She touched her tongue to suddenly dry lips. His gaze jumped instantly to her mouth and those flames in his eyes leapt higher. Her thighs tingled. Her breasts ached. She swallowed hard and instantly his gaze was on her throat. He seemed aware of every move she made, every breath she took.
Beside her, Ben began shaking horribly. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. He’s going to kill us. He’s going to kill us all.”
Ashamed that she’d forgotten he was even there, she reached over to lay a soothing hand on his shoulder. “Calm down, Ben. If Jubal and Gary say he’s a friend, I think we should believe them.”
Poor Ben didn’t believe them. He must have thought the vampire was going to drink him dry, because his mind completely snapped. With a shriek, he spun around and started racing through the jungle, bouncing off trees in his mad rush to escape.
“Ben!” Riley spun around. “Someone stop him! He’s out of his mind.”
“I can bring him safely back and keep him calm,” Dax said, “but that requires me to control his mind, which you have already told me I must not do.” One dark brow arched. He stood there, waiting for her to make the decision.
She bit her lip. On the one hand, she hated the idea of him controlling Ben’s mind—of him controlling anyone’s mind. On the other hand, in his current state, Ben was going to injure himself or worse. And if that evil vampire was still roaming around . . .
She glanced again into the forest where Ben continued to shriek and stumble, running into a bush first and then a tree. She winced when he went down and then scrambled back up only to run again.
“Do it.”
The hunter reached for her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. His expression softened with unexpected gentleness, making him look almost . . . kind. In a rough-edged, dangerous, bloodsucking, gorgeous vampire sort of way, that is.
“It is for the best, päläfertiilam. I will do him no harm, I promise you.” Then he switched his attention to Ben’s fleeing figure, and his expression turned to stone. Fixed, focused, unyielding. He spoke in that ancient language of his, and though Riley couldn’t understand the words, there was no mistaking the tone of absolute command.
In the distance, Ben came to an abrupt halt, then turned and calmly made his way back to the group. His expression was serene, as if he were out for a stroll through the park on a balmy summer day. He walked back to Riley’s side and stood there, silent and still.
Even though Riley had given Dax the okay—even though she knew this was for Ben’s own good—watching him obey like a mindless puppet made her stomach churn. It was so wrong. Like slavery, only worse. At least slaves still possessed their own minds.
“As will he, when I release him,” Dax said.
Her eyes flared in alarm. She spun around. “Did you just read my mind? Did you? Did he?” She whirled on Jubal and Gary, looking for answers.
“Riley . . .” Gary held out his hands in a conciliatory gesture.
“I did. Forgive me if I offend, päläfertiilam. Your thoughts are very strong. I—” His voice hitched, and his expression flickered for an instant before he continued, “I must remind myself you are not familiar with Carpathian ways. I did not mean to intrude.”
She frowned. That flicker in his expression had been a wince. He was in pain. Glancing at the still-dreadful gaping wound in his chest, concern overrode fear. “Sit down. Sit down and do whatever it is you need to do to heal yourself.”
She laid a hand on his arm, intending to help him down, but the moment her flesh touched his, agony rocketed up her arm. She gasped and yanked her hand back. The pain vanished instantly.
“Dear God, was that you?” She touched him again, and almost screamed. “It is. My God, it is. How can you bear it? You’re in agony.” She hadn’t thought about what terrible pain he must be in when he first stood up, tall and strong. He was a freaking vampire or hunter or whatever he was. Mythical creatures weren’t supposed to suffer, they weren’t supposed to hurt—but he did, and it was excruciating. She knew it. When she touched him, she could feel it as clearly as if it were happening in her own body.
Unable to help herself, she touched him again. Something inside her demanded that she help him, that she heal him. It was almost a compulsion.
Clearly, Dax wasn’t the one compelling her, because he gently pulled her hand away. “Do not, päläfertiilam. We cannot keep all the pain in check, and I would not have you hurt yourself on my account.”
