She spun around to glare at Nicolas. She was beginning to recognize his touch. He didn't spare her a glance, his entire attention on controlling Terry. She glanced over at Gregori. The healer actually had Mikhail pressed against the wall, but the concentration on his face indicated he was with Nicolas, restraining Terry.

Terry lay back on the bed, eyes unfocused, but his body calm, no longer fighting. Lara let her breath out slowly. Gregori motioned to Mikhail to leave and Mikhail flicked one look at him. He wasn't going anywhere and it was evident on his face-in his eyes.

"Get to work," Mikhail ordered.

Gregori shrugged his broad shoulders and once more, using pure healing energy, entered Terry's body.

"What's going on?" Gerald asked, scrambling off the bed and moving around the Carpathian healer toward Lara.

Nicolas glided, cutting off Gerald's route. "You have blood all over your shirt. You should go take a shower."

"He's right, Gerald," Lara agreed. "It isn't safe. Burn your clothes. Anything you were wearing today."

Gerald halted, glanced at Terry, yanked the door open and hurried out to his room across the hall.

Lara leaned one hip against the wall and watched as Nicolas joined Gregori, the two of them working furiously, in tandem, to save Terry's life. And it was a struggle for his life-for his soul. The parasites were desperate to take him over, to possess his body and mind and turn him to their master's bidding.

The men worked nonstop, and time slipped away. Both grew paler until they were nearly gray in color and eventually sank onto the bed beside Terry. Mikhail once again calmly tore at his wrist and pressed his offering to Nicolas.

She tried not to look at the bright red blood. She tried not to see Nicolas holding the prince's arm, his fingers gripping as the life force flowed from Mikhail into him, yet she was mesmerized and couldn't look away.

Her wrist burned. Her lungs burned. She shivered, her body cold no matter how much she tried to restore and equalize her body's temperature. The walls around her curved and took on a bluish tinge. She sucked in her breath, trying to focus on the wall above the prince, but her gaze-and mind-were continually pulled back to the sight of the blood where it trickled down on his arm, smeared a little on Nicolas's fingers and dripped to the floor.

Her stomach lurched. Desperate, she locked on to Terry's face. That, too, was a mistake. She imagined the parasites swarming through his bloodstream to his every organ, launching a massive attack, fighting the healer and Nicolas for possession of him.

Sweat beaded on her forehead. Terry's face wavered, his boyish features changing, morphing until he was undeniably handsome, with blazing turquoise eyes and midnight black hair spilling across his forehead. The hair streaked with waves of silver. The eyes opened and locked with hers.

Her breath caught in her lungs. Agony there. Awareness. Impotent fury. Fear. So much fear the room filled with it. The walls bulged outward, unable to contain such terror.

Run. Run, Lara. Hide. She heard the sob in his voice, the overwhelming horror.

Nicolas found himself shivering with cold in an ice chamber. Chained to a wall, arms and chest burning from links coated with acidic vampire blood, Razvan fought to maintain possession of his own soul. Agony lived in his eyes and his black hair banded with platinum.

Lara. The voice whispered with love. With fear. With despair. Baby. Run. He is coming and I cannot protect you.

Nicolas felt terror rising, choking him. He swung his head to peer into the corner. The female child was older this time. Maybe four or five. She huddled against the wall, trembling, tears running down her face, her heart beating so loudly he could hear it above his own steady rhythm.Dragging footsteps came from behind. Nicolas turned and saw a hideous creature, part skeleton, part man coming toward them.

Skin hung in places yet was drawn tight in others. All flesh was decayed and rotting. A few long strands of gray hair tufted from his bald head. A straggly beard hung to his chest, but vermin crawled in and out of the dank hair, moving continually. His nails were yellow and long, curving back on his gnarled hands. Rotted, black teeth flashed in a macabre, evil smirk. His eyes were alive in what was left of his face, a slashing light of glowing, silvery madness.

Fear escalated until Nicolas's own heartbeat began to change, hammering hard in anticipation. His lungs burned for air.

