Dark Destiny

Chapter Twelve

Surrender herself into his keeping. Such simple words. He said them with calm, with conviction. Destiny raced across the skies with no idea of where she was heading, only the need to fly high and fast and far.

I never wanted this.

She detested whining. She detested feeling sorry for herself. She really detested being afraid. She hadn’t feared her battles with the undead. If she had died then, it would have ended the suffering, the agonizing problems her tainted blood caused. If she were the victor, the world would be rid of another monster. Now she feared destroying the only person who mattered. The only one who had managed to find his way into her soul. Nicolae.

I want you with all my heart. With every breath in my body.

He was relentless in his pursuit of her. She understood suddenly. He had always hunted her, not for the reasons she had thought, but to satisfy a terrible need and hunger, the same craving she now felt. An addiction that would never stop. She couldn’t find the strength she needed to free them both of this dangerous liaison.

“Where are you, God?” She cried the words out among the clouds as she had done so many times before.

The wind carried back the answer. It caressed her skin with a loving touch and affectionately ruffled her hair. The wind surrounded her, enfolded her in the beauty of the night sky. The clouds shifted to allow her to pass through them, trailing a fine mist in her wake, dusted her skin with cool vapor so that if there were traces of tears, it was impossible to see them.

Come back to me, Destiny. His voice offered comfort. Offered paradise. Offered everything.

Why do you want me? Because I’m the light that burns so brightly you will not turn? Is that all there is between us? That and chemistry? I don’t know you at all, do I?

The wind murmured to her, a soft, consoling lullaby. She could feel the wildness subsiding deep within her, settling back to allow her heart and lungs to work without effort. A small sound, faint and far off caught her attention, so that without conscious thought, she changed direction, veering back toward the city.

You have only to touch my mind, Destiny, to find the things you wish to know. To really love, you have to choose intimacy. You have to choose to know your lifemate. You have not made that choice.

I was intimate with you! She was angry that he could accuse her of holding back. It had been difficult to commit herself physically to him. How dare he even think such a thing!

Intimacy is far more than physical, little one.

The lights of the city twinkled like thousands of stars, drawing her back toward humanity. Back toward Nicolae. She knew he waited. That he watched. Just how powerful was he? Had he somehow directed her feelings for him? Amplified them in some way she couldn’t detect? Was she already in his power? She knew the answer. She was totally captivated by him. Completely. Utterly and completely.

Destiny shimmered into her human form, landing easily, lightly. She was already moving, scanning, hurrying out of the secluded alleyway onto the street. Somewhere close by was the soft, discordant note that had disturbed her flight. A child’s muted crying tugging at her heartstrings. She hurried, her footsteps silent, her posture completely confident.

There were only a few people on the street so late at night. She scanned as she walked, checking the various apartments for the location of the child. Most of the buildings were dark and quiet. She could hear televisions blaring in a few apartments and music playing in others. The child was broadcasting sharp waves of grief. Unerringly Destiny turned down another side street where the apartment buildings gave way to small houses set close together. Rickety fences set a few of the properties apart, but duplexes and smaller single dwellings were built tightly against one another. Paint was chipped and peeling from the thin siding. Doors sagged, and gates were cracked and falling off their hinges.

Destiny vaulted a low fence easily and made her way around to the back of one house. Cardboard boxes and bundled newspapers were piled high, mountains of them, taking up most of the space in the tiny back yard. She should walk away, leave the city and get as far away from Nicolae as she could. But her mind was already tuning itself to his. Needing to be immersed in his.

Was it really the ritual words that had bound them together, or had her need of him started long ago? She had reached for him at every rising. His calm, his presence in the world had been her sanity. For years she had used him, forced him to share her pain, her damaged soul. She had sentenced him to a life in the shadows, forever seeking her. She had punished him with her silence, all the while sharing with him every aspect of the vampire’s torture and abuse.

I was already of the shadows, Destiny. You pulled me into the light.

His voice. His beautiful voice could take her into dreamland. Could weave fairy tales and bring hope.

