Carpathian 09 - Dark Guardian

are beginning to know me."
    "Thank you for saving Barry. The glimpse I caught of him, he looked to be in bad shape. I know it must have been difficult destroying the ghoul there, helping me, and working on him all at the same time." She could feel his exhaustion. It didn't show on his face, but it was in his mind. He was extremely tired. He had used tremendous energy tonight. Even someone as powerful as Lucian could get tired.
    She was certain she was tired, too, but it manifested itself more as sorrow. It was almost too much to comprehend the loss of so many of the people she knew and cared about. For a moment the reality of it all touched her mind, and she couldn't breathe, her lungs refusing to work properly. "If the man at the apartments wasn't Drake, and the one at the station house wasn't him either, who were they, and how did they know exactly what Drake did to his victims? How would they know whom to kill? And why would they even want to kill them, Lucian?"
    "There is only one answer, angel." Lucian's voice was more expressionless than ever. It made Jaxon glance up at him in apprehension. "There must be a vampire involved here, a master vampire, one of the Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    ancients. It is a creature capable of such things."
    "It has Drake? Is he dead?" There was almost a hopeful note in her voice.
    Lucian shook his head. "More than likely Drake is still out there somewhere, probably puzzled by these murders. The vampire has read your mind, picked the details out of your head, and that is why you knew something was wrong. The details were not exactly Drake. The vampire created his ghouls and sent them out with orders to kill whoever had fond memories of you."
    Jaxon's fingers twisted together, and her stomach burned, a hard knot of pain. "Why? What would he accomplish?"
    Lucian's black gaze moved over her, fathomless, moody, possessive. "Precisely what he did. Pain.
    Vampires thrive on other people's pain. He must have caught you out in the open, away from the protected property, and read your memories. He could not have hidden his taint of power from me had I been close."
    Jaxon felt as if he had punched her hard in the pit of her stomach. The feeling was so real, she actually hunched over, dropping her head into the heel of one hand. "So I did this. Just by going out of the house, I caused all this to happen. Basically that's what you're saying, isn't it?"
    Lucian's arm slid around her slender shoulders. Her pain was radiating from her, enveloping him so that he felt almost as sick as she did. "Of course not, Jaxon. You cannot ever think you are responsible for the sick actions of others."
    Jaxon ducked out from under his arm, unable to bear the contact. She was struggling just to breathe.
    "Lucian, have Antonio stop the car right now. I need to get out. I'll walk the rest of the way. It isn't that far."
    "It is almost dawn, my love." He said the words softly, without inflection, apparently neither for nor against her decision.
    "I can't breathe in here, Lucian. Stop the car." She wanted to run as fast as she could—whether from herself or from everything that had happened this night, she didn't know. She knew only that she had to be out in the open. "I need to be alone. Please just stop the car and let me walk by myself back to the house. I have to be alone."
    Lucian's black gaze moved over her face once more, brooding, suspicious. His mind moved in hers. He read Jaxon's need to alone, to be in the fresh air, to be able to breathe freely. There was such chaos in her mind, she was having trouble breathing.
    At once the car rolled to a stop, and Jaxon realized Lucian had commanded Antonio to come to a halt.
    Instantly she was out of the car and running, leaving the asphalt behind, taking to the open meadow leading to the hills and the south side of the estate. She ran parallel to the road until the car went around a bend and disappeared from sight. Instantly she switched directions and ran up the hill, away from the house and toward the bluffs. Twice she had to stop, leaning over as her body protested the terrible crimes committed simply because someone knew her. What was she? A monster magnet? Some hideous thing inside her drew out the demon in others. She didn't pay the price; some innocent bystander always did.
    Jaxon had heard the conversations throughout the apartment building and in the squad room. The Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter,