Dark Challenge (25 page)

“You are gray, Darius. Take what is freely offered that you and Julian can once again regain your strength.” Desari quietly held out her wrist to her brother.

Darius took her hand and turned it over. His sister appeared fragile and delicate, yet her ancient blood ran strong and powerful. He bent his head and drank. At once he felt his strength returning. If it had been difficult and draining to remove the lethal venom from his own body after such a short exposure, it would be a monumental job to save Julian.

Desari touched her brother lightly, needing reassurance. Julian looked terrible, the lines in his face cut deep with his suffering. He was ashen and weak. His heart and lungs were slowed to impede the advance of the poison, but it was taking him over, she could clearly see. When she touched his mind to merge with him, his mind block kept her out. Julian was taking no chances that she would feel the gut-wrenching agony he was enduring silently.

“We will need all of our family to help,” Darius said as he closed the wound on her wrist. “Take care none of you falter, no matter what I look like. You can always supply me with what I need when I am finished here.”

Hear me, Julian. I will be with you. Wherever you choose to go, I will follow you. You are not alone. We will always be together
. Desari whispered it solemnly in Julian’s mind, making him hear her promise, understand her determination. She would not lose her lifemate, even if it meant following wherever he led. This life or the next, she would go with him.

Darius took a deep breath to inhale the aromatic herbs, to carry them with him as he gathered himself into light
and energy and entered Julian’s body. At once he could see the bloodstream was a mess. The poison acted like a virus, mutating quickly, reproducing, attacking the body’s defenses. It was running wild, working at killing the Carpathian as fast as it was able to meet the demands of its master. The vampire must have long studied and experimented. This was a challenge Darius had never come up against.

Still, he was confident in himself and his abilities. He always found a way. He never gave up. He would triumph; he allowed no other thought, no other outcome into the realm of possibility.

He moved into the chamber of the heart and surveyed the damage. Julian had known what was happening to his insides, and the pain had to be excruciating. He had slowed his heart and lungs to slow the spread of the poison. As Darius worked to repair the damage, he studied the mutated strains. It was not so difficult to stop the original decay; he already knew the structure from studying it within his own body. The mutations were more aggressive and complicated. It was important to know which was moving faster and doing the most damage before he began to go after them.

By the time he had the walls of the heart repaired and the original strain destroyed, he had a good idea of how the virus broke up the cell, reshaped it, and multiplied. He moved into an artery to begin his real work. The poison was surging toward him, a solid army of cells on the offensive, rushing to overtake the threat to it. Darius became a general, manufacturing his own army of antibodies. He sent wave after wave toward the advancing poison. His creations began to pick up speed, moving quickly to destroy the vampire’s last deathtrap. It took tremendous strength for Darius to hold his bodiless state, to be only light and energy, to keep up with the ever-changing
virus as it tried to mutate to escape the onslaught of warriors he had created to combat it.

He found himself admiring the vampire’s work. It was genius, this taint, somewhere between virus and poison, fast-acting and lethal with a kind of programmed intelligence. Its entire reason for existing was to take over its host and ensure its own survival. Darius’s work was complicated, but he did it with his usual confidence and calm. The battle was strange and unfamiliar, but it was simply a matter of unraveling what the vampire had wrought. Nothing would defeat him.

At the same time, a part of him was analyzing the Carpathian male his sister had chosen for her mate. Savage was remarkable in that he had known the extent of the threat to himself, yet he had put Desari’s health and safety before his own. He had even healed the wounded birds that had aided him in his battle with the ancient one, a great cost in time and energy, and he had wiped out all existence of the vampires and their kills to preserve the secrets of their race.

Then Darius discovered a shadowing deep within Julian’s body. He studied it a long time. The virus had not tainted him thusly; this was something else, something Darius had never seen. It made him uneasy. Julian, however, was extremely calm and accepting of Darius’s presence in his body, confident in his ability to heal. There was no doubt, no adrenaline to cope with, none of the body’s defenses raised against him as he worked. And Julian was aware he had discovered the dark shadow.