Could absolve her of all guilt. Her lashes drifted down as she paused beside the rotting back stairs. There was always so much guilt. Would it never go away and leave her in peace?

The sound of the hopeless weeping dragged her out of her own despair. A child should never experience such heartbreaking emotion. Destiny could feel the vibrations of violence, the aftermath that lingered in the air. And she smelled blood. She hunkered down to peer beneath the wobbly stairs. The boy couldn’t be more than nine or ten years old. He was so thin, his clothes were far too wide, although his bony wrists and ankles were showing. He wore no socks and had holes in his shoes. Tears made muddy tracks in the dirt on his face. He rubbed his face continually with his knuckles, but he couldn’t stop the sobs that shook his young body. There were smears of fresh blood on his clothing, but she could see no open wounds.

“Hi there,” she said, using her gentlest voice, afraid of startling him. She had learned those soft, silvery tones from Nicolae. It always came back to Nicolae. “Is there room under there for me?” There was compulsion in her voice, a small “push” to make it easier for the boy to accept her presence.

He looked frightened, his eyes widening with shock, but he obligingly moved over to allow her enough space to squeeze beneath the stairs. Destiny sat tailor fashion, her body heat helping to warm the child.

“Bad night?”

The boy nodded mutely. Destiny could see the scars on the backs of his hands and arms. Defensive scars. She recognized them for what they were. “My name is Destiny. What’s yours?” She held out her arms, palms down so that he could see the slash marks on her arms. The same defensive wounds. “We match.”

He bent close in the darkness to examine her scars. “You have more.”

“But they’ve faded,” she pointed out judiciously. “And they don’t hurt anymore. At least not on the outside. What about yours?”

“Mine don’t hurt either.” His gaze locked with hers. “Well, maybe a little on the outside. I’m Sam.”

“A lot on the inside, right, Sam?” She brushed the pad of her thumb over the worst of the scars, leaving behind a soothing balm. “Tell me. This didn’t happen tonight. Tell me what’s wrong.”

He shook his head, the code of the streets keeping him silent for a moment, but it was impossible to resist the lure of her voice. His lower lip trembled, but he squared his thin shoulders. “I didn’t wash the dishes. I knew he’d be mad at her if I didn’t wash the dishes, but Tommy wanted me to play basketball. All the kids were playing, and I thought I’d only play for a couple of minutes.” His lashes were wet and spiky from his tears, and the weight in his chest was like a stone in hers.

Destiny already knew. The horror was seeping through the rickety floorboards and pervading the air beneath the stairs.

Nicolae.

She reached out to him as she always did. As she had done for years. And he was there. In her mind. As he had always been. Surrounding her with warmth. Giving her courage. Holding her in strong arms and giving her a refuge, a shelter when the pain of the world was too much to bear alone.

I’ll bring him to Father Mulligan, but the police will have to be brought to this place of death. She knew Nicolae would hear the sorrow in her voice. He would feel it in her heart. And he would share it with her and shoulder part of her burden.

“It was my fault.” The thin shoulders shook, and the boy covered his face with his hands. “She came home from work and she was tired. I heard her call to me to hurry, and I ran, but I was down the block and it was too late. I saw him go in. I knew what he was going to do to her. He was always so angry. He wanted money for his drugs and he took it out of her purse. She was crying because we needed it for food. That’s when he saw the dishes.”

“Sam, you don’t need to be in this place. I’m going to take you to a friend of mine,” Destiny said gently.

Sam shook his head. “I can’t leave her. He was so mad about the dishes. He kept hitting her and throwing plates on the floor. I tried to stop him, but he pushed me and she threw the coffee pot at him and told him not to touch me or she would call the police and have him arrested. That’s when he picked up the knife.”

She drew him to her, rocking him gently, letting him talk.

“If I had washed the dishes, the knife wouldn’t have been on the sink. It would have been in the drawer. He wouldn’t have picked it up. I should have just done the dishes instead of playing basketball.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Sam. He was ill, and he is responsible for hurting your mother, not you. Never you. We all put off chores. Everyone does. Procrastination does not cause one human being to murder another.

