Carpathian 17 - Dark Celebration

his breath, startling Corinne.
    "Can you hear it?"
    He didn't want to hear it. The baby had a regular heart rate, faster than an adult, but Corinne's heartbeat was irregular. Even when he put his hand over her heart and tried to regulate the beat, it was all over the place. He forced calm when he really felt panic. He would not lose her. Not to anything or anybody.
    "Do you think my heart is failing?"
    "I want to wait for the others to get to us before I check. If I go into your body and we are attacked, the vampire would have the advantage."
    "Do you think we'll be attacked?" Corinne tightened her hold on the baby, her arms wrapping around the infant protectively. She looked carefully around the area, up into the trees and along the snow-covered ground. "Why can't I feel a vampire if there's one close?
    And how would a vampire affect my heart? It must be failing. The healing was only able to last a couple of months, Dayan."
    He kept his palm over Corinne's heart, in order to keep her heart beating in rhythm with his. "That isn't true, Corinne. I don't know what's going on, but when the conversion was completed, Gregori made certain your heart was whole and healthy."
    Nicolae and Destiny came striding through the trees, MaryAnn and Skyler in between them. Destiny was to the young teen's right, several feet between them, her restless eyes searching the ground while Nicolae searched the terrain. Above them flew two owls, circling the warriors, working their way through the canopy to try to spot an enemy from above.
    Nicolae reached Corinne and Dayan, his gaze jumping to the protective way Dayan had his hand placed over Corinne's heart. In the muffled silence of the snow, they could hear the irregular heartbeat overly loud. "Vikirnoff and Natalya search from above. What is it?"
    "I don't know," Dayan said. "I feel something out here, Nicolae, but I cannot find it. And whatever it is, Corinne's heart is responding."
    Vikirnoff and Natalya spiraled down to earth, taking their natural forms, Natalya in leather, weapons everywhere. The warriors spread out, keeping MaryAnn, Skyler and Corinne with her baby in the center. Corinne's heart faltered and her legs went out from under her.
    MaryAnn caught her before she could fall to the ground. She helped her to sit and knelt beside her, screening the baby from anything that could be close and intend harm. "We need Gregori," she said. "Someone call him."
    Skyler lifted her face to the sky and spun around, an alarmed look on her face. MaryAnn flung out a restraining arm when she went to move outside the circle, but Skyler avoided contact and stepped outside the circle to face toward the inn. "It's here again. I feel it. A steady current of energy." She shuddered and wrapped her arms around her stomach, distaste flickering across her face. Her palm crossed over her wrist and she rubbed as if it was aching.
    Vikirnoff frowned, watching her, as the others tried to identify what the younger girl was feeling. "Let me see," he said, and reached for her wrist.
    Skyler screamed and backed away from her, sheer terror on her face. She put her arm behind her back, turned and ran. Natalya signaled the men off and she went after the girl, moving with blurring speed, catching her before Skyler could get away from the protection of the warriors.
    "What is it? What did you think Vikirnoff would do?" she asked gently.
    Skyler stilled in her arms, her heart thundering, her mouth dry. She shook her head. "I don't know. I don't know what happened."
    Natalya touched her mind very lightly, a soft probe, and found blankness, an impenetrable wall hiding memories.
    "Do you feel it?" Skyler asked, her eyes pleading with Natalya. "I'm not crazy. I can feel it disturbing the air. It's so subtle."
    Natalya inhaled sharply, opened her mind, utilizing more than her Carpathian senses. She dug down, reached for her lineage, the part of her that was mage. Her cat roared, bared teeth and lunged for the surface.
    "Oh, yeah, honey, I feel it," Natalya assured her. She hissed out a long slow breath of displeasure, turning in a wide circle, palms up in the air. "I definitely feel it."
    Is it vampire ? Vikirnoff asked.
    Natalya shook her head, her face paling. She turned to look at Vikirnoff, despair on her face. She stepped back away from the Carpathians as if she suddenly couldn't bear to be in their presence.
    Tell me now ! It was a clear command from her lifemate.
    Natalya bared her teeth at him, snarled and turned