GhostWalkers 10 - Samurai Game

with another long-sought-after female child. Arabejila had dragged herself to her mother and cut open her belly to save the unborn infant.
    Dax had arrived to find blood and death everywhere, his oldest friend and partner’s entire family savagely destroyed by Mitro Daratrazanoff. Arabejila and her mother were daughters of the earth, their female magick important to the entire Carpathian people. The unborn female child would carry that same gift, although she was several centuries younger than her only sister. Never before in the history of the Carpathian world had such a crime been committed. One Carpathian had deliberately killed
two
females and attempted to kill a third
before
he’d actually turned vampire. It had been murder—pure and simple. And once the blood-lust was on him, Mitro continued his killing spree across continents.
    The infant was premature and Arabejila was near death. Dax had given both his blood to save them, tying them to him for all time, something few warriors ever did. The earth had reached for Arabejila, healing her so that she could make the journey with him quickly, her blood calling to that of her lifemate. They left her unnamed sister in the handsof another Carpathian couple and set out on the trail of Mitro. That trail led them from one killing field to another. Century after century, horrendous battles took place where both hunter and hunted nearly died time and again. Always Mitro managed to escape until they had at last trapped him here, in this volcano.
    The plan had been Dax’s, but it was Arabejila who had lured Mitro to the mountain. Mitro couldn’t resist the call of his lifemate, no matter how hard he tried. Once Mitro was inside with Dax chasing him, Arabejila would call to the mountain to aid her in containing the vampire. She didn’t like the plan, because it meant Dax would end his days there, but she obliged with the promise that as she knew she wouldn’t be able to last long with her lifemate estranged, she would find a good human man among the remaining Tahuantinsuyu or Incas and have a child to carry on her work.
    The stirring in his gut told him the vampire was on the move. The crust had grown thin, far too thin, and the pressure inside the volcano was appalling. The vampire’s triumph could be felt through the mountain. Over the last few centuries, after Arabejila had allowed herself to die, each succeeding ancestor had been more human than Carpathian. The women had come to the mountain and, as Arabejila had insisted, had even given birth there to ensure their connection with the earth. The binding had grown weaker over the last few years, not lasting as it should.
    Three times the woman had come just in time… but not this time. Mitro’s vicious glee filled the volcano, his will pushing continually at the thinnest part of the crust. He sent out his evil, delaying the woman on her trip, finding weaker minds to entice to his bidding. Arabejila’s blood relation was in danger and she wouldn’t make it to the mountain in time to prevent Mitro’s escape.
    Dax searched for the vampire throughout the vast network of chambers and caves. The entire mountain stank of evil, completely obscuring Mitro’s trail from the hunter.Throughout the long years, they’d each done their best to kill the other, but they were evenly matched and they’d only sustained horrendous wounds, recovering in the heated soil time and again, only to engage once again.
    Mitro was avoiding all confrontations now, seeing his chance to escape. While they were locked in the remote mountain, the world had passed them by. Dax could only hope that the Carpathian hunters had grown strong and much more skilled than Mitro. Dax was starved and would need recovery time to take up the hunt. He had kept his muscles in shape and practiced his hunting skills to keep himself sane, but he feared his mind was half animal now, and that the invasive evil had crept into his very bones. It would take tremendous discipline, if he found actual substance, not to drain the donor dry.
    He prepared himself for the inevitable, but sent a prayer to whatever gods might be, to mother earth herself, that the woman arrived in time.

Also by Christine Feehan:
DARK PREDATOR
    As brutal as the undead he hunted, Zacarias De La Cruz
was a master executioner. Now his stark and savage
journey is over. After a thousand years in a grey world,
he has accomplished everything he set out to do – his
brothers are safeguarded, and