He

did it, not you. Your mother would never want you to think that. Come with me. Let me take you to Father Mulligan. He’ll make certain you’re all right. The police will come and they’ll take care of your mother.”

“They’ll lock me up. He said the police would lock me up ‘cause I don’t have anyone else.”

“Father Mulligan won’t let anything bad happen to you. And police don’t lock up children who have lost their parents, Sam. They help them. They find them a home with people who care about them. Come with me now.” She wanted to get him away from the house, away from the man who might return at any time. Sam didn’t need to see more violence. He didn’t need to feel responsible for things adults did to one another.

She drew the boy out from under the sagging stairway and urged him quickly away from the house. She felt the first stirrings of apprehension as they hurried along the narrow pathway by the side of the house. The boy stopped abruptly as they gained the front yard. She felt the tremor that ran through his thin body, and she turned her head to see the man half sitting against a column on the front porch.

Her fingers tightened on the boy’s shoulder, and she raised a hand to her lips to indicate the need for silence. It wasn’t difficult to take control of the child’s mind, shielding him from further fear. The man was obviously in a stupor, his head lolling back, his mouth wide open, his arms and clothes splattered with blood.

A low hiss of anger escaped her as she silently watched the man twitch and jerk, his fingers clenching into tight fists, then opening again. She was so focused on the murderer, she failed to notice the mist streaming into the yard, or feel the surge of power as Nicolae shimmered into solid form.

“Take the child and leave this place, Destiny,” Nicolae said grimly. His palm caressed the back of her head with the briefest of touches, but it provided a comfort she didn’t expect.

Destiny pulled the child closer to her. “This should never have happened. A child should never have to live this way, Nicolae. He thinks he’s to blame.”

Her enormous eyes were begging him to do something. Held confidence that he would. His heart turned over. Nicolae wanted to drag her into his arms, to point out that when she was a child, she thought herself to blame for things she had no control over, but he knew she had to come to that knowledge on her own. The realization had to be more than intellectual, it had to be in her heart, her soul, right where the scars were.

“Take him away from here. Father Mulligan is expecting you, and the police are on their way. They will not find me in this place.” His voice was very gentle.

Destiny met his gaze. Some of the tension eased out of her. “Thank you, Nicolae. I’m grateful that you’re here.” She reached out and touched his arm. A mere brush to answer his, but her heart was swelling with joy as she turned away. She couldn’t help the way she felt every time she looked at him. There was pride and confidence and chemistry and a curious melting deep inside her. A part of her might always fight to avoid admitting how deeply he had entwined himself around her heart, but she could admit to herself he was a large part of what was good in her life.

Destiny lifted the boy into her arms. The child circled her neck trustingly, leaned into her for shelter. The childish gesture of trust disarmed her. She tightened her arms protectively and took to the skies. She wanted to give this boy something to counteract the terrible memory of his mother’s death. Placing him in a dreamlike state, she flew through the sky, drifting through clouds and allowing the joy of flying to fill the boy’s mind and heart. He would always carry the dream with him, always have a sense of soaring free through the night sky.

Destiny had little else to give him, and it bothered her. She wanted to be able to free him of the weight of guilt. To somehow make him understand that he was a victim, a survivor, that his life could be rebuilt. As she took him around the small church’s steeple, she wondered how her life had gotten to this point. It wasn’t long ago that she had lived a solitary existence, yet now her life was intertwined with so many people.

Father Mulligan was waiting for her in his garden. He smiled a gentle greeting as Destiny released the boy from the shield. There was a soothing quality to the priest that even the distraught boy couldn’t fail to notice.

“This is Sam. Sam, my friend Father Mulligan.” She hunkered down to the boy’s level. His fingers were digging into her arm, clutching at her for protection.

The boy made a strangled sound as the priest turned his attention on him. He stepped closer to Destiny and her heart turned over. “Nicolae explained?” she asked Father Mulligan.

