Dark Ghost (7 page)

“Please. My family has money. I’ll do anything.” The teeth kept coming closer and closer. The pulse throbbed in Armend’s neck. He couldn’t stop it. Even holding his breath didn’t stop it. His heart hammered away, calling to the vampire.

“Did begging and pleading and bargaining work for any of those women you murdered? Even one of them?”

“Oh, God. This can’t be happening,” Armend wailed.

The hand on his shoulder, turning him, was gentle, but there was no way to break the implacable grip. The other hand went to his head, pushing it to one side to expose the throbbing vein. He felt hot breath. Teeth tore into him savagely. Mercilessly. The pain was excruciating.

He screamed again until his throat felt shredded. Still the mouth drew the blood from his body. He began to moan. In pain. A single note. The sound he’d always craved to hear from the women he tortured and killed. The women in the fog picked up the note and harmonized with him. He was surrounded by their moans. He felt the moans in his body. In the fiery never-ending pain in his throat.

He was cold. Shivering with cold. With fear. Where were his friends? He couldn’t die this way. He couldn’t die by the hand of a vampire, surrounded by the stupid bitches who had drooled over him and then screamed and cried when he gave them what they wanted – what they deserved.

Why are you doing this to me?
He wanted to scream the words aloud, but he couldn’t talk, not with the vampire ripping out his throat.
Those women were nothing. Nothing at all. They were put here to be used.

That’s how you viewed my woman? As nothing?
 

Armend knew he’d made a terrible mistake. It was there in the soft voice moving through his mind. He couldn’t take back anything. There was no way to undo it all. The vampire could read his thoughts, and that meant he could see into Armend’s mind. He could see the truth there. He could see the ever-present need to feed off the pain he inflicted on the women. He liked the power. He craved it. He would always need it. This vampire knew it.

Make me like you,
Armend whispered in his mind.
I’ll serve you. We can have such fun together. Make me like you.

The vampire jerked his teeth from Armend’s throat and stepped back, eyes blazing fire. “You could never be like me. You have no honor.”

Armend stumbled back and found himself on the ground. He was weak. Very weak. The vampire stared at him as if he were no more than an insect crawling on the ground. And he had to crawl. He could barely find the strength to drag himself toward his tent.

The vampire simply watched him. The women fell silent. The wolves followed suit. The sudden hush chilled him even more than the growls from the wolves or the moans from the women. He turned to look. The skeleton faces were still there, staring from the sunken sockets where their eyes had been.

Armend’s breath caught in his throat and he paused, his fingers digging into the wet ground. Blood dripped steadily from the wound in his throat. He looked back and saw red staining the dirt and turning the tubes of fog that stretched along the ground pink.

The wolves emerged from the fog bank, glowing eyes fixed hungrily on him. They didn’t rush, they moved with precise steps, infinitely slow, almost inching their way. First their heads came through, then the necks and bodies. He looked around him. The wolves had formed a ring around him, just as the fog bank had.

He saw his mistake. He’d left the safety of the fire. He switched directions, clawing at the ground with fingernails. The sight of those nail marks in the dirt gave him pause. So many times, he’d seen those marks in the dirt where he’d dragged the woman along, her bloody body naked to feel every rock and twig, every sticker as he pulled her toward a cliff.

He clamped his hand over the wound in his throat, knowing the scent of blood called to the wolves. He could feel their eyes on him. The alpha stepped closer, head down, nose scenting the blood. The wolf drew back his lips in a snarl.

Armend looked around him, trying to get his bearings. He had knives stashed around the campsite, but he couldn’t remember where. When he looked back, the alpha was standing over him. They stared at each another for what seemed a lifetime. He felt hot breath on the back of his neck and then excruciating pain as another wolf clamped down on his shoulder and began to drag him farther away from the fire.

Armend screamed, looked toward the vampire, begging for mercy, but the vampire was gone, nothing but vapor, a fog streaking away from his campsite. He screamed for a very long time. His last thought was that he’d lasted as long as the strongest of the women he’d tortured. He wished he hadn’t.