Nicolas! Mikhail's voice became a sharp command, demanding he return to the present. Peace, little sister. You are safe, the prince added, attempting to calm Lara.

Nicolas knew only one way of keeping Lara from her nightmarish memories, the flashbacks recurring with even sharper images in the confines of the room. He caught her up in strong arms, thrust his mind fully into hers, taking complete command.

Dragonseeker ran strong in her veins and she certainly was capable of shifting with his help. He dissolved them both and took her out of the room, out of the inn and into the fresh clean air of the night.

Chapter 4.

Lara stood in the center of a very warm chamber, deep beneath the earth. Water rushed from the walls of the cave into a deep, steaming pool. Sconces on the walls spilled light from scented, flickering candles, throwing shadows on the crystal walls. The breath left her lungs in a little rush and she spun around in a circle, fingers curling around the hilt of her knife in her belt at her side.

She moistened her lips and turned to confront Nicolas. "Exactly where am I and how did I get here?"

"Before you get all crazy on me and throw that knife you have in your hand," Nicolas drawled, "you are not a prisoner. I left a path in your mind so you can find your way out anytime you need or want to go. This is the safest and most peaceful place I know of. Safeguards are in place for your protection. There is a bed in the next chamber where you can rest."

She searched her memories and found the way out, carefully placed as if she'd actually entered the cave a thousand times and knew every chamber and hallway. "I have a room at the inn." She didn't relax her grip on the knife.

"It is occupied with several men at the moment. I thought perhaps you would enjoy this retreat a little more."

His black hair spilled across his forehead, drawing attention to his very black, eyes. The urge to sweep the silky strands aside was so strong she took a step away from him to keep from reaching out.

"That doesn't explain how I got here or why you didn't consult me."

He shrugged powerful shoulders, causing an intriguing and very sexy rippling effect under his shirt. She tried not to stare.

"I carried you here. We shifted into mist so we could travel undetected and much faster."

Lara nearly choked. "I don't shift."

His eyes gleamed at her, amusement softening the edge of his mouth. "You shifted without even a hint of a problem. I thought you had been doing it every day."

Previous Top NextShe flashed him her fiercest scowl. "Then why don't I remember?"

"Do you have memory lapses often? Is this something I should be aware of and watch out for?"

"Ha ha ha. You think you're really funny, don't you? I have never shifted in my life and certainly not into mist." And she'd tried, a thousand times, over and over, until she finally believed she had made her childhood up.

"You know how. It is there in your mind."

"It is?" For a moment she forgot she was annoyed with him. She didn't want to revisit memories locked away, to find out, but if she could shift, it would certainly be a useful talent. Her aunts were shifters. They had been trapped in dragon form, but that wasn't their natural form. She should have known they would have provided her with that skill as well as languages, healing and magic. "I didn't know."

"Well, you certainly have the knowledge. You need help, of course, because you are not fully Carpathian, but that is easy enough. You have barriers in place. Protections. I found your own," he said in a matter-of-fact way, but he was watching her closely. "But there are guards made by others. A male's touch. Two women. They did not want you to remember your childhood."

The two women had to have been her aunts-but the man? Her father? She knew no other men. Why would her father put up a barrier to her earlier memories, but allow her to see him feeding off of her? Her stomach lurched and she turned away from Nicolas, unwilling for him to witness more weakness. She often had nightmares, but no one had ever been around to see the results. And the flashbacks-if that's what they were-she'd never seen Razvan chained and a prisoner before.

"I don't understand any of this."

Why was she seeing Razvan as the victim instead of herself? Nothing seemed to make sense anymore, not even her own behavior. Now she couldn't explain why her aunts and someone else-someone she hadn't known had been in her head-didn't want her remembering her childhood.

"I can't imagine why they would erase my memories," she murmured. She couldn't get the sight of the ravaged face of her father from her mind.

"Not erase, protect," he clarified. "The memories are still there for you to discover."