The priest nodded. “Sam, you’ll be safe here. A friend of Destiny’s has spoken with the social service worker, and she has agreed to allow you to stay in the rectory with the other priests and me for the time being. There is a priest here that you will find very easy to talk with. He’s waiting for you now. There are also two police officers who need to speak with you about what happened. Just tell them the truth. I will be with you if you like while you explain what happened.”

Sam squared his thin shoulders and nodded, but his gaze was pleading as he looked at Destiny. She smiled encouragingly at him. “Father Mulligan is a priest, Sam. He doesn’t lie and he’s greatly respected. He’ll make certain you are well cared for.”

“What if Jerome finds me?” Sam asked anxiously. “Is Jerome your father?” Father Mulligan inquired.

Sam shook his head adamantly. “He moved in with us a couple of years ago. I don’t have a father. It’s just me and my mom.”

Destiny felt shaken. She had had a mother and a father. She remembered her mother’s face. Her smile. Her scent. She remembered her father tossing her high into the air so that she squealed and laughed and begged him for more. The memory was vivid and tore at the carefully built locks on the doors in her mind.

Why is this happening? I put all this away. She turned to Nicolae, the one person she believed in.

How could you not identify with this child? He had a decent life with his mother until a monster found them. It matters little that the monster was human. The monster found them, and the child could do nothing to change the outcome. He blames himself for something he had no control over. You look at him and you see yourself.

It was only the complete calm in his voice that steadied her. There was far too much truth in Nicolae’s observations. “You’ll be okay, Sam. Father Mulligan will look after you, and I’ll come often to see how you’re doing. Please do talk with the priest Father Mulligan has waiting for you, and tell the police officers exactly what happened.” She couldn’t help giving him another little boost to help him accept the priest’s aid.

Sam lifted his chin bravely. Destiny ruffled his hair. “I will come back, Sam, I promise. Tonight, there are some things I must do. I want you to get some sleep after you talk with the police.” She wanted to turn back time and save Sam the years of fighting for his life and sanity in a world that a monster had turned upside down. “I’ll come back,” she whispered again.

“I’ll take good care of him,” Father Mulligan assured her. “There’s no need to worry, my dear.”

Destiny nodded, biting her lip as she turned away. She could feel Sam watching her as she walked away, so she smiled at him over her shoulder and lifted her hand. She felt her mind tuning itself to Nicolae as it seemed to do every few minutes. Her need to know that he was alive and well was a further annoyance to her. She valued her independence highly, and it didn’t sit well that she had to continually reach for him.

She chose to walk down the street, needing the normalcy of human life. The time it took to walk would help her gather her thoughts. She had promised Velda and Inez and Helena she would help John Paul. She needed to investigate further. It was difficult to force her thoughts away from Sam. She hadn’t really thought that there were human monsters in the world. She had focused so completely on vampires, she hadn’t given a thought to other kinds of threats.

Deep in thought, she barely registered the change in the wind as it shifted direction, blowing away from her, stirring dirt in the street. A streetlight blinked, faltered and abruptly went out in a shower of sparks. She lifted her head alertly, looking around her warily. John Paul was just entering The Tavern, his head down and his feet shuffling along the walkway, his body posture betraying his despondency. Farther down the street, a second streetlight shattered as if hit by a rock, raining glass on the ground.

John Paul hesitated as he went to pull open the bar door, looking up at the streetlight with a small frown. He glanced down the street at the other shattered light on the corner near Destiny. John Paul allowed the door to close as he shuffled along the street toward Destiny. He was looking not at her but at the shattered glass. He seemed drawn to the pieces of the large lamp.

Destiny observed him, the way he seemed drawn to the glittering pieces. His expression was blank, his eyes slightly glazed. He stood over the glass, his great shoulders shaking, his chest heaving with every breath as if he’d run a race. His hamlike hands were opening and closing into tight fists.

