Falcon knew what she needed. He needed the same reassurance. Sara. His Sara. Never afraid of appearing vulnerable to him. Never afraid of showing her desires. His mouth found hers, shifting the heavens for both of them. Her body was warm and welcoming, his haven, a refuge, a place of intimacy and ecstasy. The world fell away from them. There was only the flickering candlelight and the silk sheets. Only their bodies and long, leisurely explorations. There was gasping pleasure as they indulged their every fantasy.
Much, much later, Falcon lay across the bed, his head in her lap, enjoying the feel of the cool air on his body, the way her fingers played through his hair. “I cannot move.”
She laughed softly. “You don’t have to move. I like where you are.” Her breath tightened, caught in her throat as he blew warm air gently, teasingly, across her thighs. Her entire body clenched in reaction, so sensitized by their continual lovemaking that Sara didn’t think she would ever recover.
“Ahh, but I do, my love. I have our enemy to hunt. No doubt he is close and very anxious to finish his work and leave these mountains. He cannot afford to bide his time here.” Falcon sighed. “There are too many hunters in this area. He will want to leave as soon as possible. As long as he is alive, the children and you will never be safe.” He turned his head slightly to swirl a small caress along her inner thigh with his tongue. His hair slid over her skin so that she throbbed and burned in reaction.
“Stop trying to distract me,” she said. His arm was around her, his palm cupping her buttocks, massaging gently, insistently. It was very distracting, rendering her nearly incapable of rational thought.
“And all this time I thought you were distracting me.” His voice was melodic with amusement. Deliberately he slid his finger along her moist core. “You are incredibly hot, Sara. Did you stay in my mind while we made love? Did you feel how tightly you wrapped around me? The way your body feels to me when I’m surrounded by your heat? Your fire?” He pushed two fingers into her, a long, slow stroke. “The way your muscles clamp around me?” He let out his breath slowly. “Yes. Just like this. There is nothing else like it in this world. I love everything about your body. The way you look.” He withdrew his fingers, brought them to his mouth. “The way you taste.”
Her body rippled to life as she watched him insert his fingers into his mouth as if he were devouring her all over again. He smiled, knowing exactly what he was doing to her. Sara laughed softly, happily, the sound carefree. “If we make love again, I’m certain I’ll shatter into a million pieces. And you, crazy man, will not be in any shape to go chasing after vampires if you touch me one more time. So if you’re determined to do this, behave yourself.”
He kissed the inside of her thigh. “I thought I was behaving just fine.”
She caught a fistful of his hair. “What I think is that you need me to bag the vampire. To bring him right to you.”
He sat up, his black gaze wary all at once. “You just stay right here where I know you are perfectly safe.”
“I’m not the safe type, Falcon, I thought you knew that by now. I expect a partnership and I’m not willing to settle for less,” she said firmly.
He studied her face for a long moment, reached out to trace the shape of her breast, sending a shiver through her body at his feather-light touch. “I would not want less than a partnership, Sara,” he answered honestly. “But you do not fully comprehend what would happen if something should harm you.”
She laughed at him, her eyes suddenly sparkling like jewels. “I don’t think you fully comprehend what would happen if something should harm
you.
”
“I am a hunter, Sara. Please trust my judgment in this.”
“More than anything I do trust your judgment, but it is very biased at the moment, isn’t it? It makes no sense not to use the one person he would come out into the open to find. You know that if he chased me for fifteen years, he isn’t going to stop. Falcon”—she placed a hand on his chest, leaned forward to kiss his chin—“he will show himself if he thinks he has a serious chance of getting to me. If you don’t use me as bait, everyone will continue to be in danger. Our children are frightened and in the care of a total stranger. These people have been good to us; we don’t want to bring them and the surrounding villagers trouble.” She pushed a hand through her short sable hair. “I know I can bring him out into the open. I have to try. I can’t be responsible for any more deaths. Every time he follows me to a city and I read about a serial killer in the papers, I feel as if I had brought him there. Let me do this, Falcon. Don’t look so stubborn and intimidating. I know you understand why I have to do this.”
