“Two days,” she muttered. “Good God.” She lifted the spoon to her lips and numbly took a bite. The flavors exploded across her tongue, and she glanced down at the soup in surprise. It was really good, and as she swallowed her first bite she realized she really was hungry.
“I’m not sure you are aware of what you did, or if you even remember,” Gary continued when he was satisfied she was eating. He lowered his voice so others outside couldn’t hear him. “Dax, the Carpathian hunter, was badly injured and you used your gifts to directly heal him. He told me that you didn’t just draw power from the earth like you did to hold the vampire, or when you redirected the volcano’s eruption. You used that power, but you drew most of the energy from yourself and poured it into him. Riley, you healed him completely. And by that, I mean you regrew bone and tissue from nothing. I’ve been around Carpathians, and not even the strongest healers among them could have done what you did by themselves and in so short a time. It’s nothing less than miraculous. After you passed out, Dax checked you out himself, but he couldn’t find anything wrong, so he told us just to let you rest. So we have.” He glanced down. “More soup?”
It took a moment for Riley to realize she was staring blindly at the now-empty bowl. “Yes, thank you.”
Raising his voice, Gary called out to Jubal, and seconds later exchanged her empty bowl for a full one. Jubal himself only poked his head into the tent long enough to give her a huge smile and a wave, which she returned automatically. Then he ducked back outside, and the tent flap closed behind him.
“Riley, you’ve suspected for a while now that Jubal and I know a lot more than we’ve been willing to share. We keep secrets for many reasons, mostly because keeping those secrets helps protect people we care for. But because Dax sees us as your “protectors,” he’s given us permission to share some of our knowledge with you now.” He looked like some of her fellow professors did right before they started their first two-hour lecture on a topic that would take years to fully explain.
“Wait.” She held up a hand. “Before you get started, tell me about the others. You said Ben and Jubal are okay. What about the rest of the people from the boats? Did they survive?”
“Dax found Miguel, Hector, Don, and Mack Shelton when we were coming down the mountain. And following the trail of the professor and his students is what led us here.” Something in the tone of his raised voice caused a sinking feeling in her stomach.
“What happened?”
“The professor fell. Oh, don’t worry, it’s nothing too bad, except he’s in the jungle, and needs to be able to walk, but he’ll be okay. He broke his leg.”
“And?” she prompted when he fell silent again. “You don’t get that worried look in your eyes because the professor broke something. What else?”
“Dax found two of the porters dead that first night. They were returning to see if we all made it away from the volcano. Fernando and Jorge.”
She shook her head. “That’s so terrible.” She knew the bad news wasn’t over and waited in silence for him to tell her the rest.
“One of the guides and one of the professor’s students are missing. Pedro went to find clean water for breakfast. Marty went with him. They never came back.” Gary’s expression went grimmer. “Dax believes the vampire he’s hunting might have found them.” The look on his face said he believed it, too. “But just in case he’s wrong, we have most of the men out looking for them now,” he added.
Giving her a moment to process the news, Gary handed her empty soup bowl out to Jubal again and exchanged it for two blue metal camping cups.
Vampire. Riley shook her head in disbelief. Vampires were one of the monsters from stories. They were the thing you dressed up as on Halloween, the evil creature in a scary movie. They weren’t supposed to be real. But then again there weren’t supposed to be dragons, and her mother wasn’t supposed to be dead, and . . . her heart seemed to skip as she thought about that man. He wasn’t supposed to be here, either, whatever he was.
She took the camping cup Gary held out and took a grateful sip of the tepid water. It was warm and tasted of ash and chemicals, but it quenched her thirst and soothed her parched throat.
“What else aren’t you telling me?” The image of two dragons facing off in front of them rose to mind. “What about the hunter, Dax? Did you know he was here the whole time?”
“No, of course not. We had no idea Dax or the vampire was here. I don’t think anyone did. From what Dax told me, he and Mitro—the vampire—were locked in the earth under the mountain for a very long time. A Carpathian woman named Arabejila, who came here with Dax to hunt Mitro, sealed them both in. Dax suspects Arabejila was your ancestor, and that she’s the one who passed down the ritual you and your mother performed to keep the volcano from erupting and freeing them. According to Dax, Mitro is worse than most vampires, and he has a gift for escaping bad situations. Maybe that gift helped him wear down the barrier, but in any case, he’s free now.” Gary noticeably swallowed after he spoke.
“So what exactly is a Carpathian? You keep using that word like it should mean something to me.” Riley needed an explanation as to how vampires and dragons had become a reality.
“The Carpathians are an ancient race—a different species, really—that has existed alongside mankind for a very long time. In fact, the Carpathians say they are of the earth itself. They have very long life spans, and possess amazing gifts and abilities, which is no doubt what spawned all the legends and myths about vampires and shapeshifters. It would take a very long time to give all the details, so I’ll just hit the high points. I am sure Dax will be happy to answer any other questions you may have.” He gave a small grin.
“Jubal and I have been friends of the Carpathians for some time now. We work with them and for them and count ourselves lucky for the privilege. They are really remarkable beings.”
