The don used a key to unlock a cupboard and pull out a drawer. Byron glimpsed several files in the drawer. Demo-nesini tugged one folder free of the others.
"Just put them all on the desk, close and lock the cupboard."
Demonesini hesitated. A soft growl spurred him to action. He piled the manila folders on the desk. "These are private files."
Franco flipped one open and swore under his breath. "Photographs of another woman, Byron."
"I suspected as much. Make certain Marita"s negatives are there."
Franco thumbed through the folders, distaste evident on his face. "Everything is here, Byron."
"Take them and go, Franco. If you meet Christopher or anyone else in the house, stop and have a pleasant chat with them. If they ask you about the folders, tell them Demonesini gave them to you for a private project. Then walk away and do not look back. When you get home, burn those files without looking at the rest of them. I am certain you will know more than one of those women socially."
"I came here to rid the world of him."
"I know. I am family. Trust me to do what is necessary." Out of the corner of his eye, Byron could see Demonesini edging closer to the gun lying on the floor on the other side of the desk.
"Since you"re family, I"m not going to ask you about anything I saw here tonight. And don"t bring it up later. In return, I won"t tell you about jaguars and how close our family is to them." Franco gathered the stack of files into his arms. His gaze, filled with contempt, flickered to Demonesini. "You deserve whatever you get."
The don made a dive for the gun. Byron closed his fist hard, staring at Demonesini"s chest. The man went rigid, his face twisted with pain.
Franco hesitated. "Keep going," Byron said softly, his gaze fixed on the don. "Walk away, Franco."
Don Demonesini clutched his chest, falling to his knees. His color was mottled, his eyes bulging.
Franco left the room, the manila folders safe in his arms.
He didn"t look back. Not even when he heard the sound of a body falling to the floor. He hurried through the villa, trying to look as casual as possible, but he was grateful he didn"t run into anyone. His car was parked beneath the shade of several trees, a short distance from the circular drive and the wrought-iron gates. He hastily stuffed the folders into the trunk of his car and yanked open the driver"s-side door, sliding behind the wheel.
His heart slammed hard in his chest when Byron materialized beside him. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Don"t do that!"
Byron grinned at him. "I thought we should talk about the fact that you think I am a vampire. I know you said you would prefer not to, but I am going to marry your cousin, and it is best to clear the air."
Franco sat for a moment and then leaned forward to turn the key. "You"re saying you"re not a vampire?"
"No, I am not. I am something altogether different. If you wish to keep this knowledge, I would have to take your blood.
Otherwise, I will have no choice but to remove your memories of this encounter."
Franco drove through the streets with more speed than vision. "You can remove memories? Dio, Byron, does Toni know what you are?"
"Of course." His tone lowered an octave. "You cannot betray us for any reason, Franco. If you did, I would know, and I would have no choice but to protect my people."
Franco glanced at him, noted the hard lines etched into Byron"s face. "You mean it, don"t you? I understand loyalty, Byron."
A small grin spread across his face. "Once you marry Toni, we"ll be family. I don"t think it"ll be so easy to harm me."
"It wouldn"t be so easy now, Franco. Make your choice."
"I like knowing you have certain abilities. They may come in handy sometime. I know Toni doesn"t really want to run the family business. Sooner or later, Nonno is going to have to turn it over to me. I think having you at a board meeting would be very helpful."
"Helena had an affair with Tasha and Paul"s father. Este-ben was her son, not her nephew. Helena thought she deserved the Scarletti fortune. I believe she was responsible for the deaths of Antonietta"s parents and even Tasha and Paul"s parents. Esteben probably killed Enrico. Helena and Esteben arranged accidents for Don Giovanni and fed poison to members of your family. They were both able to shift into the form of a jaguar. They were the ones killing the locals. They probably could not control the urges of the beast when they were in the form of the cat."
"You are telling me something."
"Do not shift into the form of a jaguar and expect to stay in control. It is dangerous."
"How did you know?"
"You accepted my differences far too easily."
"I would never have suspected Helena. She seemed so much a part of our household. What a waste Had she just gone to Don Giovanni and told him about Esteben, they would have been welcomed into the family." He parked the car in the large garage.
"Marita doesn"t believe Margurite is my child."
"What do you believe?"
"She is a Scarletti through and through. And I love her. She"s my daughter, and she"ll always be my daughter, no matter what a paternity test says."
"She is a Scarletti." Byron smiled. "There is no mistaking the scent and thought patterns of your family."
Franco leaned back in his seat and smiled. "Grazie, Byron. Do whatever you think necessary to protect your people. Your family is tied to my family now. It is what any of us would do."
And hurry please. I am lonely for you. Antonietta startled him. She learned fast, staying a shadow in his mind even when he was no longer aiding her.
I am coming. He sent his a.s.surance to his life mate.
I do not believe this. Byron, you are nervous." Jacques Dubrinsky clapped Byron on the shoulder as he circled around his friend to check that the tails on the suit jacket were straight.
Byron glanced quickly at the other occupants of the room. Eleanor and Vlad grinned openly at him while Shea, Jacques"s life mate, tried to hide her smile.
"I am not nervous. Why should I be nervous? Antonietta is my life mate. We are already tied together. This is just a ceremony to please her family." Byron straightened his tie and ran a finger under the collar of his immaculate white shirt. "Why are these things always so tight, like a noose around one"s neck?"
Jacques laughed at him. "The noose has been there for some time. You just now are feeling it?"
Shea delivered a solid punch into Jacques"s arm. "Ha-ha. You think you"re so funny. His sense of humor is warped, Byron, don"t pay him any attention. Your bride looks beautiful. I took a peek at her as her cousin helped her dress."
"She is nervous. Antonietta is so peculiar. She chose to convert without batting an eyelash. She was willing to fight off a dangerous jaguar. She walks blind onto a stage to perform in front of forty thousand people, but she"s so nervous marrying me, she is making me nervous." Byron glared at Jacques as he said the last.
"Or perhaps it is the other way around," Jacques pointed out. "I think you are sweating."
"Don"t listen to him, Byron. Jacques is the one nervous. You know how he just loves crowds." Shea gazed at her life mate with love. "How"s Antonietta"s vision, Byron? Is she coping any better?"
"She has learned to understand what she sees but often the thermal images superimpose themselves over her normal vision, and she still has difficulty with depth perception. She also remains highly sensitive to the emotions and electrical currents around her." There was a note of worry in Byron"s voice.
"Bring her back to the mountains as part of your honeymoon," Shea suggested. "The soil may speed the process up a bit. I"ve suspected for a while that many of the human life mates who display psychic abilities may be descendents of the Jaguar race, not all of them, but at least a substantial majority. Antonietta"s the first with such a strong Jaguar genetic code. I"m very interested in seeing how the conversion enhances her natural abilities."
Byron"s eyes darkened. "She is not an experiment."
"Of course not," Shea laughed lightly, even as she put a restraining hand on Jacques"s arm. "I do tend to talk in medical and researcher terms, don"t I? Antonietta is a delightful, courageous woman, and she brings with her a rich history. I suppose you noticed this region has several humans with strong barriers to mind scanning."
"That has to be the Jaguar influence. Franco actually is capable of shape-shifting, which would lead one to believe his genetic code is mainly Jaguar, yet he has a tremendous sense of family and is a good father and husband," Byron said.
"I"ve talked to him," Shea admitted. "He"s promised to allow us to witness his shape-shifting. It will be interesting to see the differences."
Byron looked up quickly. "He did not say a word to me.
I have serious reservations about that. I"ll take you to the history room. Antonietta has agreed it is very important to us all. But I do not want Franco shifting."
Vlad nodded his head in agreement. "I have to go with Byron on this. The natural inclinations of the Jaguar seem difficult to control."
