“I do not foresee a problem, Gabrielle,” he said quietly. “But you have to always be prepared for an emergency. I need to know you can take care of yourself if I do run into trouble and I am delayed. Eventually we will have children. I will need to know that you can protect them.”
Gabrielle bit her lip hard. “I am not good with violence, Aleksei, but I would never allow anything or anyone to harm our children.” She rubbed at her bracelet, wanting to cling to him, to keep him with her. She knew he was making sense but the very idea made her uneasy.
“Or you,” he persisted. “If they harm you, kislány, they harm me. If anything happens to you, it happens to me. When you are protecting you, that is you protecting me.”
She nodded slowly. She would never allow harm to come to Aleksei, either, if she could help it. “I’ll go to ground if I have to.” She wondered if Teagan and Trixie had already mastered that particular stumbling block. If they had, both were a lot stronger than she was. If not, it would be up to her to help them.
Aleksei rewarded her with a smile. “That’s my girl.”
She couldn’t help but feel a warm glow as they made their way back to the other two women. Trixie and Teagan both were wearing their own glows. She wasn’t the only one who had been pushed up against the wall. The three women exchanged smiles. Trixie held out her hand to Gabrielle.
“You boys go ahead and find yourselves something to drink. We’ll be just fine. I’ve got my vampire-hunting kit and we’re good,” Trixie announced, as Gabrielle took her hand.
“Woman. Do not try to use that kit on anyone, especially one of us when we return,” Fane warned. His warning would have been far more effective had he not been laughing. Clearly he found his lifemate both entertaining and amusing.
“I want to see this kit,” Gabrielle said. “Maybe we can improve on it.”
“It needs improving,” Trixie said. “Waste of money, most of it.”
Teagan burst out laughing. “Grandma Trixie, you’re incorrigible.”
Fane joined in with Teagan’s laughter and then took to the air, following Aleksei and Andre down toward the village where they could find strong men to give them the sustenance they needed.
20
Gabrielle waved her hands so each of the three women had comfortable chairs to lean back and take in the last of the stars. The night was cool and she added a fire pit so the warm glow could heat them while the crackling flames brought a kind of comfort. She took a long, slow look around, still feeling uneasy in spite of the fact that she knew the three ancients had triple safeguarded the gates and wove more safeguards into the thick mist surrounding them.
“There are a few things about being Carpathian I could like,” Trixie announced contentedly. She stretched her hands toward the fire and pinned her granddaughter with her steely eyes. “You know I came looking for you. And I brought that passel of trouble with me. No fool like an old fool.”
“Grandma Trixie.” Teagan breathed her name softly. Lovingly. “I think fate brought you here to Fane. I have to admit I never ever considered that you would be with a man, but the way he looks at you and the way you look at him, it’s beautiful.”
Trixie scowled at her granddaughter. “That man thinks he can handle me and he’s got himself another think coming. He thinks my attitude is cute. Cute. Worse, when I get snarky, he laughs. It doesn’t faze him a bit. And then he . . .” She broke off abruptly, scowling even more.
“Kisses you senseless,” Teagan filled in, and burst out laughing.
“Enough of that nonsense. What are we going to tell your sisters?”
Teagan sobered immediately. She took a breath. “That we both are in love, Grandma, but we can never tell them what we are. We’ll have to be careful to always appear fully human. If we choose to live in that world and our lifemates agree to do so for us, we have to follow the rules of the Carpathian people. We’re under the rule of the prince, and humans don’t know about us—not even family.”
Gabrielle held her hand out to the fire. She felt a chill creep down her spine in spite of the dancing flames. She sat up slowly, listening to the two women teasing each other. She took a look around, not understanding the chill, but not ignoring it either. The safeguards were so strong, she didn’t think even a master vampire could penetrate the guards. Her bracelet drew her attention, the low humming it had been emitting becoming stronger. Louder. More insistent. The flames in the links were glowing red now, and it had gone from warm to hot. Not burning her, but definitely hot.