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He put the piece of jewelry into his pocket and turned back to the bed. There was nothing more of the scent to be found. The chamber was sterile, not lived in, at least not very long.
Everything in his life that had come before seemed so very small in this moment. All that mattered now was finding the woman, Fiona, the one who had a scent like a French boulangerie. He returned to the place where he had seen Rith disappear with the woman. He found the trace. He pushed against it. He tried to fold himself after the trace again, but landed back in the small bedroom over and over.
He began to pace in a circle, a lion trapped in a cage. He punched the air and cried out. He roared. He punched and punched. Again he folded into the trace. Again, the block pushed him back into the room. Over and over he punched the air.
He roared and shouted.
He heard voices calling to him but could not make sense of them. Was it her? Was she speaking? Summoning him? What was being done to her? Was she being hurt? Raped? Killed?
He could not bear the thoughts, and the part of him that was man disappeared. His arms stiffened straight to his sides. His fists clenched tight, his back bowed. His fangs emerged. He roared at the ceiling and could not seem to stop.
Hands pressed on him now, held him in place.
He felt a vibration and still he roared through nether-space, flying through time and darkness and hunger.
His feet touched down and he fell into an abyss as deep as hell.
***
Medichi stared down at Jean-Pierre. He drew his phone from his pocket and swiped his thumb across the front.
“Jeannie here. How may I serve?”
“I need you to get Alison for me. We have a problem at the Cave.”
“One of the warriors hurt?”
“Not exactly. Let’s just say I think Jean-Pierre needs Alison’s help. We’re not really sure what happened.”
“I’ll send her.”
He thumbed his phone then returned it to his pocket. He didn’t know what he was looking at. Jean-Pierre had passed out. His behavior at the farmhouse near Toulouse Two had stunned him. Zach as well. Parisa and Santiago had been with the blood slave and hadn’t seen the worst of it but they’d heard the roaring.
The sound had been like a hurricane, like great winds had poured through the house. He still didn’t know what had happened.
Zach said he thought it was the breh-hedden stretching its claws out once more, but Medichi hadn’t experienced anything like this, and he sure as hell hadn’t passed out. Jean-Pierre was still out, lying on one of the ratty brown leather couches on his side, his body completely quiet, unmoving. Not even his eyelids moved.
Parisa slid her arm around his. “Will he be all right?”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”
“Do you think Rith caused this? Affected his mind?”
“I don’t know. He seemed crazed but I don’t know why. He kept partially dematerializing then bouncing back like he’d hit some wall he couldn’t penetrate.”
She squeezed his arm. “I think I understand. He was trying to reach Fiona.”
Medichi looked down at her. “So you think it’s the breh-hedden, too? You think this woman, Fiona, is the one?”
She released a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe. Oh, God, probably.”
A faint movement of air sent Medichi whirling around. At the same moment, he stepped away from Parisa and folded his sword into his hand, ready for who the hell knew what.
But Alison materialized and his shoulders slumped. He folded the sword away.
She didn’t seem distressed as she looked at him. By now, after seven months of living with a Warrior of the Blood, she knew the score. She understood the ever-present danger in which they all lived. She was very pregnant.
She nodded. “What happened?”
“We’re not sure.” He explained the sequence of events and Jean-Pierre’s strange behavior.
Alison just stared at him. “Didn’t Kerrick go through something similar at the Blood and Bite? I mean, before we got together? Didn’t he end up here at the Cave with all you boys around him?”
Medichi felt himself pale. “I had almost forgotten how crazed he was. So, you think this is the breh-hedden?”
She glanced down at Jean-Pierre. “What would you have done if the first time the breh-hedden struck, you found that the woman you needed to be with, to protect, had been abducted by a madman?”
He thought back to that moment of seeing Parisa for the first time in the kitchen of his villa, of having caught her tangerine scent, of having been driven toward her in a hypersexual way. He recalled the complete loss of rationality, of reasoning. He’d turned into some kind of Neanderthal caveman who had to have his woman.
Marcus had done him the profound favor of punching him on the jaw and bringing him back to his senses.
All so primal and to a large degree humiliating.
What man enjoyed being so out of control?
Alison dropped to her knees beside the couch. Jean-Pierre’s battle gear was still blood-spattered but she’d seen it before. He’d once asked her how she bore it and she’d said simply, When I see the blood, I know that other lives, innocent lives, have been spared, so I’m grateful.
Alison was a pragmatic, soothing presence.
She put her hand on Jean-Pierre’s head, a light touch. She didn’t stroke his forehead or pet him, just settled her hand on him. He’d experienced that touch more than once, and he knew that right now healing waves were passing through Jean-Pierre’s mind.
After a minute, the warrior began to move. His eyelids fluttered, his fingers shifted, even his left knee drew forward.
A few seconds more and his eyes opened. He leaned up on his elbow.
Alison sat back on her heels, her hand falling away. “How do you feel, mon ami?”
He glanced down at his chest. “Was I wounded?”
She shook her head. “Do you remember what happened?”
He glanced up at Medichi then Parisa. “Where is Zach? Santiago?”
“Thorne sent them home to get some sleep,” Medichi said.
Jean-Pierre sat up, a deep furrow between his brows. He pushed a fist into the couch beside his hips and started to lift himself up, then fell against the back cushion. “Mon Dieu, my head feels as though it will explode. What happened? My throat, it hurts.”
“So you don’t remember the farmhouse.”
He stared straight ahead, his lips parted, the furrow growing deeper. “The farmhouse. Toulouse.” The city name rolled elegantly off his Frenchman’s tongue. “Oui, I remember some things. Battling. I saw Rith. And I saw…” He gave a sudden harsh cry and bent forward, his elbows on his knees, his long fingers pulling his hair out of the cadroen. He started rocking back and forth. “He has her. He has the woman. He has Fiona. Mon Dieu, mon Dieu.”
