Dark Nights

Dark Nights - By Christine Feehan



Chapter One

Veins of lightning lit the clouds, dancing whips of white-hot energy illuminating the midnight sky. The earth rumbled and rolled, unsettled and flinching as the creature clawed its way through the soil to burst into the air, instantly fouling every living thing it touched. Leaves shriveled and blackened. The air vibrated with alarm. The vampire settled to earth, turning its head this way and that, listening, waiting, its cunning mind racing, its rotten heart beating with a mixture of triumph and fear. He was the bait, and he knew the hunter was not far behind, close on his trail, drawn straight into the heart of the trap.

Traian Trigovise burrowed through the soil, following the stench of the undead. It was too easy, the trail too well marked. No vampire would be so obvious unless he was a rank fledgling, and Traian was certain he was dealing with strength and cunning. He was an ancient Carpathian hunter, a species nearly immortal, blessed and cursed with longevity, with timeless gifts and the need for a lifemate to make him complete. He was first and foremost a predator, capable of becoming the most loathsome and evil of all creatures, the undead. It was his sheer strength of will and duty to his race that kept him from falling prey to the insidious whispers and call of power.

When the tunnel veered upward toward the sky, Traian continued onward, pushing deeper into the dirt, feeling his way, listening to the heartbeat and energy of the earth around him. All was silent, even the insects, creatures often summoned by the evil ones. He scanned the surface, taking in a large area, and discovered three blank spots, evidence that more than one vampire was close.

He found a web of roots, thick and gnarled, humming with life, reaching deep into the earth. He whispered softly, respectfully, touching the longest, deepest artery, feeling its life force. He chanted softly in the ancient language, asking for entrance, and felt the response moving through the thick old tree. Leaves shivered as the tree reached toward the moon, embracing the night even as it shrank from the presence of the foul beings. Imparting secrets and conspiring to help, the tree spread its roots to allow Traian into the intricate system protecting and nourishing the wide trunk.

The hunter was careful not to disturb the soil or the root system as he maneuvered his way through the labyrinth, pushing through the surface just far enough to scan his surroundings from inside the cage of safety of the overlapping roots above ground. Stealthily, he shape-shifted as he emerged, nothing more than a shadow hidden amongst the thick branches and leaves.

For one moment he could see only his prey, the tall, thin figure of Gallent. He recognized the vampire as one of the ancients sent out by their prince so many centuries earlier, just as he had been. The undead continually twisted, sniffing the air suspiciously, his gaze darting along the ground. He clicked his long fingernails together in a peculiar repeated rhythm.

The wind rushed through the grove of trees, and the leaves rustled and whispered. Traian allowed his gaze to shift, quartering the area, searching with his mind more than with his acute vision. The breeze brought the echo of that strange rhythm to him, coming from his left. Those blank spots—the undead protecting their foul presence from nature—came from his right. It took a few more moments to detect the other two undead waiting to fall upon him and rip him to pieces. He shifted again, drifting with the breeze through the cage of roots, rising as molecules into the night, allowing the friendly wind to take him higher into the cover of leaves.

Dark clouds swirled into a boiling cauldron. Lightning veined the murky, spinning mass. He hovered there with a small, humorless smile in his mind. Discretion really was the better part of valor in some circumstances. The band of vampires had been following him, first one group and then another, attacking and retreating each time he got the upper hand in the battle. This time, they appeared to have the advantage and in any case, he was already exhausted. Like a pack of dogs wearing down prey, they had been nipping at his heels for several risings, inflicting damage here and there, nothing huge, but enough to wear him down. He would pick his own battleground.

As he turned away, the sound of the clicking fingernails came again. The sound grew louder. With each click, droplets of water fell from the clouds—tiny droplets that never quite reached the ground. The beads collected in midair, formed a large, shimmering pool. Shocked, he could see his own reflection clearly in the pool. Not the scattered molecules, or an illusion, but the real man amongst the leaves. If he could see himself, so could the enemy. It was his only warning, and it came just a heartbeat before the attack.

He caught movement from the corner of his eye and instantly reacted, somersaulting through the sky, shifting into his true form, grateful for the leaves that hampered the nearly invisible silvery net meant to entangle him. Spears spiraled through the air, along with tiny darts tipped with poison from the tree frog, and showers of red-hot embers that burrowed into the skin and burned for weeks, engulfed him in a fiery cloud, penetrating deep. Pain slammed through him, but Traian shoved it aside, turning to face the enemy. Insects clouded the skies, and all the while the clicking of the fingernails went on relentlessly.