The ancient healing chant, soft and melodious, gave Darius added strength as his energy began to falter. The familiar voices were all present: Desari, her voice itself healing and soothing; Syndil, gentle and peaceful like her nature; Barack, strong and sure; Dayan, the ever-present
second in command ready to aid him should there be need. Only when he managed to wipe out the last mutating strain and manufacture the proper antibodies to hold it at bay did Darius allow himself to emerge back into his own body.

His great strength was nearly depleted. He had worked for over two hours, an extraordinary time to be out of his own body. He was swaying with weariness, his body crying out for sustenance, and he could feel the first stirrings of unease at the approach of the sunrise.

At once Dayan thrust his wrist toward their leader. “Take what is freely offered,” he said formally.

Desari touched her brother’s shoulder. “You are gray, Darius. Please feed.” She didn’t want to tell him his appearance was nearly as alarming as Julian’s. She was wringing her hands anxiously, afraid of touching Darius’s mind to know if he thought Julian would live, afraid of asking the question aloud.

I live, my beautiful one
. Julian’s masculine voice brushed at her mind, enfolding her in warmth and comfort and a kind of exasperated amusement.
I live to teach my lifemate the meaning of obedience. Your brother is as adept as Gregori, and that, my love, is the highest compliment I could pay him
. He sounded weary and far away, as if the strain to reach her was weakening him even more.

“Julian,” she whispered aloud.

Darius swung his icy black gaze to her face in clear reprimand. With careful courtesy he closed the laceration on Dayan’s wrist and then bent his head to speak to Julian. “Hear me, lawless one. You are in no shape to oppose me. If you do not wish me to place you under compulsion, you will remain silent and conserve your strength to battle what is attempting to destroy both you and my sister.” There was a hard authority in his voice,
complete conviction that he would do as he threatened if need be. Darius never repeated himself; he often didn’t even bother with a warning. He struck hard and fast. Those who knew him obeyed without question.

Julian lay as if dead, the action of his heart and lungs barely discernible, but incredibly, a faint grin eased the look of death on his face.

Darius glanced at his sister. “This one has no liking for authority. Go to ground, Desari, and stop making a nuisance of yourself.”

At once the air in the room thickened with oppressive shadows. A warning, a promise of retaliation. Desari found herself holding her breath. She couldn’t believe that anyone would defy Darius’s orders, least of all a man half-dead and still in need of help from the very one he threatened. Surely Julian knew Darius would never hurt her. He simply bossed her around because that was his way.

Darius struck at the Carpathian lying so still on the bed with a powerful compulsion to sleep. In his present state, Julian had no way to combat such power. He had one thought before he succumbed to Darius’s will: that this man was far more dangerous than any Julian had encountered in all his centuries of living, perhaps even more so than Gregori.

Desari reached around her brother and brushed Julian’s hair from his forehead. Her hand lingered lovingly on his skin. “He was only seeking to protect me,” she whispered.

Darius’s teeth came together with an audible snap. “There is no need for his protection while I am with you. He knows that. He was warning me to mind how I talk to you.” The black eyes glinted with menace. “He has enough arrogance for ten males.” Darius inhaled sharply, taking the soothing aroma into his lungs. “Resume
the chant and add another candle or two. It might keep you out of trouble.”

Once more he simply blocked out everything and everybody until there was only the light and energy that was his strength and intelligence. He very carefully reentered Julian’s bloodstream to examine the poisonous virus for any new threats. Sure enough, a new strain was attacking the antibodies Darius had configured.

Darius examined the cell structure, marveling at how it could wreak so much havoc. The original poison had carried the seeds to implant this far more virulent strain. It was fighting to reproduce over and over, replicating the monster that fought with such ferocity to carry out the vampire’s last command of destruction. Darius sent out more of his army to fight the strain, leaving him free to begin repairs on the vicious wounds and lacerations in Julian’s flesh. The newer poison had again weakened the artery walls and the chambers in the heart. Darius spent time restoring the systems. The shoulder wound was particularly bad, flesh and muscle torn to the bone. Darius slowly mended it, then meticulously returned to Julian’s bloodstream to be sure it was completely devoid of the vampire’s poisonous virus. He was taking no chances that his sister might be contaminated. He went through every muscle, tissue, and bone, every organ and vein, double-checking that he had removed every last vestige of the foreign cells.

