Lifting his head, Valenteen screamed horribly, the sound shattering gla.s.s from windows. Gripping her hair, he dragged her backward as his body fought to stay up in spite of the knife in his heart. With his other hand he grabbed her chin with every intention of breaking her neck.

Blood gushed from the wound in her neck so that his hand slipped off. Joie clamped both hands on the back of the fist clutching her hair to hold his hand to her head. Dropping low, she spun around and stood up fast, snapping bones in his hand. He howled as he let her go, raking at her with poison-tipped talons.

Traian emerged from the darkness, his eyes flaming red, dragging the vampire off of her, wrenching his head around hard. The knife handle dropped uselessly to the floor of the verandah, the blade completely eaten away by acid in the blood of the undead. Traian's fist shot out, plunging deep, following the trail of the knife. Valenteen matched the move, driving his good hand into the wall of Traian's chest, through the muscle and tissue, seeking his heart.

Valenteen and Traian stood eye to eye, toe to toe, both driving toward one another's heart. Traian ignored the pain of a claw tearing through muscle and tissue, ripping his flesh. He had one purpose. He had to reach that heart and kill the vampire, even if Valenteen managed to kill him. His lifemate and her siblings had no chance without him succeeding. His fingers burrowed deep. Acid blood poured over his arm, burning through to his bones. The vampire raked at him with his other arm and bent forward to try to tear his neck open with his teeth stained with Joie's blood.

Staring into the vampire's eyes, Traian ripped the shriveled, blackened organ out and tossed it aside. "You lose, Valenteen. You are dead."

"Not yet," Valenteen's teeth snapped around Traian's neck.

Chapter Twelve

Traian felt stabbing pain as teeth sank into his neck and the fist continued burrowing through his chest toward his heart. No master vampire would go down so easily. Already the rotten heart rocked to the summons of its growling, snarling master and began to slither across the floor to its host. Traian staggered under the weight of the heavy body trying to bring him to the ground. Insects abandoned the room to rush to the aid of their master. Bats darkened the hallway, rushing from the bedroom abandoning the two men they were trying to drain of blood, to serve Valenteen.

Gary and Jubal both stumbled to their feet, half blind with blood dripping from hundreds of bites, bodies swelling from insect bites, both trying to make their way to aid Traian. Gabrielle burst from the bathroom, sweeping up the shotgun as she ran, turning it as she would a baseball bat and as Valenteen lifted his head to spit blood in Traian's face, she slammed the b.u.t.t of the shotgun full force into the vampire's face, driving him back and away from Traian.

"Get off of him!" She followed the vampire, hitting him a second time just as hard, with just as much adrenaline as the first strike. She stepped in Joie's blood and slipped. Instantly she dropped to her knees beside her sister, hands clamping around her torn neck in an effort to slow down the bleeding. "Jubal! Help me."

The hand groping for Traian's heart fell free as Valenteen fell backward. Traian went to his knees as the bats went into a frenzy, eager for the hunter's blood. Jubal tore handfuls of bats from Traian. Gary did the same. At Gabrielle's cry, Jubal turned to see his youngest sister lying in an alarmingly large pool of blood.

Traian, still kneeling, covered in insects and biting bats, a hole torn in his chest, ignored all of it, blocking out pain and weakness from blood loss. He lifted his hands toward the hole in the ceiling of the bedroom. In answer, the clouds roiled with energy, silver streaks edging each of the spinning, dark fountains. Lightning forked in the sky, spun until it was a bright white sphere, hurtling down from the heavens like a streaking comet.

Valenteen shrieked and threw himself toward his heart, grasping at it with his outstretched hand. Gary slammed his booted foot down on his wrist to prevent him from reaching it as the spinning white-hot ball of lightning struck the heart, incinerating it. Valenteen grasped Gary's ankle in his talons, driving them deep, digging through flesh to try to get to bone in an effort to force him to move.

"Get away from him," Traian ordered, his voice hoa.r.s.e. "If I destroy his body, his servants will leave as well, but you have to get back."

Gary jerked a long-bladed knife from inside his loose jacket, took a breath and slammed the blade as hard as he could across the wrist of the vampire, the edge going through skin and bone. The hand fell away from the arm and he leapt back. Valenteen shrieked and the bats and insects renewed their frenzied biting, swarming over Traian, trying to drive him to the ground.

With a tremendous effort, Traian reached for the lightning once more, commanding a single bolt through the hole in the above bedroom floor to strike the body of the master vampire. Valenteen's body began to incinerate, exploding outward with wiggling white parasites, spewing ash and cinder. His mouth gaped wide, teeth bared, fiery eyes promising retaliation and then that too was gone. Only the hand remained, the talons digging long lines in the floor as it tried, with one last effort of pure malevolence, to get to the Carpathian hunter. The lightning forked, jumping to the hand to incinerate it as well.

The moment the last remnant of Valenteen had been reduced to ashes, the bats and insects fell away from Traian to flit aimlessly through the halls as if, without the direction of their master, they had no idea what to do.