"Was it real? What we saw, was it real?"

He lifted a hand and the candles flickered. The aroma of soothing lavender, honey and lilac filled the chamber. He wanted to make her feel better, but one did not lie to a lifemate. "Your memories have been suppressed, but not tampered with. They are very real."

"You saw it then, the same memory I did?" Triggered by blood and parasites and those horrible silvery eyes. She ducked her head, letting her breath out in a little rush before inhaling the fragrance of the candles.

"Yes. I recognized the marks on him from the chains. My brother Riordan was captured and held by such chains. It is difficult to hold a Carpathian prisoner. I believe whoever is behind this has been perfecting his technique." And using your father to experiment on first.

Lara caught his thought before he censored it. She looked around for a place to sit. Immediately there was a low-slung chaise with soft cushions in front of her. She didn't question how it got there, but sank down onto it, fearing her legs wouldn't hold her up much longer.

"I don't understand this, Nicolas. If your brother had those same chain marks, was he Xavier's prisoner? Tell me about your brother.""We live in the rainforest in South America. It has been our home for many centuries now and our family is well established there. Riordan was on patrol as we seem to be getting more and more activity..."

"By activity, do you mean Xavier?"

He shook his head, noting that she kept rubbing her temples. He touched her mind to find a headache pounding there. "No, I mean vampires. The jaguar people share the Amazon with us, and the vampires have banded together to try to destroy the Carpathian people. They wanted to rid themselves of one of our allies, so they began corrupting the jaguar species. Riordan stumbled across evidence of their presence and, in tracking them, fell victim to a false call for aid."

Nicolas moved behind her and reached out to press his fingertips against her temples. Lara stiffened and jerked her head away, eyeing him warily over her shoulder.

"Let me," he said softly. "There is no need for you to be in pain."

She held her breath, uncertain what to do, and that was rare for her. Nicolas kept her off balance with his close proximity. They seemed to share the same air. She felt him under her skin and every single cell in her body was acutely aware of him.

"It is a small thing, removing your headache."

And it made her feel small and petty to deny him. She shrugged. "Tell me more about your brother."

"He was held captive in a laboratory."

"It is the same then. They were experimenting on him. Surely it isn't coincidence."

"Mostly they experimented on animals, but once they had Riordan, they chained him to the wall, using chains coated in vampire blood, much as you remembered seeing Razvan chained. The blood burns like acid, burning without mercy. It is very painful.

They kept Riordan drained of blood and weak with a poison injected into him."

Lara frowned, almost grasping another memory, one of needles, but she let it slip away.

Nicolas pressed the pads of his fingers over the pulse throbbing in Lara's temples and held them there, infusing warmth and healing energy. He could feel her instant sympathetic and identifying reaction to his brothers captivity. "He is safe and very happy now," he added. "His lifemate rescued him and brought hope to our family, a belief that if it happened to Riordan, if he could find his lifemate under the unlikeliest of circumstances, then perhaps the rest of us could as well. We managed to hold out longer than we ever thought possible."

Because his family carried tremendous gifts, they also were burdened with a far more dangerous element. While all Carpathian males grew dark over time, especially those born warriors, the De La Cruz brothers were born with the darkness already strong in them. They had been consumed by it rapidly, glorying in the training, the battle and hunt and most of all the rush of the kill.

"How does that work?" Lara asked curiously. "The aunts said the seed of the vampire was in the Carpathian male."

"That is one way to look at it. Certainly all Carpathian males are capable of choosing to give up their souls. We wander in barren worlds with only our memories and touching the minds of others who still feel and see the beauty of our surroundings. It is difficult to fight the need for emotion, any emotion."

"Is my father a vampire?"

Nicolas was silent for a moment, his hands dropping to her shoulders to ease the tension from her with a massage. "We do not know what your father is. One moment we think he is dead, and then he pops back up somewhere. He has many faces and has committed numerous crimes against our people, but no one knows for certain what is happening in the enemy camp. You may be our greatest clue. You and your lost memories.""What do my memories mean? All this time I thought my father was a demon. He took my blood, ripped open my wrist, my neck, my veins. He treated me as if I was nothing but a meal for him. That's what I remember."