“We? Who’s we?” she asked in a distracted voice. Her attention was already, inexorably pulled back to Dax’s injuries. Looking at the wound, she could almost feel it herself. As if she were traveling inside his body, touching each raw nerve ending, broken bone and shredded muscle, feeling with gifts that had been passed down from generation to generation. Dax’s pain called to her, tore something deep inside, some barrier she hadn’t realized existed.
Riley lifted her hand again and slowly placed it over the mud-packed hole over Dax’s heart. She pressed her palm against the wound, packing the earth deeper into the wound, completely unaware of what she was doing. Only aware that she needed to continue. There was something wrong inside him, something that seemed intent on consuming him. Sheer force of will held it in check. His will, stronger than the mountains, stronger than the earth itself.
Her hand lifted, leaving a perfect handprint in the mud. She raised the same hand to his face and touched his cheek, wiping the blood and dirt from his cheek and trailing it slowly down his throat back over his heart. Words and patterns blossomed inside her mind. Power rose as Riley looked into Dax’s eyes, iridescent, beautiful eyes and focused on the gleam of scarlet fire that flickered in their depths.
She slid an arm around Dax’s side, placing one hand over his heart and the other in the same spot on his back. Then she unleashed the power that was now a throbbing beat inside her. The raw, earthy force flooded through her hands, and Dax’s body devoured it. The power consumed the earth packed in his wounds and transformed the dense, rich, organic matter into skin, bone and muscle. She had no control over what happened next, no comprehension of how it happened. She only knew that the power in her called to the power in him, using the earth that bound them both together. Bones knit, nerves re-formed, tissues and blood vessels regrew with astonishing speed.
When it was done, Riley’s consciousness came rushing back to her body. She sagged against him. Now, it was his arms coming up to steady her. She stared up at him, dazed, still feeling everything he was, as if she were connected to him, as if she were part of him. She knew she had somehow, miraculously, healed him. Healed him completely. Yet, it still felt like she’d missed something. He was still in so much pain, and he shouldn’t be.
Riley’s brow crinkled as she tried to work through the confusion. Her eyelids became very heavy and it was suddenly all she could do to try to keep them open. The effort was too much for her. Exhausted, blackness swallowed her up, and she collapsed in the arms of the hunter.
Dax found himself smiling down at his lifemate. What a gift she possesses. She had healed him—and not with methods known and used by Carpathians, but by manipulating the earth itself. She had touched him, and the earth in his wounds had transformed at her command. Dax checked his wounds, flexing his muscles experimentally. The hole Mitro had torn in his chest was gone. The countless, bone-deep slashes torn by razor-sharp talons had knitted together, leaving not even the smallest seam to prove they’d ever existed. He’d not even needed to go to ground!
Even Arabejila, more gifted in earth than any Carpathian he’d ever known, had never possessed such an amazing talent.
And his lifemate was human, to boot. That made her existence even more of a miracle. He’d never heard that a Carpathian and a human could be lifemates.
Not that it mattered. She was here, in his arms, and he was more content than he’d ever dreamed pos
sible just holding her and breathing in her scent. Even the Old One seemed entranced by her. She smelled of wildflowers over spring rain, a miracle of fresh beauty in the midst of Mitro and the volcano’s destruction.
While she was healing him, his soul recognized and cried out for hers. He felt her soul answer. She didn’t recognize the calling, only the flash of pain at the knowledge that she was so close and yet they weren’t joined. Deep inside him, the second soul had reached for her as well, already so much a part of Dax, that the dragon knew Riley was their salvation.
His thoughts turned immediately to her welfare. She must be the one he’d felt trying to keep the volcano contained, and no doubt the effort of those exertions as well as the miraculous way she’d healed him had clearly exhausted her, leading to her collapse. He checked her carefully, just in case, but her only injuries were minor cuts and bruises from her race through the jungle, and those he mended with a thought. She needed sleep, then water and food, but the latter could wait until she awakened.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Even smudged with dirt and ash, she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever beheld, and she seemed so fragile in his arms. The mere thought of the slightest harm befalling her made his muscles clench and the Old One strain against Dax’s control. He and the dragon, both, were united in their determination to protect her. With a thought, Dax cleansed the ash and dirt from her body, leaving her and her clothing clean.
Dax finally tore his gaze from his lifemate, and turned his attention to the two men who had offered him their wrists. Jubal and Gary were friends to the Carpathian people. He’d learned their names and searched their memories when he took their blood, and used that connection to absorb their language, a more modern dialect of the language he’d correctly identified as English. They were now under his protection as well. As for Ben, Dax owed the man a debt for the way he had stayed to protect Riley despite the danger to himself.
“Eat, drink and rest for a few minutes, my new friends, but then we must get moving. Mitro, the vampire I was hunting, is free of his bondage, and it isn’t safe to remain here.” He looked down at Ben, who had slumped over onto his bag. “He will be fine once he wakes. If you would be so kind as to prepare him food and water as well.”
“You’re going to hunt the vampire.” Gary made it a statement.
“He won’t expect me to have healed so quickly. He’ll need blood and a place to go to ground. If I’m lucky, I will be able to destroy him this night.”
Gary glanced at the sky. “There’s not much in the way of night left.”
Dax nodded. “I task you with watching over my lifemate.” There was a small edge to his voice, the first of the night. “I will return tomorrow eve. See to it that she is well.” He looked around. “You will need to find a place easier to protect. Mitro is capable of sending anything at you. He will know I will work to keep you safe, and above all else, he wants Riley dead. He believes her to be Arabejila. I’m certain of it.”
“Just up ahead, there’s a small hollowed-out clearing,” Jubal said. “I noticed it when we first hit the base of the mountain. It’s protected on three sides by boulders with a small stream on the other side. We can set up a tent there with netting for Riley.”
Dax checked the location with a judicious eye and then added safeguards to keep out any threat. “I will return.”
He took to the air with great reluctance, streaking away from them. He had little time. Mitro would hunt for blood before he went to ground, and he was in a rage. He would do as much damage as possible. Dax went back to the spot where the two dragons had fought. Blackened pools of acid stained the ground, and burned through any plant or tree that had been left standing on the side of the mountain close by.
The mountain was ravaged by the mud and fires. Still, everything seemed so different, new to his eyes. Even with the powdery ash settling on the trees and brush at the base of the mountain, and choking the air, he could still discern color, a gift from his lifemate. Blacks were vivid and bright. Whites and glimpses of green and brown sent a small frisson of joy through him in spite of his grim task. In a way he was grateful for the ash. The colors were so unique to him, so vivid and brilliant, they almost hurt his eyes.
He picked up the scent immediately. Mitro was gravely wounded and had no energy to waste on hiding from Dax. He would expect the hunter to go to ground near the humans, not chase after him.
Once more Dax took to the sky, using the form of an owl. The owl’s vision provided him with the ability to see so much more and its small body would barely be noticed. As it was, with the ash in the air, Dax was forced to send a wind in front of him to clear the skies enough to see anything unusual. Mitro wouldn’t have gotten far without blood. He crisscrossed the area patiently, widening his circle until the owl caught sight of something lying near the stream.
Immediately, Dax descended, the owl settling in a tree above and to the right of the scattered objects below. A heaviness in his chest, along with the knots in his stomach forewarned him. There were two bodies, both had tried to run, and had died hard, screaming in fright. Their eyes remained wide open, mouths still forming their last cries, both throats shredded. Bright ribbons of blood streaked their bodies. Mitro had always been a messy eater.
Inside the body of the owl, Dax sighed. He had known Mitro would find blood; he was too cunning not to. The rain forest was a big place, and there were few humans anywhere near the mountain, yet unerringly, Mitro had been drawn to them.
