Shadow of the Vampire (33 page)

         
If she were honest with herself, that burning question was the reason she sat out in the cold in the middle of the night. She was scared. Scared she'd never see her brother again. After all, she'd only just gotten him back. Now, she feared, even if he did return, nothing would be the same. A wall had grown between them since that night they'd stolen the crystal, and she couldn't figure out how to knock it down.

         
The view before her blurred, her vision swimming in unshed tears. Her chin quivered, and it had nothing to do with the cold. Giving up the fight, she let the tears fall. Her cheeks stung as the cold night air froze the liquid to her face.

         
Gods, why did she let him leave? The answer came at once. He'd asked her to let him go alone, and she'd obeyed. For the second time in her life, she'd yielded and granted his request without a fight. And now she was regretting it. Last time she'd given in to his demand to take care of things alone, all hell had broken loose and she'd nearly lost him. Something in her soul told her this time they would not fare any better.

         
A snowflake landed on her nose. Tallon sniffled and tilted her chin to the sky to shake it off. In the distance, a glinting purple mass caught her eye. It hovered just above the lower ridge, swirling in and out of the white snowfall in an almost circle-eight pattern. At first, Tallon tried to ignore it. Yet, as it continued its lazy dance around the mountain, she found her gaze drifting in its general direction. Or more precisely, his direction. It was Griffon, the hunter. It had to be. He was the only purple-hued dragon of such size who would dare brave this horrid weather for a flight.

         
At the thought of him, undeniable warmth shimmied up her spine. She shuddered and hunkered farther into her worn-out clothes. Although she could not explain it, Tallon found herself wondering more and more about the hunter. Where he came from, why he left, why he never spoke of his past and, most of all, why he was so haunted and alone. The answers to those questions burned hotter in recent days, and like a moth to flame she flew closer and closer to his light.

         
Tallon could not place or explain it, but she felt a connection to him somehow. As if he and he alone not only saw but recognized the blackness inside her. As if he knew soul-shattering loss, viscerally and bone deep, and yet unlike her had the ability to mend the pieces.

         
As Tallon watched him spin and arc in the sky with the deftness of an eagle and the beauty of an angel, for just a moment she forgot how miserable she was.

         
"There you are."

         
Tallon started at the voice, hastily sliding her fingers over her damp cheeks. She glanced up, annoyed to see Falcon rounding the cliff wall toward her. Normally, his presence would be a balm, a security blanket and pacifier when nothing else soothed her. But something inside her churned, wild and enraged. The fact that his handsome face appeared calm, his nerves weren't frayed to pieces and his heart wasn't blackened with loss nettled her.

         
"You shouldn't be out here at this hour."

         
"I can handle myself, thanks," she said, loathing the sarcasm evident in her voice.

         
A frown creased his brow and his smile fled. "I know you can. That's not what I meant. It's freezing out here. You could catch your death."

         
She opened her mouth, about to say she didn't care if she died out here of pneumonia or not, but thought better of it. Falcon had always been her touchstone, her rock. She wanted to upset him about as much as she wanted Declan to love that vampire.

         
When seconds and then minutes ticked past and she made no attempt to move, a loud male sigh sounded over the wind howling in her ears. "Why don't you come back inside with me?"

         
Tallon glanced up. She stared at the calloused hand reaching down for her. Thought about what he offered. Take his hand and walk inside. Move forward. Go on with life as normal. Without Declan.

         
A tide of anger and resentment swelled inside her. "Why don't you leave me alone," she snapped, pushing up to stand on her own.

         
He instantly turned, reaching for her. "Tal, I know you're hurting...."

         
She shooed his arm away, keeping distance between them. "You don't know anything about how I feel right now, so don't try to comfort me."

         
For a moment, Falcon didn't move. Then his outstretched hand fell to his side and his jaw tightened. The howling wind picked up strands of his dark hair, dancing the long strands along his handsome face. "You're scared of losing someone you love." His eyes bored into hers, too all-seeing, too beautiful. "Right now, I know exactly how that feels."

         
Her heart seized and all the air left her in a whoosh. Oh, gods. Not this again, not now. "Falcon, don't do this," she began, but he took a step toward her, and then another, the bare emotion in his eyes silencing her.

         
"Do what? Tell the woman I love how I feel? Tell her that it's killing me to sit idly by and watch her in pain? Tell her how impotent I feel to not be able to help, when everything inside me is screaming to do whatever I can to ease your ache?"

         
"Stop," she whispered. Knowing how much he sacrificed by voicing his feelings aloud cut her to the bone as effectively as his words. To realize with brutal agony that not long ago she would have been overjoyed to hear those very words fall from his lips devastated her.

         
More guilt, more pain.

         
Two emotions she did not need to feel any more of at the moment. In fact, she wished she didn't feel anything at all. Wished her body looked as broken as she felt. Briefly, she wondered if that was why she sat out here in the subzero temperatures, hoping to numb her outsides along with her insides.

         
"You don't want to hear me say it," Falcon continued, his calm voice deceptively masking the barely veiled pain etched on his face. "You don't think you deserve my love or anyone else's." Hands curled around her upper arms, pulling her into his. "But you do," he said, shaking her slightly on the last syllable as if the act could jar her into believing him. "And if it takes forever for you to realize that, then I'm willing to wait that long."

         
"Stop." Tallon closed her eyes and shook her head. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think....

         
"I'll wait for you forever."

