Dark Tarot (Dark Carpathians)

He set her down, and she deliberately looked all around her feet as if looking for leeches before she began to add her weave of protection to the Carpathian safeguard. She was preparing the brethren for her little payback, but she was also serious, and she was thorough, making certain that Nera couldn’t penetrate their defenses if she found them.

“Sandu, can you light the way a little better?” she asked as they began moving through the narrow passage toward the deeper spaces away from the waterwall. She kept glancing down nervously at her feet as if she suspected, any minute, that leeches would surge up her feet and legs.

Sandu obliged her, and she caught the guardians giving one another knowing looks. If there was shared amusement, it was through her lifemate. He shared emotions with them when they weren’t in her mind so she could lighten their burdens. Let them have their fun. She wanted them to think she believed them.

The passage opened into a series of large chambers, each bursting into startling sparkling light when Benedek waved at the upper walls to install sconces. The moment they lit, the gems embedded in the dirt glittered with shockingly bright colors as if they’d been polished. She wanted to stay and examine each section they passed through, but they kept walking.

Adalasia practiced temperature control. The caves were surprisingly hot. She thought they would be cold so far under the ground, but it was the opposite. Roots had burst through the dirt in many places, looking for all the world like strange, groping, hairy arms. There was that constant sound of dripping water. In some of the chambers they walked through, there were pools of standing water that looked shallow and dirty, others that were deeper. There was mud and there were mostly dry surfaces.

Then the chambers opened up into an entire underground world. Light streamed in from tiny cracks in the rocks, allowing seeds from plants to grow in the rich soil. The cracks were very small but there were many, allowing light to come in from above them and, in some cases, as they continued to walk through the high-ceilinged caves, the sides.

“This is amazing,” Adalasia said. “It’s crazy that no one is aware it’s all down here.”

“They will discover it soon enough,” Sandu replied. “The grounds above will continue to erode with time, and the cracks will widen. When the water pours through, it chips away at rock. It will take time, but it will happen eventually.”

They came to a very large chamber that looked almost like a grassy meadow with a few ferns growing. Sandu waved his hands to help illuminate the space with more sconces. He gave the area more of an indoor feel by spreading a lush carpet and adding chairs and a table.

Adalasia’s heart accelerated. The chairs were set in a semicircle around the table. She knew the guardians wanted her to read the cards for them. She’d hoped, as they walked through the chambers, that everyone had just forgotten they wanted readings. Or changed their minds.

As usual, Sandu had paid attention to detail. The chairs were extremely comfortable-looking, but they were antiques. The table was an antique, one that was replicated exactly from the home she’d shared with her mother. The sconces on the wall were very old-fashioned, looking as if they burned candles, and the flickering lights danced on the gem-studded walls.

The brethren stood looking at her expectantly. They were so large. Tall men with broad shoulders and absurdly long hair that didn’t belong in this century. Their faces were chiseled and etched with lines, yet they appeared young, with their heavily muscled bodies. They were warriors, and it showed in their stillness and in the fluid, easy way they moved.

They surrounded her. Adalasia thought she’d gotten over being intimidated by them, especially now that she was Carpathian as well, but even drawing herself up to her full height, there were times, like now, when she felt their immense power. Their auras were dark and difficult to read. She shared a bond with them, and yet she couldn’t move past the barriers in their minds.

She knew there was that same scarring on their souls that couldn’t be removed. They thought of their souls in tatters, dark and beyond saving, with numerous holes, but whatever was left had thick layers of scar tissue built up from battle after battle, kill after kill. Too many, until they were no longer just Carpathian but not the undead. They were . . . predators. Living for battle.

They felt the rush of the fight, the rush of the kill, but didn’t realize they did. She had experienced it. Sandu hadn’t. He didn’t wholly realize that the electric energy sizzled through his bloodstream with his adrenaline when he went into battle. That he changed completely into a cunning, animalistic predator eager for the fight.