Dark Ghost (40 page)

Still, Andre was uneasy. If Popescu hadn’t fed in days, he might be just starved enough that he would go after an animal – a bird flying that little bit too close.

Csitri, if he catches you, he would tear you apart with his teeth before I could get to you.
 

I don’t have to get that close. I just need to get below the mist, drop as if I’m hunting and feel the strength of those notes. I can pinpoint his exact location.
 

Popescu wasn’t under the ground, not if those filaments were anything to go by. The master vampire had set his lure and he was waiting – hoping – a victim would come by so he wouldn’t have to move. Moving meant leaving a trail. He was staying very still and waiting for the hunter to leave the area, just as he’d done for centuries.

I can do it,
Teagan said.

Her fear beat at him, and Andre was grateful he had had the presence of mind to mask her presence just in case they had come across the master vampire. At the same time she felt fear, her determination poured off of her. She wanted this. It made her feel a part of him. Maybe she even needed it.

She wasn’t asking to go into battle, just to be of aid, to feel as if she gave him some advantage. It was the most difficult thing he’d ever done, and it went against his nature, but he was in her head and he could see, this was everything to her. By giving his consent – and it said a lot about her that she waited for it even when she wanted to give him this – he knew he would be giving her self-respect. More, he knew she could live with the division of their partnership, if he could concede.

I want you to remember, to always hold in your heart, in your head, what will happen should anything happen to you. I need you, Teagan, far more than you will ever need me. I love you. I have never really had anyone in my life until you. I cannot go back to emptiness. Do you understand what I am saying to you?
 

He still was uncertain he could give her his consent. He drifted even closer to the boulder where the filaments seemed to lead. He wanted to be close just in case the vampire made a grab for the bird.

I understand that and I also understand what you’re giving to me.
Her voice was soft. A caress. Filled with love.

Do it then. Feed me the information and then get far away. Into the trees where the owl can hide. I will need you when I am done. No matter how bad the wounds are, take me to ground and I will heal. Do you understand? Get me into the ground.
 

Absolutely. I won’t let you down, Andre. Just stay connected to me, even when you’re afraid I’ll feel pain. Don’t shut me out, because if you do, I’ll panic. As long as I know you’re alive, and you have a plan, I can stay where you tell me.
 

Teagan didn’t hesitate, but then he knew she wouldn’t. She dropped out of the sky, sliding beneath the bank of fog, talons extended toward a mouse rustling in the vegetation.

An actual mouse. Luring the owl in. The mouse wasn’t close to the boulder Andre suspected held the vampire. The mouse was near a thin sapling shooting out between two smaller rocks.

Get out of there
. Andre called the warning just as the owl veered away from the ground, away from the straggly tree nearly bent double from the winds that often raged over the mountain.

He heard the crash of notes, the cacophony of sound that jarred every cell in Teagan’s body. She heard it as she had come in, following his instructions, allowing the owl to be close to the surface. At the last possible moment, when she heard the discordant notes, she had reacted, taking control back.

Andre hadn’t expected that, not so soon, but he was grateful as the vampire lunged out from between the rocks, throwing the decoy of a sapling off of him as he reached for the bird.

Andre used his speed, shifting as he rushed through the distance separating them, inserting his body between Popescu and Teagan, slamming into the vampire with the force of a freight train, driving him backward, his fist slamming home, deep into the chest of the undead. The fierce momentum sent both of them tumbling together over the cliff. Andre locked onto the vampire with his free arm, even as he dug through tissue, muscle and bone to try to find the withered, blackened organ that ensured Popescu would rise again and again.

Teagan rose behind them as the two men went over the cliff and landed in the canopy of the taller trees, breaking branches as they fell through to the lower, heavier limbs. She could see Andre clearly, his free arm deflecting teeth and talons, while his fist continued to burrow through the agonizing acid blood. She felt it burning through his skin, right down to his bones, but he didn’t stop. Didn’t flinch. He kept after his prize, no matter that the vampire leaned forward and tore open his neck.

Her heart plummeted as she saw the vampire gulping at the bright red blood. It took everything she had to do as her lifemate had commanded. She had promised. She felt his agony and fear lived and breathed in her, every bit as terrible a monster as the master vampire, but she held on.

Andre had told her to look inside his mind. See his plan. Know that he had one and he would use it to make the world a safer place. She hid herself in the thickest branches possible, all the while staying in his mind. She kept silent even when she wanted to whisper to him that she was there, she was with him. He wasn’t alone in this fight and she would do anything at all to help him.

He had said by staying safe that would help the most and she had to trust that he was right. He had blocked all pain so he didn’t feel the damage the vampire inflicted on his body. He didn’t seem to notice the terrible rake marks down his chest as Popescu dug his talons into flesh and ripped at it, even gulping some of that in his eagerness to feed on rich Carpathian blood.

The sight sickened her. She had never seen anyone so torn and bleeding. Still, he didn’t stop. The resolve in his mind was absolute. He would destroy this vampire to keep it from ever again preying on humans or Carpathians. He wasn’t afraid. He had buried his emotions somewhere deep where even she couldn’t find them. He didn’t feel the raw agony, but
she
did.

Her stomach churned and for a moment she thought she might actually black out. She knew better. She didn’t dare. Andre would be distracted and he was in a fight for his life. More, he was relying on her. He would have tried to move away from Popescu’s attack had she not been there to take his back.

The pressure was enormous, but at the same time, she was elated, no – more – she was honored that he would trust her to save his life no matter how badly he was wounded. She swallowed down bile and forced herself not only to watch, but to assess the damage to his body, which lacerations were superficial, which were life threatening.

Coming up with a plan of action that continually changed as the battle raged on kept her mind occupied, and she could compartmentalize the pain. At first she wasn’t even aware that she was doing it. She was far too busy mapping out Andre’s body and following every single rip and tear. Monitoring his blood supply and helping him to slow the blood loss. She found she could even, because she was entrenched so deeply in his mind, repair some of the damage to his veins and arteries even from the distance.

She wanted to do as he had done and become pure healing energy, but she didn’t dare leave her body behind and unprotected, not until she knew the vampire was dead. The two combatants disappeared from her view. The broken branches from the tree they’d hit were blackened, the leaves withered and dried as if all the energy had been sucked out of it – or if it had been poisoned.

She caught a glimpse of the master vampire and Andre under two healthy trees, but one bent toward Andre, branches reaching like two hands toward the back of his head. Vines sprang from the limbs and wrapped around his neck. Her heart in her throat, she nearly jumped from the tree and spread her wings to get to him, but she forced herself to look into his mind. To stay still. To keep her promise. It was so difficult. She knew she was weeping inside the body of the owl. Her heart pounded and every cell in her body wanted –
needed
– to get to Andre, but she held herself in check.

His mind was utterly consumed with the battle. He had known Popescu had directed the battle path toward the two trees. He had even known what would happen and he hadn’t tried to escape. He still didn’t try. Instead, he withdrew his arm from the vampire’s chest.

She could see Andre’s fist was closed. His arm was mangled, bloody and the flesh was gone all the way to the bone where the vampire’s blood had eaten through skin and tissue. The vines whipped around him fast, covering him from his head down his shoulders and arms, pinning his arms to his side.

Teagan heard rolling thunder and lightning forked across the sky.

Sivamet. You know what to do.
 

Andre dropped the blackened organ at his feet, lowered his head, vines and all, and drove his shoulder into the vampire, driving him backward and off his feet, away from the heart.

Teagan didn’t have time to think. She saw the instructions in Andre’s mind and she took control of the lightning, dragging a whip from the sky and slamming it to earth. The first pass hit inches from the target, but she steadied her aim, ignoring the vampire tearing strips of flesh from her man, ignoring the nasty teeth ripping into his bones. The whip of lightning hit the small target dead center, incinerating the heart.

Popescu’s shock showed on his face. He was certain Andre was helpless to control the white-hot energy pouring from the sky. He turned his head slowly to look toward the trees where Teagan hid. She shivered at the mask of evil, the terrible hatred she saw there. The red, burning eyes went vacant and his body toppled to the ground. As it did, the vines around Andre loosened and then dropped away, no longer under the vampire’s control.

She waited until Andre stepped away from the body, until he went down on one knee and dropped his head, sagging. She slammed the whip over Popescu’s body and watched it incinerate. She held the energy there for Andre. He didn’t move toward it and, heart in her throat, she moved it closer to him. It took him too long to bathe his arms and chest in the heat to burn every drop of vampire blood from his body. As soon as he was done, he let himself sag to the ground.

Teagan allowed the energy whip to go back to nature and she flew as fast as possible, shifting as she touched the ground. Again, she forgot her clothes, but as she rushed toward Andre, she managed to add jeans and a T-shirt. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered but Andre and healing his wounds.

Up close, the task of healing him appeared impossible. No one could live through those terrible lacerations. He was practically gutted. His belly was open, his chest, his neck. She’d started the repairs to his veins and arteries, but the vampire had done even more damage in those moments while Andre extracted the undead’s heart. For one, horrible, time-stopping moment, she feared she couldn’t heal him. It was too much.

She took a breath. He had stopped his heart from beating to keep from losing all of his blood. He lay lifeless, his large frame there on the ground, so completely ravaged she almost didn’t know where to start. She even looked around her, as if she could find another healer, one far better than she was, but there was no one else.

She had asked for this task. She had wanted it. And Andre believed in her. He had put his life in her hands because he believed in her. She closed her eyes and let go of doubts. Of ego. Of fear. Fear was the most difficult, but she couldn’t help him as long as that damaging emotion clung to her. So no fear. She could do this. She
would
do this. There was no other choice.

For one bizarre second she hung there, teetering between physical and spirit because the fear, entrenched for a lifetime in her very skin, held tight, but she had no other option. This was Andre. Her other half, and he wasn’t afraid. He had gone into battle with a plan. That plan included her saving his life. He had known what the vampire would do to him and he had quietly accepted the pain and damage because he believed in her.

Teagan let go of the last of her fear and allowed her spirit to enter Andre’s body. She had a plan and, although she had to slightly alter it, she stuck with it, applying the healing energy from the inside out. She was meticulous and took her time, knowing if she missed something vital, she wouldn’t have the energy to go back and fix it.

She had no idea how long she worked on Andre, but his belly, chest and neck wounds were horrendous. She had to stop when she felt her spirit faltering. She found herself in her own body, swaying with weariness, terrified at the loss of strength, mostly because the moment she came to her unprotected body, she knew she wasn’t alone.

Teagan spun around, facing what could only be an enemy. She had been in Andre’s mind during the entire fight with the master vampire, and she knew what it took to kill one, but she had no strength left. Even standing there, keeping her body between Andre’s and the stranger, she was swaying, her legs like rubber, knees weak.

“We heard the battle,” the stranger said softly.

He kept his distance from her. His hair was very long and flowed down his back, as black as a raven’s wing. He was tall, not as tall as Andre, but almost. He also looked extremely dangerous. His eyes were midnight black, no hint of any other color and his mouth suggested he had no knowledge of what a smile was.

She swallowed hard. Notes of music wept into the harmony of nature’s song, giving her his identity. “Are you from the monastery?”

He nodded slowly. “Andre is your lifemate?”

Teagan stepped closer to her man. She should have picked up a weapon. A rock at least. Andre had told her it was far too dangerous for these men to be in battle – or around anyone at all. There was blood all over the ground. All over Andre.

“Yes.” What was she supposed to do?

“He needs blood.”

“I was going to give him that next. I have a plan,” she blurted out, and then bit her lip, annoyed with herself. Andre found her strange idiosyncrasy funny and cute, this man didn’t so much as get a light in his eyes. He was all predator.