A noxious odor permeated the moulin. Despite being insubstantial mist, Lara felt sick.
Nicolas flashed into human form, waved his arms to create a breeze, and then before any of the falling debris could strike him, was back to vapor form.
Thank you.
He seemed to think of everything for her comfort and she was grateful, because this place brought back too many horrific memories. She had to steel herself to the idea that she would find her aunts dead and bring them home. She didn't want their bodies to remain imprisoned as they'd spent their lives that way.
The cave floor was just beneath her and she hovered there, studying the layout, the way the chamber widened and ran into a maze of galleries. She took her time, not wanting to miss the slightest taint of dark magic that would herald an attack. This was Xavier's private realm. She recognized the high ceilings and network of lava tubes leading to various chambers where he conducted his gruesome experiments.
We got lucky. This is Xavier's exclusive domain. The entire mountain is a maze of tunnels and chambers and we were lucky enough or crazy enough to find his private quarters.
Her voice shook and she pulled back to get a better grip on her emotions. She hadn't considered what it would do to her to be surrounded by Xavier. He was everywhere, his mark on everything. His smell filled her with dread. He had been there recently. No matter what anyone said, his pipe tobacco mingled with the pungent scent of blood smelled all too fresh. No matter how long ago it had been, she couldn't forget the difference between old blood and new and the way his tobacco intermingled, making her gag.
If at any time, Lara, you have to leave this place, Nicolas reassured,tell me and I will get you out. And I will come back and search for your aunts . He wanted to hold her, to wrap her up in comfort and make her feel beautiful and safe. No one was ever going to understand what it cost her to come to
this place, to be haunted by the torment of that young child.
Thank you. She sent him waves of warmth.He's been here, Nicolas. Very recently. And if he's still using these chambers, he would never leave them without serious traps. The floor is washed in magic. I think the entire room is a trap .
Nicolas shifted to the common Carpathian path.Do not touch anything. We should move on to the next chamber .
Lara tried to remember where she had seen the young woman miscarrying.Take the left tube and move slowly. Even the disturbance of air could trigger an attack .
The four of them went as carefully as they could down the twisting ice tunnel until they came to a series of smaller chambers. Lara sucked in her breath, the smells hitting her like a punch in the stomach. Water trickled from the walls, dripped from the ceiling and poured out in other places so that she heard a continuous echo, loud and growing even louder until it rang in her ears and filled her mind with confusion.
She remembered that sound from her childhood. The sound seemed to be an alarm, roaring through the chambers, or whispering quietly, but warning her of the monsters lurking everywhere. Her heart beat too fast and she could barely draw air into her lungs, but she kept moving, directing Nicolas toward the terrible chambers where the screams of victims drowned out the relentless sound of water.
Lara stopped just inside the room where Razvan had been kept chained. Memories rose along with bile and she couldn't hold the form even with Nicolas helping her. She needed to kneel on the ice floor and put her head down to keep from passing out.
Nicolas dropped a hand on her shoulder. «You do not have to do this.»
She drew a breath and nodded. «I do. I do have to do this.»
But she couldn't look at that alcove where her father had been chained so much of the time. Where she had been kicked and beaten, where the flesh had been torn from her wrist so sharp greedy teeth could bite deep and drain her to the point she was dizzy and wheezing for air. She remembered crawling across the floor, the cold biting into her knees and arms, on her belly, like a dog, he'd said, too weak to get up.
«There's fresh blood here,» Natalya said. «It's all over the place.» She touched a manacle, smeared the blood on her fingers and held it to her nose. Her face paled. «Razvan. This is my brother's blood. He had to have been here within a rising or two.» The blood was sticky and congealed, but not dry.
Vikirnoff examined the manacles. «Vampire blood to burn him while he's chained.»
Lara shuddered. «There's so much blood, and stab wounds in the ice. Look at that,» she pointed to the wall. «It looks as though he was stabbed and the instrument went through him and out the other side.»
Natalya skimmed her palm down the wall without touching the blood spatter. Lara could hear her heart pounding and the rhythm matched the drumming of the water coming out of the walls. Natalya's body trembled as she kept her hand over the blood of her twin.
«There's something here.»
Lara put out her palm to feel the energy band. It was low, humming, very much alive. «The energy
doesn't feel dark.»
Natalya shook her head. «It's Razvan. He left something here. When we were children we used to leave messages for one another right under Xavier's nose.» She frowned and paced the length of Razvan's prison, both hands palm out away from her body as if feeling the air.
Lara tried not to be that little girl, worthless and lonely in the cave with only ice spiders for friends. She detested how pathetically jealous she was that Natalya had good memories of her father. She rubbed at the ridges on her wrist.
Nicolas reached over and took her hand, bringing it to his chest.I love you, sivamet .
