Dark Promises(2)

Now he was a tall, completely filled out, walking warrior. He went into battles without flinching. Even before Gregori had converted him he had. She’d watched him slowly change from her nerdy geek to a completely different man as the Carpathians put more and more demands on him.

Joie moved to a chair as if Gabrielle was delivering a terrible blow, and she probably was. She hadn’t told anyone but Gary her true feelings. Her beloved Gary. He was quiet and solid. He could always, always, be counted on. Everyone counted on him, but especially Gabrielle.

She kept trying to make her sister understand. “Joie, you and Jubal belong in the Carpathian world. I don’t. I don’t even want to be here. Not anymore.”

Joie inhaled sharply. “Gabby . . .”

Gabrielle shook her head. This had to be said. She wanted Joie to understand just what Gary meant to her. What he’d been for her in the past and what he would be in her future. “I hope, after tonight, after I marry Gary, we’ll go away together and live in a beautiful little house. Nothing big. Nothing fancy. Just small and snug and filled with love. That’s it. That’s my dream. Gary and my little house tucked away someplace where there are no such things as vampires, and women carry their children to full term and give birth to healthy, happy babies. No wars. Just peace and happiness.”

There, she’d said it. That was the strict truth, and Joie needed to know how she truly felt.

Joie’s eyebrows came together as she frowned. “You mean you want to move away from here? Where your laboratory is set up? You love working here. You want to move away from the Carpathian Mountains? From the prince? From Gregori?”

Gabrielle straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Especially away from the prince and Gregori.”

Joie shook her head, looking shocked.

“I don’t belong in the Carpathian world, I just don’t. Only Gary seems to understand that about me. He doesn’t mind that I’m not a fierce warrior woman. The thing is, Joie, I don’t want to be different. I’m a book person. I like to live quietly.”

“Gabrielle, you are so far off track about yourself and Gary. Where is this coming from? You love adventures. You’ve gone ice climbing with Jubal and me a million times. You’ve gone caving. Hiking in remote, third world countries.”

Gabrielle nodded. “I went caving because you and Jubal did, and I enjoy spending time with you, but I don’t live for adventures the way you do. I’m really a homebody.”

“Are you crazy, Gabby? You’re a genius who thrives on studying hot viruses. Newsflash, sister. Playing with that kind of virus without a way to fight it can get you killed. If you didn’t like adventure you would never, under any circumstances, study them.”

“You fight the world’s injustices your way, and I fight them mine. Viruses make sense to me. I can solve the puzzle and try to help with things like finding a way to stop the Ebola virus from being let loose on the world. Vampires make no sense. None.” She gave a little shudder. Joie would never understand that she escaped into a lab, that once she focused on whatever she was studying, everything around her disappeared and she didn’t have to think about anything else at all.

“You have crazy, mad skills in a lab, Gabby,” Joie said. “You’re a genius. It isn’t just Gary. He isn’t smarter than you.”

“Actually he is. Most men bore me silly after two minutes alone in their company. I can talk to Gary for hours. More, I can just listen to him when he talks to others. He’s brilliant. He’s also the kindest, sweetest man I know.”

Joie shook her head. “He’s a Daratrazanoff. Every bit of power, of knowledge, their blood, their ancestors, all of it was given to him in the cave of warriors. You know that. You were there. He was powerful before, Gabby. He’s even more so now.”

Gary always took the back of the hunters and he’d never let any of them down during a battle, not once. Gabrielle knew it because when he’d nearly died, their best hunters came in to give blood and to pay their respects. She knew it because Gregori Daratrazanoff had made him his brother, his own flesh and blood. The power of the Daratrazanoff family ran in his veins. Was in his heart and soul. Was there, in his mind.

Okay, she had to admit to herself she shied a little away from the sheer power there at times, but still, he was always her Gary. Gentle and kind with her. Seeing her when others couldn’t—or wouldn’t. She’d tried to tell Joie and Jubal that she was different, not at all wild or willful, but they laughed and said she didn’t know herself very well.