Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

The woman screamed as the Carpathian male behind her entered her, and the two set a fast rhythm. Then he leaned down and once again bit into her neck. It was clear neither had any regard for the woman, only for their own pleasure.

Even with the brutality they showed, more women crawled toward them because the two men demanded it, snapping their fingers and beckoning.

“You gave up who you were. He forced that on you. Took from you without asking and then wasn’t in the least remorseful. He thought it his right. What changed in his life? What did he give up for you? Certainly not his way of life. Look at him. This is what he expects of you with the others he introduced into your life.”

Adalasia felt sick. Tears tracked down her face, and when she wiped at them, she discovered she was merely smearing blood over her cheeks.

It was true that Sandu’s life hadn’t changed much. He hadn’t given up being Carpathian. He had given her two blood exchanges without her consent. He had bound them together. Converted her. He was the same. She was different. Her entire world was different. She had to learn to take blood, to sleep beneath the ground. Sandu still had everything he had before and more. His emotions. His colors. His friends. This. Women. His obsession. His addiction.

Blinking several times to clear her vision, she stared at her lifemate and the ugly, brutal sexual way he and his friend treated the women. At first, all she could see was her own humiliation and insecurities. Her own doubts. These were beautiful women, without a single flaw on their bodies, and yet Sandu and his companion carelessly cast them aside.

She had many flaws. She wasn’t nearly as feminine. She never would be. She was raised to be a warrior, a fighter, and she had steel running beneath her curves. Every muscle had been honed into that of a combatant. Sandu would feel every one of those muscles beneath her skin.

She didn’t dare take a deep breath, not when there was the distinct smell of sulfur in the air, reminding her this rain forest wasn’t the same as the one she had come from.

“Leave him here to his women and his madness. He isn’t worth it. You know that. Don’t be made a fool of, Adalasia. He cares nothing for you, only his own pleasures. He seeks to force your obedience as he does with these women. You see he cares nothing for them, either.”

She hadn’t come to this place to pass judgment on Sandu, or to even decide what was behind those barricades in his mind. Why had she come? She fought with the weird disorientation she felt, as if her brain couldn’t retrieve the information. She refused to give up. She kept looking for it everywhere. To return him home. There was her answer. She had come to bring her lifemate home.

She kept blinking, trying to see through a strange ripple that occurred when she cleared her mind even for a moment. Her vision blurred with the ripple, but she kept the sight of Sandu and his companion in her head, examining it from every angle, trying to shed her own ego in the way Carpathians did before they healed one another.

Sandu’s broad back was toward her. She stripped away the women crawling around on the ground. Stripped away the one sandwiched between his companion and him. She looked only at Sandu. At his back. At the oath carved into his skin.

Olen wäkeva kuntankért. Staying strong for our people.

Olen wäkeva pita belso kulymet. Staying strong to keep the demon inside.

Olen wäkeva— félért ku vigyázak. Staying strong for her.

Hängemért. Only her.

She murmured the Carpathian vows aloud over and over until they were a chant. A talisman. Sandu had those vows carved into his skin. He’d told her what they meant. She’d heard the truth in his voice. He couldn’t deceive her. Those same vows were carved into the back of the man in the clearing, but this was the shadow realm. The land of illusions. The land of deceit.

“Sandu is my lifemate,” she stated. “I will go to him and bring him home with me.” She took a step out of the forest into the clearing.

Beneath her feet, the ground shuddered. At once, she heard wailing, the sound rising and falling, coming from every direction. The moment she set foot in the clearing, the women turned their heads toward her and their disguises fell away. They weren’t female but vampires, their rotted corpses in various stages of decay. They began to drag themselves toward her, their blackened, jagged teeth set in skinless skulls. Tufts of hair stuck out on some of the skulls, while others were bare.

Sandu wasn’t there at all. The illusion of him vanished completely, leaving her to face a mob of vampires bent on reaching her. She could hear them calling out to her. Calling her “fresh blood.” “Real blood.” She forced her heart to stay calm. She doubted this was another illusion, but she had to face the mob with courage.