"We do not know or understand the time line. Perhaps there was a time when both of you were prisoners together."

"It doesn't make sense that my aunts would suppress my memories of him as a prisoner. What would be the purpose? And you said there was a male's weave in the barrier. I only know of my father and Xavier, but you would feel the taint of evil if either of them had woven a shield. What would be his purpose in leaving me only memories of him feeding on me? Why would they all want me to think my own father was the worst kind of monster?" Lara dropped her face into her hands.

Nicolas stayed behind her, as still as a cat, his hands continuing to massage the tension from her shoulders. "Perhaps the true memories are worse than believing your father was wholly a fiend."

"You recognized him. Is he still alive?"

"We believe he is."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"He possessed the body of an elderly woman at the inn where you have a room. There was a celebration of sorts and the lifemate of the prince's brother..."

Her breath hissed out in a rush between her teeth and she whirled around to face him. "Say her name. She has a name."

He shrugged his shoulders, unperturbed by her annoyance. "Shea, Jacques Dubrinsky's lifemate, was with child. The elderly woman attacked with a poisoned, barbed needle and would have killed her had not my brother, Manolito, stepped in front of Shea to protect her. Fortunately he survived the attack."

She made a small sound and turned away from him again, the soothing aroma of the lavender and honey unable to combat the news of her father's treachery. "Shea was pregnant and Razvan tried to murder her and her unborn child."

"It appears so."

She shook her head. "I'm so sorry. I didn't think beyond what he had done to me, but I should have."

Nicolas moved, glided really, a blur she barely saw or felt until he was standing in front of her, lifting her chin with gentle fingers.

"You are not responsible for anything Razvan has done. He carries his choices on his own shoulders."

She managed a small smile. "Thank you for that. And what of my aunts? Do you know anything at all of them?"

"I am sorry, Lara, but I have heard no news of them being seen alive. If they are truly your aunts."

"Great-aunts," she corrected. "But I always called them my aunts."

He smiled. "I did assume that. If they are your great-aunts, that would make them Rhiannon's daughters. We know Rhiannon had triplets with Xavier. Two girls-your aunts, and Soren, your grandfather. Soren was murdered by Xavier some years ago.

No one has ever seen the girls. What do they look like?"

"I only saw them in dragon form. They were weak and sick. Xavier used them for blood, and kept them in a weakened state. He was very afraid of them. Often, if one was unfrozen, he would hold a knife to the other's throat. They saved my sanity, whispering to me when things got very bad, distracting me when I was used for feeding."

"You are certain they were Rhiannon's children?""The love story they told me was of their mother, Rhiannon, and her true lifemate. Xavier murdered him and held Rhiannon prisoner, forcing her to have his children, triplets. He believed he could be immortal, living on the blood of the Carpathians. I'm certain the things they told me were true, at least they said they were." She looked at him. "You were able to bind me with the ritual words. How would they know the Carpathian marriage ritual if they weren't Rhiannon's daughters?"

"Dominic, Rhiannon's brother, has sought news of her many years now. We were informed of her death at the hands of Xavier and he has been hoping to hear of his nieces. This news will sadden him."

"They could still be alive," she said. "It's possible. They helped me escape the ice cave, and maybe they managed as well. They were very powerful. Xavier kept them weak, but they were smart. They might have found a way. That's what I've come back to find out. I'm going to hunt for evidence of what happened to them."

Nicolas drew in his breath sharply. "The ice caves are too dangerous. The last visitors barely escaped with their lives. It is not a place you should enter."

She kept her eyes on the water in the pool gently lapping at the ring of rocks. "Have you been down there?" She didn't much care one way or the other what he thought. She intended to go to the cave and find out for herself what had happened to her aunts.