He launched himself at the shadowy figure orchestrating the fight, ignoring the two lesser vampires. Gallent seemed to be directing the action, a leader in evil, as he had been a leader among Carpathians. The ancient Carpathian-turned-vampire was a master at planning cunning traps and with the poison working its way through his system, Traian knew he was in serious trouble. He couldn’t allow Gallent room to think. His lesser vampires were considered fodder, merely pawns in his scheme to kill a Carpathian hunter. It was Gallent, Traian had to destroy.

Traian burst through the sky, his fist already snapping out, driving toward the vampire’s chest, intending to smash through the rotting shell of bone and tissue for the blackened heart.

Gallent shimmered transparently. The fist passed through his body harmlessly even as the undead struck back with razor-sharp talons. The hand came from Traian’s left, the swift, sure movement of a full-fledged master. The knifelike nails drove deep through flesh and muscle, all the way to the bone. One of the lesser vampires hurled himself onto Traian’s back, sinking his teeth into his target’s exposed neck.

Dissolving into mist, Traian streaked toward the ancient vampire, at the last moment shifting back to solid form, his fist slamming deep into the chest of the undead. Gallent shrieked. Black blood sprayed over the hunter, burning through flesh to bone, the poisonous acid pouring over Traian’s arm and hand.

Gallent retaliated with a swipe of his vicious claws at Traian’s eyes, attempting to blind the hunter. A brutal head-butt followed, and the vampire rolled his head to one side, teeth tearing into Traian’s neck, right over his vulnerable artery. Pain streaked up his neck and radiated through his body as the vampire’s serrated teeth viciously sawed through flesh to get at the enticing banquet of pure ancient blood.

Traian set his teeth, pushing aside the fierce pain to burrow deeper, tunneling towards the blackened heart. His flesh tore and the vampire spit it out, gulping at his spraying blood. The two lesser vampires shrieked in glee and leapt at him, dragging him to the ground, ripping his arm back away from their master, teeth burying into his body, desperate to get at his blood. Gallent kicked at them as they tried to devour him, teeth ripping through skin to get at the precious treasure.

The pain level became agony, nearly impossible to block out. Traian knew he had to retreat to give himself enough time to repair the damage to his neck and body. With such a blood loss, he was weakening fast. He twice tried to throw off the lesser vampires, but they stuck to him like glue. Gallent’s furious orders and vicious kicks couldn’t dislodge his minions either. The lure of pure blood was too strong.

Gallent abandoned his tactics, saliva dripping in long, slobbery strands from his mouth, as the need for Carpathian blood overcame his discipline, won over hundreds of years of being vampire. He threw himself on Traian, talons raking and teeth biting, trying, like his underlings, to strip flesh away and get at the blood. So rich and pure, the feast would boost strength and give the vampires not only a further advantage, but a rush of feeling they were so desperate to have.

Weakened, Traian took the only way out left to him, evaporating and taking to the air, streaking away from the frenzied undead. Shrieking, the three followed him, unwilling to lose their prey when they were so close to victory. Killing a hunter of Traian’s stature would be a significant victory, and with the taste of blood already in their mouths, they refused to allow such a prize to escape. Traian’s blood rained down on the shivering leaves, the scent of the ancient gift driving the vampires into a frenzy of rage and hunger.

Traian had long been fighting these battles and weariness settled over him even as he raced across the night sky, forced to flee with the poisonous acid working its way through his body and his blood spraying across the forest, the hounds of hell nipping at his heels. He glanced up at the sky. Sunrise was still a good hour away. The vampires would pursue him until they had no other recourse than to go to ground to avoid burning in the sun.

Cursing under his breath, he used a flash of tremendous energy to cut off the bleeding and repair his torn neck as best he could in flight. He needed soil and saliva, but flying as mist precluded both. Shifting took energy as did staying in the air, and he was running on empty. He needed to shake his pursuers fast. The hounds had become the hunters and they had a pack.

He glanced at the sky, calling softly for aid. Clouds responded, moving across the stars, dark and boiling, lightning edging the bottoms, the energy building fast, looking for targets. Deliberately he slowed just a little, just enough to draw excited, triumphant shrieks from the lesser vampires. They increased their speed in an effort to capture him.

