Teren's entire body started shaking. "I'm sorry, Emma. I can't..."
I squeezed him tight, kissing his head."I know. I love you because you can't."
He nodded solemnly while Gabriel watched us. Pressing his lips into a hard line, Gabriel stared down at the stake on the floor. "You spoke with Malcolm?"
He cocked an eyebrow at us and I nodded. "He found us while we were searching for Julian. Told Teren that he would let him star..." I choked and had to start again, "starve to death if we didn't deliver you to him...dead."
Teren looked up at Gabriel, guilt in his eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do."
Gabriel dismissed him with a wave of his hand. "I don't blame you, Teren. If my own children were placed in harm's way, I'd have made the same choice." He smiled slightly as his eyes got a faraway look, one I registered with him checking in on his distant family. "Any father would," he said quietly.
Frowning, Gabriel shook his head. "There is no clue, is there?"
Teren frowned as well, his body relaxing as the turmoil and guilt released. "No, I just needed you to come over."
Gabriel sighed and nodded. Walking over to the fountain of the crying woman, he swiped his thumb over her never-ending tears. "Yes, well, I'm sorry to hear that." He looked up at Teren as we all took a step towards him. "Since taking your son, Malcolm has fallen off the grid I had in place. It's quite possible that the brief moment you had with him, is the only time he's surfaced. Wherever he is hiding, it is deep and remote."
Gabriel cracked a small smile. "It must be torture for him. He always preferred living extravagantly, right in the middle of human life. A wolf among sheep." He twisted his head to Jack, the only pure human in the room. "No offense." He nodded his head politely.
Jack's eyes widened but he shook his head. "None taken. I know what we are...to some of you."
Gabriel smirked and shrugged. Teren released himself from me and took a step forward to stand on the other side of the fountain. "Malcolm told me some things about you, about your early research. Was any of that true?"
Gabriel stared at him silently, his green eyes clearly processing. "I'm assuming he painted me in an unsavory light for you? Told you I slaughtered hundreds of our kind, to develop a drug that, to him, never produced the results I was looking for?"
Teren nodded and looked over at me. Malcolm had made Gabriel seem quite cold, and we knew he could be...distant at times.
Gabriel sighed and shrugged. "I won't lie, some vampires were inadvertently killed along the way, although, not nearly as many as he probably made you believe." He smiled softly, shaking his head. "Several of them were my friends. They all either had something to gain by trying the drug," he looked up at Teren, "or nothing to lose." He shook his head again. "But either way, they all volunteered, they all knew the risks. I forced this on no one, Teren, no one. And each death was respected, cataloged, analyzed, mistakes were corrected...no vampire's sacrifice was taken for granted."
Looking away, Teren scowled and closed his eyes. Slowly returning them to Gabriel, he asked, "Then what is it between you and Malcolm? Why did he leave you? Why does he have such resentment...?"
Gabriel laughed softly. "Did he call me a cult leader? That was always his favorite description." His eyes locked to the fountain, watching the water twist and slide down the marble woman's body. "Malcolm, at first, wanted to help with the drug, wanted to help our kind." He shook his head, fingering the water again. "But whenever I brought in another vampire out of the cold, gave them food and shelter, a safe place to convert, he grew a little...jealous." His eyes came back up to Teren's. "He wanted the attention, he wanted the accolade, but...he was demanding in his attempt to get it."
Gabriel sighed and stepped back. His eyes shifting around the ranch, the ranch he'd altered to help the mixed inside, he shook his head. "I only ever tried to help. The attention, the adoration, I never asked for it." Sighing, he looked over to me. "Maybe I should have tried harder to dissuade the follower mentality, but, the research was my focus. And if the people I brought in deferred to me, the nest was calm."
Smiling, he looked over to Alanna and Imogen. "And, as you know, a calm nest is a happy nest." Shrugging, he twisted to Teren. "We are a social species. We generally clump together if possible, deferring to one leader, generally the eldest, though not always."
The slight smile fell off his face. "But Malcolm resented the affection that he could not create through force. Over time, that resentment turned nasty...made him bitter." Gabriel sighed. "I think the final straw for Malcolm was when it became clear that I would never charge our brethren for my assistance."
Gabriel looked out the windows, over the fields. "I had money, whoever joined with me, contributed to the wealth of the family, but that wasn't enough for Malcolm. He saw dollar signs with our work...I disagreed."
Swinging his eyes back to Teren, Gabriel shrugged. "When our disagreements disrupted the research, we parted ways. It was mostly an amicable split...on my part at least."
His head down, he shook it. "I had no idea he stole from me before he left." He peeked up at Teren. "He knew what that version of the formula did, he knew that I never wanted that mixture released...and he took it anyway." His face softened as his usually impartial eyes filled with emotion. "He still saw dollar signs...and our brothers and sisters paid the price." His sad eyes flicked down Teren's body, remembering that Teren had paid that price.
