Carpathian 21 - Dark Peril

feeling and what she was feeling, the emotions so overwhelming they left him disoriented and vulnerable. His lifemate was alive—was here in this rain forest somewhere close. His dream woman, the woman he had courted so slowly, building trust between them, was real, not the insubstantial myth he thought her.

    No. His denial was low, his shattered call back to her.

    This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not after so many centuries. Not when he’d given up and committed to a path that would destroy them both. She couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. He had only days to live. If he touched her, claimed her, bound them together, she would be locked to his fate.

    I am destroyed if you leave me. Her voice filled his mind, the tones soft and so achingly familiar. Why hadn’t he considered that she was real? She’d been in front of him the entire time and he hadn’t realized it.

    A thousand years he’d walked the earth looking for her. Lifemate. He could taste the word in his mouth, feel it in his soul. He’d been alone for so long, walking an honorable path, one he had chosen, but he had wanted her—no, needed her. The darkness called to his soul. A thousand men, many his friends and kin, had seen their death at his hands. There had been no solace, nowhere to turn, only the memory of honor and the fading hope that she would come to him.

    How many times had he walked the night in need? Save me. He had thought himself insane at times. The haunting loneliness, the call of evil always pulling at him, that need to feel something —anything—was so overwhelming as the endless years stretched out in relentless isolation.

    I need you. The anguish in her voice tore at him.

    What had he done? Given up . He’d lost all hope and he’d taken steps to leave the world while his honor was still intact. The decision had been couched in nobility, a fitting way for a Dragonseeker to end his existence, but it was still an act of cowardice. He had reached a point when he knew he was far too close to the darkness, the need for feeling so strong it was taking root even in his strong bloodline. He didn’t want to risk being the first Dragonseeker to ever succumb to the call of the vampire. He had refused to take the chance of giving up his soul, and in doing so, when the risk was becoming sharp and agonizing, he had made the decision to end his days.

    Stay. Stay with me. Her anguish clawed at him.

    How did he tell her it was too late? He covered his face with his hand, wept bloodred tears. His decision to ingest the vampire blood and end his life had cost him this one last shred of a dream. Worse, it had cost her.
    His woman. So strong, yet so fragile. What had he done? He had betrayed her as every other male had done in her life.

    He knew her—he knew her most intimate fears. Her thoughts. She had told him, but he hadn’t listened, not as a lifemate. He should have known, but he’d given up, despaired, turned his back on the most important person in his life.

    It was not betrayal.

    Resignation tinged her tone. Acceptance. That hurt almost as much as knowing he had given up on finding her. The moment he had the first strange dream, a waking dream, he should have renewed his efforts to find her. Unlike the younger Carpathians, he had heard the strange tales some of the elders had told of how the call of lifemates could be heard over great distances and could manifest itself in a variety of strange ways.
    He had fallen into the trap so many of his kind had without realizing it. He had lost hope, and that had left him open and vulnerable to the temptation of the vampire. She didn’t call it betrayal, but to him, a man of honor, when honor was all he had, it was the worst sin he could have committed.

    Perhaps another could not understand. I have given up hope many times. When all we have is honor, when we stand alone against such horrors as we’ve seen, sometimes despair is all that is left to us.

    She shamed him and yet made him proud. A woman to stand by his side. She knew what he had done. He had told her. She knew what a Carpathian was, what could happen should he stray, even for a moment, from the path. And she had to know what it meant when he’d informed her that he’d ingested the vampire blood and was going into their very camp to spy.

    Around him, the rain forest had become another world. The sound of the rain was a soft rhythm, music that drummed in time to his heartbeat. Gray had become a