Falcon’s hard features slowly softened. His perfectly sculpted mouth curved into a smile. He framed her face between his hands and bent his head to kiss her. “Sara, you are a genius.” He kissed her again. Slowly. Thoroughly. “That is exactly what we will do. We will use you as bait and trap ourselves a master vampire.”
She raised an eyebrow, not trusting the sudden grin on his face.
S
ara sat on a boulder, dipped her hand into the small pool of water, and looked up at the night sky. The clouds were heavy and dark, blotting out the stars, but the moon was still valiantly attempting to shine. White wisps of fog curled here and there along the forest floor, lending an eerie appearance to the night. An owl sat in the high branches of the tree to her left, completely still and very aware of every movement in the forest. Several bats wheeled this way and that overhead, darting to catch the plethora of insects flying through the air. A rodent scurried through the leaves, foraging for food, drawing the attention of the owl.
Sara had been out for some time, simply inhaling the night. Her favorite perfume mingled with her natural scent and drifted through the forest so that the wildlife were very aware of her presence. Sara stood up slowly and wandered back toward the house. Rare night blossoms caught her attention and she stopped to examine one. Her fresh scent mingled with the fragrant flower and was carried on the breeze, wafting through the forest and high into the trees. A fox sniffed the air and shivered, crouching in the heavy underbrush near the boulder where the human had been.
There was a soft sound in the vegetation near her feet. Sara froze in place, watching the large rat as it foraged in the bushes quite close to her. Too close to her. Between her and the house. She backed away from the rodent, back toward the interior of the forest. She glanced toward the boulder, judging its height. Vampires were one thing, rats quite another. She was a bit squeamish when it came to rats.
When Sara turned back, a man stood watching her. Tall. Gaunt. With gray skin and long white hair. The vampire stared at her through red-rimmed eyes. Eyes filled with hatred and rage. There was no false pretense of friendship. His bitter enmity showed in every deep line of his ravaged face. “After all those wasted years. At last I have you. You have cost me more than you will ever know. Stupid, pitiful woman. How ridiculous that a nothing such as you should be a thorn in my side. It disgusts me.”
Sara retreated from him, backing the way she had come until her legs bumped against rock. With great dignity she simply seated herself on the boulder and watched him in silence; her fingers twisting together were the only sign of fear. This was the monster who had murdered her family, taken everyone she had loved, virtually taken her life from her. This tall, gaunt man with hollow cheeks and venomous eyes.
“I have nearly limitless power, yet I need a little worm like you to complete my studies. Now Falcon’s stench is all over you. How that sickens me.” The vampire laughed softly, tauntingly, spittle flying into the air, fouling the wind. “You did not think I knew who he was, but I knew him well in the old time. A stooge to do the Prince’s bidding. Vladimir lived long with Sarantha, yet he sent us out to live alone. His sons stayed behind, protected by him, yet we were sent to die alone. I did not choose death but embraced life, and I have studied much. There are others like me, but I will be the one to rule. Now that I have you, I will be a god and nothing will touch me. The Prince will bow to me. All hunters will tremble before me.”
Sara lifted her head. “I see now. Although you think yourself all-powerful, a god, you still have need of me. You have followed me for fifteen years, a puny human woman, a child when you found me, yet you could not catch up to me.”
He hissed, an ugly, frightening sound, a promise of brutal retaliation.
Sara frowned at him, sudden knowledge in her eyes. “You need me to find something for you. Something you can’t do yourself. You killed everybody I loved, yet you think I will help you. I don’t think so. Instead I intend to destroy you.”
“You do not have any idea of the pain I can inflict on you. The things I can make you do. I will derive great pleasure in bending you to my will. You have no idea how powerful I am.” The vampire’s parody of a smile exposed stained, jagged teeth. “I will enjoy seeing you suffer as you have been a plague to me for so long. Do not worry, my dear, I will keep you alive a very long time. You will find the tomb of the master wizard and the book of knowledge that will give me untold power. I have acquired several of his belongings, and you will know where the book is when you hold these items. Humans never know the true treasures for what they are. They lock them up in museums few people ever visit, and none see what is truly valuable. They believe that wizards and magic are mere fairy tales, and they live in ignorance. Humans deserve to be ruled with an iron fist. They are cattle, nothing more. Prey only, food for the gods.”
