Carpathian 22 - Dark Predator

done. Finished. Tell me you understand. Each of you. Say it. Swear it on the life of our mother.”
    His brothers each swore to him they would obey his wishes and reaffirmed their allegiance to him. Only then did he leave them to let them mourn while he went a distance away and sank into the earth and cried for the last time in over a thousand years.

    Zacarias touched his face and his fingertips came away smeared with blood. He could feel Marguarita in his arms, feel her inside of him, all around him. Her heartbeat was rapid and her breathing ragged. She was crying, and he felt her pain as though it was his own. Startled he looked down at her shoulder. Her blouse had droplets of crimson staining the material. His throat felt clogged and aching. Shocked, he shoved her away from him, throwing her out of his mind, rejecting her, rejecting the memories, rejecting the agony of such of things.
    The adrenaline and absolute refutation of the memory—of the emotions—put far more strength in him than he intended, and Marguarita went flying, stumbling back away from him to land several feet in a small heap on the floor. She looked up at him with resignation, making no attempt to stand.
    Zacarias took a deep breath and expelled the terrible taste in his mouth—in his mind. He was Zacarias De La Cruz and he was . . . alone. Completely, utterly alone. Without her in his mind, filling those torn, shadowed places, he had never been so alone. He could feel it, that emptiness yawning like a great endless hole threatening to swallow him whole. He backed even farther away from her—this witch who had turned his life upside down.
    The agony of remembrance was unbearable. Tremors ran through him. He took another step away from her, putting the length of the room between them. Inside there was a terrible wrenching, as if he was tearing his own body apart in order to separate from her. He couldn’t afford her. He was pure predator, born that way, shadowed from birth, encased in ice. She was melting each of his shields, destroying his ability to function properly.
    A slow hiss of warning emerged. Fear slid into her expression and instead of the satisfaction he should have felt, his stomach took a plunge and something vicious squeezed his heart.
    You asked me to show you.
    He felt her plea, although this time he wasn’t certain she did. She held out an unsteady hand to him. Zacarias studied her, his eyes flat and cold, his expression deliberately remote. “Of what use is this to me? This memory was never meant to surface and yet you bring up something that has been buried over a thousand years. For what purpose?”
    But the memory is still inside of you and so is the pain. You lock it away instead of letting go of it.
    “If I do not feel it, it is gone.”
    She shook her head, dropping her hand. If it was gone, I could not have found it or felt the agony you felt.
    He despised her logic. She had uncovered a long-buried secret no one in the Carpathian world, let alone the human world, knew. He took a step toward her, his teeth snapping together in a vicious warning. “I should break your neck for such an indiscretion. You dare too much.” He actually twisted his hands together as if he had her neck between his palms.
    She tilted her chin at him. I’m tired of being afraid of you. Do it then. Get it over with.
    He was on her so fast she had no time to do anything but blink up at him. His fingers wrapped around her throat, dragging her to her feet. Her pulse beat into the palm of his hand. He knew the moment he touched her that he was lost. There would be no killing this woman, no harming her in any way. She was fast losing her fear of him and she had every reason to be afraid. Each time he got near her, inhaled her, looked at her, his body reacted, full and hard and so aching with need it rivaled the hunger throbbing in his veins for her.
    “Sun scorch you, woman,” he whispered, dropping his hands. “No one controls me. No one .” He turned his back on her, striding from the room.
    Zacarias dissolved before he reached the front door. He needed to be outdoors where he could breathe. He didn’t belong in any enclosure. The world had long since moved on without him. He was a predator long outliving his time and he understood nothing about the modern world—nor did he want to. Modern houses and conveniences meant nothing to him. He had the rain forest and the caves, the earth itself was his home. He was meant to be alone. He had