A
ndre scouted around the mountain for signs of Costin Popescu and his followers. They had to have stayed in the ground to recover from their wounds, and that gave him a little time with his lifemate to cement their relationship. He unraveled his safeguards, entered the cave and replaced the guards. He added a warning for humans as well, just in case any of Armend’s friends happened upon Teagan’s trail.

He moved through the network of caves quickly, finding himself eager to get back to his woman. She wasn’t where he left her, nor was the fire burning. He followed her scent through a series of narrowing corridors leading deeper underground. He could see the trail of shoe prints; it looked as if she was searching for something.

Teagan sat on the floor of a small chamber, right over the spot where he’d buried his family’s treasure. She had her eyes closed. Each foot was drawn up and rested on the opposite thigh and she formed an
O
with her thumb and index finger. She hummed softly under her breath in a chanting rhythm.

Andre watched her for a few minutes. She didn’t seem to be aware of his presence at all, and that disturbed him. In her deep state of meditation, an enemy could easily sneak up on her. That was unacceptable to him.

“Teagan,” he said softly. “Teagan, open your eyes.”

She didn’t comply. She continued her ridiculous humming.

“Teagan, obey me.” This time he “pushed” at her, insistent on obedience.

Her long lashes lifted and she scowled at him. “You didn’t just use the word
obey
, did you? As if you were giving me some kind of an order?”

Andre studied her face. She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. Right now, her eyes sparkled with what could only be a hint of temper. He’d forgotten the modern world had moved on without him. Women didn’t obey their men, even when it was for safety reasons. That didn’t bode well for either of them. He wasn’t about to allow her to put herself in jeopardy for some modern nonsense of equality.

Of course she was his equal. Well, perhaps above him. Which was the very reason he needed to guard and protect her. She was a treasure beyond any price. Clearly she didn’t get that.

He thought it best – and much safer – to ignore her question. “What are you doing in here? I was worried about you.”

She studied his face for a few moments before she slowly took her feet from her thighs and stretched a little. “You were gone for a while. I’m looking for something very important to me and I think it’s somewhere in this chamber. I can’t quite get a lock on it though.”

He reached out a hand to her. Teagan hesitated, only a half second, before placing her hand in his, but he caught it. She’d had a nasty experience with a man she considered her friend. She wasn’t going to be so trusting of a man she didn’t know, no matter how drawn to him she was. And he’d ensured she would be drawn to him. The lifemate ritual had sealed them together as had their first exchange of blood. She might not remember it, but she wouldn’t be able to be far from him for very long.

Andre drew her gently to her feet and let go of her, making certain she was a little distance from him so she would feel safe. She wasn’t, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Perhaps I can help in your search.”

She glanced at him from under her long lashes, a small frown on her face. She gave a little shrug accompanied by a sigh. “Actually, if I tell you, you’ll think I’m totally crazy. Everyone does.”

He waited in silence for her to continue, but she didn’t, forcing him to have to pry the information out of her. “Tell me.” He did his best not to make it sound like an order, but even his softest voice appeared to be a command.

Her frown deepened. “I came here looking for a certain item. A stone. Or a gem. I’ll know it when I ‘feel’ it. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s what led me up here. My body tunes itself to the precise stone, gem or crystal I need for my work in healing. I knew it was here in the Carpathian Mountains and I had to come. I knew the general location and what part of the range to search because I was drawn to it on the map.” She waited for him to laugh. To make fun of her.

He studied her face. She didn’t know it of course, but he was already in her mind. She could do exactly what she said she could.

“Why would I not believe you? You are a gifted healer.”

“I didn’t get the chance to heal you. How would you know that?” she countered.

He hadn’t talked so much in ages. It was rather wearing. “I feel your power. Why do you need this particular stone?”

Her face crumpled. She looked almost as if she might cry. Her look did strange things to his insides. His belly formed hard, protesting knots and his chest ached in the region of his heart.

