Carpathian 17 - Dark Curse

her legs, pulverizing them.
    Razvan struggled against the chains, so that they cut into his body and blood ran in rivers to drip onto the ice.
    He screamed, a hoarse, hopeless yell, blood red tears streaking his face. \"It was me. Don\'t touch her. I\'ll do anything. Please. Please.\" He fell back weeping, his fists pounding into the ice until they, too, were bloody.
    Xavier ignored him, continuing to kick and stomp Shauna\'s body. \"Look at what you\'ve made me do,\" he yelled to Lara. \"Look at her. Your mother, taking your punishment. You deserve this treatment. You did this.
    You\'ve made her suffer.\" He reached down and yanked the child by her hair, dragging her across the floor to fling her facedown beside her mother. \"Steal her last breath, you ungrateful brat. What are you good for except for food? You\'ve killed your own mother.\"
    He spat on the body and reached into the pocket of his long tunic, pulling out ajar of wiggling white parasites.
    \"My friends will gladly clean up your mess, although it will take a few days. Feast,\" he said and threw the parasites onto Shauna\'s limp body. The grotesque bugs immediately swarmed over her mother.
    Xavier reached down and caught up Lara, his silver eyes glittering with maniacal glee. Laughing, he snapped a chain around her waist, locking it to her father\'s chain before he hobbled away. She had little room and was forced to sit beside her mother\'s body while her father rocked and moaned as they watched the parasites slowly consume her.
    It could have been hours, or days that Nicolas sat, traumatized by the brutality of the Carpathian\'s worst enemy. He had thought he knew evil intimately in the centuries of hunting of the vampire, but this was far, far worse. Xavier had murdered his grandson\'s wife in front of the man and their child. Even more, he forced them to watch the slow consumption of her body by the ravenous parasites. It was no wonder that Lara had flashbacks when she saw them combined with Gregori\'s unusual eye color. And it was no wonder that her aunts and father had buried her memories deep.
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    Christine Feehan: Dark Curse
    We are with you, Lara, a voice whispered softly. Do not fear, we are near. Do not look at the body on the floor. That is no longer your mother. She has gone to a safe place where the monster cannot reach her .
    Nicolas concentrated on the voices as they whispered encouragement, told stories and tried to aid a young child in dealing with the incomprehensible. Without her great-aunts, Lara would have either given up or gone insane. He found himself holding on to their voices, letting the soothing compulsion wash over him as the next vignette of Lara\'s childhood began.
    The fear cycle was always first, he realized. Her spirit traveled up the path of her childhood, inching her way from her past toward the surface-and him. She managed to advance a couple of years before the web of horror entangled her again, effectively holding her prisoner in her memories.
    At six she was thin and small, barely fed and alone constantly. She had a tiny cubicle, slept on the ice floor with only a thin blanket and her growing ability to regulate her body temperature. It was difficult for her to sustain heat, and the constant shivering prevented her from gaining much weight. The aunts were the one stabilizing influence, talking to her day and night, whispering of far-off places, teaching her as much as a child could comprehend and implanting lessons and truths for times when she was older and could possibly grasp the knowledge and wield more power.
    He learned they were kept drained of blood as Razvan was, often frozen, encased in ice, that they suffered horribly when thawed and that Lara felt every moment of their agony along with her tortured father\'s. It was only their voices that kept her sane.
    He moved toward the surface with her, cradling her spirit, breathing warmth into her mind in an effort to reconnect with her. He needed her trust and he\'d blown it in the worst possible way. He understood that now, understood what it was like to feel small and helpless-and without hope. He understood fully why she had chosen the only way out to her and that he was responsible for driving her to feel helpless all over again.
    The moment fear swamped her, coming at her like a tidal wave, he knew she was trapped again in a significant moment of her life. She was aware the moment he stepped in front of her spirit again, surrounding her with his