Carpathian 16 - Dark Demon

Vikirnoff steadied her with one hand at her waist. "They're set in a pattern, but…" Her voice drifted off.
    "It's not quite right," he finished for her.
    "Watch that thing," she pointed towards the shifting ground. "I think the rocks need to be put in a different order. More like this…" She reached down, still balanced on the boulder and nudged a rock out of the lineup to exchange with another three spaces over. She frowned in frustration, shook her head and leapt off the boulder to crouch down beside the smaller rocks. "This is it, Vikirnoff, the way to the entrance. I just have to rearrange the rocks into the right order."
    Vikirnoff hunkered down beside her, close, where his body could shield hers, if necessary. He kept a wary eye on the churning, thickening mist, as well as continually scanning the ground.
    "I've got it!" Natalya dropped the last rock in place with evident satisfaction.
    The ground beside her hand erupted like a small geyser. A foul-smelling eel-like creature with spiked teeth bored straight at her fingers, emitting a high-pitched scream. Vikirnoff caught the serpent by the back of the neck, dragging the struggling body away from Natalya. The teeth snapped repeatedly, the body twisting frantically to get at her.
    "Look out!" Vikirnoff warned as the ground around Natalya burst open in half a dozen places, the serpentine heads rocketing out of the holes straight at her from every direction.
    "Jump!" He flung the snake away from him and lifted his hands toward the sky. Lightning arced through the swirling mist, lighting the edges in fiery red tones.
    Natalya didn't even care that his tone held both compulsion and command. She somersaulted onto the boulder and glared at the writhing creatures. "I detest snakes. Really, really detest them."

    Lightning sizzled and cracked, a great whip slamming to earth, scorching the ground in a small circle. At once a stench rose, the foul creatures turned to ash. The blackened spiked teeth wiggled, as if alive, then disintegrated.
    Natalya pressed her hand to her mouth and choked back a cry of alarm. "That was just gross. Totally disgusting. Never let those things near me again."
    Vikirnoff studied her for a moment before realizing she was serious. He caught her in his arms and pulled her off the boulder. "You are shaking." Holding her close to the warmth of his body, he tightened his arms around her in an effort to bring her comfort. "You were not really afraid of those creatures, were you?"
    "I loathe snakes." Natalya leaned in close, trying to get her knees to stiffen up. "I've always had an unreasonable fear of them."
    "You kill vampires and destroy shadow warriors. You never even flinched when you faced either adversary." He caught her chin in his hand and bent his head to hers. "You are going to intrigue me for all time."
    She put a hand on his chest with the idea of pushing him away. "And drive you to drink.
    Don't let's forget I annoy you." She couldn't afford to be distracted. And Vikirnoff was very distracting. "And we're in deadly peril . I refuse to be a too-stupid-to-live teenager necking while the snakes return."
    He hadn't budged an inch, his skin touching hers, body heat warming her. "I had forgotten." His smile was slow and sexy and took her breath somewhere other than her lungs. "Completely."
    She looked up at him with a small frown. "We're in the middle of a siege here. Those things were going after me this time, not you."
    "I noticed. Why would that be, do you think?" He dropped his hands reluctantly and surveyed the crack in the boulder that was significantly wider. "We will have to do a little maneuvering to slip through."
    Natalya recovered her pack and checked her weapons, avoiding looking at the blackened remains of the serpents. "I'm the one under compulsion. Maybe someone brought me here to kill me."
    "Too much trouble, Natalya. Why not make it easy and kill you when you are asleep somewhere? Why lead you to the mountains, to this particular cave?" Vikirnoff stuck his head in the crack. "This is very narrow, but it widens a bit once past this section." He thinned his body and crawled inside the jagged crack.
    Natalya glanced at the sky as the wind rose in a shriek of rage, of protest. Clouds boiled angrily and inside their depths she could see dark figures moving. Smoky. Gray.
    Transparent. She closed her eyes briefly and sent up a silent prayer the clouds were not spawning shadow warriors for her to fight again. She'd been very lucky