Carpathian 06 - Dark Fire

then?" She did not need to use the words vampire or undead. They both knew intimately of what she spoke.
    "She is all that is standing between the destruction of mortals and immortals alike. The line is fragile. Do not interfere, Desari. It is all the warning I am capable of giving you," he said with a merciless, implacable resolve.
    Darius had always been the acknowledged leader of their small group, ever since they were all children and he had saved them from certain death. Even as a mere youth he had reared and protected them, given them his all. He was the strongest, the most cunning, and the most powerful. He had the gift of healing. They relied on him for his wisdom and expertise. He had steered them safely through the long centuries without thought for himself. Desari could do no other than support him in this one thing he asked. No, not asked. Demanded. She knew Darius was not exaggerating, not lying, not bluffing; he never did. Everything he said, he meant.
    Slowly, reluctantly, Desari nodded. "You are my brother, Darius. I am with you always, whatever you Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    choose to do."
    She turned as her lifemate abruptly shimmered into a solid state beside her. Julian Savage still took her breath away, the sight of his tall, muscled frame, the striking, molten-gold eyes that always reflected love back to her.
    Julian bent to brush Desari's temple with the warmth and comfort of his mouth. He had caught her distress through their psychic link and instantly returned from hunting prey. When he turned his gaze on Darius, his eyes were cold. Darius met that gaze with one equally chilling.
    Desari sighed softly at the two territorial males measuring each other. "You two promised."
    Instantly Julian leaned into her, his voice extraordinarily tender. "Is there a problem here?"
    Darius made a sound of disgust, a rumbling growl deep in his throat. "Desari is my sister. I have always seen to her welfare."
    For just a moment the golden eyes flickered over him, cold with menace. Then Julian's white teeth gleamed in a semblance of a smile. "It is true, and I can do no other than be grateful to you."
    Darius shook his head slightly. He was still unused to tolerating the presence of any male not of his own small group. Accepting his sister's new lifemate traveling with them was one thing; liking it was quite another. Julian had been raised in the Carpathian Mountains, their native land, and though he had been forced into a solitary existence, he had had the benefit of years of training in their ways, of adult Carpathian guidance during his fledgling years. Darius knew Julian was strong and one of their people's most skilled hunters of vampires. He knew Desari was safe with him, but he couldn't quite relinquish his own role as her protector. He had had far too many centuries of leadership, of learning the hard way, through experience.
    Some centuries ago in their almost-forgotten homeland, Darius and five other Carpathian children had seen their parents murdered by invaders who thought them vampires and carried out their ritual slayings: a stake through the heart, beheading, with garlic stuffed in the mouth. It had been a frightening, traumatic time as Ottoman Turks overran their village while the sun was high in the sky, just as their parents were at their most vulnerable. The Carpathians had tried to save the mortal villagers, standing with them to fight the invasion despite the fact that the attack had come when the Carpathian people were at their weakest.
    But there were far too many assailants, and the sun was too high. Nearly everyone had been massacred.
    The marauding armies had then herded the children, mortal and immortal alike, into a straw shack and set it on fire, burning the youngsters alive. Darius had managed to fabricate an illusion to cloak the presence of a few of the children from the soldiers, a feat unheard of at his age. And when he noticed a peasant woman who had escaped the bloodthirsty assailants, he had cloaked her presence as well and forced a compulsion upon her. He embedded within the woman a deep need to flee and take with her the Carpathian children he had saved.
    The woman took them down the mountain to her lover, a man who owned a boat. Though sailing the open seas was rarely attempted in that century, since tales of sea serpents and falling off the earth abounded, the marauders' cruelty was a worse fate, so the small crew took