Carpathian 05 - Dark Challenge

family shared with one another. Do not drink his blood, Barack. He is dead already. You have destroyed him. The blood is tainted . Julian spoke softly into the mind of one gone mad with rage.
    Do not interfere. He lives.
    When Julian glided toward the struggling pair, Barack roared a warning, a growl that shook the hall.
    Julian stopped at once, not in the least surprised when Darius materialized at his side.
    "Do not, Barack." Darius's voice was a soft menace. "You cannot drink as he dies. Not in the rage you are in. Release him and allow him to fall away from you."
    Barack lifted his head, his fangs stained red, his eyes glowing hotly. The heart was flung aside, still pulsing wickedly. The rumbling grew louder, a clear warning to back away from him.
    Darius and Julian glanced at one another with the same thought. If they joined together, they could force Barack to obedience, but he would never trust nor respect either of them again. Barack was definitely dangerous, and neither wanted to alienate him. He was a
    Carpathian male, and it was his right to do as he was doing, protect the females in his family unit. Protect any female of their race. Not only his right but his duty.
    Julian reached for the leopards' minds and found Syndil nestled in the smaller female cat's body. Barack is in danger. We cannot reach him. You must do it. Call to him. Do it now before it is too late and he is lost to us for all eternity. He cannot consume the blood of the thing he is killing .
    Julian felt Syndil's immediate alarm. At once she shape-shifted, taking her human form, her slender, shapely figure shorter than Desari's but radiating the same inner light and beauty of the Carpathian female.
    She moved with fluid, elegant grace, her dark, expressive eyes touching him, then jumping away hastily as she gave him a wide berth. Her gasp was audible as she surveyed the bloody, violent scene in the hallway and the darkness so close to the surface in Barack, his own face nearly that of the beast within the Carpathian male. Darius was close to the undead, close enough to distract Barack from feasting on its blood. Still, power and rage ate at the younger Carpathian, allowing the beast within to take over his mind, so that all that was left was instinct and fury.
    Without hesitation, Syndil approached Barack. "Do not step in the blood," Darius cautioned her, his Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    dark eyes watchful. If Barack made one wrong move toward Syndil, there was no doubt in Julian's mind that Barack would be a dead man. Syndil was unafraid, ignoring both Darius and Julian as if they were invisible.
    "Barack," she whispered softly, almost intimately. Her eyes were on the savage crimson streaks on his chest and face. "Come with me now. I have need to heal your wounds." Despite his ferocious growls, she laid her hand gently on Barack's arm, careful to stay away from the blood coating his clothing. "Come with me, brother. Allow me to heal you."
    Barack's head swung around, red eyes glowing fiercely. For a moment his eyes switched between red and black, as if the man fought the beast within for their shared body and mind. "I am not your brother, little one," he hissed, struggling to overcome the killing rage.
    For a moment Syndil hung her head, as if his words denying their relationship had cut her deeply. Then she stepped closer to him, so that her soft body brushed against his larger frame. Barack's hands immediately, instinctively, spanned her small waist and lifted her away from the thick pool of blood spreading across the floor. The moment he released the vampire, the body of the undead fell, thrashing around, head flopping and talons digging long, deep furrows into the wall.
    "Barack, do not touch Syndil's skin with tainted blood on your hands," Darius cautioned with his black-velvet authority.
    Julian was already gathering energy into his palms, taking it from the electricity in the air itself, rolling it into a ball to send it flaming into the vampire's pulsating heart so that there was no chance of the undead rising again. The sparks then jumped from the incinerated organ to the blood, reducing the thick pool of curling black ashes.
    Barack reluctantly allowed Syndil's feet to touch the floor far from the hideous scene. He was breathing hard, struggling to gain control of the beast within, ashamed that Syndil should see him so out of control.
    At Julian's gesture he held out his hands so