"It"s important," Shea reiterated. "Franco, especially with his strong sense of family and yet the ability to shift, is important.
He"s been wonderfully cooperative. Antonietta, too. Both understand the importance to our people of unraveling the mysteries."
"What if he makes a kill while in the jaguar form?" Byron asked, turning to face her. "Franco also has other Scarletti traits. He is capable of violence; do not think he isn"t. He wouldn"t forgive himself if he harmed an innocent person while in that form."
"The Scarlettis are your family, Byron," Jacques said, his voice, as always, low but impressive. "Mikhail has accepted them under our protection for that reason, and all of us here have done so because of the strength of your feelings for them. I have found them to be just as loyal to you in return. Franco wants to help us with this. He cannot possibly escape the control of three fully mature male and three female Carpathians."
"If I can witness the differences during a shifting," Shea said, "I should be able to figure out how to better help Antonietta with her vision problems. The Jaguar genes are very strong in this family. This might be our only chance to really find out the information we need to help our people with so many things, Byron."
"I"ll have to speak with Franco again about this. I would want him to understand the risks before he does it," Byron said.
"Of course," Jacques agreed. "And do not forget, he has shifted more than once, and he did not make a kill."
"He does not remember," Byron pointed out, "that is not the same thing as knowledge. He obviously did not have control of the beast; it controlled him."
Shea paced across the room, halted beside the stained gla.s.s window to touch the intricate artwork. "I know you"re worried about Franco, Byron, but I"m really not as clinical as I sound. I appreciate that these people not only are loved by your life mate but are family to you. I also appreciate that they accept us and our differences. I would never put one of your family members in jeopardy for research, no matter how important it is to our race. I just wouldn"t do that."
Jacques went to her immediately and drew her into his arms. "No one thinks you would, Shea."
Byron shook his head. "I just have a difficult time understanding genetics. My expertise is elsewhere, and I can never figure out how something like watching Franco shift into a jaguar as opposed to watching Jacques shift could be of use."
"It is rather fascinating," Vlad said. "I watch poor little Josef working at shifting, and one time half his body will be a bird and the other half something else. He doesn"t remember to hold one image."
"It"s such a matter of focus," Shea said. "For me, because we have such a tremendous problem having children, genetics is a primary concern."
"I am grateful, loo," Eleanor said. "Our women have just about given up all hope of successfully carrying children or keeping them alive beyond the first year."
"And yet we have had a success or two," Shea pointed out. "The Carpathian who fascinates me most, though, is Gregori"s brother, Darius. He accomplished things as a boy that no one else ever has. I"d love to study him under a microscope." She laughed when Jacques nudged her. "I know, there I go again. I"ll stop now."
"Actually, Vlad and I were discussing Darius just the other day. Josef is still straggling to learn these skills, yet Darius was able to hold images for not only himself but other children as well. We don"t have the luxury of time for our children to learn the necessary skills," Eleanor said, "and the old ways don"t work in this era."
"I am grateful I am a gem-caller rather than a healer," Byron said. "It is far too complicated to figure out."
"Speaking of which," Jacques said, "Mikhail is looking forward to your return. He wants to give Raven a special gift and was hoping you would put your gem-calling skills to use. He would have come himself, but Raven recently miscarried."
There was a short, shocked silence. "Please give my sym- pathies to your brother, Jacques," Byron said.
Vlad took Eleanor"s hand. "As well as ours," he added.
They regarded each other with shared, heartfelt sorrow. It wasn"t just the fact that the child belonged to the prince of their people, it was the fact that every child lost brought their race closer to extinction.
"Is Raven all right?" Eleanor asked.
"She was depressed, of course, but physically, she is fine. They"d been trying for another child for a long while, and they feel the loss tremendously," Shea said with a small sigh of regret. She pressed both hands over her womb protectively. "Whatever has affected our people"s reproductive abilities must be in our blood or in the soil itself. I have my theories but nothing substantial yet."
