Dark Sentinel

by Christine Feehan

  “I’m on a journey seeking personal enlightenment, and you are disturbing my aura of love.” The pot hit Barnaby on his shoulder hard enough that he covered his head and turned sideways to avoid another swipe. He’d made the mistake of trying to sneak up on her from the other side.

  “I’m on a path of nonviolence so that my life can be an example to the world of what it would be like living in a better place. Peace . . .” She smashed the pot against the side of Barnaby’s head as he went at her again and then kicked the side of his knee hard enough to send him to the ground. “Love.” She turned toward Shorty and began to advance on him menacingly. “Embracing nature.”

  Shorty grinned at her and shook his head. “You’re a nut.”

  “Maybe, but you’re a murderer.” She ducked a punch, blocking it smoothly with the pot and bashing his arm while she stepped in and punched his jaw. Hard.

  Andor could see Shorty’s head snap back. She had quite a punch, but he was going to have to do something before the murderous pack got serious about going after his woman. He forced his body to move. It wasn’t easy with a stake protruding from his chest, right beneath his heart. When he moved, blood leaked out around the wood. It hurt like hell and he had to cut off his ability to feel pain if he was going to actually move.

  “Don’t,” she hissed out at him, a clear command. Annoyed.

  No one in his lifetime had ever used a tone like that on him. He gave the orders, not a woman, and certainly not a human. Worse—a human woman.

  “Don’t you move. I’ll get to you in a minute.” She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder, and her eyes widened in horror. “Oh. My. God.” Her saucepot lowered and she half turned toward him.

  He waved his hand toward Shorty, who was coming up behind her fast. Shorty stumbled and fell, almost at her feet, drawing her attention. She smashed the pot over his head. She became a little fury, rushing Barnaby again.

  “Why would you do that to another human being?” There was a little sob in her voice, as if just seeing the cruelty of the stake in Andor’s chest hurt her as well. “I’m supposed to be learning to live without anger and you’re torturing and brutally murdering another man. How can I possibly be okay with that? If this is some kind of test, I’m failing. You’re making me fail.” She kicked Barnaby in the chest, hard. Her forward snap kick was powerful and sent the assassin flying back so far, he hit a tree and slid to the ground.

  “He’s not human!” Carter shouted. “That’s a vampire!”

  She stopped in her tracks. “You’re all crazy. He’s a man.” For the first time wariness had crept in.

  Maybe she finally realized she was out in the middle of nowhere with three madmen who had staked another man. Andor could only hope.

  “There’s no such thing as vampires.”

  The three men got shakily to their feet and then fanned out, surrounding her. “We saw him. He called down lightning. Look at the scorch marks on the grass,” Carter said.

  “They’re right, in that there are such creatures as vampires,” Andor said calmly. He managed to sit all the way up, both hands supporting the stake. He was weaker than he’d realized. Maybe he really wasn’t going to make it out of this one. He’d lost far too much blood. “They’re also wrong. I’m not a vampire. I was hunting them. The humans saw the tail end of the fight.” He had no idea why he was bothering to explain. He had never explained his actions in his life.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Shorty said. “Cover your ears. Vampires can beguile you.”

  “Beguile me?” She sounded as if she thought Shorty was insane. Her gaze shifted to Andor, and she paled. “For God’s sake, lie back down now.”

  Her skin looked beautiful in the moonlight. His eyes on hers, Andor reached up to grasp the thick stake protruding from his chest. Her eyes widened. She shook her head, dropped the saucepot and ran toward him.

  “No. Don’t pull that out.”

  Shorty tried to grab her as she ran past him. The thought of one of these men putting their hands on her brought out something in Andor he hadn’t known was lurking beneath the surface. It exploded out of him, a roar of pure rage. It came with the force of a volcano, welling up from somewhere deep and threatening to annihilate everything in its path.

  “Do not touch her.” It was a decree. A command. Nothing less.