Her heart fluttered. She wasn't that lonely child anymore, living in terror, feeling worthless and unloved. She looked up at him, at his beautiful face, so masculine and strong. There was love in his eyes, tenderness in the way the pad of his thumb swept back and forth over the palm of her hand. This tall, dangerous man loved her.Loved her. With all her failings, even her aversion to letting anyone take her blood, he loved her, and that was everything.
Nicolas turned up her wrist and brushed his lips over the fading scars.I am very grateful that I found you .
She sent him a quick, teasing smile.Actually, I found you .
Natalya's gasp drew her attention.
«I found it. He left a message behind.» Natalya leaned over the ledge of ice, waved her hands gracefully, murmuring low.
That which is hidden from all sight, created between two who shared the fight. Blood of blood, twin and twine, show me now the twining rhyme.
The ice lit up from within and an image wavered, a hologram of a man ravaged by time and torture. He was manacled to the wall, no shirt and his trousers in shreds. Lines cut deep into his face. His hair was in dreadlocks, streaked with gray, but it was his eyes that Lara couldn't look away from-so filled with sorrow and pain.
The hologram began to glow and the man spoke, but his words were garbled, unintelligible, a twin talk devised and scrambled between the brother and sister. Natalya's hands moved, gently weaving another unlocking spell, rearranging the notes of his voice, working to make sense of the message left long ago-and meant only for her eyes and ears. Slowly she began to see the pattern of the language, unraveling it until he made sense.
«Natalya. Beloved sister. I pray you find this message I've hidden at great cost. I dare not let Xavier ever touch you or my Lara. He's evil beyond all imagining. I no longer have the strength to fight him, although I believe I've put up a worthy battle. He uses my body to produce children he can feed on and, although I have tried, I cannot stop him.» He shuddered, pain crossing his face. «The knowledge that it is me he uses to cause such harm to others, to those I love, is far worse than any physical torment he has ever devised.»
Natalya let out a soft cry of distress. Vikirnoff circled her waist with his arm.
«When I could, I helped their mothers escape him and take the children far from him, but I do not even
have that ability left to me. I opened my soul in a moment of weakness and he owns it now,
commanding me for his foul purpose and, though I am aware on some level, I cannot resist his commands. I think that amuses him so much he wants to keep me alive. Few things amuse him these days.»
«Razvan.» Natalya whispered her brother's name and turned her tear-streaked face up to Vikirnoff. «Look what Xavier did to him.»
There were scars. Horrible scars on his neck and throat, on his arms and chest, his wrists, even his legs. The links of the chains smeared in vampire blood had burned the images into his skin-Carpathian skin that didn't scar.
Natalya drew in a sobbing breath. «He is Dragonseeker. He would never turn. I should have known and believed in him. Instead I tried to kill him.»
The hologram continued. «I beg you to find my daughter. She is so like you. Tatijana and Branislava have agreed to help her escape. I've convinced them not to tell me their plans. Xavier still likes to occupy my body and I'm afraid if he does, he'll discover the plan and we won't be able to get her out of here. I dared not let Lara know too much because if Xavier suspected anything, he would torture her until she told him everything.»
He hung there, his chains cutting into his flesh, his tangled hair hanging down his back and around his shoulders. He was painfully thin. Even talking tired him out, that and the use of magic as he recorded his message to his sister. He moistened his cracked lips.
«He keeps us all drained of blood and weak. He's using me to find a way to kill the Carpathians. Everything from poisons to parasites. He has to be stopped. Find the prince and tell him, Xavier has to be stopped. But first, find my child. Her mother was not my lifemate, but the mage in me loved her dearly. She was sunshine in a world of madness. Find Lara for us and love her, Natalya. It is the last thing I ask of you.»
He looked to his left. His body shuddered and his skin took on a grayish tinge. «He's coming for me and I'll hold on as long as I can until Lara is out of his hands, and then I will find a way to force him to kill me. Natalya, do not ever come back here. And don't look for me. Find Lara and let that be enough.» He turned his head and looked straight at them.
Lara could feel his piercing gaze right through to her soul. The mental anguish he suffered was far worse than any physical torture Xavier could conceive. She didn't even realize she was sobbing until Nicolas turned her into his arms and held her close.
«I've hated him for years. I thought of him as a monster,» she whispered. «He wanted me to think of him that way so he could protect me.»
«He's alive,» Natalya said. «He's out there, Xavier's prisoner, and he's alive.»
«We don't know that,» Vikirnoff objected. «There's so much blood here,sivamet , and it is all his. If he survived this, it would be a miracle.» He caught her to him. «I know what you're thinking, but he does not want you to try to find him. Either of you.» He glanced at Lara before turning his attention back to his lifemate. «Don't you see? You and Lara are the two people he loves most and he's managed to protect you. We have to give him that. It's all he has to hang on to to keep him sane. This man has given up his life, his soul, everything he is or ever was in order to insure you and Lara have a life. You cannot take that away from him.»
«I can find him.»
«What do you think it would do to him if you fell into Xavier's hands after all of his sacrifices?»
