Carpathian 22 - Dark Predator

power. She was a potential threat to Carpathians and therefore had to be eliminated. It was that simple.
    A piercing pain in the vicinity of his heart brought him up short. He actually looked down at the bird’s breast to see if it had been punctured by an arrow. His stomach lurched at the idea of killing her. O jelä peje emnimet— sun scorch the woman, she had cast some spell. There was no other explanation for his physical response to the idea of her death. She had tied them together. Or her blood had. Blood was the very essence of life and hers was . . . extraordinary.
    He wanted—no, needed —to touch her mind with his. Everything in him urged him to reach out to her, to know where she was, what she was doing. He refused to act on the need. He didn’t trust it any more than he trusted the way he had to see her, to touch her, to know she existed. Whatever spell had been cast was a powerful one and it had to be a trap.
    He had control and discipline, several lifetimes to develop both and no woman, a human woman at that, could possibly destroy those traits in him. He would take his time, prove to both himself and to her that he was far too strong to be brought down by any spell. Before he killed her he would learn her secrets. Every last one of them. She would know what it meant to betray a De La Cruz and try to entrap one of them.
    He had fought vampires and destroyed them, the foulest, most vile creatures imaginable; a small slip of a woman had no chance against him. He ignored the way his mind continually reached for hers. The way his blood heated at the thought of her. It wasn’t the spell so much as the fact that she actually intrigued him—something that hadn’t happened in a thousand years or more. That was all. Interest. Intrigue. Who could blame him when nothing had been a surprise to him—until her. The woman. Marguarita.
    He flinched. The moment he thought her name—gave her life—he could taste her on his tongue all over again. His heart gave a strange stutter, and for a moment, deep inside the bird, he thought his body stirred with life. He went very still, a dark predator hunted. His breath felt trapped in his lungs. That was impossible. A trick. An illusion. She was far more powerful than he’d first imagined.
    That particular trick would buy her time. He had not been a man for far longer than he could remember. He was a killing machine, nothing more. Nothing less. He didn’t have desires of the flesh. He couldn’t feel. The strange things taking place in his body and mind weren’t real, no matter how good the illusion was, but he closed his eyes and savored the hot lick of need rushing through his veins. Just as fast he snapped open his eyelids, looking suspiciously around. Was this illusion the way to tip him over the edge, allow him to feel, just for a moment, and then take it from him so that he would forever crave the rush?
    The harpy eagle slipped out of the canopy and flew high over the hacienda. He refused to give into the ever-present urge to touch Marguarita’s mind. Now, more than ever, he had to show strength—and he had to find out everything he could about Marguarita Fernandez.
    He spotted the house he was looking for tucked into the mountainside. There were several houses scattered on the property, but Cesaro Santos was the foreman and his status showed in his house. The eagle floated to the ground, shifting at the last moment into human form. Zacarias strode straight to the porch, his body shimmering into a trail of vapor that poured beneath the crack in the door.
    The house was immaculate, like most of the dwellings of the humans coexisting with his family. He knew Cesaro to be loyal to a fault. He had offered his blood, even his life, to save Zacarias. The man was above reproach and there was no taint of evil anywhere on the ranch that Zacarias could detect. Cesaro would never steal from the De La Cruz family, or betray them in any way, and if he found one of those working for him to be doing so, Zacarias had no doubt that man—or woman—would be buried deep in the rain forest at Cesaro’s hand.
    Come to me. Blood called to blood and every trusted employee had been given Carpathian blood—enough that each De La Cruz could read thoughts, protect minds and extract information when needed.
    Zacarias knew the instant Cesaro wakened, reaching for his gun. There was satisfaction in knowing he had chosen the family well. Loyalty was the strongest trait within the