Dark Prince (35 page)

"The risk is well worth the continuation of our race. Romanov is a danger we cannot afford. We should be concentrating our efforts on finding women to continue our race, not fighting off vampire hunters. I believe it is only a handful of human women, women with great psychic ability who can mate with our males."

"On what do you base this theory?" Mikhail asked softly, a thread of menace creeping into his tone. Experimenting with women was an unforgivable crime.

Gregori's silver eyes narrowed, glittered. The black emptiness was growing in Gregori, a dark stain spreading over his soul. He made no effort to hide it from Mikhail. It was as if he wanted to show Mikhail just how desperate the situation was becoming. "I have done many dark, ugly, unforgivable things, but I would never use a female for experimental purposes. I must be the one to take Romanov's blood if you insist on the continuation of his life." Gregori was not asking.

The two Carpathians moved easily through the narrow halls of the psychiatric ward of the hospital. The humans experienced a cold sensation, nothing more, as the two passed unseen through the building. They streamed through a lock hole, a flow of vapor like a heavy tinted fog, swirling through the room to wrap around Romanov's body like a shroud. Romanov cried out, fear gripping him as the mist wound around him like a snake, slithering over his ribs, his wrist, curling around his neck and beginning to wind tighter and tighter. He could feel it on his skin, a vice that continued to twist his body like a corkscrew, but as Romanov clawed at the vapor, his hands passed right through it. Voices hissed hideously, whispered, threatened, so quiet as to be mere threads of sound in his head. He clapped his palms over his ears in an attempt to stop the insidious murmuring. Saliva dribbled from his slack mouth; his throat worked convulsively.

The mist separated, one part trailing to a comer and hovering just above the floor. The other slowly thickened, shimmered, began to take shape, until it formed a muscular, broad-shouldered man with pale eyes of death. Rudy began to shake uncontrollably, backing into a corner, making himself as small as possible. The apparition was too vivid, too menacing to be anything but real.

"Romanov." Gregori's fangs gleamed white in the darkened room.

"What are you?" The words came out a hoarse croak.

The pale eyes glittered, narrowed to unblinking slits. "You know." The pale eyes stared into Rudy's, stared deeply. Gregori's voice dropped to a low black velvet assault. Hypnotic. Mesmerizing. Compelling. "Come to me; feed me. Become my servant until I see fit to give you the curse of darkness."

There was dawning comprehension in Romanov's eyes, horror, and what amounted to terror. But he inched closer, moving his shirt away from his jugular. Gregori whispered again, his voice so seductive, so compelling, a tool of power. "You will serve me now, come at my bidding, inform me when it is necessary." He bent his dark head slowly.

Romanov knew his soul was lost. He could feel such power in the stranger, immense strength, and the ability to do things no human could imagine. Immortality. The seduction beckoned him. He went willingly, turning his head to expose his throat. Hot breath, piercing pain as the fangs sunk deep. Romanov could actually feel his life's blood flowing like a river from his body. The pain was intense, a burning hell he was helpless to stop. Nor did he wish to. A curious languor swept over him; his eyelids were far too heavy to lift.

The mist thickened in the room, wrapped around Gregori, streamed between the Carpathian and his prey. Reluctantly, with a growl of protest, Gregori lifted his head from his feeding and contemptuously allowed the limp body to slump to the floor.

You nearly killed him
, Mikhail snapped.

He deserves death. He is rotten and empty inside, already corrupt. He wants endless nights, helpless women, the power of life and death over mankind. There is much in him like his grandfather and father. He is a hollow shell with worms eating what good is left in him. His mind is a maze of deviant desires.

He cannot die this way, Gregori.
It was a hiss in Gregori's mind, a sign of Mikhail's displeasure.
As it is, we have enough attention directed at our people. If Romanov dies from severe blood loss…

I am not so careless.
Gregori shoved the body aside with his foot.
He will live. It was his grandfather that began this…

His name was Raul; do you remember him? He was demented as an old man, vicious as a young one. He beat his wife and went after young girls. I stopped him once.
Mikhail was suddenly thoughtful.

