Carpathian 23 - Dark Storm

over his body, fought to keep his own form.
    Inside his body, a second, similar battle raged, only this was not a battle of flesh,
     but a battle of minds. The dragon’s soul surrounded his own and tried to absorb him
     into itself. It tried to dominate him. But Carpathians were predators, not prey, and
     Dax was a hunter of immense skill and drive and determination. He did not surrender.
     Not when fighting the most powerful and heinous vampire the world had ever seen, and
     not while fighting a powerful, ancient soul for control of his own body.
    The dragon rifled through Dax’s memories, tearing into his brain, past his substantial
     inner barriers, ripping through the outer hunter into the depths of Dax’s soul. The
     life of aloneness. The friends and fellow hunters who had turned to evil. The other
     hunters who had feared and avoided him once they realized he could tell which of them
     was about to turn vampire. He’d known before they did. Known, and waited close by
     to kill them before they could harm others.
    The Old One found his memories of the friends loved and lost to Mitro Daratrazanoff’s
     evil. The family who had taken him in after his own parents were killed by yet another
     friend turned vampire. The wish, long forgotten now, for a lifemate of his own. The
     beautiful Arabejila, companion and friend for more years of life than any unmated
     Carpathian warrior should ever have to endure. And yet with her, all things had become
     bearable. The years had not weighed so heavily. The emotions lost to him as he aged
     had always seemed close at hand when she was near. He had always admired her. Honored
     her gentleness. Respected her quiet strength. And she had been strong. As strong as
     he was in her own way. She’d had to be to endure the ruined life Mitro had left to
     her.
    Never once had Dax heard her complain. Oh, he’d seen her eyes grow dark with sorrow.
     Heard her weep softly in the day when she thought he was asleep. But she’d never complained.
     Just as she’d never blamed him for not killing Mitro when he had the chance.
    Dax had always known Mitro was not right. He’d always stayed close by, waiting for
     the darkness growing in Mitro’s soul to spill over. But when Mitro’s soul recognized
     Arabejila as his lifemate, Dax had thought them safe, thought the power of that bond
     would keep Mitro from the brink, would heal what was broken inside him.
    Instead, it had unleashed the monster. And Dax, who had been lured into a false sense
     of security, had not been watching as he should—as he would have had Arabejila not
     been Mitro’s lifemate. He’d thought her strong enough to heal him, as she so effortlessly
     healed all things and all people with just her presence.
    She was of the earth. The dragon’s voice thundered in Dax’s head again, pounding at the edges of his skull.
    “Yes,” he confirmed. “Stronger in her gifts than any I ever knew.”
    She sent you to me.
    “No, Old One. She is dead. She died long ago.”
    She is of the earth. She and her daughters. She sent you to me. She sends a daughter
     to you now.
    It surprised him that the dragon knew about the approach of Arabejila’s descendent,
     but perhaps it should not. The dragon, after all, had been buried in this mountain
     much longer than Dax. It had become the mountain; its flesh had become the mountain’s stone; its fire had become the
     mountain’s fire.
    “That daughter will not arrive in time. That is why, if you have strength to give,
     I ask that you give it to me now. If I cannot stop the vampire, he will destroy this
     world. So tell me, Old One, will you help or hinder me? There is no time left. Decide
     now.” Dax drew a breath and dropped his defenses, baring his mind to the dragon’s
     consciousness, everything he and Arabejila had fought for all these years, everything
     he had loved and lost, everything he believed in, everything he fought for.
    As the dragon’s mind had pillaged his mind, its power had tested his power, its strength,
     his strength, now its soul invaded his, peeling him down to the barest essence of
     his being and examining him with ruthless thoroughness.
    Dax felt like he was drowning in the fires of hell. Before, when the lava had burned
     him, he’d managed to compartmentalize the pain, push it from the forefront of his
     mind and ignore it, but now there was nowhere that was not wide open and raw and throbbing
     with agony. Sweat poured down his body,