Traian dove toward earth, the three vampires spreading out like a vee behind him, Gallent leading the way. Heavy forest rose up to meet him. Fog lay along the ground, thick and heavy, a dense mat of mist obscuring the thick vegetation of rotting trunks and leaves. He slipped into the layers of fog, turned sharply to slide behind a large rock basin hanging over a stream. Casting a trail of running footsteps leading away from his actual position, he stayed very still, waiting for the three vampires to descend.

Gallent, with his years of experience, dropped back to allow his hounds to sniff the ground and rout around for the scent of the wounded Carpathian. Eager to find the treasure of rich blood, the two grotesque creatures crawled on the ground. One whined eagerly, finding the faint trail of kicked up leaves. He rushed after his prey. The other abandoned his sniffing just a few feet from where Traian was concealed in the layers of fog. He’d cut off the spraying arc of blood from his torn neck, but there were hundreds of bloody bites covering his body and the vampire had only to take another couple of steps and he would have scented his prey. Fortunately, the undead was far too greedy and didn’t want his companion to get the jump on him.

Gallent hesitated, torn between caution and greed. The first lesser vampire shrieked again with joy as he discovered a twisted piece of moss right on the bank of the stream. Gallent made his decision and followed, dropping to earth, shoving aside his two underlings to peer down at the trail.

Traian struck hard and fast, slamming bolt after bolt of lightning into the area, blanketing the forest and stream with forks and whips of white-hot spears burning through the sky to earth. Thunder shook the forest, reverberating through the night. The trees lit up in macabre orange and red, glowing hot.

The vampires screamed horribly as fire ravaged the earth around them, burning pure, turning foul breath to ash. On the other side of the ferocious storm, Traian once again took to the sky, retreating to find a place to rest and heal before he returned to the hunt. It was his way of life, one he had known for far too long now.

He traveled quickly through the night. The Carpathian Mountains were riddled with networks of caves, where rich soil deep beneath the earth waited to welcome him. He was close to home. He had been steadily traveling back to his homeland to see his prince but had become sidetracked when he came across the vampires. He had spent the last few risings leading them away from the area where Mikhail Dubrinsky and his lifemate, Raven, were known to dwell.

His shoulder throbbed and burned. His neck was a fierce torment. There were a hundred places on his body that ached from the embers and darts and the terrible bites where chunks of flesh were missing. He found an opening into the cool interior of the mountain, went deeper still, through a labyrinth of tunnels into the earth. He floated down into the bed of rich soil and just lay there, feeling a sense of peace and solace in the wealth of welcoming minerals.

He would need blood to recoup. But for now, the earth welcomed him, would do its best to aid in his healing. He closed his eyes and allowed sleep to take him.

Austria

The theater doors opened to allow the smartly dressed crowd out. They emerged laughing and talking, a crush of happy people pleased with the performance they had witnessed. Lightning forked across the sky, a brilliant, dazzling display of elemental nature. For a moment the long, sequined gowns, furs and suits of varying color were lit up as if caught in a spotlight. Thunder crashed directly overhead, and the ground and buildings shook under the assault. The light faded, leaving the night nearly black and the crowd almost blind. The throng broke into couples or groups, hurrying to their limousines and cars, while valets tried to work fast before the rain began to fall.

Senator Thomas Goodvine stayed beneath the entrance archway, bending his head toward his wife to hear her over the buzz of the crowd, laughing at her softly spoken words, nodding in agreement. He pulled her beneath his shoulder to prevent her from being jostled by the steady stream of people hurrying to avoid the weather.

Two trees formed the unique archway to the theater, the branches interlocking overhead to form a small protection against the elements. The leaves rustled and the branches clicked together in the rushing wind. Clouds whirled and spun, weaving dark, ominous threads across the moon.

Another burst of lightning illuminated two large men pushing against the stream of theatergoers, apparently determined to gain shelter in the building. The flash of light faded, leaving only the dim lighting of the archway and the streetlights flickering ominously. Thelma Goodvine tugged at her husband’s jacket to bring his attention back to her.

“Gun! Down! Get down!” Joie Sanders plowed into the senator and his wife, her arms outspread, sweeping them both to the ground. In one move she rolled up on her knee in front of them, a gun in her outstretched hand. “Gun, gun, everybody down!” she shouted.

