Dark Prince (Dark Series - book 1)

by Christine Feehan

  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 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.”

  “Save him, Gregori.” Mikhail’s body rippled with thick, glossy fur, bent, stretched, 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; 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 wolf skidded to a halt, body low to the ground, once more the predator.

  The 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. The betrayer had lain in wait, feeding Hans Romanov’s fanaticism. It was probably the undead who had commanded Hans to murder his wife. 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 believed in vampires, and that it was his holy duty to exterminate them.

  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; you cut off the head. This vampire-killing stuff is messy.”

  “Cover me while I scout it out,” 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.

  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 further 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, but he remained quiet, his heart pounding in alarm.

  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. Those eyes were far too intelligent, held rage and fury. That death stare was very personal. And it was the eyes of death that mesmerized him. He 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.

  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, smelled 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.

  I need those herbs, Mikhail. The sun is climbing and time is running out for Jacques. Finish it now.

  The wolf waited for the clouds to move back in place and then it walked boldly into the open, deliberately keeping his back to Fabrezo. Anton’s eyes narrowed, and an evil smile twisted his mouth. His hand raised the gun, his finger finding the trigger. 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.

  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. 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.

  Distorted, clawed hands hung the bag of precious herbs around the thick, muscular neck, and then the wolf was in a dead run, racing the climbing sun as it burned away the thick cloud covering.

  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 caves 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.”

  Ancient language, as old as time, flooded the chamber. Gregori’s voice was beautiful yet commanding. No one had a voice like Gregori’s. Beautiful, hypnotic, mesmerizing. The ritual chant provided an anchor in the uncertain sea in which Jacques was floating. Rich soil mixed with Gregori’s saliva was a collar around the wounded Carpathian’s neck. Gregori’s blood, old and powerful beyond measure, flowed in Jacques’s starved veins. Gregori crushed and mixed herbs, adding them to the mixture around Jacques’s neck.

  “I repaired the damage from the inside out. He is weak, Mikhail, but his will is strong. If we put him deep within the earth and give him time, he will heal.” Gregori pushed a poultice into Mikhail’s hand. “Put that on your eyes. It will help until we get you in the ground.”

  Gregori was right. The poultice was soothing, a cool ice melting the fire. But somewhere deep inside another nightmare was starting. A yawning, black, empty hole that began to stretch, to crawl through him, whispering dark, insane thoughts. No matter how many time
s his mind reached for Raven’s, he found emptiness. Intellect told him she was in a deep sleep, but his Carpathian blood cried out for her touch.

  “You need to go to ground now,” Gregori pointed out. “I will fix the safeguards and ensure we are not disturbed.”

  “With a big sign saying ‘Gregori lies here, do not disturb’?” Mikhail asked softly, his voice a low warning.

  Gregori lowered Jacques’s body deep within the healing earth, in no way disturbed by Mikhail’s sarcasm.

  “You may as well have written your name in the sky with that display, Gregori.”

  “I want the vampire to be very clear about who I am, whom he has chosen for his enemy.” Gregori’s shoulders shrugged in a lazy ripple of power.

  Need crawled along Mikhail’s skin like a thousand biting ants, stinging his organs and gnawing at his sinews. He raised red, swollen eyes to Gregori’s harsh, yet curiously sensual features. There was such power in Gregori; it blazed in the silver of his eyes. “You think with Raven that I am complete and no longer have need of you. You deliberately draw the danger to yourself, away from me and mine, because in your heart you believe you can no longer hold out. You welcome the danger of the hunt; you are seeking a way to end this life. Now, more than ever, our people need you, Gregori. We have hope. There is a future for us if we can survive the coming years.”

  Gregori sighed heavily, looked away from the steel in Mikhail’s eyes, the censure blazing there. “There is purpose in saving your life, but for me, not much else.”

  Mikhail pushed a hand through his thick mane of hair. “Our people cannot do without you, Gregori, and quite simply, neither can I.”

  “You are so certain that I will not turn?” Gregori’s smile was humorless, self-mocking. “Your faith in me exceeds my own. This vampire is ruthless, drunk on his own power. He craves the killing, the destruction. I walk the line of that madness every day. His power is nothing, a feather in the wind compared to mine. I have no heart and my soul is dark. I do not want to wait until I cannot make my own choice. The one thing I do not want is to force you to seek me out to destroy me. My life has been my belief in you, in protecting you. I will not wait until I must be hunted.”

  Mikhail waved a tired hand to open the earth above his brother. “You are our greatest healer, the greatest asset to our people.”

  “That is why they whisper my name in fear and dread.”

  Beneath their feet the ground suddenly shook, heaved and bucked, rolled perilously. The center of the earthquake was obviously a great distance away, but there was no mistaking the howl of rage produced by a powerful vampire at the destruction of his lair.

  The undead had entered his lair confidently, until he found the body of the first wolf. Each turn or passage entrance was marked with one of his minions, until his entire pack lay dead at his feet. Fear had turned to terror. Not Mikhail, whose sense of justice and fair play would be his downfall, but the dark one.

  Gregori.

