“Sarika.” Tomas used that voice that seemed to play over her skin and soothe her when she was so troubled. “You have many secrets buried in your mind. They are rising now and cause you great fear. Do you believe there is really a conspiracy happening?”
“I wish I knew. You can see into my mind. I can’t calm it down. I told you, sometimes my mind starts working on a problem, and it won’t let it go. I need to be somewhere quiet so I can solve this puzzle.”
Tomas gave her his gentle smile. “I’ll take you home, and we’ll work it out together. Solange, Jasmine, Sandrine, we’ll return this next rising.”
He and Dominic exchanged another long look. Sarika heard a soft murmur as if they were speaking. To her surprise, she heard Jubal’s voice, which meant he could speak telepathically. She didn’t try to hear what they were saying. She just wanted to lie down to let her brain rest.
Chapter
16
Tomas watched his lifemate pacing back and forth across the wide wraparound porch. He knew his brothers and Luiz watched her as well. They were in the shadows, keeping guard, but they were upset with him because he didn’t take over her mind and find out what was bothering her so much.
They each tried to persuade him that a lifemate didn’t allow his woman to suffer as Sarika clearly was. Every cell in his body demanded he do just that, wave his hand and stop her in her tracks, slide into her mind when she was unaware and ferret out the problem.
He was Sarika’s lifemate, and his brothers and her cousin were right. His number one priority had to be to see to her health and happiness, not just her protection.
How you handle your lifemates is for you to decide. You are the ones who must get to know what makes her happy. What scares her. If you feel that taking away all freedom of choice can be justified, that is what you must do with your woman. I know if I take that path with Sarika, she would be a long time forgiving me.
The point is,Lojos objected,she wouldn’t know.
You believe in deceiving your lifemate?It was difficult enough to feelSarika in turmoil without his brothers pushing their ideas at him so relentlessly.
How is it deception? She won’t know, so therefore won’t ask. You’ve removed any threat to her, and she’s calm and accepting of her fate rather than questioning every custom and ritual we have,Lojos said.
No.Mataias, always the thoughtful one, suddenly backed up Tomas.It is deceiving, and eventually it would come out. Are you looking to have a puppet for a lifemate, Lojos?
There was silence as Lojos considered his answer.I am not like either of you. You know that. If my lifemate is a Carpathian woman raised in our traditions, I doubt there would be conflict. But Sarika isn’t my lifemate. She is my little sister, and I can’t bear the thought of her in danger. Or the way she becomes so fearful after examining one of her memories. Why should she suffer if we can prevent it? How would I be able to endure these things from my own lifemate without intervening?
That was what came of sharing emotions with his brothers. They felt Sarika’s fears. They felt her need to run. The way she vacillated between trust in him and fear of him. Tomas understood his brother. The compulsion to protect was overwhelming in all of them, but Lojos was the one who was weighed down by that need. He put himself in the most dangerous position during battles with their enemies to keep them off Mataias and Tomas. Tomas understood what was happening to Lojos, because it was happening to all three of them.
The triplets had stayed alive and sane, keeping to the code by weaving their spirits together and sharing every scrap of information possible. They knew the moment one was injured or in trouble simply because they’d lived too long and none of them truly believed they had a lifemate. Until the tarot cards had revealed that somewhere in the world, in this life cycle, they would be able to find her.
That revelation had been a shock, but more importantly, none of them truly believed. They’d seen the evidence of their fellow ancients finding lifemates, and it was still inconceivable that it would happento one or all of them. Sarika was sacred. She made it real. She represented the hope they’d lost centuries earlier. It wasn’t just his hope, his miracle; she was that for Lojos and Mataias as well.
Tomas had to acknowledge that his brothers could feel emotion through Sarika. They saw in faint color, more like memories of color, but it had changed their lives. It also was a heavy burden. Away from her, those colors and emotions would fade, making it more difficult to accept the gray nothingness of their existence.
That was when they would turn to battle, actively hunting for vampires, aggressively hunting them. They had made a pact with one another that they wouldn’t go off alone when they realized they all felt a rush when they took on the undead. So far, all three had kept their word.
Tomas’ intention was to remain with his brothers throughout their journeys to find their lifemates. That meant Sarika would be traveling with him. She couldn’t be aboveground in unfamiliar and dangerous territory while he was sleeping the rejuvenating sleep of his kind.
They hunted Justice. Tracking him was extremely difficult, and Gustov and his followers weren’t the first vampires to be thrown in their path. Now it was imperative to find this weapon Gustov had told him about. They had to get to it before Justice and find a way to destroy it for good. It couldn’t be allowed to exist on earth because sooner or later the enemy would find a way to acquire it and use it against their people.
Tomas turned his attention to Sarika. She had taken that first piece from Mitro. He had been so caught up in his vicious, brutal behavior that she had been able to steal the piece from him. Tomas tried more than once to replay the details back from his memory, first to identify the features of the two women who had been with Sarika, and second to see where she had secreted the piece of weapon.
The women’s faces were hidden from him, always in the shadows. That was strange. He couldn’t identify them, and he should have been able to. He had excellent vision in the dark. He knew what Mitro was forcing the one woman to do to him, all the while torturing her. Butshe held out so Sarika would be able to take the weapon from him. It was very courageous in the face of the brutality he knew Mitro had done to women over the centuries. It was also odd that he couldn’t see her. He could only see Sarika clearly.
He knew his brothers struggled to find details, especially after Sarika noted that there were three families with royal bloodlines. Solange’s lineage was considered the top of the royal bloodlines. Luiz’s family and then Jubal’s were both branches of royal blood. As far as anyone knew, Solange, Luiz and Jubal had been the last of their kind. Others might have a small percentage of their bloodlines, but no one else alive had that pure blood that gifted them with speed, agility and cunning.
Jubal had two sisters. They were fast and more than capable, just as Solange’s cousins were, but it wasn’t the same. Jubal had a different father from his sisters, although they had not been told that until their mother tried to kill Jubal. Tomas turned that information over and over in his mind.
He knew Sarika was concerned that they were all missing the larger picture. That a threat was developing, yet the Carpathians were not feeling it. If that were true, it would be another first for Tomas and his brothers to experience in centuries of battling the enemy. They were ancients and well tuned to the presence of evil in any form.
Are you certain Sarika is right? She’s overwrought with everything that has gone on the last few days,Mataias said.
Tomas didn’t thinkoverwroughtwas a good word choice. He wouldn’t describe his lifemate as being overwrought. She had a right to her feelings, even the panic attacks. There was more working here than met the eye. Sarika seemed to be the only one feeling those underlying currents, the threat to the women and children and therefore the ancients.
Tomas, listen to yourself,Lojos said.This could be her imagination. She is fearful of your claim on her, and unpleasant memories of her past have surfaced.