“My grandmother. Grandma Trixie. She raised me, and she’s the kindest, most thoughtful, wonderful person you can imagine. She raised my three older sisters as well. It wasn’t easy. She had to work all the time but she never complained. She even helped us out with school when she didn’t have to. She’s incredible.”

“Is she ill?”

Teagan looked down, studying the toe of her boot as she scuffed it in the dirt. “She’s gone a little crazy. Her mind isn’t right. A while back she began to mutter under her breath about this mythical man named Gary. She despised him. I asked her about him numerous times, but she just said he was a man who had betrayed everyone. He was a spy and he needed to die. That’s totally not like my grandmother.”

He held out his hand to her. “Keep talking. We should go back to your campsite and start a fire. You are beginning to shiver a little. That is the only chamber with a decent chimney.”

She took his hand without hesitation, more because she wasn’t paying as close attention than because she was no longer leery of him.

“About two months ago, she began talking about Gary to my sisters. She’s become totally obsessed with him. She said he runs with vampires and he has to be stopped. My sisters took her to a psychiatrist. He said she was slowly losing her mind. She wouldn’t back down. She swore vampires exist and that this Gary is a traitor to the human race and needs to die.”

Andre knew a man named Gary Jansen. He was highly respected among the Carpathian people. He had fought beside them in battle, led the way in research to find the cause of why their women couldn’t produce babies and worked to find a way to save the children who were born. He was also instrumental in finding the flower needed for their fertility. Gary was fully Carpathian now and a brother to Gregori Daratrazanoff. He was a little alarmed that his lifemate’s grandmother might actually know something about Gary.

He remained silent. Teagan sent him a hesitant look. He nodded at her, making certain he looked interested.

“I found a vampire-hunting kit she bought off the Internet stashed in her closet. I wasn’t snooping. She’d asked me to get her yarn and knitting needles. I didn’t even know she knitted. I think she plans on using her needles to stab someone through the heart if she can’t use her vampire-hunting kit.”

“What’s in a vampire-hunting kit?” he asked, genuinely intrigued.

“She has some gun that shoots wooden stakes. A rosary. A bible. A silver cross and holy water. There are all kinds of bottles filled with stuff, but I don’t know what’s in them.” She sighed. “My grandmother wouldn’t hurt a fly. Seriously, we had to put spiders outside rather than kill them, and now she’s going to hunt vampires, specifically a man who I can’t find out about anywhere, and shoot them with a wooden stake. It’s scary that her mind is going so fast.”

“What else does she talk about? Why has she fixated on this Gary person? Surely you must have asked her.”

“We all did. She just told us that he had once hunted vampires but now he’s in collusion with them. When I asked her if she’d really kill him, she said she didn’t want to kill anyone, but he deserved to die for what he’d done. She’d heard of a monastery in these parts and hoped he was there already asking for forgiveness and then she wouldn’t have to lead justice to him, he’d spend the rest of his life doing penance for his sins. Seriously. That’s how she talks. Penance for his sins.”

Andre’s alarm rose. He’d heard of a few individuals who had a specific psychic gift. If her grandmother were one of those gifted who could follow the path of a Carpathian or vampire, it would answer the question as to how her granddaughter had unraveled his safeguards. She had the same gift. The difference was, Teagan had never been told about vampires. Her grandmother obviously had.

If he had to guess, he would say that Trixie Joanes belonged to the human vampire-hunting society. The same society killed Carpathians and vampires alike, without distinguishing between the two. They also occasionally targeted humans they didn’t like, or had grudges against, such as Gary Jansen.

Andre had run across them a time or two, but they’d never had anyone who could actually follow the trail of a Carpathian or vampire. It was difficult to do. And he was more difficult than most. He had never understood how it was done, but after seeing how Teagan had unraveled his safeguards, he realized it had something to do with the way their bodies “felt” or “sang” when near their quarry.

“Where is your grandmother now, Teagan?”

“She’s at home. In the United States. We live in California. My sisters are watching over her while I try to find the specific stone or crystal that will help me heal her mind.”

