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With the loss of blood, and several near-fatal wounds, the human vampire hunters hadn’t recognized him as a hunter and had attacked while he’d left his body an empty shell so he could try to heal those wounds.
He could have told them they’d need another stake and a much better impaling technique if they wanted him to die. Did he really have to instruct others on how to kill him?
Few hunters would ever be able to defeat him, yet here he was, nearly done in by a trio of inept, bumbling human assassins.
He lifted his hand to push enough air at the man to send him flying backward when a woman rushed out of the darkness and attacked.
He was going to have to rescue her. That meant living longer. He didn’t like having his mind made up for him.
She bashed Carter with what appeared to be a saucepot, whirling like a tornado and striking him again.
What woman would attack three men with a saucepot when they’d just staked someone?
“Don’t you move,” she hissed, not looking at him, but one slender hand came back behind her, palm toward him in the universal signal to stop. He went still. Utterly still. Frozen. His lungs felt raw, burning for air. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. More than a thousand years. An endless void. His eyes hurt so badly he had to close them, a dangerous thing to do when she was certain to be attacked.
“What is wrong with you people?” She was furious, emphasizing each word with a bang of the pot on Carter. “Are you crazy? That’s a human being you’re murdering.”
She whirled around and bonked him over the head. “Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to meditate when you’re murdering someone?” She glared at Andor over her shoulder. “And you. Lying there, deciding whether or not you’ve had enough of life? What is wrong with you? Life is to be cherished. Not thrown away.”
She hit his hand with the pot so hard even Andor winced at the sound. Shorty howled and stepped back, regarding her warily.
“I’m on a path of nonviolence so that my life can be an example to the world of what it would be like living in a better place. Peace . . .” She smashed the pot against the side of Barnaby’s head as he went at her again and then kicked the side of his knee hard enough to send him to the ground. “Love.” She turned toward Shorty and began to advance on him menacingly. “Embracing nature.”
She smashed the pot over his head. She became a little fury, rushing Barnaby again.
Staying strong for our people. Staying strong to keep the demon inside. Staying strong for her. Only her.
In reality, if she was being strictly honest with herself, she knew she was running away.
If only she hadn’t gone off to college. If only her parents had asked her to come home and talk to her brother. If only Theodore had called her himself.
Tears gave her a headache, but they didn’t bring back her parents or her brother. They didn’t stop the newspapers or tabloids from reporting or asking questions. Tears didn’t stop her so-called friends from ostracizing her.
“It’s hard to feel again after being numb.” It was the best she could do. She didn’t want to pry into his life because if she asked questions, he would return the interest. She couldn’t have that. She’d come to the mountains to escape the spotlight.
“You could look into my mind.” “You could look into mine.” “That wouldn’t be polite,” she denied. “Exactly.”
First Andor’s thoughts had disturbed her. She heard him clearly weighing the decision to live or die, and it had smacked too close to home. Had her brother done that? Sat in his room and considered whether or not to shoot his family and friends and then himself? All the chanting in the world hadn’t overcome those thoughts. Then she became aware of the feeling in the air. That stench of fanaticism. Of murder. She’d been furious all over again. This time she could do something about it. This time, those wanting to kill another human being weren’t going to succeed. She’d stopped them, but she
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“Are you certain you would not prefer to look into my mind and see the things I am telling you about?” “I’m very certain. You tell me. I can always look if your explanation becomes too ludicrous to even contemplate.” He figured that would happen very soon.
“If I look into your mind, what am I going to see?” “Things that will terrify you.” He was honest. “Things you’ve done to others?” “Things done to me. Things done to innocent humans but not by me. And things done by me in retaliation for what was done to humans and to my people.”
You can’t command modern women, Andor. We don’t obey. I made the choice to bind our souls together. Ferro, Sandu and Gary explained exactly what would happen and how once we were tied together, our fates would be the same. I knew what I risked.
Gary is more of a healer than I have seen in all my long existence.”
Who told her of this possibility and taught her the words of our language? He kept the question mild and made certain his face remained expressionless, but for the first time in centuries, he was truly upset. Whoever had told her a lifemate could bind souls and find him had knowingly risked her life. “It was necessary.” You? You risked my lifemate? Do you know what she’s suffered?
“We have been unable to wake you for several risings.”
“She lost her entire family. She was committing some form of suicide.” “She was not. Do you think any of us, Sandu, Gary or I, would have allowed such a thing? She thought only of you when she made her decision. I took a vow and I will keep it. She was safe. We bound our souls to hers as well. Sandu and I, at your request, made certain your woman was safe. We would have pulled her free of that land.”
The fact that Ferro and Sandu had bound their souls as well to Lorraine was both touching and shocking. Warriors, especially ancient ones, would never, under any circumstances, bind themselves to another Carpathian male’s woman. In doing so, they, too, had risked their lives when she had traveled to the nether world to retrieve him.
Ferro had said they had been fighting for him for several risings. He had assumed that meant he had been back in the land of the living for those risings. If he hadn’t . . . He glanced again at Lorraine. “Did she hold me to this earth while all of you slept?” Because if they hadn’t rescued him in a single rising, he would have slipped back no matter how much headway the healer had made in bringing him back from the other world. “She did,” Ferro answered. “She is worthy of you, Andor.”