Riley couldn’t stop herself from glancing down at Gary’s wrist where Dax had taken his blood. If he’d lived with the Carpathians for a long time, was he a friend or more like a pet cow they milked whenever they needed to feed?
Noticing the direction of her gaze, Gary smiled. “I’m fine. Sometimes you can get a little dizzy from blood loss, but Dax was careful not to take too much. They need blood to survive, and the way I see it, giving to them isn’t much different than donating to the Red Cross or the local blood drive.”
“Except the Red Cross doesn’t drink what they take.”
“No, but they do use it to save lives. Humans need blood to survive, and so do Carpathians. The only real difference is how they get it. Besides, most people never know they have had their blood taken. It’s really quite unobtrusive and painless. Carpathians use their abilities to put a person into a dream state.”
“So they enthrall people. Like vampires do in novels and movies.”
“Yes, there’s nothing malicious about it. Most usually flood the person with happy thoughts, take what they need and leave pleasant memories behind when they leave.”
Gary rubbed his wrist as if he could still feel the teeth breaking through the skin. Maybe he could. He hadn’t looked like he was in a trance state when Dax was drinking from him.
“Why aren’t there any marks?” Riley asked. “I watched him take your blood, but I don’t see any sign of a cut or even a scratch on your wrist.”
“That’s because a Carpathian’s saliva has rapid healing agents in it that seem to work on just about anything organic. Wounds close almost instantly. It’s really something. They have other gifts, too. Abilities that would seem to fall more in the realm of magic than science. But all those gifts come at a price.”
“What price?”
“A pretty steep one. The way it was explained to me, each Carpathian male is born with a seed of darkness in him. At first it’s nothing—less than nothing. Like a grain of san
d in the ocean. But as the males age, the darkness in them grows.”
“By ‘darkness,’ what do you mean, exactly?”
“I guess you’d call it evil—or, rather, the capacity for evil. Sort of like all the aggressive emotions—hate, violence, selfishness. Once a Carpathian male reaches adulthood, that darkness starts pushing, trying to dominate him. Like I said, Carpathians live a very long time. The longer the male lives, the stronger the darkness inside him becomes.”
Gary paused to take a sip of his water, but whether he did so from thirst or nerves, Riley couldn’t say. He looked a little uncomfortable.
“The Carpathian males lose the ability to see in color, then the ability to feel emotion. I don’t have a clear understanding of how that works exactly. I think it’s a little different from person to person. For some, I gather it’s a clean cut, like the lights just went out and every emotion they ever had is simply taken away. Love, sadness, joy, regret, all of it’s gone, and what is left is just emptiness. For others, it’s apparently not such a drastic change, and their emotions just fade. There are some who use their memories to recall what emotion used to feel like, but I’m told it’s like hearing under water. It’s not the same, but they cling to it, because it’s all they have. But even that doesn’t last. The darkness eventually corrupts everything, and the Carpathians know it. That leaves them only two choices: either meet the sun and die—and yes, that part works just like it does in all vampires—or embrace the evil and become a vampire, as Mitro did.”
Riley looked down at her hands, inexplicably sad. “How terrible for them. So they are vampires, after all.”
“No, they aren’t. But they can become vampires if they embrace the darkness inside them. That’s what we tried to tell you before. The vampires aren’t just evil; they’ve chosen to be evil. They choose to give up their souls because they feel a rush when they kill while feeding. They relish the hate, the destruction, the corruption. There’s no worse monster on this earth than the vampire. And the Carpathians like Dax hunt them. And Riley, something you need to understand is that some of the vampires they hunt were once their friends. Maybe even family members. It takes a very strong person to bear a burden like that.”
Riley struggled to wrap her head around the information Gary was sharing. Rationally, she had a hard time believing in vampires and shapeshifters, but she’d seen them herself. She couldn’t deny they existed. But then, she knew magic existed—the sort of magic that defied rational thought. She possessed it herself, as had her mother before her. The hardest part to come to grips with was the idea that Dax wasn’t yet a vampire but might become one. Seeing the image of Dax, standing before her as red and gold flecks fell down all around him, his eyes so focused and yet so lost.
Riley pushed her hand under the corner of her sleeping pad she was sitting on. Her fingertips touched the tent floor. The vinyl felt cool against her hand. Her fingertips began to tingle as her connection to the earth grew stronger. She pushed into the plastic, gaining comfort the closer she got to the packed dirt underneath the tent. To her surprise, the thin plastic material seemed to dissolve beneath her hand, giving her access to the earth, which parted easily, as if welcoming her exploration.
“So Dax hunts these vampires, the ones like this Mitro who escaped from the volcano,” Riley summarized. “But Dax is Carpathian, which means he has this same evil growing inside of him as Mitro. And if he doesn’t suicide in the sun, he’ll eventually become a vampire as well.”
The image of Dax’s broken body, his wounds open to the night sky, flooded through her. But even though he’d surely been in agony, he’d regarded her with such warmth and such wonder, his eyes filled with emotion. Hadn’t he? Her heart seemed to stutter at the idea of him turning vampire. He was noble. Filled with courage. He’d touched her with such gentleness. She couldn’t believe that there was evil in him. He was capable of violence, but evil? The idea was so devastating she could barely breathe.
