nape of her neck, holding her steady.

Honey, she whispered softly into his mind. You were like that. You endured that. And I . . .

You were my personal miracle, and those colors she's pushing into that darkness have not penetrated beyond that first layer. Your colors streaked through the darkness in me all the way to the very core. You gave me that, Gabrielle. You.

He humbled her. His caressing voice. The tenderness in his eyes. She could barely look at him when he looked at her like that--as if he believed every word he said. And the thing was--he did believe it. She felt herself slipping further under his spell. Sliding from "falling" straight into "in" love. Not just "in" but wholly "in."

His eyes began to glitter. You cannot look at me when we are in the middle of something this important. I need to be alone with you when you give that to me, kessake.

Instantly the familiar reaction spread through her body like a firestorm. Her body tightened and a very pleasant spasm happened in her deepest core. She sent him a small smile and turned her attention back to what was happening.

Benedek, another ancient with the same etched tattoo, long salt-and-pepper hair and his own unique midnight black eyes, actually flowed to his feet, stepping closer to Dragomir in order to try to ascertain what was happening. Gabrielle knew they didn't see the colors, but they were all sharing the same psychic path and they could feel the difference in Dragomir. The ancients saw the streaks of lighter gray moving through the darker gray of his aura.

Trixie moved a little closer and cocked her head to one side, listening. She was also using the same path, enabling the others to hear the mournful notes playing through her head. Not just mournful--Gabrielle grasped--but the notes of a feral predator searching for prey. She shivered, hearing those notes, knowing that was Dragomir's song. The notes sprang into the air above the map drawn on the ground. Notes that held no real color, only the same darkness that permeated through all the ancients.

Andor, an ancient with indigo eyes, inky blue black, stood abruptly, reaching for one of the notes as if he could capture it in his hands. His hair, so long it hit his waist, moved with the slight breeze, and his muscles rippled beneath his skin, bringing his tattoo to life. Fane moved in closer to Trixie, stepping between Andor and Trixie without hesitation, a subtle warning that the women were trying to aid the ancients, but not to get too close.

The moment Fane moved in between his lifemate and the ancient, the seventh ancient, the one they had introduced as Ferro, came to his feet as well. His eyes were the most unusual of all. The color of iron, complete with the rust. Every bit as piercing as Aleksei's eyes, maybe more so. He was tall. His shoulders were wide--wider even than those of the other ancients. He was a very imposing figure in the midst of such powerful men. He glided across the ground, and Gabrielle held her breath as he neared Trixie. He wasn't looking at the woman, but rather at the notes and the way they surrounded Gabrielle.

She bit her lip hard. She didn't like attention. At all. She was used to being alone in her laboratory for nights on end, weeks, months even, staying alone. She didn't have the vivid personality of her mother--larger than life--or her sister and brother. She faded into the background, at least she did her best to, and having the focused attention of all seven ancients was disconcerting.

Still, it was her turn. She had to try to help them with her silly parlor trick. She shouldn't have mentioned it to Aleksei, that she might be able to do this. The small flames seemed to have come to light in her bracelet, the links dancing with fire, yet only warm and reassuring against her skin. She rubbed at them nervously.

Teagan had done her best for Dragomir. Trixie had found his unique, signature song and sent it to Gabrielle. Now, it was up to her to try to find a location somewhere in the world, where his lifemate might possibly be. Andre would contact Josef, who was standing by with the database, and he would look up any psychic women in the vicinity.

Gabrielle's heart pounded. Teagan had done amazing work. Astonishing. A miracle

really. Trixie had given her a key. Now it was up to her to unlock the door so Dragomir had a chance to find his lifemate. Sitting in the monastery afforded him nearly a zero chance. She knew what she was doing wouldn't get an exact location. It didn't work that way. Countries were big. They covered a lot of ground.

You can do this.

Aleksei. He believed in her. His voice alone steadied her, but his fingers on the nape of her neck made her feel grounded. She took a deep breath and let go of her own ego, her own personality, all that she was, much in the way Carpathians healed one another. She didn't become white-hot healing energy, she simply expanded, her consciousness reaching out into the universe. She took Dragomir's song with her. As dark and dangerous as it was, as untamed and feral, as violent and mournful, as in need. She took it with her as the energy that was her moved over the map drawn into the dirt.

At first she felt nothing at all. She didn't let that discourage her. If she did, she would retreat back into her own body, and this wasn't about her. This was about a man of intense honor who had no hope. He deserved so much better than he got. She didn't know what kind of woman would be strong enough to handle these ancients, so far gone there was nothing civilized left in them. Nothing remotely human. She couldn't think about what it would be like for them to go out into the modern world, even with Andre giving them every scrap of information that he had accrued about that world as well as Aleksei and Fane adding what they had learned from their lifemates.

Then she felt it, a pull that came out of nowhere, slight at first, but she honed in on her target range. The United States. Somewhere in the northern part of California. California was a big state. Gabrielle tried to pinpoint the pull a little closer but she couldn't. She shook her head and drew a circle with her fingertip, keeping the strongest part of that pull inside the center of the circle.

"I'm sorry," she said. "That's the best I can do. I think she's somewhere in that range, but it's a big range."

There was a silence while the ancients stared down at the circle. Dragomir cleared his throat. When he spoke his voice was husky, as if he hadn't spoken aloud in ages. "You believe my lifemate exists and she is somewhere inside that location? That circle? On another continent?"