Dark Promises (Dark #29) by Christine Feehan

dropped down to veil her expression.
    â€œThat is what I thought.” He gently removed her fists from his shirt and stepped around her.
    Gabrielle watched him stride away and nearly collapsed on the ground, but that wouldn’t do any good. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t be responsible for this man’s death. She’d wanted him dead just minutes earlier, but the reality of his
being
dead was something else altogether.
    She stood undecided, watching him as he waved his hand toward the door. Instantly it obeyed him, flying open. Outside she could see the night. Feel the breeze. The cool air. The mist enclosed the monastery in a gray veil. She sucked in her breath and went after him. There was no real thought in her mind, just that she
had
to stop him.
    She couldn’t think about Gary right now or what was happening to him. She’d already lost him. She lost him the moment she’d agreed to become Carpathian. Aleksei was right in believing she had known about lifemates and that she could be one to someone, but he was wrong in thinking she had betrayed him. Or was he?
    â€œStop. Aleksei. Stop.” She couldn’t prevent the tremble in her voice, but there was also pleading. “Just give me another minute of your time.”
    He didn’t turn around this time. He kept walking. Desperation set in. She ran after him. “I’m not Carpathian. I’m human. I knew Gary before I was converted. When I was converted, I thought . . .” She was almost up to him and she was still talking to his back. He needed the truth, so she had to face it. Deep down inside her, where no one looked, not even her, she had to face the truth to save this man’s life. “I thought they would teach me what I was supposed to know. I thought someone would help me. Instruct me, but they didn’t.”
    She halted. Put a hand to her mouth, found her fingers were trembling and bit down on them in an attempt to still them. To stop talking. He didn’t want to hear her. He didn’t want to see her. Whatever transgression she’d made, and she could admit in his eyes she’d made a huge one, he didn’t want to hear what she had to say.
    She
hated
being Carpathian. She couldn’t just take off because she didn’t know even the basics of caring for herself. Her sister was gone all the time so there was no asking her. And then that stupid, stupid war with the faction of Lycans that wanted to destroy Lycans and Carpathians both. She hated feeling incompetent. She had stayed longer and longer in the laboratory, and she knew she had clung to being human more and more as time passed. How could she not? No one took the slightest interest in her or treated her as if she was worth anything other than Gary.
    â€œAleksei.”
She whispered his name. She had too many sins on her soul already and she didn’t know if she deserved them or not.
    She knew Gary was in trouble. She couldn’t save him. She was responsible, and she couldn’t save him. Now this man, innocent in the entire horrible mess, was going to die as well. Because of her. Because of her inability to adapt.
    She sank to her knees.
“Don’t do this.”
She whispered that as well.
    How had she messed up her life to this point? She wept inside for Gary. Sorrow pressed in so deep she could barely see with the tears in her eyes. She could barely breathe with tears clogging her throat. But still. There was Aleksei. There had to be a way to save him. She didn’t want to think too hard on what that way would be.
    Are you willing to share your life with me? Your body with mine? To give yourself to me? In order for us to be lifemates, these are the things that have to be.
    She licked at the small laceration in her lip.
These are the things that have to be.
Was she such a coward she couldn’t give him those things to save his life? Would it be impossible? She closed her eyes, feeling the