I deliberately did not bind us with the ritual words so if I died, you could continue on.” Her smile was slow in coming but when it came, his heart clenched—it was so beautiful. “Perhaps you did bind us, you just didn’t know it, because when your brothers couldn’t find you in that cold, dark place, I did.”
“If you were feeling better, I might kick you. I don’t have girlie kicks, either, Andor. When I kick you, you’re going to know I did, so refrain from ever treating me like an idiot. Of course, I have to know the difference between a master vampire, a lesser one and a pawn. I’m going to be living in your world. That means I’m going to encounter them, and if we have children, they will encounter them. My sons will need to learn to fight, but so will my daughters. I don’t believe in being helpless. I shoot. I can use a knife. I have practiced with a flamethrower and I’m deadly accurate. The
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“Elisabeta has a brother, Traian,” Dragomir added. “Tariq told me Traian searched for his sister, or any word of what happened to her. She disappeared without a trace. No one suspected the Malinovs. It was speculated, much later, when it was discovered that Xavier, the high mage, was working against our people, that he had taken and killed her as he did Rhiannon.”
“He tortured her into submission,” Isai said helpfully. Andor wanted to throw something at the man. “Truly? You could not have tried to put a little sympathy in your voice when you imparted that information to her?” He glared at his fellow monk.
has anyone heard how Aidan Savage is faring?”
“What is happening for him to have need of help? Aidan Savage is renowned for his abilities. Even I have heard of him,” Sandu said. “There were two master vampires wreaking havoc in San Francisco. They were aware of his presence, and they trapped him. He fought them both, and I believe it was Alexandria who came to his aid. She fought with him when he was mortally wounded. I have no idea how they were able to drive the two off when Aidan was hurt, but they did, and Alexandria was able, with the help of young Joshua and a human male who works for them, to get Aidan back to their home and into
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“Isai is not back as of yet,” Ferro said. “I reached out to him, but he has not answered. I fear he has run into problems.”
Even now, he waits on his brother.” She felt Andor stiffen. The reaction was in her mind and echoed by all the ancients, Dragomir in particular. She didn’t understand why, but she pursued it.
The vampire looked uneasy once he heard Sandu’s claim of having been held within the boundaries of the monastery. Every Carpathian had heard of them. They were ancient warriors and stories of their battles had been sung around the campfires before modern times. Sandu was certain this vampire had been one of those singing.
child of any part of Malinov’s blood. They thought Vadim had been killed, although a question mark had been raised. Now they knew: Sergey had kept him alive for some reason of his own.
“These could not have been Carpathian before they became vampire, Sandu. That is the only answer.”
The vampire’s one good eye widened and he turned to run. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she thought that was strange. In all the battles she’d encountered in the minds of the ancients, vampires shifted. They created illusions. They dissolved into mist. They didn’t turn and run.
“Muonìak te avoisz te—I command you to reveal yourself.” He spoke in the ancient language, words of great power. Those words rarely worked on a master unless the hunter uttering them was far more powerful. All those who had locked themselves away in the monastery held such power.
He had cut himself off from the others, especially Lorraine with her shining light. He couldn’t afford to have her in his mind while he fought—and yet cutting himself off made the torment of nothingness far worse.
“Rather than Sandu,” Tariq said, “I will aid you.” Gary shook his head. If something was planted that could possibly attack one or all of us, you cannot be in the line of fire. Tariq all but ground his teeth, but he didn’t argue. Andor knew he could never be in Tariq’s shoes. The man had been a hunter for centuries. Now, he was the one they all protected, kept behind a wall of warriors in order that he lead. Andor understood it was necessary, and he knew Tariq did as well, but it didn’t make the transition any easier.
Even if Sergey planted half of himself in you, we would fight for you. There was a moment of absolute stillness, and he knew he’d made a terrible mistake.
“That had to have been Sergey. He directed the entire battle, and we didn’t know.” “All of you are ancients and yet you didn’t sense his presence. That doesn’t bode well for us,” Tariq said.
Her fingers thumped his chest as if in protest. “Please don’t make me sleep. I’m tired, I’ll fall asleep naturally, but can be alert if there is a problem.”
He hesitated. One didn’t lie to one’s lifemate, no matter how difficult the answer. “Our women had no problem getting pregnant, going to ground, carrying, giving birth, feeding and sleeping in the ground with our offspring in the old days. Xavier, a trusted mage, ended all that.”
“Ferro is the oldest and the most powerful of all of us. His fighting skills are unbelievable. He struggles. He also does little to protect himself in a battle with the undead. He is the ultimate hunter, Lorraine. He would be very difficult, if not impossible, to defeat in battle. If he turns, there will be hunters lost in trying to destroy him. I fear, as do the others, that it would take all of us and many of us would not survive.”
“You’re scaring me, Andor. I don’t want to lose him.” There was more to it than that, Andor realized. Lorraine’s beloved brother had turned into a monster, killing her family. She thought of Ferro, Sandu and Gary as brothers. If Ferro did the same as Theodore and became the very thing they hunted, he would have the potential of killing her new family. It would be history repeating itself, but on a much larger scale.