And earned not only his hatred, but also his suspicion. He watched you after that. Spied on you every chance he got, hoping to find something to condemn you. Something gave you away
—
a gesture, the way you spoke; who knows? He passed his suspicions on to Hans.
Gregori gave the body another push with his foot.
Romanov used a fax machine to send copies of the evidence to several individuals. The originals are in his house, under the floorboards in his parents' bedroom.
Gregori watched as Rudy Romanov attempted to crawl away from him.
Sooner or later they will come.

Gregori's body shimmered, dissolved, so that mist swirled in the room, long snakelike ribbons of fog where the Carpathian had been. The vapor approached Romanov where he cowered close to the floor, streamed close to his head, his throat; then the mist poured from the room, leaving Romanov sobbing helplessly.

Mikhail and Gregori glided through the corridor, swiftly, silently, hurrying into the night's freshness. After the depravity of Rudy's mind, they needed the connection with the earth again. Once outside, Gregori forced the drugs through his pores to rid himself of the poison. Mikhail watched him do it, marveling at his ease. Gregori was quiet on the journey to Romanov's cottage. Mikhail respected his need to breathe in the night's scents, to feel the ground beneath his feet, hear the music of the wolves, the night creatures calling with their soothing rhythms.

In the safety of the Romanov home, Gregori made his way unerringly to the papers crudely hidden beneath the floorboards. Mikhail took the old photographs and the bundle of papers without even glancing at them. "Tell me everything in his mind."

Gregori's silver eyes glittered dangerously. "A man named Slovensky, Eugene Slovensky, is a member of a secret society dedicated to wiping out vampires. Von Halen, Anton Fabrezo, and Dieter Hodkins are the so-called experts who investigate and mark victims for kills. Slovensky recruits, and confirms and records kills."

Mikhail swore softly, eloquently. "Another vampire hunt will destroy our people."

Gregori shrugged his massive shoulders. "I will hunt and destroy these men. You take Raven and go far from this place.

I feel your protest, Mikhail, but it is the only way, and we both know it."

"I cannot trade my happiness for your soul."

The silver eyes moved over Mikhail, then sought the night. "There are no other choices left to us. My only hope of salvation is a lifemate. I no longer feel, Mikhail; I fulfill my needs. There are no longer desires of the body, only of the mind. I cannot remember what it is to feel the things you feel. There is no joy in my life. I simply exist and do my duty toward our people. I must have a lifemate soon. I can only hold out a few more years; then I will seek eternal rest."

"You will not seek the sun, Gregori, not without coming to me first." Mikhail held up his hand when Gregori would have protested. "I have been where you are, alone, the monster in me struggling for dominance, the stain on my soul dark. Our people need you. You must remain strong and fight the monster crouching so close."

Gregori's silver eyes glittered dangerously in the darkened room, pale and menacing. "Do not overestimate my affection or loyalty. I must have a mate. If I feel something, anything—lust, possession,
anything
—I will take what is mine and dare anyone to take her from me." Abruptly Gregori's large frame shimmered, dissolving into water crystals, and streamed from the house out into the welcoming arms of the night.
Let us leave this house of madness and death. Perhaps it is the tainted blood I took into my body speaking.

With a sigh, Mikhail followed Gregori into the night. The twin ribbons of vapor glinted in the moonlight, joined the tendrils of fog rippling several feet above the forest floor. Anxious to return to Raven, Mikhail streamed through the trees toward the clearing that separated the houses from the deep forest. As he flowed past the priest's cabin and into the meadow, his mind rippled with uneasiness. The warning jarred enough that he retreated back to Father Hummer's home and, in the shelter of the trees, took back his human form. His mind touched Raven's. Nothing threatened her.

"What is it?" Gregori materialized beside Mikhail.

They scanned the immediate area for danger. It was the soil that told of violence—trampling boots, droplets of blood.

Mikhail raised stricken eyes to Gregori's pale ones, and they both turned simultaneously to look at the cabin of his old friend.

"I will go first," Gregori said, with as much compassion as he was capable of interjecting into his voice. He stepped smoothly between Mikhail and the entrance to the priest's home.

