Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

We are in the air. Fairly high up and moving quickly, heading for the San Bernardino National Forest. Your enemies will not easily find you there. We can make our plans for our journey and how best to start it. Let me drop lower and slow down so you won’t get dizzy. I’ll tell you when it is safe to open your eyes.

Her fingers tightened around his neck. I can’t believe we’re actually in the air, but I can feel the wind rushing around me. I can hear it. Why don’t I feel cold?

I would never allow you to be cold.

His assurance seemed to buy him more trust with her. The fingers at the nape of his neck began to knead into his skin like a cat, but there was a wholly intimate component to it. Just as there was an intimate factor to speaking mind to mind. Each time she spoke to him, her voice brushed that whisper into lonely places he thought would never be filled. His soul might still be torn in half, the blackened remains tattered and filled with holes, scarred in too many places to count, but already he felt lighter just having her close.

“Try now. If the wind is too much, let me know and I will shield you more.”

She shifted just a little bit more, one hand curling tightly around his neck, anchoring her, the other fisting his shirt while she turned her body, careful of her satchel. Sandu!

For a moment he was seeing out of her eyes, a dark world streaking below them, passing too fast. She shifted her gaze to the stars above and gasped again.

It’s beautiful. Scary but beautiful. She clutched his shirt tighter and dug her fingers deeper into his skin. Is this real? I feel as if I’m in a dream.

There are many things I wish to show you, ewal emninumam. The earth is a beautiful and exciting place.

He had forgotten the beauty of the night sky until he saw it through her eyes. He wanted to see the forest and the caves, gemstones and waterfalls, so many places he’d traveled that had all been colorless battlegrounds to him. He would view them so differently with her by his side.

How was Adalasia so easily accepting the things he was showing her—taking her through the air? Most humans would never understand the abilities a Carpathian had, yet she took them in stride. There was trepidation, but she didn’t fight him; she came with him. She didn’t argue; she followed his lead. She had training, all those weapons she so easily carried on her. The “history” she had in her mind. His lifemate had her own secrets, and their journey together was going to be one very interesting path.

The system of caves Sandu had found was not one that had been explored or used by humans as of yet. The ancients had discovered it the way they often did—by following a tiny bat or listening for the sound of the creatures underground. In this case, the opening was a very small crack no one would ever notice, where an earthquake had shaken the ground enough to cause a shift. A boulder had moved no more than a scant millimeter or so, enough to allow bats to penetrate inside that long, narrow fissure.

The fracture wasn’t the only one the ancients had discovered. The system was fairly large, and there were several places of entry, allowing airflow into the caves. They had made certain to conceal the largest of the fissures, placing safeguards around them to keep people and vampires from finding their place of safety. This was an area they could retreat to when they were wounded and needed to find healing grounds.

He dropped down to the floor beside the large boulder, where the slight crack was hidden by moss and debris. Setting Adalasia on her feet, he kept his hands on her waist to steady her. “My brethren will be meeting us here to ensure your safety.”

She raised one eyebrow as she looked around. The white knuckles of the hand clutching her satchel were the only indication of tension. “I doubt very much that Mr. Castello and his friends would be able to follow us here. I think we’ve successfully lost them.” There was the tiniest note of amusement in her voice in spite of her nerves.

“Mr. Castello is not our only enemy. I believe we have more than one.” He watched her closely.

Adalasia pressed her lips together and then nodded her head slowly as she took a cautious look around. “Are there wild animals out here? I’m not really afraid of too many things, but I don’t know that much about defending myself against wild animals. I’ve mainly learned self-defense against . . . humans.”

There had been more than humans in her mind. For one moment, a hellish image had arisen, just a small glimpse that came and went so fast he couldn’t catch it. Red, glowing eyes staring at him out of rolling orange, yellow and red flames. The thing of nightmares. The undead? He was well versed in the vampire. Was she? And then there was . . . him. At times, in battle, when he became that brutal, vicious fighter, uncaring of anything destroying his opponent, his eyes took on that same red, glowing with fierce, fiery flames. Had she seen him in her nightmares? He pushed the thought from his mind.