She searched the skies. The skies were darkening as gray threads spun wildly to spawn larger, more ominous clouds. Small dust devils spun in the street, dissipating as cars roared by. A fog bank began to seep onto the street, hovering a foot above the ground. First streamers, just tails of vapor that thickened quickly into a murky soup.

John Paul continued to stare down at the glass, his gaze narrowing as he studied the sharp pieces scattered on the sidewalk as if they held some deep fascination for him. Destiny glided closer, scanning while she kept a wary eye on the hulk of a man. Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t detect a surge of power. The storm had come in a little too fast to be a legitimate weather front. There was no movement in the whirling, darkening clouds. The blanket of stars disappeared beneath the storm. Black clouds moved across the moon to completely obliterate it, a lacy black shawl wrapping the orb in a thin dark fringe.

“John Paul,” Destiny said softly. She didn’t want him exposed out on the street. He made far too big a target.

John Paul whirled around, silent and deadly, impossibly fast for a man of his size. Her shocked astonishment held her motionless for the few seconds it took him to attack her. It felt like the hit of a charging rhino, his body slamming into hers with terrific force, driving her to the ground. As she hit the sidewalk, the air rushed out of her lungs. A part of her wanted to laugh as his body landed on top of her, slamming her body into the sidewalk.

Destiny fought vampires, creatures of immense power and strength. It was ludicrous to think a human had managed to knock her off her feet. The fog was swirling heavily around the two of them, as if it had suddenly been given life. The vapor streamed over and around them like jungle vines.

John Paul sat on her stomach, his giant hands around her throat, his face a grim mask as he began to squeeze. His fingers dug into her windpipe, cutting off her air, crushing her throat.

Destiny hit him hard, her palms flat, carefully positioned high on his shoulders to keep from injuring him even as her enormous strength sent him flying backward. “Get off, you oaf! Sheesh! You weigh a ton.” She leapt to her feet, landing lightly, hands up, her eyes glittering with warning. “Back off, John Paul. Do you even know what you’re doing?”

John Paul had landed on his backside. He sat on the sidewalk, stunned, shaking his head to clear it. Destiny watched him carefully, aware he was not in his right mind. She could only read the need for violence in him, violence aimed at her. She wasn’t certain she had been the original target, but he seemed a puppet doing someone else’s bidding. There were no blank spots in his mind to indicate a vampire, but she didn’t believe John Paul was aware of what he was doing.

A wisp of fog swirled around her neck, tugged at her ankles, bit deep like tiny teeth. She felt a fiery pain lancing unexpectedly through her leg. She looked down and saw tiny drops of ruby-red blood. The air left her lungs in a rush of shock as she attempted to dissolve into mist, but the vapor held her fast. She was locked in the mysterious circles as surely as if they were shackles.

Her heart broke into a thudding rhythm, but she blocked out the pain and fear, concentrating on her imprisoned ankle where the white tails of vapor were solidifying into tiny wires with serrated edges, digging deeper and deeper into her flesh. Her ankle and foot contorted, thinned so that the coils slipped off.

She looked up just as John Paul attacked again, slamming her to the ground with the force of a human freight train. Destiny didn’t give him much thought other than as a nuisance. She could handle John Paul, but her unseen enemy was another matter. The fog was alive with tendrils, little wormlike creatures rushing toward her, alive with teeth and seething with hatred. Again she tried dissolving, but the holding spell she was caught in could not be broken.

The worms ignored John Paul, rushing at her with ravenous appetites for her blood.

As if her blood drew them to her.

The answer hit her hard. Her tainted blood was once again betraying her. Worse, they reminded her of the microscopic creatures she occasionally caught glimpses of in her own blood. They sickened her. She hissed her defiance at her enemies, hastily throwing up a barrier between her body and the wriggling worms. Some had already gotten through, biting at her arms and legs viciously.

John Paul swung his hammer like fist at her face. Before he could connect, he was jerked backward, his huge body tossed through the air as if he weighed no more than a child. Nicolae’s grim features stared down at her.

“You look as if you could use some help.” He pulled her to her feet, ignoring the worms slithering around her.