“Perhaps that is your impression of humans, but it is a false one. Otherwise how could I have evaded you for fifteen years?” Sara asked mildly. “I am not quite so insignificant as you would like me to believe.”
“How dare you mock me!” The vampire hissed, his features contorting with hatred as he suddenly looked around warily. “How is it you are alone? Are your keepers so inept they would allow you to walk around unprotected?”
“Why would you think they are not guarding me? They are all around me.” She sounded truthful, sincere.
His eyes narrowed and he pointed one daggerlike fingernail at her. Had she denied it, he would have been far more wary, but she was too quick to give the hunters away. “Do not try my patience. No Carpathian hunter would use his lifemate to bait a trap. He would hide you deep in the earth, coward that he is, knowing I am too powerful to stop.” He laughed softly, the sound a hideous screech. “It is your own arrogance that has caused your downfall. You ignored his orders and came out into the night without his knowledge or consent. That is a weakness of women. They do not think logically, always whining and wanting their way.” His dagger-sharp finger beckoned her. “Come to me now.” He used his mind, a sharp, hard compulsion designed to hurt, to put tremendous pressure on the brain even as it demanded obedience.
Sara continued to sit serenely, a slight frown on her soft mouth. She sighed and shook her head. “That has never worked on me before. Why should it now?”
Cursing, the vampire raised his arm, then changed his mind. The vibration of power would have given him away immediately to the Carpathian hunters. He stalked toward her, covering the short distance between them, his strides purposeful, his face a mask of rage at her impertinence.
Sara sat perfectly still and watched him come to her. The vampire bent his tall frame, extending his dagger-tipped bony fingers toward her. Sara exploded into action, only it was Falcon’s fist slamming hard into the chest cavity of the undead, as he returned to his true form. As Falcon did so, the vampire, with a look of sheer disbelief, stumbled back so that the fist barely penetrated his chest plate. Overhead, Jacques, in the shape of the owl, launched himself from the branches and flew straight at the undead, talons outstretched. The small fox grew in stature, shape-shifting into the tall, elegant frame of a male hunter, and Mikhail’s hands were already weaving a binding spell to prevent the vampire from shifting or vanishing.
Pressed from the air, caught between the hunters and unable to flee, the vampire launched his own attack, risking everything in the hopes of defeating the one Carpathian whose death might force the other two to pause. Calling on every ounce of power and knowledge he possessed, he slammed his fist into Falcon’s elbow, shattering bone. Then he whirled away, his body replicating itself over and over until there were a hundred clones of the undead. Half the clones initiated attacks using stakes or sharp-pointed spears; the others fled in various directions.
Jacques, in the owl form, drove talons straight through the head of a clone, going through empty air so that he was forced to pull up swiftly before hitting the ground. The air vibrated with power, with violence and hatred.
Each of the clones on the attack was weaving a different spell, and sprays of blood washed the surrounding air a toxic crimson. Falcon’s mind shut off the pain of his shattered elbow as he assessed the situation in that one heartbeat of time. It was all he had. All he would ever have. In that blink of an eye the centuries of his life passed, bleak and barren, stretching endlessly until Sara.
This is my gift to you.
She was his life. His soul. His future. But there was honor. There was what and who he was, what he stood for. He was guardian of his people.
She was there with him. His Sara. She understood that he had no other choice. It was everything he was. Without regret, Falcon flung his body between his Prince and the vampire moving in for the kill. A multitude of razor-sharp spears pierced Falcon’s body, taking his breath, spilling his life force onto the ground in dark rivers. As he toppled to earth, he reached out, slamming both open hands into the scarlet fountain on the vampire’s chest, leaving his prints like a neon sign for the other hunters to target.
Sara, sharing Falcon’s mind, reacted calmly, already knowing what to do. She had made good use of Falcon’s knowledge and she shut down his heart and lungs instantly, so that he lay as still as death on the battlefield. She concentrated, holding him to her, a flickering, dim light that wanted to retreat from pain. She had no time for sorrow. No time for emotion. She held him to her with the same fierce determination of the Carpathian people’s finest warrior as the battle raged on around him.