Dark Desire (2nd Book in Carpathian Series)
By Christine Feehan
In this book we find out that Prince Mikhail’s brother
Jacque Dubinsky has been captured, tortured, and held prisoner for years by the
same group that killed his sister. Over
the long years Jacques has lost his memory and turns half mad.
American Surgeon Shea O’Halloran suffers from a rare blood
disorder that requires blood transfusions. She seeks a cure for this blood
disorder before it kills her. After her mother’s death she learns that she
inherited the disease from her father.
Because Shea has psychic abilities she is hunted by the same
group that hunts the Carpathians.
Shea begins to have visions of a man that is held captive
and tortured for years. Running from the society that hunts her she travels to
Romania where she is drawn to a certain are of the forest. There she finds
Jacques who attacks her and drinks her blood when she frees him. Through his
madness Jacques realizes that Shea is his life mate and that she is turning
into a Carpathian.
When Shea wakes she is confused and has to be convinced that
she is turning into a Carpathian. Belatedly she realizes that her own father
must be a Carpathian.
Shea has to leave Jacques to get more blood from the blood
bank. She is spotted by another Carpathian, Byron, who realizes by her smell
that she’s been in contact with Jacques. He tells Mikhail.
When they arrive,
they see Shea apparently torturing Jacques; Mikhail attacks her thinking she is
deranged. This triggers Jacques’ protective instincts and he tries to kill
them. Mikhail calls Gregori, a healer, who convinces Jacques to allow them to
heal him.
Shea and Jacques tell
her life story. Shea was (before being converted by Jacques) half-human,
half-Carpathian, something that was considered impossible. They also think that
her birth confirms that a psychic human woman who is a life mate to a
Carpathian is capable of giving birth to female children.
The Carpathians tell her that her father is not dead. When
one of the Carpathians gets captured they find him in the same place where
Jacques was held for years. Rand thinks
that Shea is her mother and wants to take her away with him. They realize that
Rand has turned vampire and they have to destroy him.