“Okay then. Is that it? Because you haven’t settled down.”
“It’s painful.” He nearly blurted out the information when he didn’t blurt. Ever. She was turning him inside out with the stoic look on her face. “Very painful.” Just to clarify. And adhere strictly to the truth. “It’s like dying, convulsions, I can show you the memories if you wish.” He made the offer reluctantly.
She studied his face in silence. He worked at being completely expressionless, not wanting to persuade her one way or the other with his aversion to revealing the actual images.
Riley threw her braid back over her shoulder and stood up. “I don’t want to see. I’m not stupid. I knew in order to cross into your world, I’d have to leave mine. Your body is very different from mine. I knew from the beginning that a change wouldn’t be easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is.” Her eyes met his. “Believe me, Dax, you’re worthwhile.”
She stood up and crossed to him, putting her hands on his shoulders. “Women have babies knowing it could hurt, but that a small few moments are nothing compared to the joy they’ll receive when they have their child in their arms. Whatever I have to do, I’ll do.” There was absolute resolve in her voice and in her eyes.
Her face blurred for a moment, forcing him to blink rapidly.
“When you deem it safe, I’m ready. I want you to just finish, and while you’re doing it, remember the kind of woman you tied yourself to. I take responsibility for my own choices. I don’t do what other people tell me to. I like information shared with me, and I want respect and a partnership.” She lifted her chin. “I would never be silly enough to argue with you over safety, or even health, which I’ve observed are your two big issues, but I like to make my own decisions.”
He gripped her upper arms. “Is that a warning?” His heart felt as if it had swelled so large it was too big for his chest.
“Take it any way you like. I know you’re afraid I haven’t really looked at the real you. I have. You tend to be a very dominant man, and that’s okay with me, it really is. But I’m just as afraid that you haven’t taken a good look at who I really am. I make my own decisions and I’ve never done well with someone telling me what to do.”
He read the small hint of fear quite easily and it turned his heart over. Heat skittered through his belly and settled low. He pulled her tight against him. “I’ll cherish you forever, Riley.”
She had made up her mind, but she still feared her decision. It was a huge one, and her life would be changed forever. If he abandoned her . . .
“It is impossible for me to abandon you,” he assured softly. “I’m taking you back to Jubal and Gary, but I’ll be sleeping just beneath you. Reach for me if you have need and I’ll wake.” He kissed her thoroughly, wanting to remove every doubt from her mind. He knew it was impossible, but he would keep trying until she was just as certain of him as a Carpathian lifemate would be.
She wrapped her arms around his neck when he lifted her into his arms. “I hate to leave this place. You made our time together beautiful for me. Thank you.”
“I want you to remember that I love you, Riley. You. The person you are. This is going to get uglier, and you’ll need to hold on to any good moments we can find,” he warned.
He took her through the hallway back out into the early morning light. The sun, obscured by the haze overhead created by the ash, still hurt his eyes. The light on his skin burned, but the scales moving beneath the surface protected his body, allowing him the freedom to take to the sky. He took in the early morning, breathing in the rain and scent of the forest.
Movement was constant in the canopy below. The sounds were far different as the birds called to one another. Monkeys scolded and added to the chaotic movement. The forest was waking up just as he was going to sleep. He could see it would be difficult for Jubal and Gary to sleep during the day and his respect for them grew. They were going out of their way to protect what was his.
The two men had already set up a net and tent with a sleeping hammock for Riley. They had chosen an area easily defensible and one where he could find a resting spot without the water table being too high. He found both of them extremely efficient. They were definitely well versed in the ways of the Carpathian people.
He greeted them formally, giving them the respect they deserved, clasping their forearms as one warrior to another, before relinquishing Riley into their care. He found it much more difficult than he’d anticipated to leave her, even for a few hours. She looked alone, although she stood straight, her chin up and even managed a small smile he kept with him as he opened the ground and allowed the cool soil to greet him.
They cautiously approached the clearing Lea Eldridge had told them about. Long before they were close, the stench of death filled their nostrils.
Riley glanced uneasily at the three men. “Not again. I could feel Mitro as we’ve gotten closer to the river. He came this way for certain. I hate that my ties to him seem to be getting stronger.”
“That’s the Carpathian blood,” Dax explained. “Not any tie to him. Your abilities are growing, and that has nothing at all to do with Mitro. He’s a killing machine. There is no goodness in him, no mercy, not for anyone. There’s no redemption for him. If his lifemate couldn’t save him, no one could. Arabejila is long gone, and evil has completely taken him over, although, in all honesty, I think he was already completely evil.”
“Some people are born with something not right,” Riley said. “We want to say it’s always the environment they’re raised in, but sometimes, it just happens. Maybe it happens in every species.”
Gary nodded his head. “Even animals are born with problems, both physical and mental.” He shrugged. “It happens.”
Mitro had been twisted from the first time, as a boy, Dax had met him. There had always been a cunning savagery about him. His need to hurt animals and the other boys drove others away from him.
Dax shoved the memories away. In the clearing ahead, the smoldering remains of a home came into view. He halted abruptly and caught Riley’s forearms, effectively stopping her. “You’ll need to stay here, sivamet. The stench of evil is strong here.”
Her body rocked against his. She frowned up at him. “He’s gone. You know he’s gone.”
“He leaves both carnage and traps behind. Neither is for you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I think you’re mistaken about that. I think he left both behind for me to find. He knows I’m following him.”
“That he does, sivamet. And we’ll get him.”
“He should never have gotten out.” Riley glanced over his shoulder toward the smoldering ruins of the little house there on the side of the river. “I should have been able to stop him.”
“Riley.” Dax said her name softly, shaking his head. He stroked a caress down her long sweep of hair. “You have to know you aren’t responsible for any of this.”
“Of course I am. He got out. He’s killing people, destroying lives. How many more will he kill before we catch him?” She blinked back tears and gestured toward the cabin. “Whoever lived there had a life and it’s gone because I wasn’t powerful enough, or fast enough to keep him a prisoner in that volcano.”
“If you believe that, you have to believe that ultimately, the failure is mine. I have had centuries and yet, I failed.” Dax kept his voice very low, very matter-of-fact. His guilt was not in his inability to defeat the vampire, that was part of the job. Sometimes the hunter won and sometimes the undead prevailed. All hunters knew and accepted that premise.
At once Riley’s expression changed and she shook her head. “No, no, Dax, please don’t think I ever thought that. Of course it isn’t your fault . . .”
“It isn’t yours, either. Mitro is evil. I have no idea if he was born that way, or what shaped him, but he wanted to be evil. He embraced that darknes
s in himself. He had every chance to move to the light, but he clearly made the choice to be what he is.”
He dropped his arm around her shoulders and began walking away from the scent of smoke and death. “He seems to need carnage and suffering. It feeds some deep need he has. He’s been around centuries, and maybe it is not our destiny to stop him. But we will continue to try, Riley. There is nothing to gain by blame or guilt. Neither serves any purpose, not in a life-and-death hunt. I need you to be at your strongest and most determined. He can’t ever see weakness in you. The moment he does, he’ll use it to attack. Remember, vampires can get into your head.”
Riley nodded. “I hate that you, Gary and Jubal have to see what he’s done and I’m protected from the worst of it.”
He leaned down and brushed a kiss across her mouth. “I never want you to have to see any more of his work than necessary. I can help to distance the horror from Gary and Jubal should they ask, and they know enough of our abilities to ask if they have need. I have dealt with this most of my life and can look upon death and torture without repercussions. I have the ability to push all emotion aside.”
Riley turned, stepping in front of him, halting his forward progress. She linked her fingers behind his neck as her eyes searched his carefully. “I don’t know how you’ve done this so long, Dax, but I admire you for it. I wish I had the courage to tell you I’m going with you no matter what, but I already feel sick just with the thought of it.”
She pressed her face against his chest, right over the steady beat of his heart. He was such a rock. So calm. So completely confident. There was no doubt in her mind what he would find when he approached that little cabin. Lives were lost, others changed forever. She sighed, wishing she could somehow prevent him from having to witness the depravity and cruelty of Mitro.
Dax caught her chin, tipping her head up, his strange, beautiful eyes staring down into hers, captivating her with those spinning colors and the bright flame that shone with such intensity every time he looked at her. “I appreciate that you would spare me this, Riley. It is enough that I know you don’t have to see.”
“I wish neither of us had to do this. And poor Gary and Jubal. Traveling with me, they had no idea what was in store for them.”
He bent his head and brushed a gentle kiss across each eyelid and then blazed a trail of fire to the corner of her mouth. “Don’t worry about them, my gentle heart. I watch over them. They’re good men and good friends to our people. I won’t let them see more than they can handle. They’re tough, both of them, and they’ve done this many, many times already.”
“You’re a good man, too, Dax. You’re so worried about everyone else that you don’t take yourself into consideration,” she protested. “I love that you want to shield all of us, but I’m just saying, I wish I could do the same for you.”
“But you do,” he assured, bending his head down to brush his lips back and forth across hers like a soft whisper. “That’s what you don’t understand. You wipe out every bad place I’ve ever been. I see only you when you’re with me. Loving you is the easy part, Riley, and when I’m with you, everything else disappears. Just wait for me here. Don’t put your hands in the ground; you know he’s gone. Just sit quietly and wait for me.”
“I’ll stay here and wait,” she promised. “I’ll stay in sight of you at all times. I don’t feel that horrible dread that signals he has a terrible trap for us. I think you’ll be getting the worst of this one.”
“At the first hint of trouble, if you, even for a moment, feel something isn’t right,” he said, “reach for me. I’ll be close.”
Riley flashed a small smile meant to be reassuring. “I’m really not all that brave, Dax. I’ll be yelling at the top of my lungs for you as well as screaming in my head.”
“Do you have the weapon Jubal gave you?”
