Carpathian 01 - Dark Prince

"What's wrong with you?" he demanded.
    A faint, taunting smile curved her soft mouth. "I'm dying. I think that's plain enough even for you to see."
    Her voice was low, a mere thread of sound, but so musical that it was impossible not to be entranced by it.

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    Slovensky advanced farther into the room. Raven could feel Mikhail in her, building his strength, his power, crouching, waiting to strike. She also felt a sudden uneasiness. Wait. The vampire comes. She dragged a shuddering breath into her laboring lungs, the sound loud and distressed in the room.
    Slovensky was shoved carelessly across the room with one powerful swat from Andre's hand. He stood framed in the doorway, flushed from a fresh kill. His eyes were flat and held a kind of contempt, a merciless promise of savagery. "Good morning, my dear. I am Andre, come to take you to your new home."
    He glided across the room, clearly enjoying his power over them all. As he approached her, his eyes darkened with rage. "You were told to feed on the priest."
    "You were told to go to hell." She said it in her soft, musical voice, deliberately baiting him.
    "You will learn it is better to obey me," he snapped. Angry at her defiance, he caught the priest by the front of his shirt and hurled him against the stone wall. It was done coldly, callously, without thought of the consequences. "If you are not going to use him for food, we have no need of him, do we?" The vampire's smile was wholly evil.
    Father Hummer's body had fallen to the floor heavily, his skull cracking audibly on impact. There was a gasping sound as his lungs fought for air, then a soft sigh as they gave up the fight.
    Raven bit back a scream, struggled for air, her grief so overwhelming, that for a moment her mind couldn't function. Mikhail, I'm sorry. I angered him. This is my fault.
    She felt the warmth of his love surround her, the brush of his fingers so tender on her face. Never that, my love. She felt his sorrow mingle with hers. Raven lifted her blue-violet eyes to the face of the vampire.
    "Now, how do you expect to control me?"
    The vampire bent down, his smile evil, his breath foul. "You will learn. Now you will feed." He snapped his fingers, and Slovensky nearly tripped over his own feet to run out of the cell and return with a glass of dark, murky liquid. His hand trembled as he passed it to the vampire, careful to avoid the razor-sharp long nails. "For you, my dear; breakfast." The vampire held the glass close enough for her to smell the contents. Fresh blood tainted with something else, some herb she didn't recognize.
    "Drugs, Andre? Isn't that stooping a little low even for one such as you?" She had to fight every moment just to breathe, to keep from breaking down and sobbing out her grief for the priest. If only she hadn't angered the vampire.
    Andre's face darkened when she uttered his name with such contempt, but he simply stared into her eyes, flooding her with compulsion, the need to obey him.
    Loathing him as she did, fearful for Mikhail and grief-stricken over the priest and Jacques, Raven summoned every ounce of strength she possessed and fought a mental battle with him. Her head nearly exploded with pain and only when little beads of blood appeared on her forehead did he relent.
    The vampire pushed down his fury at her rebellion. She was close to death and if she died all his scheming would be for nothing. "You will die if you do not feed. I know Mikhail knows this. Do you hear me, prince? She dies. Force her to accept what I offer."

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    You must do this, little one. Mikhail's voice was gently coaxing. You will be dead before I can reach you, and above all else, you must survive.
    The blood is drugged.
    Drugs do not effect Carpathians.
    Raven sighed, looked once more at the vampire. "What else is in it?"
    "Only herbs, my dear, herbs that will confuse you a bit, but will ensure that my friends have plenty of time to study Mikhail. They can keep him alive, a prisoner here. Is that not what you want? That he remain alive? The alternative is to kill him immediately." He pushed the glass at her.
    Her stomach knotted in rebellion. It would just be so much easier to close her eyes and stop struggling for every breath. She could barely stand the pain in her head. She was responsible for Jacques's grave wound, for Father Hummer's death.