Dark Legend (26 page)

It was important to her to spend as much time as possible with Gabriel. She wanted to be with him each rising, when the night was so beautiful it took her breath away. She wanted the early morning hours. She wanted to make love to him, watch his
gaze
become so intent that she felt a rush of heat through her body. They had spent every moment they could together, their only responsibility checking on Skyler. Francesca wasn't yet ready to relinquish her time with Gabriel, but he was a hunter and the newspaper reported that evil had found its way into her city. He could do no other than destroy what threatened his family.

Gabriel moved up behind her, silent as was his way, his palm shaping the nape of her neck, his touch warm. "It is not only Lucian, my love. I believe Skyler and you are targets of the undead. You are now out in the open. I have exposed you to a danger you managed to elude for long centuries. Skyler is not of age, but her ability is strong and she has come out of her own mind where she had so successfully remained in hiding. The undead seek ones such as Skyler. We need to move her to this house immediately and set up strong safeguards for her."

"Brice said one more day," Francesca murmured, all too aware of his hands on her. She was always so aware of Gabriel. His rich scent, the power in his body when he moved. Most of all, the way he
needed
her. The way it was so necessary for him to touch her, to allow his fingers to drift through her hair, to touch her skin. The connection between them. She loved the way he glided up behind her and circled his arms around her, his hands locked protectively over their child.

Their child.
It was growing inside her, a part of her, a part of him. A miracle she had never expected. He thought he had committed an unforgivable crime, yet she wanted to weep with the joy of it. He had given her a gift beyond measure, beyond her dreams. Francesca wanted to laugh aloud at herself. How silly and childish she had been to think she would walk into the dawn.

She was a healer, a woman of power, one who knew her body intimately. Gabriel could not have deceived her unless she had wanted to be deceived. She had taken his dark desire willingly, returned it tenfold. He thought he wielded so much power over her, yet on some level she had known all along what was happening. She had known. She was no fledging; she was an ancient. He could not have seduced her without her consent.

Was the call of a lifemate so strong? Or was it the lure of Gabriel himself? The legend. The myth. The Carpathian wanting to share her life, no, needing to share her life. She leaned into him, her body finding the exact niche it sought as if they had been made for each other.

Gabriel, a shadow in her mind, refrained from reminding her they had been made for each other. Exclusively. Francesca was the other half of his soul, his heart. She was his world, the reason he had spent two thousand years in darkness. She was the reason he fought so hard to rid the world of the undead. She needed to know he was the reason she had held on to life for as long as she had. They
belonged
to each other.

Francesca glanced over her shoulder at him, her large dark eyes very expressive. "I am reading your mind, Gabriel," she said softly, a small smile tugging intriguingly at the corners of her mouth.

"If you were reading my mind," he responded wickedly, "you would be blushing right now."

She found herself blushing just at the sound of his voice, the brush of velvet, the whisper of his breath. She didn't need to see the images in his mind, so vivid in detail, so completely erotic. "Stop it, we have work to do this rising." She took a deep breath. "Especially you." She could feel her heart skip a beat at her words. She was sending him out into the city to hunt the vampire, to try to find out what was happening to her beloved home. Evil was stalking Paris.
Lucian.
Dark angel, the fallen angel. At once she felt incredibly sad and knew she was catching Gabriel's sorrow, so intense it washed through him like a turbulent storm.

Gabriel turned away from her, removing his touch as well as his mind to spare her the intensity of his grief, but Francesca immediately swung around and captured him within the circle of her arms. Soothing, tranquil, his healer as well as his lifemate. Her mind found his unerringly, sending him waves of peace and comfort. "I am with you, Gabriel, always with you. Do not feel as if you are alone in your task."

"If you are sharing my mind, Francesca, then you will see him as he was, a warrior unsurpassed by any other. He gave his life for our people, for mankind. I believed in him always and he never once let me down. After all the battles, all the times I witnessed his kills, it is still impossible for my heart to accept what I know to be true." Gabriel raked a hand through his long black hair, his dark eyes stricken. "He fought the vampire night after night. He suffered many wounds, terrible wounds, and often he took my place when I would have been injured. He moved that swiftly, inserting his body between mine and the undead when we battled. I never heard him complain, not once in all those endless centuries. He always did the right thing, no matter the cost to himself, yet now I am sworn to destroy him."

Francesca chose her words very carefully. "It is no longer the man you are hunting, Gabriel, but a shell left behind. What once was great, the soul and mind and heart of your twin, is long gone from this earth. You cannot think of him as being the one you loved so much, the one you held in such high esteem. This is a vampire, the undead, and is not your twin."

Gabriel caught her hand, held it to his chest over his heart. "I know what you say is true, yet he is not like the undead I have hunted and destroyed for my entire life. He retains certain qualities I would never have expected."

She moved closer to him, a small protective gesture he treasured. "Perhaps' those small things have been your downfall with him, Gabriel. Perhaps he was cunning enough to know the memories would defeat you where he could not."

He brought her hand to the warmth of his mouth. "I know only that he was a great man and I loved him much. We were together two thousand years, Francesca, even during the last few centuries when we battled long. He was always there, touching my mind, sharing information, a challenge in a world of emptiness. It was Lucian who allowed me to continue when the darkness threatened and the whisper of power called to me. He was always there, my mission on this earth. To allow another to destroy him would be a sacrilege and I have given my word of honor to him." He shook his head, his sorrow so great it weighed both of them down, a stone on their hearts.

"Gabriel?"

The voice shimmered in his mind and Francesca heard it as clearly as Gabriel did. It was soft and beautiful. Lonely. Concerned. It sent a shiver deep inside her very soul. How could one so evil possess such a gift, such a weapon? If he commanded her obedience, would she be strong enough to resist the lure of that voice?

"If you seek me, Lucian, simply reveal where you are and I will come to you in all haste."
Gabriel sounded weary, and his tone alarmed Francesca. She took a firmer grip on his arm, terrified that that beguiling voice was somehow wearing Gabriel down so that he no longer believed in his abilities.

"
You are tired, brother. I would not want to take unfair advantage when there is much more entertaining prey. I will leave you to your rest."

The contact was broken as easily and as swiftly as it had been made. Gabriel buried his face in the warmth of her neck. "Do you see what I am saying? It was my sorrow that brought his mind to mine. He retains a strong connection with me that I cannot sever." He lifted his head, his black eyes searching her face with such intensity she could hardly bear his scrutiny.

"I want you to know something, Francesca. You have given me more happiness in the short time we have been together than I have ever known in all the centuries of my existence. I am honored that I was given such a wonderful lifemate, a woman of courage and beauty when I have only known evil. I have never had a home before. I look around this dwelling of yours and I see you everywhere. I went into the room you put together for Skyler and it was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes. I touched the quilt you had wrought for her. It was you. Soothing. Compassionate. Courageous. It was filled with life and love and laughter. I felt the safeguard to keep her nightmares at bay. It was strong, as you are strong."

Embarrassed by his words, Francesca looked away from the black depths of his eyes. In a way, his words were frightening, almost as if he were saying good-bye. He caught her chin in his fingers, stilling her so that his gaze could capture hers. "Do not look away from me. You deserve to look into my heart and mind and know the truth of my words. There is no other woman in the world like you. I would want no other. If something happens to me, I know you will choose to stay in this world, you will be strong enough to raise our child with enough love for both of us. You will see to it that our child knows who I was and what I stood for."

"Gabriel, don't!" Francesca jerked away from him. "You are talking about yourself in the past tense. You will destroy Lucian, I know that you will."

He nodded slowly. "Yes. I have no choice."

Francesca found herself clutching his arm, giving him a little shake. "You don't believe you will return to me."