“Will they be able to stop her if she tries to get on a plane and follow you here?”

They were back in the chamber where her sleeping bag and backpack were stashed. He waited until she had her back turned and was rummaging through her pack before he waved at the fire. Instantly flames leapt. When she turned, shocked, he was dumping a load of wood next to the ring of rocks.

“Where did you get the wood?” she asked, her eyes wide.

He gestured toward the darker shadows where the cave curved deeply and a small amount of water trickled to the floor and seeped under the dirt. There was a large pile of wood neatly stacked.

“I have used this cave many times,” he said. Again, it was strictly the truth. His statement was misleading, but it wasn’t a lie. He had just acquired the wood for her fire, but he had, in the past, often used the cave for his retreat when he was wounded.

“I didn’t even see it. I guess I was so obsessed with finding the stone I need, I didn’t really look around.”

“Teagan.” He used his most gentle voice, to counteract the tightening of the knots in his belly. “This mountain is not safe. You should not be unaware at any time. There are wild animals as well as poisonous insects and snakes that could harm you. And that is not even mentioning the men who hunt you.”

She shuddered and threw a blanket down over the dirt beside the fire. “When you went out, did you come across Armend’s trail? Did you see him? I was worried he might attack you if he thought you’d spoken to me, or helped me. He told me things he wouldn’t want the world to know.” She frowned. “He’s a dangerous man. I don’t know how I couldn’t have seen that.”

“You were afraid for me?” Andre wasn’t certain how to take that. He’d never had anyone, let alone a beautiful woman, be concerned for his safety. On the other hand, did she think that puny Armend could possibly best him? That might be a bit of an insult.

“Of course I was afraid for you. He admitted killing several women. If it was true, he wouldn’t think twice about killing you as well.”

He was silent. Had it occurred to her, even once, that he could be one of Armend’s unknown friends? She was too friendly by far. Too trusting and open with strangers. He couldn’t tell her that either because he didn’t want her fearing him. She was nervous enough as it was.

“You’re really a nice man, Andre. Very thoughtful and kind. Men like Armend are very dangerous. I wouldn’t want to think of you meeting up with him,” Teagan continued, in a worried tone.

Andre’s heart fluttered. It was a physical reaction to her concern for him. Clearly, Teagan perceived him as nonthreatening for the most part – at least until she remembered she was alone with a stranger, which didn’t seem nearly often enough to him – but she thought Jashari was dangerous. She made him want to laugh out loud. She also conveniently forgot that Andre had warned her that he was a dangerous man.

“I do not think you will have to be afraid that Armend Jashari will ever harm another living soul.”

She went still, her hands freezing around the sweater she was pulling on over her arms. She tilted her head to look up at him. He felt her fear, the sudden jump of her heart. “What do you mean?”

“I came across his trail a few miles down the mountain. He pitched his tent right in the middle of a territory belonging to a wolf pack. There was not much left.”

Her breath hitched. Her long eyelashes fluttered. She sank slowly back on her heels, all the while looking up at him, straight into his eyes. “Are you certain it was him?”

He couldn’t help but admire her. She was definitely afraid, but still, she was fearless in her questions and in her attempt to hide it from him. He nodded. “There is no doubt at all. I did not, however, see any evidence of anyone else around his tent, or even within a few miles of it.”

“I didn’t want him to die.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “Well, unless you count the fact that I did want to bash him over the head with my cooking pot with every step I took. Hard. Really hard. Do you think I put that out into the universe and I’m responsible for his death? Because I believe in karma. I don’t want wolves to come hunting me.” She blinked rapidly, and he thought he caught the sheen of tears, but if he had, they were gone when she looked at him again. “Are you really certain it was him? I did hit him pretty hard. Maybe I killed him and the wolves came later.”

“I have hunted in these mountains for many years, Teagan,” he reassured her. He sent a small push to soothe her. “He had moved his camp from where he attacked you to this place.”

“How do you know?”

“I backtracked him looking for his friends and found the original campsite. He was very much alive when you left him.”