An orange-red flame burst from two revolvers in a steady stream toward the couple she’d been assigned to protect. Joie returned fire with her usual calm and dead-on accuracy, watching one man begin to topple, almost in slow motion, his gun still firing but up into the air.

People screamed, ran in every direction, fell to the ground, and crouched behind flimsy cover. The second gunman grabbed a woman in a long fur and dragged her in front of him as a shield. Joie was already pushing at the senator and his wife in an effort to get them to crawl back inside the relative safety of the theater. The second gunman propelled the sobbing woman forward as he fired at Joie, who rolled again to cover her charges’ line of retreat.

A bullet sliced through the flesh of her shoulder, burning a path of pain and spraying blood over the senator’s trousers. Joie cried out, but steadied her aim, ignoring the churning in her stomach. Her world narrowed to one man, one target. She squeezed the trigger slowly, precisely, watched the ugly little hole blossom in the middle of the man’s forehead. He went down like a rock, taking his hostage with him, falling in a tangle of arms and legs.

There was a small silence. Only the clicking of the branches could be heard, a strange, disquieting rhythm. Joie blinked, trying to clear her vision. She seemed to be looking into a large, shimmering pool, staring at a man with flat, cold eyes and something metal glinting in his hand. He rose up out of the crowd, slamming into Joie before she could scramble out of the way. She twisted just enough to escape the lethal blade, driving the butt of her gun upward into his jaw, then slamming it back down on his knife hand. He screamed, dropping the blade so that it went skittering along the sidewalk. His fist found her face, driving her backward. The man followed her down, his face a mask of hatred.

Something hit the back of his head hard, and Joie found herself staring up at one of her men. “Thanks, John. I think he smashed every bone in my body when he fell on me.”

She took John’s outstretched hand, and allowed him to help her out from under the large body. Joie kicked the gun from the limp hand of the first man she’d shot, even as weakness overwhelmed her. She sat down abruptly as her legs turned to rubber. “Get the senator and Mrs. Goodvine to safety, John.” The wailing sirens were fading in and out. “Someone help that poor woman up.”

“We’ve got it, Joie,” one of the agents assured her. “We have the driver. How bad are you hurt? How many hits did you take? Give me your gun.”

Joie looked down at the gun in her hand and noted with surprise she was aiming it at the motionless attacker. “Thanks, Robert. I think I’ll just let you and John handle things for a while.”

“Is she all right?” She could hear the senator’s anxious voice. “Sanders? Are you hurt? I don’t want to just leave her there; where are you taking us?”

Joie tried to lift her arm to indicate she was fine, but her arm seemed heavy and uncooperative. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She just needed to be somewhere else, just for a short time while the medics fixed her up. It wasn’t the first time she’d taken a hit and she doubted it would be the last. She had certain instincts that had taken her to the top of her profession. It was very dangerous at the top.

Joie could blend in. Some of the men liked to call her the chameleon. She could look strikingly beautiful, plain, or just average. She could blend in with the tough crowd, the homeless, or the rich and glamorous. It was a valuable gift, and she used it willingly. She was called in for the difficult assignments, the ones where action was inevitable. Few others had her skill with knives or guns, and no one could disappear into a crowd the way she could.

She took herself out of her body, watched the frantic scene around her with interest for a few minutes. The others assigned to the senator and the Austrian agents had everything under control. She was being put into an ambulance and hustled away from the scene. More than anything, she detested hospitals. She’d seen too many of them and associated the smells with death. More than a few of her coworkers—her friends—had gone through hospital doors and had not ever left.

Joie didn’t know if she truly believed in astral projection, but she had been having out-of-body experiences from the time she was a toddler. She had perfected her craft over the years, directing herself to fly away and leave her physical body behind when she didn’t want to be where she was. It was a useful, exhilarating gift, and all too real. Sometimes too real. Many times the places she found herself in were far more intriguing than where she’d left her body and of course, the danger was always in not finding her way back.

She’d read numerous articles about astral projection and most seemed to happen to enlightened people, people of faith who believed in a higher, better realm. She was far more practical, dealing with the seamier side of life and finding her faith was in nature and the beauty of the wild, untouched places she sought out both on an astral plane and with her physical body when she had time off.