Traian bathed his hands and arms in the energy, removing the acid burning his flesh before he attempted to stagger over to Joie. Joie lay on the floor in the hallway, watching him with a kind of awe. She couldn't talk because of the wound in her neck and loss of blood. She was barely conscious but seemed to know they were all there. Her fingers moved a little against Gabrielle's thigh as if to rea.s.sure her.

"Your wound must be attended first," Gary told Traian. "She'll need to be brought over and you cannot do that without strength. Jubal, we'll need soil. There's a bag in my closet. Get it as fast as you can."

Jubal nodded and forced his body, covered in bites and throbbing in pain, to move. He tore open the door to the closet to find the bag of rich Carpathian soil.

"I don't understand how they could get in from above us," Gabrielle sobbed, pressing harder on Joie's wound. "Do something, Traian. I can't stop the bleeding."

"Whoever had the room above mine must have allowed the vampire in," Gary explained. He very casually sliced a long line in his wrist and held the welling blood out to Traian. "Drink now. You'll need more later. You know what you have to do here, if she's going to survive."

"What?" Gabrielle demanded. She took a breath and looked from one man to the other. "Tell me what we have to do. Don't let her die, Traian."

"Pour a handful of soil into that bowl and bring it here," Gary instructed Jubal.

Traian drank from the man's wrist, his eyes on Joie, his mind in hers. Stay with me, sivamet-my love. You must give yourself into my keeping.

Joie tried to smile at him in rea.s.surance. She was cold, very cold, but she didn't hurt anymore. She knew she was drifting away from all of them. Gabrielle, her beloved sister, trying so frantically to close the wound, Jubal, h.e.l.l-bent on action to save her, and Traian ... Traian. She didn't remember if she'd told him she loved him. She'd never thought it ever possible that she would find a man to love. She regretted that she hadn't had time with him.

You will stay with me. This time it was a command.

Traian closed the wound on Gary's wrist with a small nod of his head in thanks. He buried his face against Joie's torn throat, using his own healing saliva to close the wound. She needed blood and soil, but more, she needed strength to get through the conversion and they had very little time.

"Carpathian soil," Gary said, taking the bowl from Jubal's hand. "We'll need your saliva to mix this. I have to plug that hole in your chest."

Traian glanced down at the mess of his chest. He had scarcely been aware of his wounds, blocking all pain until he could ensure Joie's safety. He obliged Gary, mixing his healing saliva with the mineral rich soil of his homeland. Gary hastily made a paste, noting Gabrielle watched his every movement carefully.

"You'll have to sit up for me," Gary said. "I'll put this in your chest and then on her neck. You'll need to go inside her to heal from the inside out to stop her losing any more blood before you convert her." He spoke the obvious to the Carpathian so that Joie's siblings would understand what was about to take place.

Traian nodded tersely. "Hurry. Her spirit is moving away from me."

Gary packed the wad of mud tight into the hole in Traian's chest under Gabrielle's watchful gaze.

"He has a healing agent in his saliva," Gary informed her as he worked. "Teeth can inject the anticoagulant needed to keep the blood flowing and saliva can heal it. Combined with their natural soil, it is a better healing agent than anything we've got for them."

"Joie isn't Carpathian," Gabrielle said. "The risk for her to get an infection could be very high." There was more question than statement in her observation.

"Traian will have to bring her across to his world. She's more than halfway there," Gary said as he packed Joie's wound. "He's holding her to us through sheer will, which is why I'm explaining all this to you, not him. He can't expend energy talking."

He looked around him. They were in the hall with a good part of the inn damaged and people milling around in shock. Mirko Ostojic rushed down the hall toward them, a shotgun in his hands. Behind him, Slavica, his wife, and their daughter Angelina herded the guests away from the area.

"Tell us what to do to help," Mirko said.

Gary answered him. "Tell your guests that the storm damaged this part of the inn and the noise was thunder and lightning hitting the roof and going through to the first story. You have to keep them away from here, Mirko. The bats living in the eaves in this area came in, frightened by the lightning."

The innkeeper nodded and indicated Jubal and Joie. "Should I send for a doctor?"

Gary shook his head. "We've got this under control." He turned his attention back to the Carpathian hunter as the innkeeper went back down the hall. "I'll protect your body while you do your best to heal her wounds, Traian," he said. "Mikhail is sending Falcon."

"No," Traian shook his head adamantly. "Tell Falcon to stay with the prince. There is another master close by, looking for a chance to kill Mikhail. Above all else, Falcon must protect him. We must do this ourselves."

Gary sighed. "So be it. Jubal, get on the other side of the hall and keep everyone away from us. No more than twenty feet in."

Traian blocked out all sound. Gary had shown remarkable knowledge of their ways and he had no other choice but to trust him. Still ... Jubal, I will be out of my body. I do not know this man enough to put Joie's life in his hands. Keep watch.

Will do. Just save her. Jubal glanced at his sister. "Gabrielle, come here by me."

"I want to see what he's doing," Gabrielle said. "I'm a doctor."

"I need you here," Jubal reiterated firmly.

Gabrielle squeezed her sister's cold hand. "Save her, Traian," she whispered and reluctantly climbed to her feet to go to her brother.