"I never considered that by converting Antonietta, I would be asking her to cope with the sorrows of losing a child. Raven successfully gave birth to one child; I just a.s.sumed she would easily have more."
"Raven has Carpathian blood flowing in her veins, just as the rest of us," Eleanor said. "All of us hoped it wouldn"t happen with her as it did with the rest of us."
Byron swept a hand through his hair. "Antonietta went through so much already just with the conversion. I should have thought this all the way through before I brought her fully into our world. I do not want her to have to face losing children." He remembered Eleanor"s deep anguish as she lost baby after baby. And Diedre, Vlad"s sister, suffering such depression after the losses."I don"t want to give Antonietta false hope that we may have children. I always thought if I found my life mate I would have children, but she"s accepted the idea she never would have a family because she didn"t believe she would ever find a man to share her life. I don"t want her hoping for children only to lose her baby."
Eleanor sighed softly. "I have lost many children over the years, Diedre more than I, yet we tried over and over. Not, as many think, for the good of our race but because a child is a treasure we cherish, a gift unequaled on this earth. Tell Antonietta the truth, and allow her to choose for herself."
Byron? Do you need me? Why are you so sad? This is our wedding day.
Antonietta was there in his mind instantly, a warm, loving presence. I will always need you. Are you nervous?
She laughed softly, the sound playing over his skin, tugging at his heart. I"m afraid not; that"s you, not me. I feel wonderful.
Do not be late and leave me standing there looking like an idiot.
I cannot imagine you looking like an idiot. Antonietta laughed softly and turned away from the mirror. Her room seemed crowded with her family members all helpfully gathered around her. Even little Margurite, dressed in her finest, had been allowed to join them. Franco had placed her carefully in the most comfortable chair.
"Are you talking to Byron?" Tasha asked curiously. "He"s telepathic, too, isn"t he? Diego isn"t at all. I"ve tried, but he"s not originally from this area and has no telepathic ability whatsoever. You said you didn"t mind if I invited him, and I"ve asked him to bring the children. I want everyone to meet them."
Antonietta kissed Tasha"s cheek. "This is the perfect day for all of us to meet his children. I want all my family around me and, of course, everyone they love."
Franco reached out to touch a tendril of his cousin"s hair. "This is what you really want, Toni? This man is for all time."
"I"m absolutely certain, Franco." Antonietta could feel happiness spilling out of her. "He"s exactly right for me. Everything I"ve ever wanted. Is this the way you feel about Marita?"
"I knew from the first moment I saw her that she was my other half. I gave her no chance to get away from me. I spent weeks courting her. I think I frightened her with my intensity." He turned his head to look at his wife.
Her answering smile was tentative. She was busy fussing over Margurite"s hair. Celt kept pressing his nose into the little girl"s lap. Marita didn"t scold, allowing Margurite to scratch the dog"s silky ears.
Antonietta lowered her voice. "I know we took a loss undercutting the Demonesini company on the last three bids, Franco, and that you"re worried about it, but you needn"t be. It forced them to sell their stock in hopes of recouping the loss of revenue, and Nonno has been quietly buying it. We"re taking that company down piece by piece. I didn"t want to say anything to Marita because she seems as if she"s finally happy again. What a terrible experience for her to endure."
Franco kissed his cousin, mindful of her clothes. "Grazie, for your compa.s.sion. We are together, and we will always remain so." He, too, kept his voice low. "The additions on the lower floor have been completed to Byron"s specifications. Paul and I will see to it that your orders are always carried out, Toni. You and Byron will be fully protected during the times Byron says you are most vulnerable."
There was no way she could express her joy, so Antonietta didn"t try. It was so much easier for her three cousins to know the truth of what she was. She knew Byron had given them the choice and that he could monitor them at will, but they had accepted that condition readily. She hadn"t lost her family or the life she loved so much.