Dark Peril (13 page)

She pushed away the somewhat satisfying thoughts and drew on her last reserves of strength.

Dominic felt the sudden shift in his blood—everything went quiet and still. The parasites had been on a rampage, trying to kill him from the inside out, but now they retreated as if from a deadly foe. Every nerve ending in his body went on alert. He scented the air, but there was no telltale fragrance. That didn’t matter. He knew. His lifemate was close. Too close.

Zacarias’s head suddenly came up alertly, his dark gaze sweeping the surrounding forest before touching Dominic’s face.

We have company.

Power flared all around them as Demyan kept the lesser vampires under control. There was no way for them to tell the two Carpathians were communicating.

My lifemate.

Warn her off.

Dominic never changed expression. He merely glanced at Zacarias, keeping his attention directed toward Demyan.
You would never abandon your lifemate, Zacarias, not in a fight. You are not capable of that, nor is she.

She is a woman.

She is
my
woman and she is a warrior as is befitting my needs.

Zacarias made a single sound that meant many things. Outrage. Disapproval. Disagreement. Solange was under his protection, but lifemates took precedence over everything else. In any case, he knew the woman by reputation. She was as stubborn as a mule.

And what happens if they kill her? You will suicide.

I am on a suicide mission,
Dominic responded.
I am already dead.

Zacarias sighed.
So be it, old friend.

The lesser vampires swayed, their feet moving in a pattern much like the drumbeat in a ceremonial ritual. Power crackled in the air. Thunder rolled in the distance. A whip of lightning cracked overhead.

“I see you grow impatient, Demyan,” Dominic said.

“I am not used to interference,” he snapped. He knew as well as Dominic that the delay only made him look weak in the eyes of his followers, but he was reluctant to attack a Dragonseeker.

“I have never had anyone stupid enough to come between me and what is clearly mine.”

“You think to stop us from taking this traitor to the
masters
?” Demyan snarled. Once again his lips drew back and the blackened, needlelike teeth were a mockery against his handsome image.

Hideous growls and murmurs of protest came from the four lesser vampires. They separated, taking up positions in a loose semicircle around Dominic. Insects swarmed up the tree trunks and over fallen logs. Bats dipped and wheeled in the air above them. A snake slithered along the nearest tree branch and tiny bright frogs stared with round dark eyes. Demyan had marshaled his army.

Dominic paced a little away from Zacarias to give the Carpathian room to fight. Dominic would go for Demyan, the biggest threat. He would have to trust Zacarias to keep the others off him. It wouldn’t be easy, but it could be done.

“Perhaps
you
will call another
master
, Demyan, but I will not.”

Drago let out a shriek of outrage. “He is sworn. His blood calls.”

“I do what suits me. It does not suit me to hand my prize over to all of you and then see the
three
feed off blood that belongs to me.” Deliberately Demyan reminded them that five Malinov brothers had begun the campaign to destroy the Carpathian people, but now only three remained alive. Zacarias’s brothers had been a large part of destroying the master vampires.

“The sun is near rising and I tire of this little game. Who will start this dance then, Dominic?” Demyan asked quietly.

Silence fell. The forest held its breath. The vampires swayed back and forth.

Solange emerged from the shadows, her weapon held down low, already aimed at the vampire dressed in fashionable clothes. She’d marked him as an easy kill, and God knew she needed an easy one.

Dominic didn’t turn or look at her. Zacarias’s gaze was cool, without recognition. The vampires swaying stopped for a moment, murmuring and showing black teeth. Demyan’s elegant eyebrow shot up and then he smiled, a slow, evil smirk.

“I like to dance,” she announced and shot the arrow straight toward Jason, the colorfully dressed vampire, aiming for the perfect spot on his silk-covered chest. The arrow ignited just before it tore through flesh to find the wizened heart, incinerating it with the white-hot flame.

Jason had no time to react, no time to scream or retaliate. He imploded, fire bursting through skin and bone, spraying fiery blood and blackened worms onto the ground.

Zacarias whirled around to slam his fist deep into the chest of the nearest vampire, driving straight to the heart. He ripped it away, the action happening so fast, the well-dressed undead hadn’t yet managed to fall to the ground. Zacarias called the lightning down to incinerate the heart even as he turned to face his next opponent. Drago was Demyan’s disciple, the lesser vampire a pawn for the
master
, but as long as Drago lived, Demyan would stand and fight, believing he had a better chance of survival against one hunter. It was imperative to keep Drago occupied and stall killing him until Dominic maneuvered Demyan into a kill position.

Dominic was on Demyan before the master vampire could react, leaping across the distance in an effort to end the battle before it actually started. Such a vampire had been centuries in the making, perfecting skills and acquiring knowledge, growing more powerful each century until he could appear beautiful and clean, holding other vampires in his thrall. Carpathians aged in the same way, but the cunning guile came only when they were close to turning themselves. Dominic wanted to stop the fight before it got started.

Demyan’s eyes went wide in shock. It was clear he had believed the parasites in Dominic’s blood would control him, prevent him from attacking one of their own, as they should have. He whirled out of reach just before Dominic’s fist penetrated his chest, seeking his heart. His eyes went feral and Dominic managed to snatch his hand back as knives spun around Demyan, creating a moving suit of armor.

“I should have known you would use your family’s expertise,” Dominic said, studying the spinning knives.

He’d never come across anything like it before in all his fights with undead. There seemed to be no noticeable pattern that he could detect, the spinning blades moving around Demyan at varying rates of speed, so that it would be impossible to slam his fist through the armor without getting his arm cut off.

“You should have known better than to challenge me,” Demyan corrected.