The neat little cabin, so comfortable and homey, had been destroyed, ransacked. The simple furniture was broken, the curtains askew, old pottery dishes smashed. The priest's precious books had been torn, his pictures slashed to ribbons. Father Hummer's herbs, so carefully kept in tins, lay in a heap on the floor of the kitchen. His thin mattress was in scraps, his blankets shredded.

"What were they looking for?" Mikhail mused aloud, wandering around the room. He stooped to pick up a rook, curling his fingers around the familiar chess piece. There were bloodstains on the floor, on the old carved rocking chair.

"There is no body," Gregori pointed out unnecessarily. He reached down and picked up a very old leather-bound Bible. The book was well worn, the leather shiny where the priest's fingers had so often held it. "But where there is stench, there is a trail." Gregori handed Mikhail the Bible, watching as their prince wordlessly slipped the book under his shirt, against his skin.

Gregori's broad, muscular frame bent, crackled. Glossy fur rippled along his arms, claws burst from his fingernails, and fangs exploded into a lengthening muzzle. The huge black wolf was already springing for the window, changing on the run. Mikhail followed, leaping through the trees, circling back, nose to the ground. The scent led away from town toward the deep forest. The trail climbed higher and higher into the mountains. The direction took them away from Raven and Jacques. Whoever had taken Father Hummer wanted to be alone with him to do his dirty work.

Mikhail and Gregori raced at a ground-eating run, shoulder to shoulder, dark deadly purpose in their hearts. They ran noses to the wind, lowering their muzzles occasionally to the trail to assure themselves that they were following the priest's scent. Their powerful muscles rippled along their backs, their hearts and lungs working like well-oiled machines. Animals scurried out of their path, hunkered down in terror at their passing.

A pungent, unfamiliar odor marked a tree on their present course. Mikhail broke stride. They had crossed the boundaries of Mikhail's wolf pack and entered another's territory. Wolves frequently attacked intruders. Mikhail sent out a call, allowing the wind to carry their message in an attempt to locate the dominant pair.

With the smell of the priest's blood, it was fairly easy to follow the trail. But a strange uneasiness began to grow in Mikhail. Something was eluding him. They had covered miles at a dead run, yet the trail never changed. The scent was not fresher, not fading, simply the same. A slight noise above them was their only warning, a curious grinding like rock against rock. They were in a narrow ravine, with steep walls rising on either side. Both wolves immediately dissolved, became tiny droplets of fog. The shower of rocks and boulders from overhead pelted uselessly through the insubstantial mist.

Simultaneously, Mikhail and Gregori launched themselves skyward, bodies forming as they landed with catlike grace on the cliff above them. There was no priest and certainly no attacker. Mikhail glanced uneasily at Gregori. "No human could have done this."

"The priest did not walk this distance, and no mortal carried him," Gregori said thoughtfully. "His blood was used as a trap then, to draw us here." Both were scanning, using every natural weapon they possessed. "This is the work of a vampire."

"He is clever enough not to leave his own scent for us," Mikhail observed.

A pack of wolves boiled from the trees, red eyes fixed on Mikhail. Snarling and snapping, the animals sprang for the tall, elegant figure standing with casual grace so close to the edge of the cliff. Gregori was a whirling demon, flinging animals down the ravine, snapping bones as if they were match-sticks. He never made a sound, and his speed was supernatural—so fast he seemed to blur.

Mikhail never moved from his spot, sadness filling his soul. Such a waste of life. A tragedy. Gregori was able to destroy life so easily, with no feeling, no regret. That told Mikhail, more than anything, just how desperate his people's plight really was.

"You take too many chances," Gregori growled in reprimand, materializing beside Mikhail. "They were programmed to destroy you. You should have made certain you removed yourself from harm's way."

Mikhail surveyed the destruction and death surrounding him. Not one body had gotten within ten feet of him. "I knew you would never allow such a thing. He will never rest now until he destroys you, Gregori."

A faint, wolfish grin touched Gregori's mouth. "That is the idea, Mikhail. This is my invitation to him. He has the right to challenge you openly if he so desires, but he is betraying you to mortals. Such treachery will never be tolerated."

"We need to find Father Hummer," Mikhail said softly. "He is too old to survive such a brutal attack. The vampire will not keep him alive once the sun begins to rise."