The smell of the hospital was overpowering, making her stomach lurch. People moved around her fast, poking needles into her, talking in low voices, cutting her shirt away. She didn’t take painkillers as a rule and tried to tell them, but no one listened to her. An oxygen mask was slapped over her face. What was the use in staying in a place she didn’t want to be when she could roam the world in her mind? Whether she was actually there or not mattered very little. It felt real when she journeyed out of her body. She took a deep breath of the oxygen and let go of her physical body.

She simply took herself away now, soaring free. She wanted to be outdoors, under the sky or beneath the earth in a world of subterranean beauty—it didn’t matter, as long as it wasn’t within the walls of a hospital.

Joie felt weightless, free, skimming through the mountains she had studied so carefully. As she soared free, she planned a trip caving with her brother and sister as soon as the senator and his wife were safely back home. She crossed space. Smelled the rain. Felt cool and moist in the mist of the mountains. Far below her, she saw the entrance to a cave, spotlighted by the small sliver of moon that managed to peek around the thick cloud cover. Smiling, she dropped down to enter a world of crystal and ice. Whether she was dreaming or hallucinating didn’t matter; all she cared about was escaping from the pain of her wounds and the smell of the hospital.

Carpathian Mountains

Traian lay in the cool earth, gazing up at the high, cathedral-like ceiling. His body hurt in so many places, he just wanted to rest. The beauty of the cave was breathtaking and took his mind off his physical pain. The network of caves he’d entered deep beneath the earth was part of a huge subterranean city. Great waterfalls of ice cascaded down from ceiling to floor, some lapping around one another until it looked as if great bows of thick ice had gift-wrapped the entire cave he lay in.

Despite the cold, some insects and bats dwelled in the realms above him, but he had gone deep, where few living creatures could exist. The cold helped to numb the pain and bring him a soothing sense of peace he so badly needed after the last few risings. In the far corner of the cave the formation actually looked like thick ice walls with a covering of ice clouds over them. As he worked at forcing some of the burning embers from his body he tried to imagine the forces it would take to forge such a dramatic thing of beauty deep beneath the earth.

Traian turned his head and saw her. His heart nearly stopped and then began pounding. The breath left his lungs in a long rush. She was hovering just overhead to his left. She’d entered silently and somehow gotten past his safeguards. Had he been so exhausted that he’d forgotten such an important life-saving detail? Impossible. He could feel the weave, strong and in place. No one—nothing—should be able to get passed his safeguards.

He studied the woman. She had a cap of dark, glossy hair, very thick—the kind a man would want to run his fingers through. The thought brought him up short. He didn’t have thoughts like that about women—at least any that he could remember—and he had lived a very long existence. Her eyes were large and gray, heavily fringed with thick lashes. She stared back at him with complete astonishment.

“You’re hurt,” she said. “If you were real, I’d send the paramedics.”

Her voice seemed to go right through his skin, wrap itself around his heart and squeeze so tightly he lost his breath. His vision blurred. Tiny pinpoints of light burst behind his eyes, a light show of colors. Pastels at first so that some of the ice formations took on subtle blues and greens.

“What makes you think I am not real?” He tested his voice, not certain if she was real or if he’d dreamt her up. He’d been wounded a thousand times and nothing like this had ever happened to him before. A woman hovering above his head? Floating in the air like an angel? He was so far removed from heaven none of this made sense. He wasn’t a man to panic and was willing to see what she would do. He had no doubts that he could kill her if she made a wrong move.

“Because I’m not really here,” she answered. “I’m in a hospital many miles away. I don’t even know where here is.”

Traian frowned and rubbed his eyes. Colors shot at him like sparks, a fireworks show inside of his head. Great. The last thing he needed with a new, potential threat was to lose his vision. She didn’t feel like a threat. If anything, there was a sense of amusement and serenity about her. She didn’t look transparent, but it was possible she was telling the truth. Her voice had a soft melodic echo to it, as though it was disembodied.

“You look real enough to me.”

“What in the world are you doing lying in the mud in the middle of a cave?” Her soft laughter rippled through him. “You didn’t mistake this for a beauty spa, did you?”

His heart nearly ceased beating. He blinked several times as the colors behind his eyes burst into a spectacular display of raining drops of dark color. When he stared at her his world was upside down. Her simple questions had wrought a change that would never be undone.