Natalya shook her head, refusing to answer.
Lara knew she would never give her word not to go looking for her brother. Lara wouldn't either, if Nicolas asked it of her. She took a deep breath, let it out and looked cautiously around her. The others, always so confident in their power and skills, weren't as nervous being in Xavier's lair as she was. And they were growing in confidence the longer they went without anything attacking them, but the lack of resistance only made her leerier.
She stayed very still, watching the cave as the others fanned out in an attempt to find more clues. Natalya used her connection with her brother, hoping to find more messages, while Nicolas and Vikirnoff examined the devices shelved in the ice where Razvan was chained to the wall. Obviously the various instruments had been stored where he could see them to build anticipation of torture.
«Xavier is one sadistichan ku tuulmahl elidet ,» Nicolas commented.
Life-stealer, Lara translated, and thought the phrase more than appropriate. Xavier was definitely a stealer of life. He took from everyone-family, species, everyone he met-and the Carpathian meaning was so much more, not just the words, but the inflection, the darkness behind the words.
Vikirnoff bent down to examine marks gouged into the ice. «What is this, Nicolas?»
Lara followed his gaze as both men crouched beside what appeared to be claw marks running along the ice floor. Her heart jumped. The aunts in the form of dragons? Could it be? The marks were recent. Had they been there? Hope sprang even though she knew it was impossible. Both had been so ill all those years ago.
Nicolas and Vikirnoff stroked fingers along the grooves in an effort to figure out what had made those marks. Heart hammering, she crouched down beside Nicolas.
Nicolas turned his head to look at Lara as her shoulder brushed his. The scent of her enveloped him. Although she'd braided her hair, stray strands curled around her face, making him want to brush them aside just for the pleasure of feeling her satin skin and the silky texture of her hair. He had lived long, battled hard, seen beautiful places and none of it, not one thing, compared to the treasure he had been given. The gift.Lara . He whispered her name in his mind, wanting to take the anxiety from her.
Their eyes met and his heart slammed inside his chest in reaction. His belly knotted at the intensity of his love for her. The emotion seemed to grow each rising, filling him so completely, he barely recognized himself anymore. There was a gentleness in Lara he was drawn to. Maybe because he felt there was little in him. Maybe she brought out the best in him-made him a better man. Whatever it was, he ached inside for her. He thought of her, watched for every expression to chase across her face. He didn't even know exactly when it had happened to him-the growing love and need of her-but he accepted that it was only going to get stronger.
«What?» she asked, a small smile chasing away some of the shadows in her eyes.
He smiled back. «Just looking at you.»
She blushed and looked down at the claw marks, running her palm over the area to get a feel for what had made the gouges. At once she felt the taint of darkness. Gasping, she scrambled back. «It's a trap. Don't touch it. Get away from there.»
Nicolas caught her hand and pulled her to her feet. Vikirnoff and Natalya turned back to back so they faced outward, looking for an enemy.
Large icicles rained down on them from the ceiling. Others hurled themselves like spears from the walls. The men threw up shields to prevent injury or even death from the heavy, sharp, daggerlike ice formations.
The ice cave rumbled and shook. Water gushed from a crack on the wall above them, pouring down with a roar. The ice splintered and a spiderweb of tiny lines spread from ceiling to floor. Water seeped, began to trickle and then pour from the cracks, widening them into deeper crevasses. The ice quivered and then sloughed off in great chunks, crashing to the floor. The grinding and cracking noises increased, as if the walls were moving closer together.
«This chamber is mutating. We have to get out now,» Lara warned.
«They do that?» Nicolas asked, already running toward his right where a long, narrow tunnel looked more hospitable.
«This one does,» Lara said and rushed after him with Vikirnoff and Natalya close behind.
As the water filled the chamber and began to leak into the tunnel, Lara turned back and murmured her own safeguard. Let Xavier deal with a solid wall of ice several feet thick in his torture chamber.
Water that runs, shift and grow, rise high now to fill these walls. The water began to form layer after layer, growing quickly into a block of ice as big as a tower.
Satisfied that the water had halted at the entrance to the tunnel and began refreezing, she turned and ran
after the others. As she ran, she heard the steady drip of water again, the same monotonous pattern she'd noted earlier. She could actually hear each individual drop plop into a puddle. A shiver went down her spine.
Something isn't right, Nicolas. Xavier's chambers know we're intruders and we're in for a fight. Watch everything, no matter how trivial. That's his specialty-the subtle, creeping up on you before you notice anything.
Out of the narrow tunnel they found themselves in a much larger room, this one intensely beautiful with ice sculptures and prisms and many orbs. Lara halted, her heart pounding. She had been in this room many times. She glanced over at the tall pillars, terrified she would see Xavier standing there with his grotesque mask of a face, his fierce eyes and the twisted smug smirk he always seemed to wear.
Shadows moved and stretched. She gasped and stepped back.
«What is it, Lara?» Natalya asked. «What do you feel?»
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