“Don’t flatter yourself, hotshot,” she snapped, yanking one of the creatures and hurling it off of her. She kicked another as it tried to crawl up her leg. “I am perfectly capable of handling these things.”

“Hmm, I can see that,” he said, one eyebrow arcing as he lifted his hand toward the sky. At once the dark clouds swirling overhead lit up with veins of white-hot lightning. “A little out of sorts this evening?”

“You’d be cranky too with these

things

sinking their teeth into you.” The truth was, the ugly creatures turned her stomach. Shuddering, she pulled viciously at two more, hurling them away. The fog was flowing around the barrier she had erected, the worms erupting into a frenzy as they tried to get to her. “They’re disgusting.” The white worms boiled up out of the fog, writhing ferociously, smashing into the invisible wall, their teeth tearing at it.

“Women.” Casually Nicolae lifted his arm to direct the whips of lightning to the fog. Black ashes burst from the spinning vapor, and a foul odor permeated the air. Destiny plugged her nose against the stench.

Nicolae could barely look at her. She was seething with anger—justifiably so, after such an attack. She hadn’t called him to her. His heart was still trying to recover. The sight of her, covered in tiny pinpoints of blood, sickened him. He could feel the demon in him roaring for release, fighting for supremacy, needing to protect her, needing to destroy anything that dared to jeopardize her safety. He kept his face carefully turned from hers, knowing his eyes would betray his inner struggle.

She was his lifemate, and more than any other thing, her health, happiness and protection mattered to him. Yet securing her happiness and protecting her seemed to be dramatically opposed to each other.

Destiny scanned the area, searching for her enemy. “Coward,” she spat, into the wind. “A woman defeats you and you hide. There is no greatness in you. Slink away. Be gone. You are not worth the time to hunt you down.” She waved her hand, a gesture of disgust, of disparagement, pure scorn in her voice and manner. She sent the wind out over the city, into every hole and every cemetery, into any place the undead might choose to call his lair.

Nicolae reacted immediately, stilling the wind, calming the fog, his glittering gaze capturing hers, allowing her to see the fierce flames burning there. The depth of his displeasure. “Enough! You will not challenge this vampire. You will not, Destiny.”

Her chin lifted belligerently. “I’m a hunter. That’s what I do. I find them any way I can, and I destroy them. You taught me that, Nicolae.”

She was bleeding from countless bite wounds, tiny gashes and gouges from razor-sharp teeth. There were lines of strain around her mouth. Her eyes were more wary than angry. She tilted her head to one side so that her long, thick braid fell over one shoulder as she studied his set jaw.

He looked intimidating. Ruthless. And she was right in thinking him far more powerful than he had ever shown her before. A trembling started somewhere deep inside her. Even her mouth went dry. She feared him more than the vampire she hunted. Nicolae could hurt her so easily. Destroy her with the wrong word.

“Do not!” He spoke harshly, his voice, always so unfailingly gentle, was completely different now. “I will not hear your meager excuses. You were heedless of the danger. If you hunt the undead, you must not do so with half your attention. I did not teach you to be careless or scattered. And I did not teach you to be foolish. You have skills and you have a brain. I counted on you to use both.”

Her fingers curled into fists at the reprimand. Color stained her cheeks. “I would have handled it. I didn’t ask for your help, and I didn’t need it.”

“You sound like a defiant child. You’re a grown woman, a hunter of skill.” He turned away from her, striding over to John Paul, his quick, fluid movements betraying the anger still seething deep within him. He glanced at her, his features set and harsh. “You should have called me to you immediately. You know you should have. You were being childish, angry because the lifemate you thought your equal in strength turned out to be more than you bargained for. That is no reason to place our lives in danger.”

Nicolae reached down and caught John Paul by the back of his shirt, jerking him to his feet and waving a hand almost carelessly to still any protest.

Destiny stood in the street, watching warily. “I didn’t think it necessary, Nicolae. I’m telling you that in my judgment, it wasn’t necessary.”