Dominic filed the hint of the vampire’s ego away for future use. The blades whirled and swayed, flashing silver in the dark night. Dominic caught the gleam of a long blade, just a quick flash, his only warning. He just managed to form his own sword to meet the swing of Demyan’s blade. Sparks rained around them as metal came together with such force the forest shook. The sound reverberated through the trees. Birds shrieked. A mass exodus followed as the clashing swords slammed into one another over and over.

Demyan’s sword came down in a straight slice right over Dominic’s head. He barely managed to get his blade up to parry the strike away from him, arms up, head level to prevent the sword from falling on the top of his head. The moment his arms went up, the smaller whirling blades burst toward him, as if fired from a gun, a hundred knives thrown simultaneously. Dominic swept his sword across his body, knocking most of them away, but one lodged in his thigh and another in his chest.

The blades were fashioned with Carpathian skill, forged by a master, and they sliced clean through flesh and muscle, burying deep. Dominic had no choice but to dissolve into vapor in order to rid himself of the metal. The blades dropped to earth, but Demyan was too experienced to allow that brief respite to stop him. He followed the droplets of blood, the scent in his nostrils, and like a bloodhound, he drove through the cloud of vapor, slashing with his sword.

Dominic materialized, countering, pushing pain to the back of his mind while he met each of Demyan’s moves, his brain working to find the pattern of the swirling knives as well. He needed to anticipate each of Demyan’s moves and get ahead of him.

As Dominic sprang to attack Demyan, Solange turned and shot Robert the worm in one smooth motion. The arrow flew true, slamming through the chest to pierce the heart, exploding into the same white-hot heat that incinerated everything on contact. Exhaustion was something even her willpower couldn’t overcome. Her legs went out from under her and she found herself sitting on the undulating ground. Around her the ground groaned. Wide cracks began to weave across the forest floor, hairline fractures that slowly widened until debris began to fall into them.

“Get off the ground,” Zacarias yelled as he rushed toward Drago. “Get to safety.”

She sent a smoldering glare. Did she look stupid? She had already scrambled to her feet and leapt for the lower branches of a young tree. As a shelter, it didn’t offer much, bending under her weight, but it got her away from the splintering ground.

She heard the clash of metal against metal and turned her head to see sparks raining down. Her heart jumped to her throat. She nearly stood up on the flimsy tree branch, fear for her Carpathian crashing through her unexpectedly. She’d had no idea how much she had invested in a man she’d made up. She watched him flowing like water over the uneven ground, avoiding tree roots as he danced around the master vampire. The spinning blades were mesmerizing, and she was forced to turn her attention back to Zacarias. There was no way that she could see to help her Carpathian, but if Zacarias could defeat Drago, he would be able to help defeat the powerful vampire.

Zacarias and Drago came together, two fierce fighters, going up off the ground, hovering in midair for just a moment. Zacarias slammed his fist into the chest wall and instantly thousands of bats dropped from the sky to cover his body, teeth sawing flesh, driving him away from the lesser vampire. He stumbled under the weight, falling to earth where the bats carried him to the ground.

Solange let go a third arrow as Drago rushed into the feeding frenzy of the bats, obviously intending to kill Zacarias while the night creatures had him trapped. The arrow sank into Drago’s shoulder, bursting into flame as it hit the flesh. The vampire’s shoulder exploded from the inside out. His shoulder, his arm and the side of his neck turned black and fell into ashes. Drago screamed, his head snapping around, those pitted red eyes finding her in the precarious shelter of the tree.

Her heart slammed hard in her chest. She crouched, preparing to leap, even as she fitted another arrow into the crossbow. Howling, Drago threw his good arm toward the sky so that the dark clouds boiled and lightning forked along the edges. The bolt slammed into the tree as she jumped into the branches of the next tree, landing hard, catching with one hand, claws bursting through her left hand to grip the trunk while her right hand clutched her weapon. Few of her kind could perform such a difficult feat in the midst of a battle, utilizing one body part in jaguar form and the other in human form.

She dragged herself onto the branch, lifting her bow to get another shot off. Zacarias was back on his feet, whirling so fast his large frame seemed to blur, flinging off the bats, leaving his clothing shredded and bloody. He bowed slightly as he moved to his right, forcing Drago to move as well.

“I see you learned a trick or two from your master.”

Drago drew back his lips to show his hideous teeth. “You will regret your contempt.”

Zacarias smiled. “I think not.” The two opponents rushed forward again, two gladiators crashing into one another while the thunder rolled over their heads.

Around Solange trees groaned and tilted as the massive upheaval continued. From her position she could see the center of the web, with the cracks spreading out, reaching like silken threads, searching . . .

She gasped. This was an attack against a specific person.
Her
Carpathian. The ground swells and cracks were reaching to find him. She could see the gaping lines in the earth switching directions, away from Zacarias and the vampire he was fighting with.

The blades spun too fast, making a shot with her arrow nearly impossible. She was good, but the timing was out of the question. Her heart in her throat, she watched her Carpathian. He seemed to be anticipating every move the vampire made, his sword meeting with crash after fiery crash. From her vantage point she could see the vampire trying to maneuver him into a position, but the Carpathian seemed able to avoid traps. Twice she saw his blade penetrate the whirling knives, a slash that swept cleanly through the armor and bit deep into the vampire.

Black blood sprayed across the whirling blades, hissing as the acid hit the ground. Demyan spat blood at her Carpathian and touched his head in a mock salute. Her Carpathian sliced a second time, striking through the armor, and Demyan’s eyes went mad, the red killing haze reflected there. He attacked hard, driving her Carpathian back, fearful now of allowing him the offense, as he had somehow figured out how to time the spinning of the blades.