Carpathian 11 - Dark Descent

been anyone's boyfriend before." He buried his face in the warmth of her neck. "I told you not to come here. I am not certain I can get your family out alive. There is something in this cave the vampires are determined to find. Or protect."
    His arms held her snugly to him, his body protecting hers from the biting cold, the ice slivers and hard, jagged edges that could tear through fabric and skin. She reached out, caught at a thick crystaline handhold, and jolted their downward slide to a stop. "This formation isn't entirely natural, is it, Traian?"
    With a startling rasping sound, crickets poured down the tube around them. Traian shifted, turned. Joie felt the gathering of energy, of heat, of power. She opened her mind instantly to him, flooding him with her strength and energy, generously sharing everything she had, everything she was. The impulse to do so should have frightened her. It didn't.
    She belonged with him. Shoulder to shoulder. Mind to mind. They were connected in some way she didn't understand, but it felt right. She didn't trust people, other than Gabriele and Jubal. She was naturaly private and always very careful in close relationships, yet the moment she heard Traian's voice, the moment she laid eyes on him, even when she'd thought he was a fantasy, she had known he was somehow a part of her.
    Below her, she heard Gabriele cry out as the insects reached her. Jubal murmured softly in reassurance. Above her, a scream of rage and hatred announced that the undead's companions had found his lifeless body. Traian began to chant in a soft voice, his hands moving quickly in a pattern Joie couldn't quite folow, the movements blurring with his incredible speed.
    "Let go," he ordered, and dragged her hands from the hold so that they plunged down the slide toward the bottom.
    She could hear the ominous cracking of ice. The tube above their head was veined in a starburst pattern that spread rapidly outward. At the entrance, the ice began to fal in large chunks, some sliding down the tube to ward them. Traian hit the ground running, with Joie in his arms. "Hurry!" he caled to Jubal and Gabriele.
    A sound was building behind them, a great roar and a thunderous clap as the tube colapsed in on itself. The earth shook beneath their feet, and an ominous rumble emanated from the wals and ceiling surrounding them. Jubal caught Gabriele's hand and folowed Traian at a dead run through the narrow hal.
    Joie clung to Traian, feeling somewhat sily being carried when he was so hideously injured, but the man wasn't even breathing hard. Sharp daggers of ice fel from the ceiling as they rushed through the tunnel. Several times, Traian redirected a lethal missile as they raced along the wel-worn path. Traian stopped so abruptly, Jubal ran into him. Very slowly Traian alowed Joie to stand on her own feet. His arm remained around her. They were on the edge of a precipice. A very narrow bridge, constructed of ice and stone, was the only way across. It appeared dangerously thin in places and had an obvious hole in one section.
    "Where the hel did that come from?" Jubal demanded. "That's no natural bridge. Who could have carved such a thing? Can we cross it?"
    Traian studied it warily. He shook his head. "I am beginning to be very afraid we have stumbled into a cave we do not want to be in. I fear that bridge is an invitation to death. A trap."
    Jubal glared at him. "If you know something, tel us." He caught Joie's hand and puled her away from Traian. She was already looking upward, searching for another way out of the hal. "Joie, slow down for a minute," Jubal ordered. "I don't understand what's going on here, but I can tel you, this man is dangerous. We don't know him and we don't need to be associated with him." He actualy shoved her behind him, the look in his ice-cold eyes making it clear he was prepared to protect his sisters against an obvious predator. "Why are we taking his word for anything?"
    Traian swung his head around, his eyes glittering with menace. There was instant silence. Joie wrapped her fingers around her brother's wrist. "I think we can talk about this at a more opportune time. Maybe when the fiends from hel aren't chasing after us."
    "Has it occurred to you, he's one of them?" Jubal demanded, glaring at Traian. "He drank your blood, Joie. That ought to tel you something right there."
    "It tels her I am different. Not quite human. The fact that I did not kil her—or you, for that matter—tels you I am not