Dark Peril (11 page)

Hot breath poured over her neck as the jaguar tried to bite down on her shoulder. The limb broke and they fell together. Solange tried to turn enough to jam the crossbow against the cat’s heaving sides, but it was impossible. His spine was too flexible and he turned with her, preventing her from dislodging him. Her body hit a branch and broke it in half, sending the heavy jaguar careening against the trunk and finally off of her.

Solange looked down at the churning water and then up at the jaguar gathering itself for another spring. Head down, she somersaulted off the branch and into the raging water. The bellow of the jaguar followed her down. She tried to enter the water straight, feet first. The cold was shocking to her body as the dark waters closed over her head and threw her tumbling downstream. She rolled over and over, lungs burning. She lost the rifle and crossbow immediately, the weapons ripped from her hands as the vicious current took her.

Exhausted, her body numb, Solange fought her way to the surface to grab a lungful of air before the current rolled her under again. She tucked her legs into her chest and tried to ride it out, no longer fighting the pull, just allowing the strength of the river to carry her far from her enemy. She had to grab air when she could, and twice she slammed into rocks. Their surface was too slippery for her to hold on to, so she went spinning down river again.

In the inky darkness she caught sight of a tawny jaguar lying on the bank, stretched out, and she swept by so fast she couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive. She tried to stay quiet, to suppress her gasps for air, the sobs trying to escape her burning lungs. She was so exhausted it was becoming difficult to move her arms or try to keep her body straight, feet pointed ahead of her. She couldn’t see rocks until she was on them, and had no chance to pull herself out of the water.

For just one moment it crossed her mind to let the water take her. She was tired of fighting and her body was battered and bruised. She could barely move her arms, let alone find the strength to pull herself out of the water. And she was bleeding from several punctures and bite wounds. She couldn’t swim, she couldn’t see, and her clothes were weighing her down. She could just let go . . . but there was the problem of her Carpathian.

The water shot her around a bend and something large loomed in front of her. Her heart leapt. A fallen tree lay partially across the river, branches sweeping out. If she didn’t kill herself by knocking her head on the trunk, she might have a chance. She gathered herself as she neared the outer branches. She hit harder than she expected, the solid wood driving her knees into her chest, robbing her of the small amount of air in her lungs. As the river sucked her under, she threw her hands out and managed to hook her arm around a branch. Sending up a silent prayer that the branch was strong enough to hold against the pull of the water, she gathered her strength for the next step.

Before she could drag herself onto the branches, she heard a chilling noise. She barely caught the sound above the roar of the river and her own heartbeat thundering in her head, but there was a distinctive voice, a mixture of growling and human vocals. For one terrible moment she nearly lost her grip on the branch, shocked that she wasn’t alone and that the voice was distinctly jaguar. Shivering continually, she held herself still, trying not to allow her ragged breath to escape.

“She can’t be alive,” the voice snarled as it came closer. “He’s out of his mind.”

She tried to pull herself into the tangle of branches. She didn’t want to let go. She knew she’d drown. As she inched her way inside the labyrinth of branches, her shin hit a thick limb beneath the water line and she quickly wrapped her legs around it. She had to let go of the death grip she had on the higher branch. It was terrifying to even consider such a folly, and it took several seconds to force herself to allow her fingers to slide along the branch until her body was no longer stretched out in plain sight. She closed her eyes and let go, using every bit of strength she possessed to hang on with her legs.

The current dragged at her, a powerful force intent on ripping her free to send her careening down the river. But she fought back, slowly pressing her upper body back toward her legs. Her fingertips brushed leaves and small twigs. She strained harder and managed to curl her fingers around the underwater branch. Fighting not to breathe loudly, she tried to stay calm. She was in a precarious position, her strength gone. The tree shook and she knew something heavy had leapt onto it. Her heartbeat thundered louder than the roaring of the river.

“He’s got two arrows in him,” a second voice said. “If we go back without her, he’s liable to kill us both.”

“Maybe we should take off for a while, search downriver and not make it back for a few days. He’s going to get those lazy guards to search the banks and he’ll take out his frustration on them.”

“She killed Kevin.”

Solange closed her eyes and tried not to shake. He was right above her. He was in human form, but he smelled like wet cat. She wondered if she smelled the same way. Probably more like drowned rat.

“She’s killed a lot of us, Brett,” the second voice continued from the bank. “And if we don’t get to her, she’ll kill a few more.”

“Yeah,” Brett answered with a little sigh. “I got that.”

“Brad’s a mess. He can barely drag himself to the back to the lab. He said Brodrick used them as bait. He guessed the woman might try for them when they went back to burn the bodies, but Brodrick didn’t warn either of them that she might ambush them.”

“Brodrick’s insane,” Brett said under his breath.

“What?” the other voice hissed out in a soft stream of fear.

“He’s never going to rest until he finds her—or her body, Steve,” Brett said. “He’ll be obsessed.”

Steve came closer, stepping onto the massive downed tree. Solange felt the vibration under the water. She shivered continually now. If they didn’t leave soon, she was going to lose her ability to hold on to branches. She couldn’t feel her fingers anymore, but the knife was a reassuring weight at her side, not that she could ever get to it.

“This used to be fun. We could have all the women we wanted, any way we wanted them,” Steve said. “It will be hard to find somewhere else to do whatever we want, take whoever we want. But maybe we should leave, Brett. Get out of here. We could go to Costa Rica, somewhere else.”

Brett walked toward Steve, picking his way over the tree trunk. Solange held her breath. He was right above her. She could smell him. The dark fur that was just under his skin, the depravity and violence in him.

“I wouldn’t mind leaving, but if we do, I’d like to find that sweet little virgin we had. We could take her with us for the long nights.” He laughed softly. “She was a little fighter.”

“All teeth and claws,” Steve added. “Yeah, she stuck in my head, too, but there’s no way I’m going anywhere near her. Brodrick said she’s under the protection of the De La Cruz brothers. We’d never get near her.” There was speculation in his voice.

“Probably suicide,” Brett agreed. “I fed off of her fear. That was such a turn-on. I’m getting hard just thinking about it.”

“You’re hard all the time,” Steve snickered.

Solange knew exactly who they were talking about. Her cousin Jasmine had been taken prisoner by the jaguar-men. Solange and Juliette had managed to get her back with the help of Riordan. The rescue had nearly cost Juliette her life. Riordan had converted Juliette to Carpathian to save her. But they had been too late to keep Jasmine out of the hands of the jaguar-men and she carried a child.

Solange clenched her teeth together to try to keep them from chattering. Rage replaced her weariness. She wanted to rise up out of the water and shove her knife into Brett’s throat. She remembered Jasmine’s face, bruised and battered, her eyes wide with shock. She would never be that same carefree girl. There were shadows now where she’d been bright. Hate lived and breathed in Solange, and she despised being weak and helpless, cowering in a swollen river, clinging like a child to the tree branches. But she was wounded and exhausted. It was impossible to fight either of the men right then, let alone both together.

Steve jumped from the tree back to the bank. “I say we get out before Brodrick kills us all. I can’t take the idiot humans he works with.”

“They’ve found women for us,” Brett said. He followed Steve, landing on the bank in a crouch, staring out over the river. “We should find a little island no one knows about and start a collection. We could train them to do whatever we wanted.”

Steve licked his lips. “Sex slaves. Brodrick had a room full of them until he got so brutal he killed them one by one. Damn maniac. I spent a lot of time with his little slaves.”

“He didn’t mind?”

Steve shook his head. “He didn’t give a damn about them. He liked to watch, especially if I hurt them. He gets off on hurting them.”

Brett smiled. “I like it, too.”

Steve laughed. “You’re so messed up.”

“I don’t hear you complaining when we’re sharing a little hot bitch.”

“Hell, I don’t care if you like to mark them up. All I care about is fucking them.” He cupped his groin obscenely. “They were put here for one thing.”