  The mandate froze all three men. She made it past them and was on her knees at his side, her face a mask of worry as she touched the stake.

  “Don’t move.” She jumped back up, pulled a cell phone from her jeans and began frantically trying to get it to work. She kept putting her arm up into the air, waving her phone around and moving from one place to another.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I need to find just one bar. Just one. We’re down in this valley and I can’t get service to call in rescue.” She pushed past Shorty and then stopped. Froze. Very slowly she turned her head to look at the man. He wasn’t moving. He stood, one arm outstretched, but he was looking the other way. Not at her. “Um.” She backed away from Shorty. “What’s wrong with you?” She looked at the other two men. Neither so much as blinked. She backed up even more. “Something’s wrong with them.” She turned very slowly to look at Andor.

  He could smell her fear. It was beginning to dawn on her that no human being could live with a stake the size of the one he had in his chest. Now the men claiming he was a vampire weren’t able to move. They looked like statues carved of stone. He considered leaving them like that, but it would raise questions in the human world and he couldn’t have that. Not now, when there seemed to be a real war brewing between vampires and Carpathians. More than that, he needed blood if he was going to survive this time, and the three could supply it. He had to survive now. There was no other choice.

  “I need your help,” he said quietly.

  She shook her head, but she took several steps toward him. “I’m not good with blood. I need to call someone . . .” Her voice was faint this time.

  “There isn’t time. If you don’t do as I ask, I will die, and you will have risked your life for nothing. Thank you for that, by the way.” He kept very calm, hoping she would follow his lead.

  “When I say I’m not good with blood, I mean I could faint.”

  “I’ll deal with the blood. You just do what I tell you and we’ll get through this.”

  She looked from the three men frozen like statues back to him. Her gaze dropped to the pooling blood. “You’re bleeding from more than the stake.”

  “I told you; before they came, I was engaged in a battle.” Hands covering the gaping wound in his belly, because he could see she really might faint, he had no choice but to lie back. Sun scorch his weakness. She was afraid now, he could see it in her expression and feel it in her mind. He was doing his best to keep her from reading his thoughts. She was clearly telepathic. She had knowledge of his pondering ending his life and she wouldn’t have that if she wasn’t reading him. Keeping her out of his mind took effort.

  “Okay.” She moved cautiously toward him, her saucepot held like a weapon. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I don’t do well around blood.”

  For the first time, he caught a note of shame. Of guilt. He didn’t like it. He liked her annoyed. He liked her fighting. He liked her confident. That jarring note put knots in his gut and gave him a need to gather her close and comfort her. It was also getting more difficult to block the pain in his chest. He wanted to grasp the stake and pull it out, but he needed her to have everything ready for him.

  “You’re going to need to pack my wounds with fresh soil. It can’t be burned. If there are scorch marks on the ground or grass, it can’t be used.” He closed his eyes. He could feel the beads of blood dotting his forehead and running down his face. When she saw that up close, she might really faint, and then he’d have no one to help. It was too late to send out a call.

&n
bsp; “What’s your name?” At least, if he was going to die, he’d go knowing the name of the woman who had come to save him.

  “Lorraine. Lorraine Peters.” He heard her take a deep breath. She was that close. “And you’re not going to die. We can do this. Are you certain about the soil?” She was already scooping dirt into her saucepot. “It’s very unsanitary.”

  “My body responds to the soil. To the earth. When you have enough, bring it to me.” He wanted to see her face, but he was afraid if he opened his eyes and looked at her, she would be the last thing he saw. He would take that vision with him to the next life, instead of enjoying time with her after waiting for so many centuries.

  Her body jerked hard, and Andor realized he was drifting. She might have caught some of his thoughts.

  “I am sliding in and out of consciousness and having odd dreams. I think these men put weird thoughts in my head.” It was the best he could do and it seemed to work. She was breathing again. Not evenly, but still, he hadn’t lost her yet. He tried to keep air moving in and out of his lungs.

