Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

The demons had flayed the skin from his chest and back with their vicious whips. The evidence was everywhere, making her want to weep. She wouldn’t. She had seen him when they first got him back to his body. The body had looked normal until his spirit had reunited with it. Every bit of torture inflicted on him there in the shadow realm, in the Cave of Fire, was suddenly manifested on and in his body. The brethren and Luiz had worked each night to heal him and lessen the terrible evidence of what the demons had done to him.

Two weeks he had slept in the healing soil. She had slept beside him, waking to practice her skills in opening the earth, clothing herself, shifting and taking blood. She was determined to learn as much as she could so that if they were alone, she would be able to come to his aid in a battle, even with the undead.

Each of the evenings, one of the brethren waited beside their resting place for her to awaken. He allowed her to practice taking blood from him. Then he trained her in shifting. That was the biggest lesson all of the guardians wanted her to accomplish. Shifting into mist, into animals and birds, into the smallest reptile. Shifting on the run, as fast as possible.

She learned how exacting each of the guardians were. They wanted her to be faster each time she did anything at all. They insisted she practice over and over until she was exhausted. She felt almost like she did when she was first starting her training in fighting demons.

Luiz taught her how to shed her body and become a healing spirit. She had to cast off all ego, all sense of self, and work only to heal another. She especially liked it when he took her with him to heal Sandu’s body. The first few times, she hadn’t done well, sobbing at the damage she found, finding herself back in her own body, but Luiz didn’t give up on her. He patiently explained how she had to push all emotion aside in order to heal a lifemate’s worst wounds. She wanted to be able to save Sandu if he was injured in a battle with the undead, so she kept practicing, determined to learn to overcome her emotions.

The guardians and Luiz insisted they give Sandu blood twice each night. They didn’t want her to do it. Luiz and each of the guardians examined his body carefully for parasites or bacteria they may have missed. They were careful with him, rarely waking him, and only to insist he take their blood to help him heal. When he was awake, he always reached for her first, and it was those moments she felt she lived for. To feel him in her mind, even for just a moment, to know he really was alive and back with her.

Adalasia hadn’t told the others that each time their minds merged, she saw disturbing images in Sandu’s. She didn’t have time to examine those images before he was gone again, slipping back into the healing sleep of the Carpathian people. Perhaps, before she woke him fully, she should address her concerns with one of them, but it seemed almost a betrayal. Sandu was vulnerable in his present state. He was an ancient, and he wouldn’t want even his brethren to know his mind was fractured. His body, yes, but not his mind. She knew that instinctively.

Sandu moved, awareness coming to him wholly, not in stages, just that abrupt, complete cognizance that the Carpathian hunters seemed to have. He was automatically scanning everything around him, looking into his memories, as well as hers. She felt him move in her mind even as his lashes swept up and she found herself looking into his obsidiandark eyes.

She stayed silent while he gained knowledge of what had transpired during the time he had been in the healing soil. He looked further back, trying to understand what had happened to him, trying to learn what was real and what might be illusion.

Adalasia waited patiently until his focus was completely on her. She smiled at him. “I missed you.”

He reached up and framed the side of her face with his palm. “You came for me.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“I did not want you to come anywhere near that place. The demons set a trap for you, using me as bait. I feared you would come because I know how courageous you are.”

“It wasn’t courage, Sandu,” she denied. “It was because if that is where you are, then that is where I will be.”

His thumb slid gently, almost reverently, over her lips. “All those centuries I was alone and thought I had gone far past my time. The demon in me is strong, Adalasia, and it always will be. There, in the shadow realm, without you, surrounded by the demons Nera sent, they saw that in me, how strong it was. They sent temptation after temptation to me. I was drained of blood and there was so much pain.” He frowned. “I could not get away from it. No matter how I tried to distance myself, I could not. I knew then that I would spend my days in agony, but I would not give them the satisfaction of betraying my lifemate.”