Carpathian 05 - Dark Challenge

then searching the sky and woods all around them. Where was Julian? Where are you ? It slipped out before she could censor it, the cry for his mind touch. It was met with silence, and her agitation increased. Why did it matter so much? After all, what was he to her? A lover. People took lovers all the time. Barack was a hound dog. At least he had been for a couple of centuries there. Desari brought her mind up sharply. She couldn't think about this. Couldn't think about Julian and where he might be.
    "Dara, be calm," Darius ordered softly. "Your state of mind has nothing to do with our vehicle."
    "Do not presume to know my state of mind," she snapped back. "I have told all of you over and over that we need a new motor home. Even the truck is breaking down now. Does anyone want to do anything about it? Syndil's too busy hiding from the world. Barack is molting somewhere. Dayan and you pay no attention to the details of our life."
    "I get up on the stage every night," Dayan said, defending himself. "And I write the songs and the music for you. I do not know anything about motors, nor do I wish to know. We are not mortals to deal with such things."
    Darius simply watched his sister without speaking. She was rubbing her hands up and down her arms as if she were cold. The night air was cool but not uncommonly so. She was abnormally pale.

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    "Getting up on the stage is not attending to the necessary details, Dayan," Desari informed him. "We have to book the tours, keep track of the accounts, plan the routes, see that we can always provide for the cats, ensure that we have adequate gas and stores for whatever could break down while we are on the road. We must look human, act human. Do you do any of that, Dayan? I say we need new vehicles or a mechanic. You others had just better choose which you prefer or shut up and live with any decision I make."
    Darius raised an elegant eyebrow. "And what do you think is the best solution, Dara? A mechanic? The cats would probably eat the man before we finished interviewing him. But perhaps if you found someone the cats found unappetizing, we could allow him to travel with us."
    "A human? A male?" Dayan was outraged. "That would not be tolerable around our women."
    Desari's head snapped up, her dark eyes flashing fire. "We women are not your possessions, Dayan.
    We have the right to do as we please, to be around whomever—male or female, mortal, or immortal—we choose. You do not rule us, and you never will."
    Dayan let out his breath in a long, slow hiss of disapproval. "This stranger you chose to consort with last night must have given you a virus. Your disposition has gone downhill, Desari."
    "Dayan." Darius stepped between his sister and his second in command. "That will be enough.
    The'stranger,' Julian Savage, is a powerful Carpathian, a hunter of the undead. We would do well to learn what we can from him. If he comes to this camp, you will treat him with respect as one of us."
    Dayan shook his head, annoyed at the madness of allowing a stranger into their midst. "I will do as you instruct, Darius, but I think this man has somehow beguiled Desari."
    "Why?" she demanded. "Because I am insisting you help with some of the details of our existence? You are not jungle animals, the male defending the pride and that his only requirement. You ought to help out more."
    Dayan raised an eyebrow but refrained from continuing the argument with Desari. "Deal with this," he said to Darius. "You are the only one who can." And then he was gone before Desari could retaliate.
    Desari was left to face her brother alone. "Do not say anything, Darius. I know something is terribly wrong with me. I do not know what it is, but I feel like I am losing my mind. It is more than just physical discomfort, it is mental as well."
    "Call him to you." Darius gave the order softly, as was his way. It had no less impact. His voice carried centuries of authority.
    She closed her eyes tightly, pressing her hands to her rolling stomach. "I cannot, Darius. Do not ask this of me."
    "I can do no other than demand it of you," he said. "Call him to you."
    "If I do, he will believe he has the right to my obedience."
    "You are suffering needlessly. Whatever this man has done to bind you to him we cannot undo until we know more." He forced a gentleness into his voice. "You know I cannot allow you to suffer, Desari. Call him to you."

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