“That’s where Brodrick went wrong. He wants cubs. Forget that,” Brett snarled. “Use ’em and abuse ’em. Half the fun is finding them, stalking them and taking them away from their safe little lives. I love watching a woman dancing in a bar, knowing I can take her any time I want right out from under the nose of anyone she loves. I can kill her boyfriend or lover or husband and take her right there next to the body.” He flashed another grin. “It’s even better when I force the man to watch. I like to make the bitch beg me to take her in every way possible right in front of him, show her how utterly worthless he is and show him what a whore she is.”

“You’re so screwed up.” Steve snorted with laughter.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Brett said. “Far away from this place. But I’m telling you, Steve, I want that little one. I want her in our collection.”

Jasmine.
Solange felt the tears burning behind her eyes and clamped down hard on her emotions. She couldn’t afford emotions. She would somehow find the strength to hunt these two. Anyone threatening her cousin was going to die. It was just a matter of time. But she was so tired. She ruthlessly pushed weariness away.

She had weak moments—that was allowed. Pity wasn’t. She’d
chosen
this life. She had trained for it. She knew there was no going back once she’d set her foot on the path. There was too much evil and it couldn’t be ignored. The law of civilization hadn’t come to the rain forest yet, and until it did, there were only a handful standing between the predators and their prey.

The voices faded into the night. She waited as long as she dared and then began to try to make her way to shore. Again she feared releasing her grip, but she was in a better position in the mass of branches beneath the water to climb, if she could make her leaden body move.

She loosened her hand first, flexing her fingers beneath the water before she reached for one of the branches just above the surface. She grasped the branch tightly and let go with her other hand. Very slowly she counted to three, marshaling every bit of strength she had left. She let go with her legs and kicked strongly to propel herself upward. She dragged her head and chest completely out of the water to lie across the bed of branches.

She had no idea how long she lay there, but other than the constant roar of the river, it was quiet in the forest. By the time she was able to find the strength to lift her head again and crawl the rest of the way onto the maze of branches to the solid trunk, the insects were once again humming, frogs were croaking and the rain had let up to a fine silvery mist.

5

When you meet me,
You complete me.
You bring me back to life again.

DOMINIC TO SOLANGE

D
ominic took another slow look at the other four vampires surrounding them. To say it was unusual to have so many of the undead gathered would be putting it mildly. There was still the matter of whatever Drago was fawning over. Dominic didn’t so much as glance at Zacarias, but the other Carpathian had nerves of steel. He could feel the hunger pouring off the vampires. They had arisen with voracious appetites and he presumed the humans at the laboratory were strictly off limits if they wanted to keep up the façade that they were helping to track and kill vampires—the Carpathians being the supposed vampires. That meant Zacarias was food for all of them.

Drago smirked. “I think you are outnumbered.”

Dominic’s eyebrow shot up. “Really?” He flexed his shoulders. “The prize is mine. I claimed him and no one—
no one
—will take him from me.”

A snarl went up around the loose circle. Dominic gave a little ground, mostly so he and Zacarias could fight back-to-back. Normally Dominic preferred to simply strike without any foreplay, but he suspected there was one other that hadn’t yet joined the party, and that meant continuing his outraged vampire act.

“You think that traveling with this pack will intimidate me, Drago? That one”—Dominic indicated the vampire of slight stature he’d encountered on the battlefields—“is a worm, crawling on his belly from every battle. He will be of no use to you.” His voice was filled with contempt. “And then there is this one.” Dominic indicated the best dressed of the group. He was taller and more filled out, his form kept tidy, the serrated teeth barely blackened. “Jason, a fop who prefers colorful clothes to getting the job done. You amuse me, Drago, with your choice of warriors. You cannot fight yourself and you have no eye for those who will aid you in battle.”

A murmur of protest went up, but none of them dared to attack, not without permission, and not when Dominic appeared so confident. Spittle burst from Drago’s mouth as he shrieked a protest. His hand gripped something hard at mid hip, his sharp, pointed nails digging deep into whatever he had been stroking.