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James Slovensky could easily see the contempt and the knowledge in her large blue eyes. He didn’t like the picture reflected there and gave her a shove toward the trail.
It took every ounce of her control and determination to make her way over the uneven ground. She had never known such weakness. She couldn’t even help Father Hummer. It took total concentration to put one foot in front of the other. Once she sat down hard, shocked to realize she hadn’t tripped over anything. Her legs had simply given out. Not looking at her captor, Raven pushed herself up again. She didn’t want him touching her. She was cold, inside and out, afraid she might never be warm again.
Feed on the priest, the vampire’s voice ordered, rage smoldering in his tone.
Raven blinked, finding herself looking around in fear, her heart pounding overly loud, even though on some level she knew the voice was in her head. The vampire had established a blood bond with her, and could monitor her at will. He did not suspect she had the means to track him, although it was tempting to let him know.
Go to hell. She contended herself with the childish retort.
His laughter taunted her. You gave your blood to Jacques. I should have guessed you would. He will not live without aid, and the sun is rising. I made certain his was a mortal wound.
Raven summoned up contempt, flooding her mind with it. It was becoming difficult to think clearly, and she had fallen too many times to count. Her captor thrust her into the backseat of a vehicle beside the priest and began to drive at breakneck speed down the mountains. Raven rolled over, grateful that the windows had been blackened and the interior was dark. Lethargy was taking over, her body becoming leaden.
Feed! The vampire was sharply imperious.
Raven was thankful that she could defy him. She couldn’t sleep, didn’t dare until she knew Jacques was safe. Mikhail and Gregori were racing the sun, powerful wings beating strongly as they flew toward the old cabin. They would burrow deep into the soil the moment they were able, taking Jacques with them.
Raven. The call was closer, Mikhail filling her mind with love. You are so weak.
He will not harm me this day. Save Jacques. Come to me tonight, Mikhail. The vampire knows my thoughts. He thinks he is safe, that I can be used to trap you. Don’t let him be right. She tried desperately to send the words clearly to him, but her brain felt sluggish.
“Raven?” Edgar Hummer touched her forehead, finding her ice cold. Her skin was so pale, she seemed nearly translucent, her blue eyes sunken, like two bruised flowers pressed into her face. “Can you talk? Is Mikhail alive?”
She nodded, surveying his swollen face with dismay. “What have they done to you? Why would they beat you this way?” She knew the answer, she just couldn’t believe they would do such a thing to a man as good as Edgar Hummer, a priest.
“They say they’re certain I know where Mikhail keeps all of his spare coffins. According to Andre . . .”
“Who is Andre?”
“The treacherous vampire in league with these killers. He is a true undead, feeding on children, destroying all that is holy. His soul is lost for all eternity. As far as I can tell, Andre appears to be deliberately perpetuating the vampire myths. He claims that Mikhail is the head vampire, and if they succeed in killing him, those under his influence will be returned to mortal existence.”
“Maybe some in their organization believe that, Father, but this one doesn’t. Do you think this Andre is controlling them?” she whispered.
“Entirely,” he answered in a low voice. “From what I can see he feeds them nonsense, and they seem to believe him. At least, they act like they do. He must have established a blood bond without their knowledge, and he uses it to give them orders.”
Raven closed her eyes weakly. Her heart was struggling to pump without necessary blood; her lungs cried out for oxygen. “How many of them are there?”
“Three that I’ve seen. This one is James Slovensky. His brother Eugene is their supposed leader, and their muscleman is Anton Fabrezo.”
“Two of them stayed at the inn with the American couple. We thought they had left the country. This Andre must be a lot more powerful than anyone suspects. I’ll have to warn Mikhail.” How, she wasn’t certain, she was so tired, her brain sluggish and fuzzy.
Raven’s voice was fading, her speech slurring. Father Hummer watched as she tried to lift her arm to push her hair away from her face. Her arm seemed too heavy, her face seemed too great a distance away. He did it for her with gentle fingers.
Raven. There was anguish in Mikhail’s voice.