He was aware of everything—the coolness of the interior, the blue of the ice, the dramatic sweep of architecture formed thousands of years earlier. He was mostly aware that her hair was a rich brown, dark and glossy, the strands, several shades of brown, so many he hadn’t even known the colors existed. Her eyes were a cool gray and her lashes and brows matched her hair color. Her mouth was wide and curved at the corners, teeth small and very white. There were laugh lines around her mouth and eyes hinting at her sense of humor. Her skin was light gold, burnished by the sun.

He was seeing in color. After hundreds of years of a bleak, gray existence, living in a world without color or emotion, there she was. The other half of his soul. Staring down at him with curious eyes and an amused grin. There was blood on her shoulder and bruises on her face, and she seemed to be wearing a bizarre, thin-looking gown that didn’t cover much.

His eyes narrowed, trying to see what injuries she had. She’d mentioned a hospital. “What happened to you?”

She smiled at him as if those injuries were nothing at all when they’d set his heart pounding in fear and dread coiled his belly into tight hard knots. She had no idea how important she was. His lifemate. After so many endless years.

“I was shot.” She touched her face, wincing as if it hurt. “Someone smashed me in the face. It’s all a little hazy. They’re giving me drugs and I’ve never reacted well to them.”

For the first time her body shimmered and she appeared transparent.

“Wait! Don’t go.” He nearly leapt to catch her, but knew his hand would pass right through her if she wasn’t really there.

Traian had never panicked in his life. Not that he could remember. He’d been in countless battles, but whether she was real or not, he was seeing in color. He was feeling. Emotion. Real emotion. He knew that much was real. Was it possible he was caught in a hallucination? He had lost a lot of blood—too much blood—and there was nothing in the cave to replenish the amount he’d left in the ground. He couldn’t imagine that he could ever conjure something like this up.

Fear. Elation. Shock. The emotions were far too strong to be memories. She had to be real. He had no idea how she’d traveled to the cave, but she was real enough to bring him color and emotion. He couldn’t lose her. Not now. Not after searching the world over for her. He had to find a way to keep her with him.

A small shudder went through her body as she made a visual effort to stay with him. “I can’t do this for too long. But,” she frowned at him, “you’re hurt too. Do you often go swimming in the mud with a gaping hole in your shoulder? You have heard of infection and gangrene, haven’t you?”

“A small run-in with a group of unsavory ruffians. I was uncharacteristically slow.” He kept his voice light, dismissing of his own wounds.

“Does this sort of thing happen often?”

He knew she had a good sense of humor from the laugh lines around her mouth. He liked her mouth, that quirky little smile that reached her eyes. “Unfortunately very often. And you?” He felt himself go very still waiting for her answer.

“Same thing. In my line of work, it’s one of the hazards you just live with.”

He inhaled but couldn’t catch her scent, telling him she truly didn’t have a physical body present in the cave. “We must do similar work.”

“But,” she flashed another wide smile, “you’re here in this cave and I’m in a hospital. What does that say about you?”

His own sense of humor welled up. He hadn’t bantered with anyone since his childhood and he barely had managed to remember those days. “I’m eccentric?”

Her laughter seemed a melody playing over his body like the soft brush of fingers. “You seem a bit underdressed for a cave,” he pointed out.

She looked down at her body, one eyebrow arching. She seemed to be in some sort of a hospital gown. She’d forgotten to clothe herself properly in her astral flight. She shrugged, her laughter soft and inviting. “Yes, well, a lady likes to know she looks her best when the cave crickets come calling.”

Joie studied the man below her. He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Ever. And she trained with some fairly hot men. He had a rock-hard body. Plenty of defined muscle and she was a darned good judge of such things. He exuded power, despite the fact that he was obviously severely injured. He was making light of it, but when she really studied him, she could see a horrific tear in his neck and bite marks all over his shoulders and running down his arms. When he eased his position slightly, she caught sight of more on his back.

“You look like you ran into a pack of wolves.”

She bit her lip hard, waiting for an answer. She found, when she took herself out of her body, that she didn’t feel pain, but she did feel cold, and this time, she was colder than usual and it had nothing to do with being in an ice cave. She had never held a projection for an extended period of time, certainly not over a great distance, and she’d chosen a mountain range she’d been studying with the idea of vacationing there.

