Carpathian 09 - Dark Guardian

was grateful to see no deer antlers or stuffed wildlife decorated the place. The idea of so many animals slaughtered for sport made her sick.
    The furniture was interesting, in good shape, and rugged, as befit a lodge. Jaxon wandered through the rooms, wondering what was wrong with her. Her stomach was clenched in knots, and she couldn't dispel the feeling of death and violence from her soul. She wished they were back in the cave, in the cleansing pools, where the stench of violence couldn't seem to reach them.
    The lodge was built overlooking a lake, with trees all around, grasses and ferns everywhere. It was an unbelievably beautiful location, far from civilization, the nearest neighbors several miles away. Jaxon wanted to feel as if she was in a honeymoon cabin, but the cavern with its crystals and pools was much more to her liking. The lodge made her uneasy, as if, perhaps, she was feeling an echo of things long dead. Was it the animals slaughtered for sport? Was she now too sensitive for a hunting lodge? Had something terrible happened here in earlier days? Was it possible a previous owner of the lodge had committed a crime in his beautiful but remote home and the house still vibrated with violence?
    She walked through the large structure, able to admire the architecture without liking the lodge at all.
    Jaxon found herself shivering despite the fact that she could easily regulate her body temperature.
    Running her palms up and down her arms to warm herself, she knew her trembling had nothing to do with really being cold. "Do you feel peculiar in here?" she asked softly, not wanting to hurt Lucian's feelings if he loved the house.
    Lucian had been watching her alertly, a shadow in her mind. He could feel her increasing uneasiness, yet there was no real echo of evil in the lodge. He glided in his graceful, silent way to her side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "What is it, honey? You are afraid here." He knew she had a curious built-in radar system when it came to trouble, yet he felt nothing. Just to be on the safe side, he scanned their surrounding area. The closest human was a mile or so away, a solitary hiker. He was staring down at the lake, watching for otter, his mind occupied with the wildlife. He was humming low, the sound vibrating softly in his mind. A group of humans was several miles away in a cabin. They were laughing, playing some kind of game together. There were campers in three other locations, all within a day's hike of the lodge, yet they appeared to pose no threat to anyone. He picked up no thoughts of violence in any of the humans near them, and certainly there were no vampires or ghouls in the area. He would have known immediately.
    "I don't know what it is, Lucian, only that this place gives me the creeps. It feels haunted in here."
    His eyebrows shot up. "Ghosts?"
    Her elbow nudged him in the chest, her dark brown eyes censuring him. "Very funny, Lucian. And don't tell me your best friend is a ghost. I don't want to know."
    "I have never met a ghost," he reassured her with his most charming grin. "I like this place. It is very remote, affords us privacy, the view is beautiful, and we are right in the middle of one of nature's mountains born of fire and ice. What more could we want?"

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    Jaxon allowed him to pull her body back into the protection of his. He was warmth and strength. She could feel him washing through her, enveloping her, but the uneasiness remained. She didn't like the lodge, and she didn't know why. "Do you already have a secret sleeping chamber?" Even as she asked it, she was trying to do as he did, scanning the lodge itself, looking for something hidden, something that might be making her nervous. No one had been there since Lucian had last visited the place. Not even a camper or hiker had discovered it. She knew Lucian would have caught that immediately, and she felt no echoes of another whatsoever. Since she disliked the idea that someone had purposely killed wild animals just for the sport of it, that must be the answer to why she was so uneasy, Jaxon decided.
    "This mountain has many chambers beneath its surface. We can readily make use of them for sleeping.
    Study the layout in my mind and know where they are so you are never caught without several escape routes."
    She received a flood of information, marveling at how precise it was. Lucian was a walking map, detailed and perfect,