Dark Demon (4 page)

The trees nearest him split in two, the sound horrendous as trunks hit the ground, shaking the earth. A rift opened in the ground close to him, followed by a second jagged tear and then another. The rocks shifted and buckled and another row of trees split and flattened.

The demon in him lifted its head and roared for release, tearing at him with great claws, fighting for the freedom to abandon honor and go after the one thing that belonged solely to him. His savior. Or maybe she was his damnation. His incisors lengthened and his blood was so hot he feared he might burst into flame.

Oh my God! You're one of them
. Terror made her voice tremble.

Just as he had shared his loneliness, pain and sorrow with her, he shared his darkness and the terrible intensity of overwhelming emotions. She felt his edgy need for violence. The rush the kill provided. The primitive, raw, sexual hunger that ruled his body and mixed with the possessive lust to claim her. She shared it all with him, not only the wild elation, but every fierce need and desire pouring into his body. Every questioning of his life, the gradual need to hunt and kill. The madness of his beast rising and fighting to get loose, to be unleashed for the sole purpose of
getting to her
.

Fear hit him, great waves nearly amounting to terror, just as quickly building into resolve. The emotions were so strong his stomach rolled. It took a moment before he realized her feelings were pouring into him with every bit of strength as his own. He touched the stream of feminine passion and found power. She would fight. Surrounded, she had no choice but to fight and win. The fear was banished, The terror gone. She would defeat whatever, whoever came at her because it was the only way left to her to survive.

Vikirnoff closed himself off from her, abruptly halting the sharing of the storm of emotions breaking through him. He searched for a mental path, a trail that would lead him back to the woman. She belonged to him. No other. Not another Carpathian. Not the vampires on her trail. She was
his
. He would have her or many—human and Carpathian alike—would die.

Taking a deep breath to restore his control, Vikirnoff lifted his head slowly and looked around him. The forest seemed to expand and grow and glitter with brilliance, even in the dark of night, as if he had taken a strong hallucinogenic. Above his head the clouds were black with wrath, edged with nickering white-hot lightning. Twisting tendrils of fog snaked through the trees and gathered along the ground.

Vikirnoff remained still, allowing his experience as a hunter to guide him, rather than following the dictates of his chaotic mind. He waited, sorting through the frenzied sensations, waiting for calm before taking action.

All the while he savored the sound of her voice. The path leading back to her was subtle, almost too subtle to follow. It was puzzling. She was Carpathian, yet not Carpathian. She was human, yet not human. He felt the whisper of power in her voice, the subtle "push" when she tried to force obedience. She had tried to force
his
obedience. He took another deep breath, inhaling to take air deep into his lungs, but most of all to find her scent.

Chapter 2

Natalya swiped at the empathetic tears clouding her vision. Her heart pounded in terror, but she set her teeth grimly. She could kill Henrik and she might even best Arturo. She could even get away from the wolves, but she had just touched a being so powerful she never wanted to tangle with him. At the first touch, she thought him a hunter, one of those who had killed her twin brother and was hunting her. But his emotions had been so sad, so despairing, he'd nearly torn her heart out.

She had never experienced such a strong connection before. She hadn't meant for him to hear her protest. She had no idea how they were on the same mental path to share such intense emotions, but she didn't want to stick around to find out how it had happened. She'd never been bombarded with such an overwhelming explosion of feelings before. His feelings. Lust and possession. Elation and relief. All superceded by the overwhelming need to kill. She needed to escape fast before whatever,
whomever
, she had accidentally touched psychically tracked her down.

"Look who's crying now," Henrik sneered. "I knew you were all talk."

"That's right, Freddie boy, I like to talk," Natalya agreed as she directed three throwing knives in rapid succession at him. Each scored a hit, burying deeply all the way to the hilt, one in the heart, one in the throat and one in the mouth. "But, as I've already said, I hate to listen to whiners."

Henrik dropped to the ground again, howling and writhing, clawing great holes in the soil, his blood withering the vegetation in a broad circle around him.

Arturo sighed. "That wasn't nice, Natalya. He's going to be much more difficult to control. I don't want you dead and he'll insist."

Natalya glanced into the darkened interior of the forest. So far it had just been too easy. Neither vampire was trying to kill her. Her last few encounters with the undead had been strange in that none of them seemed willing to kill her. It gave her a distinct advantage in battle, but it boded ill for her future. She had discovered some years earlier that they were hunting her for a purpose she couldn't fathom and they were very persistent in their pursuit of her.

"I don't think you really need him, Arturo," she said. "He's rather a pathetic fellow, don't you think?"

"But a useful sacrifice," Arturo pointed out.

Natalya was having trouble with her vision. Colors ran together, vivid and brilliant in spite of the darkening clouds spinning around the moon. The leaves glittered silver, dazzling her eyes so that when she launched her attack at Arturo, she was slightly off in her depth perception. She couldn't afford to wait. It was obvious Arturo was using Henrik as a stall tactic, waiting for reinforcements, and she knew the hunter was coming.

Out of necessity she went for the kill, somersaulting through the air, only baring the knife concealed in her hand at the last second, as she plunged it straight for Arturo's chest. He leapt to the side, so that she sliced a long thin cut across his shoulder and arm. As she sprang past him Arturo whipped his other arm around and slammed talons into her side, raking deep.

Pain blossomed, low and deep and bone-jarring. Vikirnoff looked down, shocked to see blood seeping from a gaping wound. He pressed his hand over his side, eyes glowing a hot red, fangs bursting into his mouth. He growled low in his throat, already shifting shape, taking the form of an owl. As his muscles popped, sinews crackled, and then the pain vanished. He glanced down again and there was no blood. None. His clothes, his skin and, as he completed the change, his iridescent feathers, were immaculate.

