Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

Sandu raised an eyebrow. “You certainly are aware of Lucian’s business.”

“I’ve run into him a time or two in my travels, both in France and in the Carpathian Mountains. Both times, I needed blood to survive, and he gave it to me without hesitation,” Nicu admitted.

“Where is his main residence?” Sandu asked.

“I believe he owns an estate in Montana somewhere in the wild. He keeps wolves,” Nicu said. “Most people don’t go uninvited to his home. It isn’t safe.”

Adalasia didn’t like the sound of that, but when she looked down at the cards, she knew that was exactly where they had to go. She sighed. “You really need a good jolt to the brain, Sandu. That way we wouldn’t be taking chances like this.”

Sandu laughed, and the sound was mellow and rich, sliding into her body like a fine wine. She gathered the cards. “We have a direction to go. How do we get there? Car?”

“Fly,” Sandu said.

She raised an eyebrow. “Really? I’m not flying across the United States like a bat. Or a bird. Or whatever you were.”

He laughed. “We do use airplanes, just like everyone else.”

“You do?”

“We didn’t just emerge from caves.”

“Just from the monastery,” Benedek pointed out. “We haven’t been out that long, but we’re learning fast. We just take information out of people’s minds.”

“You can read anyone’s mind?” She carefully placed the cards back inside the velvet pouch. “At any time?”

Adalasia didn’t like the sound of that. She thought only Sandu could read her mind. She was going to have to be very, very careful and work on the exercises her mother had insisted she learn as a child that would aid in strengthening the barriers in her mind against demons. She didn’t know if that would help in stopping these men from reading her, but she hoped it would.

Adalasia pushed to her feet. Immediately the five men stood as well. “So, how do we get out of here and onto a flight to Montana, or wherever this Lucian might have his home? How do we contact him so he doesn’t get upset that we’re coming to see him?”

“We have our own plane,” Sandu said. “Carpathians rarely take the chance of flying with a full flight of humans. The risk is too great. Our plane is specifically equipped to allow us to sleep during daylight flights.”

“Do you have your own pilot, or does one of you fly the plane?”

“We have a human pilot,” Sandu said. “Zenon Santos has been with us for a long time now and is very loyal. He comes from a family in South America, studied in England and grew to love flying in service to his country. When he got out, he asked to be employed in some capacity as a pilot. Since we needed pilots, we hired him immediately.”

“He knows about you? That you’re Carpathian?”

“Yes. He comes from a family that has lived in a symbiotic relationship with one of our families for centuries. They have passed the secrets down from father to son, mother to daughter, and protected our kind just as we have protected them. They have fought by our side when the vampire attacked full force in an attempt to wipe us out.”

That was interesting. They had humans as allies, ones they trusted. The humans trusted them. “Are there others like them? Humans that know about your species?”

Sandu lifted her into his arms when she had gathered her things into her satchel. “A few.” He nuzzled the top of her head with his chin, causing her hair to get caught in the bristles along his jaw, connecting them together.

A shiver of awareness ran down her spine. Each strand of her hair seemed to deliver information to her, which was an impossibility, right? Right? That can’t be. It certainly seemed to be as if not only the cells and nerves in her body were aware of him, but now her hair was, every hair on her body tuned to him.

What are whiskers on animals? They are really a guidance system, or radar, with a bundle of nerve endings telegraphing to the animal everything it needs to know. Prey. Distance. Air pressure and currents. If he can fit through an opening. How far away his prey is or if danger is close to him. Whiskers are their tracking systems, guidance and radar. They perform acrobatic stunts and know when and where to strike on prey, all because of those whiskers.

I don’t have whiskers. She tried to be indignant.

He bent his head to the nape of her neck and scraped his teeth along the hair there, sending jagged little shocks through her veins, like tiny spears straight to her sex. You have bundles of nerve endings, and they will continue to grow more sensitive.

She turned that information over in her mind as they moved with blurring speed through the cave system. The other Carpathian males went before them, moving toward some unknown exit. She didn’t even hear the grinding as they widened the crevice so they could emerge, and then closed it as if it had never been tampered with as she tried to puzzle out what he meant. She was missing something important, something he meant by saying her nerve endings would grow even more sensitive. Why would they?