Carpathian 21 - Dark Peril

of our greatest enemy and spying on them. I will be unable to come to you. Already the blood is consuming me, perhaps faster than I believed it could. I will have only a few risings to complete my task before I must seek the dawn, or go down fighting. I could not find you in this life, but hold hope for the next.

    Her heart nearly stopped beating. Panic set in. Full-blown panic. Dreams didn’t end like this. Nightmares did. He wasn’t real, but he was the only reality for her when life closed in and she had nowhere else to go.
    She’d fallen in love with him, as silly as that sounded. This man with his warrior’s scars, the face of an angel and demon, all in one, this man with the soul of a poet.

    No. I refuse to let you go. I won’t. You’re all I have. You can’t leave me alone.

    He touched her hair, rubbing the silky strands between his fingers. Believe me, little one, I would prefer to stay with you in our dream world. You have so many times gotten me through moments I found not a little troubling. But I have a duty to my people.

    Her throat clogged with unexpected tears. If I am the lifemate you talk of, isn’t your first duty to me?

    His smile was sad. Had you truly been my lifemate, when I heard your voice, you would have restored colors and emotions to me.

    You’re feeling sad. I can see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice.

    Merely a trick, csitri . I wish for these emotions and draw from memories. You have sustained me these last few years, and I thank you for that.

    No! I won’t give you up. It was selfish of her. He had a right to his nobility and sacrifice. Hadn’t she sacrificed her entire life for the women of her species? But to give him to the vampires . . .

    In desperation, without truly thinking her decision through, Solange shifted, right there in the crook of the Kapok tree, and, clinging to the branch, called out to the only man who mattered to her. Solange Sangria, the woman who had never needed—or wanted—any man, of royal blood, powerful in her own right. A warrior renowned and feared.

    In her human form, in her own voice, born of desperation and need, terrified that her dream lover might be real and going into danger to sacrifice his life for his people, she lifted her voice to the heavens, allowed the skies to carry it far and wide. She humbled herself before the forest dwellers to save him—to save herself.

    “Don’t leave me!” The cry was torn from her throat, from her soul, her anguish spilling like the blood of her family onto the ground where everyone she loved had been slaughtered and she’d been left alone—the last hope of justice for the women and children of her species.

    The sound of her voice lifted the birds from the canopy and spread through the forest like the wind, filling every empty space, her sorrow so acute the very trees shivered and the animals wept with the rain.

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    But then beyond hope, you came into my dream . . .
    Glowing eyes like a cat, but fierce need like a child.
    Your warrior heart, loyal. Your anguished, “Don’t leave me.”
    Your head in my lap: Csitri! Strong and wild.

    DOMINIC TO SOLANGE

    T he birds went quiet. The monkeys ceased all sound. Even the insects held their breath. Everything in the forest stilled. Color burst behind Dominic’s eyes, blinded him, even within the body of the eagle, so that for a moment all he could see was vivid, acute colors, every shade of green, dazzling reds and violets, the flowers on the trees drenched in water and bright beyond all imagination. His stomach clenched and shifted, nausea rising like a tidal wave, the colors so bright they beat at his mind after centuries of seeing in shades of gray.

    He thought the eagle would be a protection, but the colors had nowhere to go, no way to disperse behind the eyes of the bird, beating at him, filling his mind, overwhelming him with the various shades of brightness. The macaws stood out on the branches, staring at him curiously as he sailed to the ground and shifted into his own form. Dominic staggered, pressing one hand to his roiling stomach and the other up to shield his eyes. There was no way to stop the colors—it was as if a dam had burst in his brain and every conceivable shade and tint, every hue, mingled and fought for supremacy.

    Sorrow lived in him, breathed in him. Regret. Fear. Shock. Every emotion that could be felt hit him in the next wave of attack. He went to one knee, trying to process, to sort out what he was