Seeking solace, she used her fingertips to move through the earth. It was odd they moved through the packed soil with almost no resistance, as if she were running her hand through still water. The earth seemed to be singing under her hands.
With her fingers in the soil, if she didn’t think about the why, and the how, instead focused on the song that was all around her, she could sense all the others in the camp. She knew where they were, what they were doing. Then, abruptly, she froze, her body turning cold from fear at the thought that Dax was gone.
“Gary, where is Dax right now?”
“He’s resting at the moment. Like I said, Carpathians and the sun don’t get along too well, although it doesn’t seem to affect Dax quite as strongly.”
“Gary,” she said very coolly. “Answer the question.”
“Dax wanted to stay close just in case Mitro or some other threat came up and we needed him.”
Riley’s eyes widened and she jumped to her feet. Gary, taken by surprise, fell over backward in his attempt to get out of her way.
“He’s right underneath us isn’t he?” She looked down, scanning the tent floor. She felt him, and relief flooded every part of her. He was close. She would see him again.
Gary got to his feet and righted his stool. “I honestly don’t know. The location of their resting place isn’t something Carpathians share, for obvious reasons, but that would make the most sense. He wants to keep you safe.”
Riley knew Dax was there. Maybe they weren’t supposed to know his exact resting place, but the earth whispered to her. And she knew. There was a man, a Carpathian, buried underneath her. She looked down at her feet. She was standing on him. Well, not actually standing on him, she corrected herself silently. To be perfectly technical about it, the tent just happened to be pitched over ground that contained Dax’s sleeping body.
“I hope he doesn’t expect me to help dig him out,” she said out loud, and Gary brought his fingers up in a shushing gesture.
Laughter rumbled through her, and she knew it was Dax. The man spoke right into her mind. I thank you for the invitation but I am sure I can find my own way out.
His voice was polite and smooth but each word carried a smile. She shivered. Okay, more than polite and smooth, his voice sounded like warm molasses pouring into her mind and filling every empty, lonely spot. Just the sound of his voice sent fingers of arousal dancing through her body and an electrical current snapping and crackling in her veins. Warmth spread through her as if that molasses found a way into her body.
He couldn’t be in her mind. Not with the things about him she was thinking—like how very sexy everything about him was. Color swept up her neck into her face. “I’m not comfortable with you in my head.”
She glared at Gary, as if he were to blame for Dax’s behavior.
Unperturbed by her irritation, Dax continued speaking directly into her mind. I left you a gift, Riley, to thank you for your assistance. Do you like it?
Some external force directed her attention down to the sleeping bag. She flipped the edge over to reveal an intricately woven quilt that depicted a beautiful landscape of mountains and grasslands, all worked in reds and blacks with threads of shining silver and gold embroidered throughout. A silvery moon in the top corner of the quilt sent beams of silvery light shining down upon the landscape below. The detail was exquisite, full of depth and movement. She turned it over to see the back side, and the quilt moved like silk, soft and warm in her hand.
The backing showed a different scene filled with wildlife. Birds of prey flew alongside a giant red dragon. On the ground below, wolves, lions, tigers and snow leopards raced across the plains, some diving into rivers and streams. As with the front of the quilt, the detail work was so exquisite, the scene practically came to life. More than that, the quilt radiated warmth and comfort.
“You shouldn’t have,” Riley murmured.
&n
bsp; The quilt is not to your liking? There wasn’t any emotion in Dax’s voice, but Riley somehow knew she had hurt him. She had never been good with social niceties.
Her heart thudded in her chest. She’d never seen anything more beautiful—except him. She moistened her lips and glanced at Gary. Color crept up her neck to stain her cheeks. She felt Dax in her mind, waiting for her answer. She reached back to him, wanting to share what she had to say with only him.
I like it very much. How could anyone not? Her fingers traced the lines of the red dragon. Simply touching the fabric, stroking the lines of the design, seemed to wash away her worries and fears. “Did you hear me?” Her heart thudded. She felt shy, when she’d never thought she had a shy bone in her body.
Yes. The word stroked over her skin like a caress.
This is truly a piece of art. But it’s far too beautiful to use—especially in a tent. The idea was outrageous.
Ah. But it was made for your use. You healed me. I wanted to thank you, and as you were sleeping, it seemed like the appropriate gift. His tone seemed more at ease. Did you sleep well, Riley? He spoke her name slowly, as if with great care, his tongue savoring each syllable.
She gently folded the quilt and set it down on her bed, her fingers lingering on top of the red dragon, stroking. I did sleep well, and thank you for the quilt, Dax. She found herself trying to say his name with a similar inflection.
But I am not having a conversation with a man while he is buried in the ground beneath my feet. Not to be rude, but I find the whole thing more than a little creepy. Her hand went over her mouth. Did Carpathians know what teasing was?
She could have bitten her tongue. She had the worst sense of humor, and she really didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but talking to a man lying in the earth beneath her feet was kind of . . . humorous. She sank down and began sliding on her boots. As she was hunched down tightening the laces on her left boot, she felt just the brush of his lips against the back of her neck.
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