Leopard 05 - Savage Nature

be there when he met Iris. Armande saved Mahieu’s life. If he hadn’t been there, Pauline . . .” She trailed off. “Armande and Charisse are good people.”
    Pauline patted her hand. “I know they are. I love them both very much. They need time to get over all this. I should have stepped in a long time ago when I saw how my sister treated Charisse. The poor girl lived with persecution and abuse for years.”
    “It’s over now,” Drake said.
    His voice was so gentle it turned Saria’s heart over. She leaned into him, uncaring of her beaded gown. Drake immediately swept his arm around her waist and leaned down to brush kisses down the side of her face.
    Charisse had been her maid of honor, but Armande hadn’t come to the wedding. He’d chosen to go to the rain forest where he could breathe a little and think things through. Now that Charisse was safe, he didn’t have to watch over her so carefully. He blamed himself for the deaths of the men and women his mother had murdered. He’d known she was ill, but had no idea of the extent of her madness.
    “Come dance with me,” Drake murmured in her ear.
    She kissed Pauline. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I’ve always loved the inn. You know I do. It’s always been a sanctuary for me. I’ll be raisin’ my children here.”
    “Go dance with your handsome husband so I can dance with my man,” Pauline said, patting her hand.
    Saria put her hand in Drake’s, happiness bursting through her as she fit her body close to his. There was something so sensual, so right and perfect about dancing with one’s husband, and she intended to savor every moment.
    “I love you,” Drake whispered in her ear as he whirled her around the dance floor.
    She waited a heartbeat. Looked into his eyes. Let herself drown there. “I love you too.”

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Christine Feehan
     
    DARK PREDATOR
    Available September 2011 from Berkley Books.
    SMOKE burned his lungs. It rose around him in bellowing waves, fed by the numerous fires in the surrounding rain forest. It had been a long, hard-fought battle, but it was over and he was done. Most of the main house was gone, but they’d managed to save the homes of the people who served them. Few lives were lost, but each one was mourned—though not by him. He stared at the flames with hollow eyes. He felt nothing. He looked on the faces of the dead, honorable men who had served his family well, saw their weeping widows and their crying children and he felt—nothing.
    Zacarias De La Cruz paused for just a moment while surveying the battlefield. Where before the rain forest had been lush, trees rising to the clouds, home to wildlife, there were now flames reaching to the heavens and black smoke staining the sky. The scent of blood was overwhelming, the dead, mangled bodies staring with sightless eyes at the dark sky. The sight didn’t move him. He surveyed it all, as if from a distance, with a pitiless gaze.
    It didn’t matter where, or which century, the scene was alway the same, and over the long, dark years, he’d seen so many battlefields he’d lost count. So much death. So much brutality. So much killing. So much destruction. And he was always right in the midst of it, a whirling, dark predator, merciless, ruthless and implacable.
    Blood and death were stamped into his very bones. He’d executed so many enemies of his people over hundreds of centuries, he didn’t know how to exist without the hunt—or the kill. There was no other way of life for him. He was pure predator and he’d recognized that fact a long time ago—as did anyone who dared to come close to him.
    He was a legendary Carpathian hunter, from a species of people nearly extinct, living in a modern world, holding on to the old ways of honor and duty. His kind ruled the night, slept during the day and needed blood to survive. Nearly immortal, they lived long, lonely existences, color and emotion fading until only honor held them to their chosen path of looking for the one woman who could complete them and restore both color and emotion. Many gave up, killed while feeding to feel the rush—just to feel something—becoming the vilest, most dangerous creature known: the vampire. Every bit as brutal and violent as the undead, Zacarias De La Cruz was a master at hunting them.
    Blood ran steadily from numerous wounds and the acid from poisonous blood burned all