It was too difficult to answer him, it required far too much strength. The priest shifted so that her head could fall against his arm. Raven was shivering with cold. “I need a blanket back here for her.”
“Shut up, old man,” Slovensky snapped. His eyes continually searched the sky through his windshield. The sun was up, but heavy clouds dimmed the sky, hiding the light.
“If she dies, Andre will make you wish you had died too,” Edgar Hummer persisted.
“I need sleep,” Raven said softly without opening her eyes. She didn’t even wince when Slovensky’s jacket landed on her unprotected face.
Mikhail had to get out of the sun. Without dark glasses or any substantial protection from the rays, his skin and eyes were burning. He landed on the low branch of a tree and changed to human form as he jumped the remaining seven feet to earth. Jacques’s body lay in the sun, a cardigan covering his neck and face. Without looking to see the extent of his brother’s injuries, Mikhail lifted him and glided aboveground toward the network of caves a mile away.
A huge black wolf burst from the clearing to join him, loping easily beside him, pale silver eyes gleaming with menace. Together they raced through the narrow passages until they found a large, steaming chamber. The black wolf contorted, fur rippling along muscular arms as Gregori shape-shifted to his true form.
Mikhail laid Jacques’s body gently on the rich soil and lifted away the covering. He swore softly, unshed tears burning in his throat and eyes. “Can you save him?”
Gregori’s hands moved over the body, the vicious wounds. “He stopped his heart and lungs so that he could conserve his blood. Raven is weak because she fed him. She is a smart woman. If he lives, she is the one who saved him. She mixed her saliva and the soil and packed it in tight. It is already beginning to heal the wounds. I will need your herbs, Mikhail.”
“In the cabin.”
“The sun will fry you.”
“Save him, Gregori.” Mikhail’s body rippled with thick, glossy fur, bent, stretched, and took shape as he ran along the maze of passages upward out of the bowels of the earth. He dared not think of Raven and how weak she was. The heaviness was invading his body already, demanding he go to ground, that he sleep.
Summoning his immense strength and a will honed to iron over hundreds of years, Mikhail burst into the open at a flat run. The wolf’s body was built for speed, and he used it, running flat out, eyes narrowed to tiny slits. Paws hit the ground and back feet dug into soil to leap rotting logs. He never slowed, racing through ravines and over rocks.
The overcast sky helped to ease the effects of the sun, but his eyes were streaming as he approached the cabin. The wind shifted, bringing the foul stench of sweat and fear. Man. The beast snarled silently, all the pent-up rage in him exploding into white-hot fury.
The destruction of his home, the attempt on his lifemate’s life, a betrayer, and now the attempted murder of his brother all came together in an explosive surge of ferocity, a terrible need for violence. The wolf skidded to a halt, body low to the ground, once more the predator.
The sun and heaviness invading his body no longer mattered, were pushed from his mind with the burning need for retribution.
You have need of me? Gregori asked.
Save Jacques. Mikhail snapped the order with all the years of the heavy mantle of authority weighing on his shoulders.
Gregori made no secret of his wish to join Mikhail
in the fight, but Jacques was in dire straits, and Gregori was one of the few Carpathians capable of healing such a mortal wound with the sun already rising. He was torn between the need to protect his prince and to save the life of the prince’s brother, the only other Carpathian capable of being the vessel for the Carpathian people.
It will be done, he agreed reluctantly.
Eighteen
Mikhail, in the form of a wolf, kept downwind, gliding through thick brush to creep up on the two men waiting in ambush. A trap for him. Of course the betrayer would know Mikhail would rush to aid his brother. The vampire was cunning and willing to take chances. His timing had been incredibly tight, yet he had pulled off his attack. His trap had been planned meticulously over a long period of time. The betrayer had lain in wait, feeding Hans Romanov’s fanaticism. It was probably the undead who had commanded Hans to murder his wife of over forty years. The wolf slunk low on its belly, crawled forward until it was within feet of the larger of the two men.
“We’re too late,” Anton Fabrezo whispered, half rising to stare down the trail in front of the cabin. “Something sure happened here.”
“Damn truck, it would have to overheat,” Dieter Hodkins complained. “There’s blood everywhere and smashed branches. There was a fight, all right.”