  “I’m sorry I’m such a baby about blood.” She knelt beside him. “I just don’t see how I’m going to be of help to you. This stake . . .” She trailed off. There were tears in her voice. Misery.

  She wasn’t worried about him being a vampire. She wasn’t thinking about the three men standing behind her as still as statues. She was thinking she was an utter failure as a human being because she couldn’t look at the blood seeping around the stake or dripping from any number of wounds he couldn’t heal.

  “Bring the soil up close to me. I need to mix saliva with it.” He hoped she’d be so intrigued she’d forget about the blood. A sense of urgency was beginning to take hold. He knew he was slipping away. Too much blood loss.

  “Um . . .”

  “Andor. My name is Andor Katona.”

  “You’ve lost so much blood. You need a transfusion.”

  She was still catching partial thoughts but didn’t realize it. He had to be careful, but it was impossible when he was trying to keep himself alive. Ordinarily, he would open the earth, shut down and try to allow the soil to heal him, but he was too far gone and he knew it now. Anxiety gripped him. After centuries of hunting her, he’d found her and was slipping away inch by inch, or pint by pint of blood loss.

  “I can spit,” she offered.

  There was a note of hesitancy like she thought he was a lunatic and she was simply indulging him because she was certain he was going to die. He was beginning to think he might.

  “Let me.” He didn’t know if her saliva was powerful enough to help with healing. His saliva contained a healing agent as well as a numbing one.

  He scooped a handful of the soil, mixed it with his saliva and pressed it into one of the gaping wounds in his belly where a vampire had tried to eviscerate him. Now that she had something to do besides faint at the sight of him covered in blood, she concentrated on helping him pack his wounds.

  Andor closed his eyes and tried to conserve his strength. As an ancient, he had built up tremendous power and control. He had never considered that three humans—not very bright ones at that—might bring him down.

  “Don’t.” She whispered the command. “Tell me what to do next.”

  “I need blood. I’ve lost too much. Pack the soil around the stake. I can’t take it out until I have a transfusion.”

  “I’ll give you my blood,” she said, her voice trembling. “But I’m afraid I really will pass out. Just tell me what to do.”

  He was starving. Every cell in his body craved blood. Was it safe to take her blood? He would have to stop before he took too much from her, and he didn’t know if he still had that kind of control. He had to rely on her. If she was weak, she couldn’t help him. On the other hand, if he was going to release one of the human males from their frozen state, he would need to be stronger to keep them under his power.

  He could feel two of his teeth growing sharp. Lengthening. He breathed deeply and kept his head turned from hers. “I can help you through it if you let me. I’m telepathic as well. You know we have shields, barricades in our minds, so to speak. Trust me enough to let me make it easier for you. I don’t have much more time.”

  There was a small silence. He lifted his lashes just enough to see her chewing at her full lower lip with small white teeth. She nodded. “Yes. But hurry. I’m already feeling dizzy. I’m trying not to look but it’s nearly impossible. And my hands are covered in . . .”

  “I’ll take care of it.” He reached for her mind immediately. There was no sense in waiting. She was either going to let down her barriers and he was going to live, or she wouldn’t and he wasn’t going to make it.

  He reached for her hand, and just that act sent pain crashing through him, driving the air from his lungs in a brutal rush of agony. Her skin was soft, like silk. His thumb brushed over her pulse, where it beat so frantically. She was afraid of him. Of giving her blood. Of fainting and making a fool of herself. Her phobia of blood made her feel foolish and weak. She detested it and tried very hard to overcome it.

  He forced himself to stop reading her and took complete control, using the last of his strength to take over her mind. He was very lucky in that she had taken down her shields herself, giving her trust to him when he had yet to earn it. He didn’t delve deeper into her mind to find out why. He sank his teeth into her wrist.

  Her blood burst into his mouth like bubbles of the finest champagne. Nothing had ever tasted so exquisite. So perfect. He knew he would always be obsessed, would always crave her taste. He savored every drop, feeling his cells reach for the nourishment, soaking it up, desperate to replace what was lost.