Running a hand down his worn face, he sighed. "I studied alone for awhile after that, until Jordan came to me. I didn't even let him enter the lab until I was sure that his motives were as," he smirked as he locked gazes with Teren, "altruistic, as mine."
Teren smiled softly at his accusation towards Gabriel repeated to him.
I stepped forward and timidly put a hand on Gabriel's arm. "So, you really are a good man?"
He looked over at me, every single one of his years apparent on his youthful face. "I'm not perfect, Emma, and I am no saint." He smiled wearily. "But I do try to be a good man, a good father...to those who need one."
He shrugged, taking in every person in the room. "That is all I have ever tried to do."
Teren stepped forward and put his hand over mine on Gabriel's arm. "I believe that about you." He raised his eyebrows. "So what do we do about Malcolm? How do we get my son back?"
Gabriel smiled wearily as he shook his head. "I do not know, Teren. Finding Malcolm and bringing him to justice was one thing. Finding him and making him give up the location of your child, is quite another." Gabriel shrugged as he looked down to the floor. His words echoing slightly in the large, quiet room, he said, "I've already spread the word that he is not to be harmed, that he must be taken alive, but vampires..."
Shrugging, he looked back up at us. "We can be an emotional lot, purebloods even more so." He scrunched his lips. "A part of me hopes that he stays hidden, so the fool does not get himself killed before Julian can be found."
Teren sighed and rested back against the fountain. A hand massaging his forehead, he sat on the lip of the water bowl in silence. Watching my husband, memories of our meeting with Malcolm flooded through me. Teren's weariness, Malcolm's desperation, his coldly laid out plan to end Gabriel's life, the things he'd already done to warn off the ancient vampire stalking him...
Shifting my gaze to the man who was also staring at Teren, I asked Gabriel, "Did you know that he killed Carrie?"
As the others in the room that didn't know that gasped, Teren lifted his head. Gabriel sighed as he looked over to me. From the tiredness I saw in the perfectly green depths, I assumed that he had known, possibly from the very beginning.
Alanna stepped forward as Teren straightened from the fountain. "Her death wasn't an accident?" she asked.
Teren sniffled as he stepped up to Gabriel again. "No, Malcolm admitted that he took her, fed on her, and then left her to die in the wildfire...as a warning to you. Did you know that?"
Holding his gaze, Gabriel nodded. "I did. I suspected something was...amiss with the situation with Miss Davids. A vampire's trance would not have let her leave the city so easily. I figured she was taken against her will. Since I don't believe in coincidences, and her being found in my backyard was too...convenient, I started to believe that Malcolm was responsible."
Gabriel paused, appraising Teren before speaking again. "I examined her body at the morgue." He raised his eyebrows at Teren. "There was no trace of soot in her lungs. She was dead before the fire got to her."
Teren staggered, his hand going to his stomach. "She...? But...?" He looked over to me, his eyes misting. "He told us he purposely left her alive, so she would feel it, just to get back at you." His eyes drifted back to Gabriel's. "He thought she was yours."
Gabriel twisted his lips. Alanna came up to Teren, putting her arms around him comfortingly. Stunned, my mind was reeling through that conversation we'd had with Malcolm. Watching Jack also walk over to his son, Gabriel dryly said, "Well, that may have been his intention, but however he left her in those woods, the wounds were too severe for her to make it." He smiled a sad, reassuring smile at Teren. "She died in peace, Teren. The flames did not bother her."
Teren's head sank into his hands as grief and relief crashed through him. It crashed through me too, and as my knees became soft and watery, I felt Imogen standing by my side, supporting me. Twisting my head to Gabriel, I spouted something logical, even though I was feeling like all logic had left my life ages ago. "Don't the police know that? Aren't they looking for a killer now? If they are on Malcolm's tail too..."
Gabriel smiled crookedly. "The medical examiner was brought to believe that she died in the fire, a pure accident, and Carrie was promptly cremated and returned to the remaining members of her family."
My eyes widened before I shut them. Hearing my husband's grieved voice, I opened them again. "Why didn't you tell me back then? You've known for awhile now that she was murdered. Wasn't that something I should have known?"
Gabriel sighed, placing a hand on Teren's shoulder. "No, it wasn't. As you said, Malcolm believed that she was here for me. He believed that he was doing something to harm me. The message was solely intended for me, Teren. There was no good that would have come from you knowing the truth."
Teren closed his eyes, straightening his stance. "You have pushed a desperate man into desperate actions. Actions that have involved people that I care about. Carrie...my wife...and now my son. If you had just stopped-"
Gabriel tilted his head, removing his hand from Teren's shoulder. "And let the man who is ultimately responsible for the torture and murder of countless of our species...for numerous children and adults alike...to go free?" He raised his eyebrows as he shook his head. "Should I have let him go with only a warning for his crimes? Would that have been fair?"