  It had not occurred to the vampire that the dark one might take a hand in this game. Andre hurtled himself from the safety of his favorite lair just as the mountain heaved and the chamber walls collapsed. Cracks widened in the narrow passageway and the rock faces inched closer and closer together. The clap of granite grinding against granite nearly burst his eardrums. A true vampire making numerous kills was far more susceptible to the sun, and to the terrible lethargy that claimed Carpathian bodies in the day. Andre had little time to find a safe hole. As he burst from the collapsing mountain, the sun hit his body so that he screamed with the agony of it. Dust and rock spewed from his home, and the echo of Gregori’s taunting laughter drifted down with the debris from the earthquake.

  “No, Gregori.” There was amusement in Mikhail’s soft voice. He floated into the soothing arms of the earth. “That is a good example of why they whisper your name in fear and dread. No one understands your dark humor the way I do.”

  “Mikhail?”

  Mikhail stayed the hand closing the blanket of soil over him.

  “I would not endanger you or Jacques with my challenge. The vampire cannot get by my safeguards.”

  “I have never feared Andre. And I know your spells are strong. I think our friend has his own problems finding somewhere to rest out of the sun. He will not be disturbing us this day.”

  Father Hummer walked the circuit of the rock walls surrounding them. There were no windows, and their prison seemed heavily constructed, the walls so thick, he was certain they were soundproof. No light penetrated the walls, and the complete darkness was oppressive. The priest had piled every blanket available over Raven’s ice-cold body, but he was certain she had died from loss of blood. He could not detect a pulse or breath since they had been shoved into the room. After first baptizing Raven and administering the last rites to her, Father Hummer had begun to carefully feel his way around the room in hopes of finding a way to escape.

  The vampire, Andre, was using Raven to draw Mikhail to this place. Edgar, knowing Mikhail as well as he did, knew the plan could not fail. Mikhail would come, and God have mercy on Slovensky’s soul.

  A small sound, a shuddering wheeze of lungs laboring, drew his attention. Father Hummer felt his way back to Raven. Her body was shivering uncontrollably beneath the pile of blankets. She was as cold as ever. The priest put his arms around her, seeking comfort for both of them. “What can I do to help you?”

  Raven opened her eyes. She could see clearly in the darkness, examining the tightly constructed cell and then Father Hummer’s worried face. “I need blood.”

  “I’ll be happy to donate, my child,” he responded instantly.

  She sensed his weakness. In any case, Raven could never take blood in the Carpathian manner. Her mind reached for Mikhail’s, an automatic reaction. Pain exploded in her head. She moaned softly, clutching her temples.

  Do not try, little one.

  Mikhail sounded strong, reassuring.

  Conserve your strength. I will be there soon.

  Is Jacques alive?

  Sending the message put shards of glass in her skull.

  Thanks to you. Rest.

  It was an order—a clear, imperious demand.

  A smile tugged at the corner of Raven’s soft mouth. “Talk to me, Father; distract me.” She was very weak but did not want to draw the priest’s attention to it.

  “I’ll keep my voice low just to be safe,” Edgar said, close to her ear. “Mikhail will come, you know. He would never leave us here.” He rubbed his hands up and down her arms to try to bring heat to her laboring body.

  Raven nodded her head, a difficult task when it felt like lead. “I know what he is like. He would give up his life for us in a heartbeat.”

  “You are his lifemate. Without you, he would become the vampire of legends, a monster without equal in the human race.”

  Raven fought for each separate breath. “Don’t believe that, Father. We have our own evil monsters. I have seen them, followed them. They are every bit as bad.” She clutched the blanket closer to her. “Have you ever met Mikhail’s friend, Gregori?”

  “He’s the one they call the dark one. I’ve seen him, of course, but only once. Mikhail has voiced his fears for him often.”

  Raven’s breath wheezed in and out, a harsh sound in the quiet of the cell. “He’s a great healer, Father.” She took another shuddering breath. “And he is loyal to Mikhail. Do you believe there is hope for their race?”

  The priest made the sign of the cross on her forehead, on the insides of each of her wrists. “You are their hope, Raven. Don’t you know that?”

  Mikhail touched her mind with his. He was closer, the bond between them powerful. He flooded her with love, enfolded her in strong, protective arms.

  Holdon, my love.

  His voice was a black-velvet seduction of tenderness in her mind.

  Do not come to this evil place, Mikhail. Wait for Gregori,

  she pleaded.

  I cannot, little one.

  L
ights flickered in the cell, on, off, back on again, as if a generator was being powered up. Raven’s hand found Father Hummer’s. “I tried to stop him, to warn him, but he will come.”

  “Of course he will.” Edgar’s eyes were blinking in the sudden light. Father Hummer was worried about Raven. Her breath sounded strangled, labored.

  The heavy door clanged and creaked as it swung open. James Slovensky peered at them. His eyes fastened on Raven’s face as if drawn irresistibly. Her blue eyes met his across the room. “What’s wrong with you?” he demanded.

  A faint, taunting smile curved her soft mouth. “I’m dying. I think that’s plain enough even for you to see.” Her voice was low, a mere thread of sound, but so musical that it was impossible not to be entranced by it.

  Slovensky advanced farther into the room. Raven could feel Mikhail in her, building his strength, his power, crouching, waiting to strike. She also felt a sudden uneasiness.