“Do you think Andre killed Dubrinsky?” Anton asked.
“That’s our job. But the sun’s up. If Dubrinsky’s alive, he’s somewhere sleeping in his coffin. We can check the cabin, but I don’t think we’re going to find anything,” Dieter said with irritation.
“Andre isn’t going to be happy with us,” Anton worried aloud. “He wants Dubrinsky dead in a big way.”
“Well, he should have provided us with a decent truck. I told him mine was breaking down,” Dieter snapped impatiently.
He had been geared up for a kill, looking forward to it, and now there was such a letdown. He enjoyed inflicting pain, enjoyed holding the power of life and death over a terror-stricken victim. The society to wipe out the undead was the perfect match for him. He believed in vampires, and that it was his holy duty to exterminate them.
He didn’t believe for one moment that Mikhail Dubrinsky was a vampire. The man was a well-respected businessman with ties in high places in the government. He always seemed to manage to stay in good with political figures, yet he had somehow incurred Andre’s wrath. Andre had extraordinary powers—powers Dieter had begun to covet. If Andre wanted Dubrinsky dead, well then, the man had to die. Dieter was going to curry favor with Andre one way or the other, and to hell with anyone who got in his way.
Dieter stood up cautiously, surveying the landscape carefully. “Come on, Fabrezo. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and Dubrinsky will be in the cabin, already laid out in his coffin.”
Anton laughed nervously. “I’ll drive in the stake, and you cut off the head. This vampire-killing stuff is messy. Too bad we can’t find a woman or two we can call vampires and have a little fun before we stake them.”
“Cover me while I scout around,” Dieter ordered. He took a step through the thick foliage, his rifle cradled in his arms. The bushes directly in front of him parted, and he was face to face with a huge, heavily muscled wolf. His heart nearly stopped, and he froze, unable for a moment to move.
Black eyes glittered malevolently, streaming and red-rimmed. Sharp white fangs glinted, glistened with saliva. The wolf held him with those black eyes for a full thirty seconds, striking terror in Dieter’s heart. Without warning it lunged, jaws wide, head low, caught one booted ankle and crushed down with incredible power, breaking through leather and bones with a loud, sickening snap. Dieter screamed and fell. The wolf instantly released him and sprang back, regarding him with impersonal eyes.
“Anton! Help!”
From his position in the bushes, Fabrezo had seen Dieter Hodkins go down screaming, but he couldn’t see why. The terror in Hodkin’s tone sent fear spiraling through him.
It took a minute for Anton to find his voice. “What is it? I can’t see.”
He didn’t try to see either, sliding farther down in the bushes, holding his gun up and ready, finger on the trigger, ready to spray anything that moved. He wanted to yell at Dieter to shut up, to not give him away to whatever beast was there, but he remained quiet, his heart pounding in alarm. Tempted to simply spray the entire area with bullets in the hope of killing both Hodkins and the attacker, Anton held back, fearing if he missed, Dieter would kill him later. He cowered low, staying as quiet as he could with his breath gasping and ragged.
Dieter tried to bring his rifle into firing position. Between the pain and the terror those black, venomous eyes were inducing, he couldn’t quite get the barrel around fast enough. The wolf darted in with alarming speed, hot breath blasting Dieter’s face before the powerful jaws clamped on his right shoulder. The wolf shook his massive head, teeth meeting through bone and sinew. Bones splintered, and the wolf sprang away to once more stop and stare.
Those eyes were far too intelligent, and held rage and fury. That death stare was very personal. And it was the eyes of death that mesmerized him. Dieter couldn’t look away, not even when the wolf lunged for his exposed throat. At the last, he didn’t feel a thing, suddenly welcoming the end. The deadly eyes staring into his changed at the last moment, suddenly saddened as the wolf made the kill.
Stop messing around, Mikhail. You are exposed to the sun. Do not feel sorrow for these murderers. They would kill our women and children and never look back. Kill the other one and bring me the herbs I need.