She nodded. “I keep it ready at all times. It might not kill Mitro, but it might slow him down and for certain it would slow down the creatures he creates.”
“He won’t make a try for you himself unless he’s cornered, or if he finds himself with a certain opportunity, otherwise, he’s too cunning for that. He’ll let someone else do the killing, and that’s what worries me the most. He was trapped in the volcano and he managed to delay your mother and then get others to kill her for him. He can do the same to you. You can’t trust anything, not animal, insect, bird or even man.”
“Dax.” She raised her hand to his face and traced his jaw. “If you’re trying to scare me, you don’t have to. I’m terrified. I’m not the heroine type.”
He couldn’t stop the small smile and shake of his head. “You really don’t see yourself at all, do you? Fear has nothing to do with courage, and you have more than your share of courage.”
She shook her head and tipped her head up to kiss him briefly on the mouth. There was nothing sexual in her kiss at all, just a warmth of companionship, a trust that squeezed his heart hard. “Be safe,” she murmured.
Dax turned away from her abruptly. It was getting much harder to give her the room she needed. He’d been so long without anyone and the threads binding them were getting tighter so that needs and wants became the same. Hunger for her was growing with each passing hour he spent in her company. He had set out to coax her to fall in love with him, spending time in her mind, an intimacy difficult to resist, but he found he was the one falling off that cliff.
Long strides took him back to where Jubal and Gary were waiting. “This one is going to be bad,” he advised. “I’ll go in first and try to find any traps Mitro left behind. You two stay just at the edge of the tree line. Don’t step into the clearing. There’s no way of knowing what will trip any ambush he’s set.”
“We’ll have to find them before we leave this place,” Jubal said. “Otherwise someone innocent could come along and be injured or killed.”
Dax nodded grimly and shifted into mist and streamed into the clearing beside the river. The cabin was very small, no more than a single room with a small covered porch that had been up on stilts. Now it was tipped on one side, blackened and burned. Nothing was left of the house but three half walls, a mere husk surrounding a smoldering ruin. The roof had been constructed of tree branches and leaves as many of the huts were when natives were on the move. This one had been built hastily and there was little there to say anyone had lived there long. He moved around the cabin carefully, testing the air for any sign of Mitro’s inevitable traps.
Dax found the body a hundred feet from the burnt-out ruins. She’d been young. He knelt beside her for a few moments, waving away the insects and touching her hair briefly in a salute to her. She’d had courage. She’d been pregnant, and she’d tried to protect her unborn child. He shook his head and signaled the two waiting men.
Jubal arrived a stride or two ahead of Gary. Dax saw Gary’s face. He knew exactly what he was going to see. There’d been too many of these times, humans ripped apart by a vampire.
“Mitro’s a bastard,” Jubal stated.
“She was jaguar,” Dax said. “And pregnant with a jaguar baby. The baby is over there.” He indicated the infant with his chin. “A boy.”
“He killed the baby in front of her, didn’t he?” Jubal asked grimly.
Gary took off his shirt and wrapped the baby’s body carefully in it. “He took the baby while she was still alive, drained the baby dry and then attacked her. He likes to play with his victims. Jaguars need to be burned. They never leave bodies where others can examine them.”
“Let’s get it done before the helicopter comes for us,” Dax said grimly. He glanced over to Riley. “There’s no need for her to see this. It will be bad enough telling her about it.”
17
The Old One was agitated, and it didn’t do to have an extremely large dragon upset in a large city—or anywhere, for that matter. Dax paced up and d
own the terrace overlooking the lights of the city. The De La Cruz family owned an enormous estate on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Apparently, they owned homes in nearly every major city throughout South America. They seemed to have adapted well to living among the human species.
Just as Dax had evolved there in the volcano, the De La Cruz family had evolved as well—yet he wasn’t comfortable with their modern transformation. He didn’t believe it. They were hunters, every one of them, wolves in sheep’s clothing. For all their modern look, and the charm the De La Cruz brothers exuded, he knew what they were deep down under all that sophistication—predators, every one of them.
“What’s wrong?”
Riley’s soft voice brought him up short. He turned to look at her. She sat in one of the deep chairs, chin on her drawn-up knees, watching him with her dark, cool eyes. There was genuine concern in her voice—in those liquid eyes. He’d never had anyone concerned over him before other than Arabejila, and certainly not like this, not that he could remember, not that he could feel. It was a strange—and wonderful—feeling.
“I’m concerned about being here in this dwelling.”
“House,” she corrected as promised. “Why?”
He paced the long length of the terrace restlessly. Riley was his lifemate and she’d asked a question requiring an answer. He sighed and came to a halt in front of her. “I should have executed Mitro centuries ago, long before he went on his crime spree. I knew the darkness grew in him. I was born with a curse, although Arabejila’s father told me it was a gift of tremendous value. I knew better. Even as a young boy I saw the mark on many of my friends. As we grew, I became uneasy around them and they were much more uneasy around me. No one wants to be marked as damned.”
“Did you do that?”
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