         
"Stop!" Tallon shouted, her chest heaving. "You don't love me, Falcon. You don't even know me. And you sure as hell can't fix me."

         
Pushing against his chest, she backed out of his hold. Falcon let her arms go without a fight. The hurt and confusion in his green eyes made her hate herself even more. To realize he offered everything that the unbroken and happy Tallon wanted yet this new Tallon could not fathom, shredded her soul.

         
Wrapping her arms around her chest, she shook her head and took one step back.

         
"Do yourself a favor and don't wait that long," she said, the soles of her worn boots sinking into the snow and the image of Falcon burning behind her eyes. "I don't love you, Falcon. Not now. Not ever."

         
The moment the last word fell from her lips, Tallon turned and ran back inside the mountain. Unsure if she'd said those words for Falcon's benefit or hers.

         
IN DRAGON FORM, Declan sank his talons into the same sandy beach where he'd taken Alexia that night she'd fallen off the cliff. Turning, he tipped his head and sniffed. Again, only faint traces of blood filled the air. Shaking his powerful shoulders, Declan shifted form. He closed his hand around the tracer dangling from his neck, snapping it free with one swift tug.

         
No matter what he thought he saw, he refused to yield to a dream. He had to believe she yet lived. Following the faint but steady beat of red on the tracer, Declan took the hidden stairs he'd spotted the last time he'd stood on this beach. A soft breeze sent a slight scent of the horde to his nose. Once at the top of the stairs, the rock leveled off and the moss fell away to sand. A secret beach with a crystal pool of water filled by a nearby waterfall stood before him, nothing more. Frantic, Declan held the tracer out before him and swept his arm in a wide arc. Squinting, he stared down at the device in his hand in defeat.

         
It indicated Alexia was in the rock beneath the pool.

         
Chest heaving, he looked around the quiet night.

         
The moon reflected off the still water, so it appeared more like a sheet of glass than liquid. He stood for only a moment before dropping the tracer in a small plastic bag he'd stowed in his pants. Shoving it in his back pocket, Declan dove headfirst into the pool. The dark water enveloped him, but only for a moment. As if led by a string, he burst through the surface, coming up on the other side inside a cave.

         
An underwater cave on the other side of the mountain.

         
Reaching forward, he arched his arm through the water, pulling himself to shore. Shiny black pebbles dug into his feet as he padded up the hidden beach. Bending at the waist, he covered his knees with his hands and looked around. It took a moment, but his eyes adjusted to the pitch-blackness of the cave. Outlines and shadows formed until he could see the fissure opening in the walls in front of him, but no soldiers, no guards.

         
Standing, he tossed wet hair off his face and reached in his back pocket, pulling out the plastic bag. He ripped it open, flipping on the device as he stepped inside the crevice. The tracker's constant red blinking flashed quicker with each step he took.

         
He was close.

         
Hope and worry sent him into a jog. Darting his eyes to the left and right, he ran down the narrow passageway. The air ahead warmed by degrees and the scent of blood grew stronger. Panic rose inside him. Declan ignored it. Panic wouldn't get him there. Panic wouldn't help her.

         
He turned a corner. Soft light shone down the tunnel where an opening yawned in the passageway. The tracer began flashing so fast it was almost constantly red. Declan slowed to a cautious walk once he was a few feet from the light. When he heard nothing, he poked his head out. The passage opened into a massive grotto. Hundreds of candles burned, illuminating the darkness. Chairs faced a stone dais to the left. A gory tapestry depicting the dark times, the times when vampire warlords reigned instead of female monarchs, took up the back of the stone stage, like a painted curtain.

         
The cavern from the dream.

         
Images from the dreadful nightmare seized him, gripping him like a hand about the throat. He drew in violently for breath. "Alexia," he said on the exhale.

         
The tracking stick slipped from his fingers as his wings snapped wide and he took to the air. Hovering twenty feet above, he stared at the exact picture he'd dreamt of less than an hour ago. His heart almost seized at the carnage below him--the rows of chairs, the massive wood pillar smeared with blood and...

         
"No." Two bodies lay twisted and broken on the grisly stage below. One had hair the color of spun gold.

         
Declan torpedoed to the ground. Tucking his wings back, he ran for the altar, hurdling over broken furniture and boulders to get to her. His heart pounded in a savage beat against his ribs. Each strident thud hammered with such force he expected it to break free of his chest.

         
Skidding on his knees, he slid through what must have been pints of blood coating the stone floor beneath her. Reaching out, he tugged on the ropes binding her ankles. It wasn't until he moved to his knees and began unwinding her wrists that he noticed the thick broadsword speared through her middle.

         
The pounding of his pulse stopped and all the air left him.

         
No. He thought the word this time, but couldn't say it. Couldn't find enough breath to speak it.

         
With his mind, body and fingers numb, he worked methodically on freeing her. First he yanked out the sword and then used it to cut her bonds.

         
When she fell, Declan clutched her limp body to his chest. It wasn't until he felt the weight of her against him that the truth hit. He sucked in a deep, ragged breath.

         
"No, no, no." He held her tight, repeating in a mind less litany the one word he'd been thinking since he'd awoken from that awful vision. As the truth that this was no longer a dream but reality sank in, his legs shook and then gave out completely. He collapsed on the hard ground.

         
Cradling her against him, he gazed down, smoothing her stained hair out of her face. Her skin was blue, nearly translucent. Dirty yellow bruises covered her cheek and temple, evidence of Lotharus's cruel and brutal feed at her mauled neck.