The biting cold pierced her through and through. She was worried about this man. Where her body was barely there, and he couldn’t really see the damage to it, with all the blood and gore, she could see the wounds on him easily and the evidence all over the ice where he’d come in. He was really injured. Without a real body she couldn’t help him.

“More like dogs than wolves. I wouldn’t give my brethren such an insult.”

She loved the sound of his voice. “You have an incredibly sexy accent. Do women fall all over you just at the sound of your voice?” She was very good at placing people by their accents, but his was different; there was a rich turn to his words. As astral dreaming went, this one was fascinating. The longer she stayed, the more real he seemed to her.

“I have not actually noticed such a phenomenon,” he replied, his eyes glinting with amusement, “but I will watch for it in the future.”

The idea of women falling all over him irritated her on a primal feminine level which surprised her. She wasn’t that kind of person. She worked with men every day and never once had she decided she wanted one permanently. How strange that during an astral projection she would run into a man she found attractive. She loved his sexy voice, and hard, firm body. He was definitely European. His hair was longer than she usually liked on a man, but he wore it exceptionally well and it suited his aristocratic face.

She couldn’t determine his age, but he was definitely all man. A warrior. The type of man who really appealed to her. She realized she was staring at him and sent a small smile his way, trying not to let her teeth chatter. The cold was worse, deep inside her as if her core temperature had dropped alarmingly.

“You’re too charming not to have noticed,” she pointed out. “You seem a very experienced man to me.” She looked around her. “Nice cave. I love caves. This one looks like a wonderful place to explore.”

“I do not believe it has been discovered yet,” he replied pleasantly.

“Really? You just sort of stumbled in blindfolded, did you? An interesting way to explore caves. Where am I? I’d like to come back here.”

“If you did not know about these caves, how could you find them? Did you float through the air blindfolded?”

She grinned at him. “I do that sometimes when I don’t want to be wherever I am. A bad habit.”

Traian studied her. She was beautiful, even though at times her form seemed to fade in and out. “You’re in a network of ice caves in the Carpathian Mountains. This mountain range is considered home to my people. The wilds of the forest, and the deep of the earth.”

She frowned at him. “I like the way you talk, I really do, very old-fashioned and courtly, but also, you managed to neatly avoid my question. The Carpathian Mountains happen to be a very large range and run through many countries.”

Traian’s way of life had been deception for as long as he could remember. Carpathians left no traces of themselves behind, no trail, nothing that might indicate they were not human. And they certainly didn’t give the location of their homeland away. He hesitated. The prince was close by and had to be protected at all costs.

Her form shimmered and her smile faded. “They’re doing something nasty to me, I can’t hold the projection.”

He sat up, bit back a groan as the embers beneath his skin burned fiercely. “Do not go yet.”

“I’m sorry.” She looked down at her arm, looked back at him, tears swimming in her eyes. “They’re cleaning my wound. It hurts like a bear.”

“I have to be able to find you. Where are you?”

She frowned again. “I don’t know. The hospital.”

“Romania. These caves are in Romania. I can’t lose you.” He held out his hand to stop her.

She tried. He could see her make an effort. She said something he couldn’t hear, her body fragmenting.

“I have to be able to find you. Tell me your name. Your name.” He could find her with that.

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out and then she was gone. That fast. Vanishing without a trace. He sat there alone in the dark of the cave, astonished at how life could change in the blink of an eye. She was real. Her psychic abilities were strong. He had shared her space, shared her mind, and the path was imprinted on his brain. She would not escape him, but it wouldn’t be easy without her name, with no starting point.

He became aware of his heart hammering out a rhythm of joy. A lifemate. It was the last thing he had expected on this long journey back to his homeland. She wasn’t Carpathian, which was shocking, but the prince had been mated to a human so it was possible. He needed this woman to survive. He had to find her. It was difficult to force discipline on himself and not try to rush like a madman out of the cave into the rising sun.

He let his breath out with a long slow hiss of promise. The woman belonged to him. She had the other half to his soul. He should have bound her to him right then, but the distance was too great and if it took too long to find her, the ritual words would wreak havoc with both of them. No, he had to heal first and then his only mission would be to find her.

Traian lay back and waved his hand to close the small amount of soil and mud he’d discovered over him, stilling his heart, his breath, allowing the song of the earth to send him into a deep, healing sleep.