"No, Lucian will take me with him." His hands framed her face. "You are in my heart, and wherever I go, I will take memories of you with me until such time as you are able to join me. It is enough that you and Skyler and our child will remain safe."

"I am your lifemate, Gabriel. You insisted on the ritual, you bound us together, you gave me a child. You cannot go into battle with the idea that you will not return. Lifemates remain together," she protested. He believed what he was saying, and all at once she realized he was everything she had ever wanted in her life. Gabriel. Her lifemate. Her legend come to life.

A small smile tugged at his sculpted .mouth. "You are so brave, my love, you will remain even when others would not. You have known a life on this earth few others could have managed. You would never abandon Skyler when she is in such need. She must be guarded at all times and brought up to know her own power and strength. Without you, Skyler would retreat back into her mind and be lost to our people. You know that. In your heart you know it is only the link you forged with her that keeps her with us. You cannot leave her. And there is our child, growing inside you, part of me, part of you. You must be the one to raise and guide him so that he has the strength so many others do not. I would want no other to perform this task. He must know you, and through you, me." Gabriel kissed her forehead gently, his hands tunneling in her hair.

"And you must be here to help me with these tasks, Gabriel," Francesca replied, striving to remain calm. He was calm. Tranquil even. She felt his deep sorrow, but there was acceptance in him, complete acceptance of the future. "I mean it, Gabriel. Call the others. Call Gregori. He is a great hunter of the undead. You do not know his reputation, but vampires walk in fear of him. There are several others who could help. Aidan would come from the United States. He is feared by those he hunts. His brother is powerful and the Prince would come to aid you. All would do so. Lucian could not defeat all of them."

Gabriel brought her hand to his mouth, lingered over the pulse beating so frantically in her wrist. "This is all a game to Lucian, Francesca. Right now he is soaking up what this century has to offer, feeding his intellect, but he will soon grow bored and the game will begin in earnest. If I broke my vow to him, my word of honor, I could not live with myself, and worse, he would use his power in such a way as to destroy all those who sought him. The Prince has a lifemate; I believe the others do also. Their loved ones might be his targets. We cannot take such a chance. You would not want me to do such a thing."

She rested her forehead on his chest, struggling not to cry. "I am very afraid, Gabriel. You attribute all kinds of wonderful traits to me, but I am a woman who had chosen to end her lonely existence before you came. Now you think I will not only choose to stay without you, but I will do so for at least two more centuries. Alone."

"Or longer if you must. The child is most likely a male. He will need you to give him memories that will last until his lifemate is found."

"You can defeat Lucian. I know you can do it. There must be a way, Gabriel. We have to find a way." She raised her head to look directly into his eyes. "I have examined your memories of him. I know that you bested him once. You caught him by surprise and locked him into the ground with you. He did not expect such an attack by you and it worked. We have only to think of something similar, something he would never expect. I will work with you. He will not think a woman would do such a thing. Do not smile, Gabriel, I am serious."

He bent his dark head to kiss her. She was so beautiful to him in every way. When he looked at her, she warmed him. When she talked this way, she melted his heart. "You are incapable of harming a fly, Francesca. You would want to aid me; indeed you would try, but the healer in you would prevent you from destroying another. Even the undead. And Lucian is not like the vampires you have seen or heard of. He appears beautiful and is more deadly than all others. You would hesitate, and he would kill you. I would never allow such an event to take place."

"Then do not confront him until we come up with a plan that will work," Francesca said decisively. "I will not give you to him so easily. I will not, Gabriel. You must defeat him and live."

"We have been tied together two thousand years," he replied sadly.

"
We
are tied together now. What happens to you happens to me. I will not allow him to take you with him," she said furiously. Her silken hair went flying in all directions. "He cannot have you, Gabriel. He is using his voice to defeat you, using your own emotions. You are an ancient and the strength of your love is vast. He knows you feel for him while he cannot. It is his advantage. You must separate what remains on this earth from what was lost to you. He is no longer Lucian, your twin, your hero; he is foul and unclean and it was his choice."