Carpathian 05 - Dark Challenge

I was alone. There was a part of me missing. A part of me restless and wild, searching for something. We wandered the continents to cover the fact that we did not age, but all of us were also looking for something to end the emptiness. We just did not know what it was we sought." Her hands were stroking his thick mane of hair, allowing the skeins of silken gold to run through her fingers. "I do not want to be apart from you, Julian. I want us to be always together."
    He held her in silence for a time, breathing in the scent of her, trying to comprehend why he had been handed such a miracle, why he had been granted a reprieve at the last moment, been rewarded with a woman such as Desari. Julian tried not to think of the vampire who could destroy them both.
    She felt his thoughts, the waves of intense emotion overwhelming him, things he could not put into mere words. Desari rested her head on his chest and listened to the steady beat of his heart, knowing hers tapped out the exact same rhythm. It was right. They were two halves of the same whole. She wanted to comfort him any way she could. He needed, and that was everything to her.
    Stop wasting time, little sister. I can take only so much of this syrup between you and the one you have chosen. Have you forgotten you have commitments to fulfill ? Darius's soft, emotionless reprimand echoed in her mind.
    I am coming . She sent no more, unwilling to share her private thoughts. Again she mourned the fact that Darius felt no emotion, not even love for her.
    I may not feel it, little sister, but I know it is there. Do not fear me now after all these long centuries.
    I fear for you, Darius. Do not go away from us . She hadn't meant to show her deepest anxiety to him, yet it slipped out.

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    There was only silence. Desari found herself trembling, her breath suddenly hard to find.
    Julian tipped up her chin to search her dark eyes just as he was searching her mind for what had frightened her. "He will not leave you, Desari, will not seek death until he knows he cannot hold out any longer against the darkness within him. If that should occur, you must willingly allow him to greet the dawn. He is far too powerful; if he became the undead, many of our hunters would die before he could be destroyed. He carries that knowledge with him. It makes his existence still more difficult for him, a two-edged sword. He knows he has a chance of surviving as a vampire, of feeling at least the thrill of the many kills he would achieve, yet he still has his memories of love and duty, his code of honor, which help him hold on. He knows those he loves would be destroyed first should he turn."
    Desari broke away from him to pace restlessly across the pine-strewn forest floor. Her movements were graceful, her ebony hair gleaming as if a thousand stars were tangled in it. "Tell me more of my blood kin, Julian. Tell me of their fate."
    He nodded. "You must remember, Desari, the twins had lived centuries longer than most of our people without finding a lifemate. They were hunters, having to kill often, the kind of double burden nearly impossible to long endure. As each century passed and their legends grew, more people feared and shunned them. It was rumored they were more powerful than the Prince, much more dangerous. It seemed not to matter that they followed him and protected those that could not hunt. Their lives were ones of nearly total isolation from all society. It had to have been torment." Julian knew the torment of isolation.
    "Yet they continued, as you continued." Desari pressed back against a tree, her eyes enormous, searching his story for a shadow of hope for her brother.
    Julian nodded. "Always they endured. They went after the vampires high society had embraced. The battles were long and fierce, as the undead were ancients with much power and now government backing. Rewards were posted for Gabriel and Lucian so that humans and the undead alike hunted them.
    They fought the many servants of the vampire, hosts of ghouls and zombies and demented creatures created at the undead's whim. Always they were the victors, and while our people were thankful, each time the twins emerged alive, the whispers grew of creatures half in our world and half in that of the darkness."
    "How unfair!" Desari was angry at such treacherous behavior by those of her own race. What if Darius were to be treated in such a manner by those