The full force of his glittering gaze hit her as he turned back to face her. “Are you so foolish as to think those creatures were the actual attack on you? Why would a vampire waste his energy?”

The disgust in his voice brought tears burning behind her eyes. “Of course I didn’t believe that. I knew he was trying to weaken me. He used a holding spell to keep me there. He would have shown himself if you hadn’t arrived.” He had always respected her, respected her abilities. His words had hurt more than the teeth biting into her flesh.

“He poisoned you, Destiny.” He spat the words out. The wind rushed down the street in a gust of rage. “You let him poison you.”

Her heart stuttered. “My blood’s already tainted, Nicolae. It doesn’t matter what he does to my blood.” There was a strange mumbling in her ears. Words she couldn’t catch, but the voice was tearing at her insides like sharp talons.

Nicolae yanked John Paul around, looked deep into his mind, into his memories, shook him in sheer frustration. “He has no memory of what led up to this. We have no time for this. Go home, man, and sleep this off. I will attend to you later.” Much later. His mind was consumed with the immediate problem.

John Paul looked at neither of them but obediently shuffled away, toward his home, looking neither right nor left, uninterested in the world around him.

Nicolae scanned the area carefully. The clouds overhead spun in thick threads of black, but there was no wind. He moved, gliding with incredible speed, his fingers settling around Destiny’s arm. “We need to go now.”

“I don’t want the vampire to hurt someone here, not even John Paul, because he’s angry he missed me.” Destiny tried not to sound as if she were pleading. The buzzing in her head was getting worse, a million bees stinging her from the inside out. It took a great effort to keep from covering her ears or tearing at her head to remove the voice.

The long fingers tightened around her arm like a vise. “Destiny, the vampire has

not

missed you yet. His poison is in your bloodstream, destroying your cells while we waste time talking. We must seek shelter, a place we can defend.”

The urgency in his voice told her, even more than the raucous sound in her head, that they had to hurry. Taking the image of an owl from his mind, she immediately began to shift her shape. Only it didn’t work. Her form shimmered, but nothing happened. “Get out of here, Nicolae.” She shoved him hard with the flat of her hand. “He’s using me as bait to trap you. Get away from me.”

Nicolae swore in the ancient language. “What happens to you happens to me. We stay together.”

She shoved him again, this time hard enough to rock him. “That’s what he wants. I’m weighing you down, a stone around your neck. Get out of here. If you care about me at all, leave me here.” The worm stings were getting worse, not only in her head now but spreading through her body until she thought she might go mad. She couldn’t tone it down, or control the pain at all.

More than the madness, more than the pain, her one thought was his protection. She knew she was right. The vampire had realized that Nicolae was his most powerful enemy. Though she had failed to detect Nicolae’s power, the undead had sensed it. The vampire recognized an ancient and knew that if he were to succeed in his plans, it was important to destroy Nicolae.

Nicolae ignored her protests, simply blocked out the sound of the tears in her voice. He couldn’t afford to feel emotion. He swept her up in his arms and took to the skies. She went still, knowing better than to fight him, sensing his utter resolve. He would force compliance from her, and both of them knew that if he did such a thing, she would be unable to view it as anything other than a complete violation.

She slipped her arms around his neck and concentrated on their back trail, trying to focus despite the strident voice shrieking in her head and the fiery stings in her body. She would not leave the entire fight to Nicolae, no matter how difficult it was to concentrate.

Her pain was excruciating. Nicolae could feel it coming from her in waves. He shared her mind and heard the hideous voice of the vampire. Her heart was beating far too fast, galloping with the effort to overcome the strain of the poison and the stinging army attacking her from the inside. She was fighting to stay focused, to weave holding spells and throw up flimsy battlements to delay the vampire following them. To give Nicolae more time.

Nicolae buried his face for one moment in her throat, inhaling her scent, whispering softly to her.

Without warning, the world darkened around Destiny, so that only small pinpoints of light burst behind her eyelids. Then all light faded, all sensation. The voice in her head ended abruptly, and the world dropped away.