Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

This time of night, the malls were closed, but the bars and nightclubs were full as people had gotten off work, eaten and were looking for company and a good time. He knew from his long experience that vampires would welcome the hunt in the crowded, dark taverns, luring their victims outside, where they could take their lives and discard their bodies like so much garbage.

Sandu found no evidence of the undead anywhere nearby. He was uneasy but could find no reason for his alarm to be giving him even a vague warning. Somewhere close, his lifemate could be in danger. The apprehension might be about her. He’d been in her mind, just as she’d been in his. There was now a path forged between them, whether she knew it or not. That meant he would feel any threat to her.

He floated to the sidewalk, keeping away from any of the people coming and going from the various buildings around him. The pull on him was strongest toward the narrow alley between two structures. He walked that way and turned into what appeared to be nothing more than a sparsely grass-and-dirt-covered path between the buildings. There were no lights other than what was spilling from the windows on either side.

There was no doubt that others had come this way. The grass had been trampled, and the dirt had been pressed deep and tight. As he continued down the alley, he came to a fork. He could choose either way to proceed. Both sides seemed to be well traveled, and the strange muffled sounds of laughter and multiple conversations were coming from either direction.

Sandu stayed still, listening, filtering through the various voices and the muted music and sudden flare of laughter only to have it cut off abruptly. He caught that one soft note he’d waited for. Her note. She was somewhere behind the buildings in the maze of alleyways. He felt the pull of her and took the very narrow passage to his right. Beneath his feet, the grass and dirt gave way to brick and dirt. He knew others had come this way because he felt the concentration of their cells left behind as they passed. Hair. Skin. Nails. It was all there, unseen by others, but to him, it was glaringly obvious.

Sandu had undertaken many journeys in his life over the far too many years he’d been alive, but none were, perhaps, as foolish as this one. He walked soundlessly along the narrow pathway, following the whisper of the note that had gotten under his skin when nothing ever had—ever could. It was impossible, and yet those whispers called to him in a dark conspiracy he couldn’t ignore. There was something here other than the path leading to his lifemate.

He needed to figure out what he was getting himself into. Where was this often-traveled alley taking him to? He wasn’t alone. No one was behind him. There were people in front of him. Several. More a good distance in front of him. Over his head, on the rooftops, he felt the presence of others, not that they were necessarily paying him attention—at least not yet. He had cloaked his presence for the moment. There was zero fighting room in the alley, and he was assessing the situation.

His life was an endless, empty void. He woke. He took what he needed to survive, and he hunted prey. He was an excellent hunter, and once a target was acquired, it was rare that he missed. But this . . . this was something that was different. Something new in his very long life, and anything new or different was intriguing and therefore potentially dangerous.

Sandu knew he shouldn’t be intrigued—it was an impossibility for his kind. He shouldn’t feel anything at all, and yet—he did. There was an odd thrumming, like the beat of a drum in his veins, answering that whisper of a note he followed. It was as if his very heart tuned to that strange note buried among all the voices he heard. His lungs wanted to breathe in tune to that nearly muted sound. His lifemate. There was no mistake, as much as his mind kept telling him it couldn’t be true that he’d found her.

It had to be a trap. If it was, it was new. He’d seen many over the centuries. He hunted the undead, and the master vampires were skilled and intelligent. They could never be underestimated for one moment. If, as a hunter, one began to believe they were smarter or faster, one would lose their life every time. There was a reason the undead survived long enough to become master vampires. Masters were rarely alone. They had pawns and they used them ruthlessly. They recruited humans. Sometimes psychic humans.

Colors and emotions could only be returned to him by his true lifemate. There was never a mistake. That didn’t mean his lifemate wasn’t under siege, kidnapped or part of the conspiracy to trap him knowingly or unknowingly.