Then he turned once more to inspect the odd shadowing. It was there in Julian’s mind, in his body. It was dark. Tainted. The mark of a vampire. Darius studied it a long while. There was no way to combat such a mark. Julian had been in intimate contact with a vampire, and the beast was strong within him. A solitary Carpathian male’s struggle to sustain his soul was hard enough without the taint of the vampire inside him; Darius could
only imagine the fierce battle Julian must have suffered every moment of his existence. Still, he could do nothing to aid the Carpathian who had claimed his sister. With a sigh of regret, he entered his own body once again. He would keep a close eye on Julian to ensure his sister’s safety.

Instantly his eyes reacted to the dawn. Light was beginning to slowly streak the darkness a soft dove-gray, heralding the morning. He closed his eyes to soften the effect. This recent weakness troubled him. Darius had never had to contend with weakness before. For centuries he had easily managed to stay above ground until ten, sometimes eleven in the morning, but the last few endless years, his eyes had become far more sensitive to any light. Darius had a will of iron. When he chose to do something, no matter what the difficulty, it was done. Yet he could not overcome this sensitivity to early morning light.

“Darius?” Dayan touched his shoulder lightly to bring him back to them. “It is done?”

“We must get him to ground, allow the soil to heal him. I will give him blood just before we place him under. My blood is ancient and should speed his recovery. Although why I should want such a thing, I cannot imagine.”

“Darius, you have given too much of yourself this night,” Dayan objected. “I will supply him.”

Darius shook his head. “I will not take a chance with your life. If I have missed one cell of this venomous virus, there is a possibility it could infect you.” The real reason was more complex. If Dayan ever turned, Julian should not be his hunter. Darius would take that responsibility on himself. And if the shadowing in Julian proved to be a beacon for a vampire, if it endangered
Desari, it would take Darius to destroy his sister’s chosen lifemate.

Is there a possibility that you missed something?
De-sari demanded of her brother, not for one minute believing that. Darius was always completely thorough.

Do not be ridiculous
. Darius sounded wearier than he intended. He realized it when he saw the alarm in her dark eyes. At once he held out his hand to reassure her. “Do not worry, little sister.”

Dayan immediately offered his wrist again to supply the leader with whatever it took to aid him. By now Barack would have Syndil in the ground, safeguards strong to ensure her safety. It was always Barack who looked after Syndil, especially since the attack. Where once Barack had been easygoing and cocky, now he was much quieter, his eyes watchful, thoughtful whenever they rested on Syndil. Dayan had been the one to aid their leader in the healing of the stranger, while Barack had protected Syndil.

Dayan found himself sitting abruptly, dizzy from the volume of blood he had supplied this night. Darius was already compelling Julian to feed. Dayan could not help but admire the efficient way Darius did everything, his movements ever sure and powerful. The stranger had the same assurance about him.

Dayan studied Desari’s choice of a mate. He looked dangerous even in his deathlike state. He glanced at De-sari, a little mystified why she would choose a man so like her brother when she often chafed under Darius’s stringent rules for the women.

“Go feed, Dayan,” Darius said. “Desari and I will place Julian in the ground. I will lie above the two of them to protect both while he is healing. You must construct safeguards around our campsite to keep others out while we sleep this rising.”

Dayan nodded. “No problem, Darius. Do not worry.”

“Call to me if you have need of my assistance.”

Dayan rose and moved silently out to the hunt. Desari sighed softly. “He seems very alone sometimes, Darius.”

“Males are always alone, little sister,” Darius answered quietly. “It is something we all must face.” He touched her chin with a fingertip. “We are without your compassion and loving nature.”