Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jessie felt the utter torture washing over Ricard. His guilt, grief, and desperation would have caused her knees to buckle and send her falling to the floor. But the drive to be strong for him kept her standing.
“Barone? Rafe and Gabe’s father killed your mate?” Disbelief rang in Brandt’s words. “How could a vampire kill another’s mate? How is that possible?” He clasped Rachel close to him. “Why would he want to?”
“Our father was a madman. It took me many years to understand he was mad as a human and becoming a vampire only heightened that insane drive for power,” Rafe said. His voice was so fueled with hatred Jessie wondered if he wouldn’t lash out.
“It’s likely he hoped to possess Genevieve, to steal her from Ricard.” Gabe looked at Aurelia, the woman he successfully turned vampire, and shook his head. “He couldn’t stand to see anyone with anything he did not have.”
The room seemed to become pressurized. Jessie felt the weight of several angry and distrusting vampires.
“How do you continue without her?” Oz asked.
“Tell us, Ricard. All these years having that bond broken, how do you continue?” Brandt asked. The large and deadly vampire looked down at the woman he held tightly, then pressed a kiss to her forehead. “How do you do it without her?”
“Until only days ago I could not answer. I did not know why I continued to rise with the evening. My body left me no choice but to go forward even though until recently I believed my heart to be dead.” The depth of Ricard’s love for Jessie shone in his dark, violet eyes. Beneath the unshed tears was a devotion and warmth she’d never felt before. It called to her like a secret voice in the night calling her out of a deep sleep and into the light of day.
It was at that moment that Jessie truly understood this new love, this bond Ricard had tried to explain. Watching so many men, more powerful than any she’d ever considered, cringe with the knowledge of what Ricard had experienced made it clear how much they loved these women.
She realized then just how much Ricard meant to her and that if the situation was reversed and if she had to go on without him, she would not survive. She knew as clear as she felt the warmth of his hand in hers that if she did not have him to love her every night and day, she would simply cease to exist.
“I’ve told you this information not to stir useless hopes in your mates and not to bring pity on me, but to show you the changes and similarities in the bloodlines. Two of us have turned women. One of us has done what we’ve always believed to be impossible, impregnating a woman. These are abilities Tyrone wanted more than any other, and these are bloodlines that are strong and powerful beyond others.”
Looking up at Ricard, Jessie watched how he worked to remain focused on the situation at hand, keeping himself from being sucked into the pit of despair swirling at the edge of his mind. She knew then that he’d managed to continue to exist after his tremendous loss by submerging himself in his research, by never allowing himself to be vulnerable, by always looking at love from a scientific perspective.
“Serge, the next slide, please.” He turned back to the wall where the slides of the Barone bloodline appeared. “As you can see the genetics of this bloodline are stronger than mine. This is why I believe Aurelia’s change worked and why she transformed in the exact way we all changed. The family genetics of the carcinosanguine cell were so powerful as to make it unstoppable.
“The brothers having been human brothers, one turned by their own human father, and the second turned by the older brother, kept every bit of genetics from both the human and the vampire lines in the family. We believe this is what makes the bloodline so strong.” Ricard used his own laser pointer to circle several sets of genes.
“Do you know who turned your dad and if that vampire is still alive?” Hunter asked.
“We have no idea. My father came back to Florence after a business trip and had been turned. He’d been gone for months and when he returned we did not have time for discussing his experiences. He came home in the midst of a power-hungry bloodlust.” Rafe shook his head. “He planned to turn us all and take power from anyone who stood in his way.”
“At this point that detail does not matter.” Serge flipped a switch, returning the lights to full power. “Over the last few nights we studied the samples from all four members of the Stevens family. Jessie, who, we now know was also used in Tyrone’s studies, luckily she is female, thus the carcinosanguine cells did not have the same effect, ruling her out as a filtration system.”
Jessie felt an odd surge of relief and anxiety and quickly realized it was coming from Ricard.
“Tyrone figured out that filtering the revenant juice through a human wasn’t enough, but that filtering it through a human who was carrying a baby, thus putting the serum through a filtering incubator, and then waiting for the baby to be born, allowed for the perfect synthesis of the blood and created a superhuman, the likes of which no one has ever seen,” Serge said.
“Though, my guess is that Tyrone was at the Stevens home the night he died in an effort to take Jessica, impregnate her, and try again.” Ricard’s clenched jaw and extended fangs said far more about how he felt than any words could have.
“So what is he saying?” Alice turned to Hunter. “I’m confused by who is becoming a vampire and who is getting pregnant with a vampire baby.”
“No one is getting pregnant,” three vampires said at once.
“Ladies, pregnancy is not a safe or viable option for any of you.” Ricard removed a pair of glasses from his lab coat, cleaned them and put them on. “First, it’s unlikely to happen, with odds of 1 in 2.7869 billion, and it will likely end in death of both baby and mother. For the sake of yourselves and your mates, please put this idea out of your minds and hearts.”
Until Ricard had explained about Genevieve, Jessie had not thought of having children with him, and having heard over and over Ricard’s pleading warnings about needing to be careful and the fact they actually used protection when they made love, she had put the hope out of her mind, but she still understood the heartache these women felt. They’d gone into these relationships knowing children were not options for them. Then to have the possibility of a family dangled before them, then ripped away was truly a travesty.
“What we know is that Tyrone’s plan to create a human-made vampire army is nearly complete. Panthera continues to work on Tyrone’s plan and has just about perfected the revenant juice that had been percolating through Joshua. With the last couple waves of revenants rushing right up to the doors of our base it’s clear Rollins has only a few alterations to make and he’ll have vampire-like soldiers to heed his commands,” Serge said.
“At the very least they don’t live long,” Oz said.
“They will when he figures out how to stabilize the last few genes,” Ricard warned.
“I can’t believe Tyrone did not see Rollins as a threat all this time,” Brandt said. “It’s hard to believe Tyrone walked into his death and left Rollins to command his new army.”
Lawrie shook her head. “Rollins is a cruel man. He won’t have any problem taking over.”
“I never thought he was as smart as your uncle,” Brandt said.
“He’s not. But he is just as cruel.”
“We know from Jessica’s memories the treatment centers on Holland Ave and in Harbor Square are actual substations where the revenant juice ‘vaccinations’ are given by Rollins himself.” Serge clicked the laptop and across the wall a map of the city appeared. “We are fairly certain there are no other sites for vaccination, though it seems these sites are well armed and prepared for an attack. It’s clear Panthera is waiting for us.”
“They’d better get ready, because here we come.” Oz grinned. “Let’s go kill some revenants.”