Leopard 05 - Savage Nature

the way to his bones, but he felt calm steal into him as he turned and quietly walked away. Fires raged, but his brothers could put them out. The acid blood from the vampire attack soaked into the groaning, protesting earth, but again, his brothers would seek out that vile poison and eradicate it.
    His stark, brutal journey was over. Finally. More than a thousand years of living in an empty, gray world. He had accomplished everything he had set out to do. His brothers were safeguarded. They each had a woman who completed them. They were happy and healthy and he had eliminated the worst threat to them. By the time their enemies grew in numbers again, his brothers would be even stronger. They no longer needed his direction or protection. He was free.
    “Zacarias! You’re in need of healing. Of blood.”
    It was a feminine voice. Solange, lifemate to Dominic, his oldest friend. With her pure royal blood, she would change their lives for all time. Zacarias was too damned old, too set in his ways and oh, so tired, to ever make the kind of changes to continue living in this century. He had become as obsolete as the medieval warriors of long ago. The taste of freedom was metallic, coppery, his blood flowing, the very essence of life.
    “Zacarias, please.” There was a catch in her voice that should have affected him, but it didn’t. He didn’t feel as the others could. There was no swaying him with pity or love. He had no kinder, gentler side. He was a killer. And his time was over.
    Solange’s blood was an incredible gift to their people, he recognized that even as he rejected it. Carpathians were vulnerable during the hours of daylight—especially him. The more the predator, the more the killer, the more the sunlight was an enemy. He was considered by most of his people to be the Carpathian warrior who walked the edge of darkness, and he knew it was true. Solange’s blood had given him that last and final reason to free himself from his dark existence.
    Zacarias drew in another lungful of smoky air and continued walking away from them all without looking back or acknowledging Solange’s offer. He heard his brothers calling to him in alarm, but he keptalking, picking up his pace. Freedom was far away and he had to get there. He had known, as he’d ripped out the heart of the last of the attacking vampires trying to destroy his family, that there was only one place he wanted to go. It made no sense, but that didn’t matter. He was going.
    “Zacarias, stop.”
    He looked up as his brothers dropped from the sky, forming a solid wall in front of him. All four of them. Riordan, the youngest. Manolito, Nicolas and Rafael. They were good men and he could almost feel his love for them—so elusive, just out of reach. They blocked his way, stopping him from his goal, and no one—nothing—was allowed to get between him and what he wanted. A snarl rumbled in his chest. The ground shook beneath their feet. They exchanged an uneasy glance, fear shimmering in their eyes.
    That look of such intense fear for their own brother should have given him pause, but he felt—nothing. He had taught these four men their fighting skills, survival skills. He had fought beside them for centuries. Looked after them. Led them. Once even had memories of love for them. Now that he had shrugged off the mantle of responsibility, there was nothing. Not even those faint memories to sustain him. He couldn’t remember love or laughter. Only death and killing.
    “Move.” One word. An order. He expected them to obey, as everyone obeyed him. He had acquired wealth beyond imagining in his long years of living, and in the last few centuries he had not once had to buy his way into or out of something. One word from him was all it took and the world trembled and stepped aside for his wishes.
    Reluctantly, far too slow for his liking, they parted to allow him to stride through.
    “Do not do this, Zacarias,” Nicolas said. “Don’t go.”
    “At least heal your wounds,” Rafael added.
    “And feed,” Manolito pressured. “You need to feed.”
    He whirled around and they fell back, fear sliding to terror in their eyes—and he knew they had reason to be afraid. The centuries had shaped him, honed him into a violent, brutal predator—a killing machine. There were few to equal him in the world. And he walked the edge of madness. His brothers were great hunters, but killing him would require their considerable skills and no hesitation. They all