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have a prayer of containing that horrific bubbling brew."
    Mikhail pressed a hand to his side. He hadn't laughed so much in a hundred years. "I can only say I am glad I did not see it."
    "Quit laughing and get in here and help me." There was an edge of desperation to Jacques's voice. "For some reason that makes no sense to me at all, Shea is determined to make this bread for the party. She wants it braided and made into loaves and put in the oven. This is my third attempt. I thought people went to stores and bought this stuff."
    "You hunt vampires, Jacques," Mikhail said. "Making a loaf of bread cannot be that difficult."
    "You say that now, only because you have not tried it. Come in here and close the door." Jacques rubbed his arm across his face, smearing more white flour everywhere. "I need to talk to you anyway." He touched Shea's mind to ensure she was a distance away. His gaze shifted back to the dough, avoiding his brother's piercing eyes. "Shea's been corresponding with a woman who thinks she may be a distant relative."
    The smile faded from Mikhail's face. "How long?"
    "About a year. The woman found photographs in her attic and apparently is into genealogy. She wrote Shea asking if they could be related. She thinks Shea is Maggie's granddaughter rather than her actual daughter. Shea wanted the pictures of her mother and wrote back to her."
    Mikhail stifled the groan that threatened. "Jacques. You know better. How could she have tracked Shea in the first place? We are careful not to leave a trail."
    "It is not so easy now with computers, Mikhail, and Shea needs them to do research. The path takes her many places."
    "She should never have answered the contact."
    "I know. I know. I shouldn't have allowed it, but she's given up so much to be with me. I'm not like the rest of you and I never will be. You know that." Jacques's gaze shifted from his brother and pain rippled in the air between them. "She deserves better and I wanted to give her one small gift. Corresponding with someone who may be a relative and who claimed to have pictures of her mother—how could she possibly resist? And I could not bring myself to deny her."
    "You know it is dangerous. You know we cannot leave paper trails. Any contact with humans is risky, especially one on paper. It endangers all of us."
    Jacques slammed the dough hard onto the counter. "Shea has been researching why we lose babies even as she is carrying our child. She has investigated the deaths of thirty children under the age of one. What do you think that does to her?" His fist smashed into the dough. "She is about to give birth and she is terrified. She tries to hide it from me, but I have never been able to allow her even limited privacy." The admission of weakness shamed him, but Jacques wanted his brother to know the truth. "She carries the burden of my sanity every moment of her existence."
    "Jacques, you love Shea."
    "Shea is my life, my soul, and she knows it, Mikhail, but it doesn't make it easy to live with me. I cannot stand other men near her. I'm always a shadow in her mind, and I have nearly driven us both crazy worried about this pregnancy—worried about her. If something should happen to her…"
    "Shea will give birth and the child will be healthy," Mikhail said, sending up a silent prayer that it was true. "Both Francesca and Gregori will see to it that Shea is in good health. I have every faith that you will not allow anything to happen to your lifemate during this time."
    "She begged me to promise to stay in the world and raise my child should something happen to her." Jacques raised anguished eyes to his brother. "After her own terrible childhood, you can understand why she would need such a reassurance from me." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, looking tired and weighed down with sorrow. "You know I cannot exist without her. She is my sanity. It is the only thing she has ever asked of me, and I cannot safely comply no matter how much I wish to reassure