Dax shifted into mist and drifted down to study the two bodies. Both appeared to be native to the forest, although dressed in the same way as Gary and Jubal. A machete lay inches from one of the bodies, its blade stained dark. He moved over the second body, and found what he expected. Blood had seeped from under the body where he’d been cut multiple times by the machete. That was just like Mitro, forcing someone to hack up a friend or loved one for the vampire’s amusement.
Mitro was definitely up to his old tricks. He hadn’t been an hour or so out of his prison and he was already killing and torturing. Sorrow pressed down on him, an unexpected emotion. So many lost years attempting to destroy a depraved, vile creature, and failing time and again. Having to look upon the aftermath of the undead’s path of destruction over and over was far more wearing than he’d realized. Now, with his ability to feel, Dax was weighed down by every single one of those lives lost over the centuries.
At once he felt a stirring, a brushing of souls. His. The Old One’s. Hers. His heart leapt. The burden of destroying Mitro was his, but he wasn’t alone.
Ours, the Old One corrected.
A soft whisper stroked a caress in his mind. Ours, Riley’s voice echoed.
Dax was not alone. He would find Mitro and destroy him, that was his bound duty, but this time, he would have something of his own to fight for. The owl spread its wings and took off as dawn was about to break. He was grateful for the ash, obscuring the gathering light. He’d been deep inside a mountain for so long that even deep within the owl’s body, that shrouded, first light hurt his skin and pierced his eyes.
He hurried back to his woman. Päläfertiilam. Lifemate.
10
“Dreams are the angels’ way of showing us what is on the other side,” Riley’s grandmother had told her when Riley was just a child. If that was true, then heaven was a warm and sultry place, considering the dream Riley had just had.
The dream had been so wonderful, in fact, she was loath to leave it. She clung to sleep, to the wispy remnants of that dream, filled with soft caresses and strong hands, until the clamor of voices around her grew too loud to ignore.
Her eyes fluttered open, and she sat up, frowning and disoriented, to find herself in what looked like her own tent. Light shining in through green fabric revealed a neat and ordered space that for the first time since its purchase was now also perfectly clean—w
ith no hint of the dirt or the smell of wet canvas that had clung to it throughout the trip through the jungle. She was still fully dressed, although her boots were sitting beside her pack and her jacket had been neatly folded and put on top as well.
She could hear people moving about and talking outside the tent, and judging by the number of voices, her small party must have met up with other survivors. She sat up abruptly, hope blossoming. Or maybe everything that had happened since heading up the river had all been one horrible, bizarre nightmare.
Before she got her hopes up too far, however, the tent zipper came undone, and the panel fell back to reveal an outside world covered in a thick blanket of gray volcanic ash with more still falling from the sky. Not a dream then.
Riley found a sad comfort when Gary stepped through the tent’s opening with a hot bowl of soup and a spoon in his hands. “Oh good, you’re awake. I have your breakfast—or dinner, since the sun is about to set.”
“Hello, Gary.” Nodding her thanks, she took the bowl and set it aside. Her body was still waking up, and she wasn’t hungry. “What’s happening? Where are we? Is everyone okay? How long have I been asleep?”
There was plenty of room in the three-person tent, and Gary sat down on a camping stool someone had brought in. “Jubal and Ben are fine. In fact, they’re outside now.” He indicated the door flap. “We’re in a camp some of the locals set up as a gathering place for survivors. As for how long you slept, you have been resting for two days now.”
“Two days?” she repeated, incredulously. She’d never slept so long in her entire life. Her brow furrowed with sudden suspicion. “Did the vampire hunter put me to sleep?”
“No, he didn’t. Apparently, you drained every reserve of strength you had saving our butts and healing him. Which is why you need to eat now, whether you feel hungry or not.” He cast a pointed look at the soup bowl.
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