  For the first time that he could remember, Andor had to fight himself for discipline. For control. He didn’t want to stop. He never wanted to stop. He was desperate for blood. Her blood. Very gently he swept his tongue over the two holes in her wrist and turned his head toward the three would-be assassins.

  Shorty came to life, one slow inch at a time. His body jerked and took a step toward the Carpathian. Terror was written on the man’s face. Andor ignored it. He didn’t want to waste his strength on calming the man; after all, he’d help drive a stake through Andor’s chest.

  The moment Shorty got to him and knelt obediently, presenting his neck, Andor sank his teeth deep. The blood was good. Not tainted with alcohol or drugs. He took as much as he dared and then sent the man back to his campsite after wiping his memories. He planted an encounter with wild animals, something that would definitely spook him and make him uneasy enough to want to break camp and go home.

  He brought Barnaby close next, instructing him to kneel beside him and grasp the stake with both hands. Andor took the remainder of the soil, mixed it with his saliva, took a deep breath and told the human to remove the stake. Nothing in his long life had ever hurt as much as it had when that stake had been driven into his chest. It hurt nearly as much when it was removed.

  Blood welled up and he shoved the soil deep into the hole, gritting his teeth, grinding them together to keep from striking out at the helpless man. More blood spilled around the wound, soaking into the dirt. He couldn’t breathe for a moment. Or think. He just lay there, gasping, staring at Lorraine’s beautiful face, telling himself she was worth everything that he had endured, including this.

  His vows to her were carved into his back—tattooed there in the old primitive method, the ink made by the monks in the monastery. They had to scar the skin deliberately with each poke from an array of needles. He had the vows in Carpathian going down his back. He’d meant every single word.

  Olen wäkeva kuntankért. Olen wäkeva pita belső kulymet. Olen wäkeva—félért ku vigyázak. Hängemért.

  He had other tattoos, but none meant as much to him. The code he lived by was scarred forever into his back. He was Carpathian and it took a lot to leave a scar. He had suffered to
put those words into his skin, but they needed to be there—for her. The code was simple.

  Staying strong for our people. Staying strong to keep the demon inside. Staying strong for her. Only her.

  Those last two words of his code—his vow—said everything. Every wound he had suffered in battle, every time he’d had to kill an old friend or relative, every night that he’d risen and endured the gray void, was for her. Now he knew her name. Lorraine. He loved the sound of it. He loved the look of her and her grit. She had courage, even if she needed to temper it a bit with wisdom.

  While he took Barnaby’s blood, he thought of the monastery and those long, endless years without hope. They had spent nights practicing their battle skills and then working on their tattooing techniques. All of those residing in the monastery had become brothers—although they had known they might have to kill the others. The difference was it would be an honorable way to die.

  He sent Barnaby on his way with the same memory of wild animals getting too near their camp. He planted a memory of them all running in different directions and then one by one making their way back to camp with the idea of breaking it down and heading to their homes. They no longer sought to hunt and kill vampires, nor did they believe in them.

  Now that he was a little stronger, he directed Carter, the one who had actually driven the stake into his chest, to start digging into the soil. Andor knew he couldn’t move. He was too heavy for Lorraine to help him get out of the sun. He had to get into the ground, had to have Lorraine pitch a tent right over top of him.

  Carter couldn’t dig very deep without tools. He used Lorraine’s saucepot. He dug right next to Andor so the Carpathian could shift his body enough to slide into the shallow depression. It was no more than a foot deep, but it was long enough and wide enough for his body, which was saying something. He wasn’t a small man.

  He forced Carter to help him and then took his blood before sending him on his way with the same memories as Barnaby and Shorty. It was the best that he could do. Just that small movement had him leaking blood. He needed time to let the soil rejuvenate him enough to gather the strength to begin healing himself. Carpathians as old as he was were incredibly strong. He could overcome this, he just needed a little luck on his side and Lorraine.