The wolf shook its shaggy head and eased into the bushes behind Anton Fabrezo. He could hear the heart thudding with terror, bursting with life. He could hear the blood rushing hotly through the body, and smelled both fear and sweat. Joy washed over the wolf, the need for blood, for the kill. Mikhail pushed it down, thought of Raven, her compassion and courage, and the need to kill vanished. The sun broke through a small hole in the heavy cloud cover, and a thousand needles pierced his eyes. Pain exploded in his skull, and the wolf closed his eyes tightly.
I need those herbs, Mikhail. The sun is climbing, and time is running out for Jacques. Finish it now. Gregori’s voice grew more urgent. Soon they would both be leaden, unable to move with the power of the sun, and Jacques had to be healed and placed in the ground for protection.
The wolf waited for the clouds to move back in place and then walked boldly into the open. The man had his back to the wolf, huddled down, whispering. Mikhail recognized the words to a familiar prayer. Feeling the wolf’s unblinking stare, Anton turned his head slowly, almost reluctantly. His eyes widened in horror, and he lowered the gun to his lap as if his arms had suddenly gone nerveless. Man and beast stared at one another in tense silence.
“Don’t kill me. I know you’re not really a wolf. I saw Andre change himself once. I swear I have never killed anyone in my life. Never.” Anton choked on a sob, words tumbling out in a rush. “I don’t know how I got into this, but I will go away and never come back. Just let me go now.”
The wolf moved closer, eyes holding Fabrezo still. The animal nudged the man’s leg, lifted its head, and once more stared Anton down, as if judging him. Then the wolf turned and slowly began to walk away.
Anton’s eyes narrowed, and an evil smile twisted his mouth. His hand raised the gun, his finger finding the trigger. Andre would reward him well, would grant him eternal power, and he could have anything he desired. Before he could pull the trigger the wolf whirled in midair and smashed into Anton’s chest, driving through bone, ripping straight for the heart.
You should not have taken such a chance, Mikhail, Gregori chastised. You knew he lied when you touched him. He has murdered a human woman. You should have killed him immediately. I believe acquiring a lifemate has made you soft.
The wolf leaped over the body, his manner contemptuous as he loped to the cabin. His eyes were tearing continually, streaming water no matter how narrow the slits.
I had to know for sure.
The
heaviness spreading through his body was far more difficult to ignore. Aware of time passing, the wolf sprinted up the stairs to the door. One claw contorted, lengthened to fingers so that he was able to grasp the doorknob and push the heavy door open. The need for sleep was almost overpowering, and Jacques was waiting for the herbs. Being out in the sun was not only extremely dangerous, but drained all Carpathians of energy quickly.
Mikhail knew he would never be able to explain to Gregori his reasoning in listening to Anton. They both knew Dieter Hodkins was an empty shell of a man, filled with the depraved need for violence. Dieter got a kick out of associating with vampire hunters until he met Andre. He wanted the power Andre had. Gregori would not understand risking his life to give the other mortal a chance at life. His sense of justice, when it came to protecting the prince, was very black or white. Anton was guilty by association.
Distorted, clawed hands hung the bag of precious herbs around the thick, muscular neck of the wolf, and then the animal took off in a dead run, racing the climbing sun as it burned away the thick cloud covering. Fur began to smoke, and blisters rose beneath the thick pelt.
Thunder cracked unexpectedly. Thick black clouds, heavy with rain, blew across the sky, providing Mikhail with dense cover from the sun. The storm rolled in over the forest fast, with wild winds kicking up leaves and swaying branches. A bolt of lightning sizzled across the sky in a fiery whip of dancing light. The sky darkened to an ominous cauldron of boiling clouds. Mikhail bounded into the cave and raced along the narrow maze of passages toward the main chamber, shape-shifting as he ran.
Gregori’s cool silver gaze slid over him as Mikhail relinquished the herbs. “It is a wonder you have been able to tie your shoes without me all of these centuries.”
Mikhail sank down beside his brother, one hand over his burning eyes. “It is more of a wonder you have stayed alive with your ostentatious displays. Remind me to remove my impressionable brother from your disrespectful presence before your winning ways rub off on him.”