He had thought the danger she had sensed was within
him
, that her resolve had been to fight
him
. Something else, something evil and cunning had led them both into a trap and she had paid a terrible price. If it wasn't his blood, his pain, there was only one other it could belong to. The vampire he had detected earlier wasn't between them, it had already found her. Somewhere ahead of him, his lifemate was fighting for her life.

Deep within the form of the owl, Vikirnoff threw back his head and roared with rage. He raced through the trees, powerful wings flapping hard, skimming the edge of branches, a suicide run through the dense trees. He maneuvered more by instinct than by sight, staying low in the thick canopy. He sensed the disturbance increasing and slowed to a more acceptable speed, moving the way an owl would naturally among the branches of the trees and gaining more height to spot prey.

Below him, he sighted movement, dark shapes slipping silently through the trees, sliding from one shadow to the next. The wild scent of wolf mingled with the sweet aroma of blood. Directly below was a thicket of dense shrubbery surrounded by groves of trees. The branches interlocked, providing a seemingly impenetrable canopy. He dropped lower as he slipped between the branches, making his body smaller, uncaring that the use of power might give away his presence. He could see a vampire writhing on the ground, growling and cursing and swearing vengeance as it attempted to remove several knives from its body.

Vikirnoff knew his lifemate was in that thicket of trees. Every protective instinct rose up, every possessive Carpathian trait existing in him, his imprinted instincts all told him she was there. He just couldn't see her.

Movement attracted his eye. Vikirnoff settled the owl's body silently onto a thick, twisted branch high above the ground, folding his wings and watching for movement below him. A shadowy form separated itself from a gnarled trunk and slithered along the rich vegetation, ignoring the shriveling leaves and blackened grasses as it glided into a cleared space in the center of the trees.

"You have been wounded. Let me give you aid." The shadow raised his head, taking on a more substantial form as he sniffed the air. "The scent of blood is so intoxicating."

Even the sharp eyes of the owl didn't spot the woman until she moved. She seemed to emerge from the very trees, her body difficult to make out with the bands of light spilling from the moon. Clouds spun overhead shifting the light continually, casting stripes across her. Vikirnoff held his breath as she went from complete stillness to a fluid motion, taking several steps away from the trees toward her shadowy opponent. This then was his lifemate. Natalya Shonski, the woman he had crossed an ocean to find.

She seemed to glow, golden streaks of colors flashing off her hair, black, orange, even platinum. Her eyes, her all important eyes, were no longer blue, but opalescent, a swirling mixture of vibrant colors as turbulent and wild as the raw power emanating from her. Energy crackled around her and the vaporous fog rising from the forest floor churned with renewed vigor, as if by her presence, new life was feeding the grayish mist.

She was dazzling. Vikirnoff stared at her, unable to look away even though the vivid colors hurt his eyes. He had never seen such raw power springing to life. She looked fragile in stillness, yet when she moved, muscles slid suggestively beneath her golden skin. It was how she moved, so fluid, like water over rock, her small form erect, unbending in the face of her enemy. She was exotic and beautiful to him and wholly regal. In spite of the red stain spreading across her side, her gaze remained fixed on the vampire, an unwavering, focused stare, uncannily like that of a wild predator.

Behold. There she stands. Lifemate to Vikirnoff
. The awe and splendor of her astonished him. His lungs burned and his throat felt raw. His body flooded with heat and every muscle seized with desire. He couldn't separate lust from rage, or joy from the need to kill those threatening her. He felt almost dizzy with the combination and intensity of his unfamiliar feelings.

Vikirnoff knew he could no longer afford the chaotic emotions. It was that simple. He was a hunter and he had a battle in front of him. He was useless in the state he was in. More than useless—he was dangerous not only to himself but to his lifemate. He called on his years of service, years of experience in battle, and centered himself, reached deep to find the eye in the center of the storm, to find the man he had always been—a man short on speech, but long on action when there was need. A man ruled by logic and duty and honor. He waited until the emotional storm subsided and he was once more balanced and in control before he allowed his gaze to dwell on his lifemate.

Natalya's starkly focused stare shifted, a quick, restless movement sliding around her surroundings in a sweep. She inhaled and her gaze touched briefly on Vikirnoff's owl form before sliding past to observe the gathering shapes slinking through the trees in a loose ring around her.

Arturo inclined his head towards her. "You are bleeding. I do not wish you harm, rather I need you to perform a small task for me and then I will allow you to go free." He swept his arms out from his side in a gesture encompassing the entire forest. "You cannot hope to get away. You are surrounded by those I command and they will cause great damage to you should you try to leave. Come. Be reasonable and come to me." He opened his arms wide to draw her in. His voice was mesmerizing, beautiful, almost singsong. He looked a young, handsome man, nearly as beguiling as Natalya.

Vikirnoff recognized the strong hidden compulsion in the vampire's voice. He studied the face. It was an illusion, of course, as most masks a vampire chose to wear were, but it was a face Vikirnoff recognized. Arturo had once been a hunter of the very thing he had become. Vikirnoff could only hope Arturo had recently turned and did not have centuries of wielding evil behind him.

"How many times must we do this, Arturo?" There was a deliberate contemptuous challenge in Natalya's voice. "I've staked you a couple of times already. Do you really want to dance with me again?"

The vampire growled, his smooth smile disappearing. "You are incapable of staking one of my strength. You are the one bleeding."

"Tell yourself that," she said. "But I think that's blood running down your arm." She remained utterly motionless and once again the light of the moon hit her in bands. Natalya seemed to fade into the background, the stripes lending her a strange camouflage. Only her eyes blazed, a deep ruby red, nearly glowing in the darkness.