Dark Predator (47 page)

Three nights. It had to be enough time for Marguarita to fully heal. For three long nights he had lain beside her, holding her in his arms, and yet even then, the world was grim without her filling the empty spaces in him. He was numb. Starkly alone. When one was used to such a thing, when emotions and color faded slowly, it was easier to bear, but losing it all so fast, one moment her warmth filling him, driving out shadow, and the next, being completely alone, was far more difficult than he had ever expected.

Still, Zacarias found himself pacing outside in the night where he could breathe in the night’s information instead of waking Marguarita once again. The night was waning, but still he refused to bring her to the surface. Something was just that little bit off kilter. He couldn’t find it, not with the wind and not with the insects. Everything appeared normal, but it wasn’t. He knew it wasn’t. He stepped off the porch and moved out into the yard, his keen sight hunting now—looking for one tiny discrepancy that would alert him to danger.

He needed her. Zacarias De La Cruz who never needed anyone in his life, needed Marguarita. And he needed her happy, giving herself to him, her laughter, her warmth, her soft, sweet body. Was he imagining things because he was he afraid to face her? Fear was an emotion and without Marguarita he didn’t have such complications. No, there was something out here, something not right. It was only a matter of time.

His body went on alert, ready for anything. Her horses stamped restlessly in the stables. Missing her. As he was missing her. He moved away from the yard toward the rain forest bordering his land, drawn by an unknown frisson of warning, listening to the night. Insects chorused, the frogs chimed in, the cattle murmured and the horses stamped. Still—there was that note—or lack of one. Maybe it was just him. He felt off. Something not right in the pit of his stomach.

Concern for Marguarita’s safety was uppermost in his mind. Things had been relatively quiet on the ranch since Esteban and DS had died. Even Cesaro had stayed away from the main house. He had given blood each time Zacarias had come to him and even seemed a little more at ease with him, but Zacarias had not sought him out for company, only for sustenance. He walked around the fence line to the back of the property, every sense alert.

Zacarias scanned the area for blank spots that might indicate a vampire was near. Absolutely everything seemed in place, perfect, too perfect. He didn’t believe it. An attack was imminent, but from which direction? Was this another probe, or the real thing? Wings fluttered up in the trees. Without moving his head, he let his gaze drift to the thick line of trees guarding the rain forest. Eyes shone back at him.

Calm settled over him like a mantle. He stretched his senses. The real thing then. Constant movement in the canopy heralded more and more birds gathering. He wanted to take the fight as far from the hacienda as possible, not willing to risk Marguarita, the workers or her beloved horses. He was grateful she was beneath the ground, that he hadn’t yet brought her to the surface where a vampire might detect her presence.

As far as any of his enemies knew, he had no lifemate. He didn’t feel the emotions most Carpathian hunters experienced once they found the other half of their soul, so in that regard, he was both lucky and unlucky. The lack of emotion would aid him in his battle. He kept moving, using the same unhurried, very fluid stride, feeling his muscles loosen in preparation. His breath came evenly, his heart steady and strong.

The wind picked up, the subtlest of movements. The tops of the trees swayed just a little more, leaves fluttering. Along the ground the grass undulated in a slow wave. This was the opening gambit. The battle always felt a little like a chess match to him. Combat was his world and he understood it, every nuance.

Zacarias continued his casual stride, drawing closer to the fence and the trees. The rain forest appeared quiet and dark. The rain fell steadily, soft drops that shifted a bit as the wind blew away from the trees and toward the hacienda. The land sloped down just slightly, the grass a little higher near the fence line. Zacarias walked along the fence, all the while keeping an eye on the birds gathering in the dark of the rain forest. Even as he walked, his arms swinging naturally at his sides, his hands wove a seamless pattern.

He barely noticed the rain. Cool water dripping steadily from the sky, from the rolling clouds above his head. A drop hit his neck and burned through his skin. He shut off the pain instinctively, throwing his woven shield over his head as he ran toward the fence and the forest to take the fight to them and away from Marguarita.

A deluge opened of small acid drops raining from the sky, even as the wind picked up. His shield protected his head, but the wind blew the burning drops into his back and thighs as he sprinted for the cover of the canopy. Fireballs slammed into the earth all around him, several striking his shield with alarming force. Overhead, a towering dark cloud churned with a fiery mass of red and orange threads.

Zacarias took another step and the ground opened up, a long jagged fissure, deep and gaping. He tumbled in, his shield falling a distance away from him. The acid rain and the fiery darts sliced through him. The earth shuddered and moved, closing that foot-wide gap. Zacarias dissolved into tiny molecules, speeding up toward ground level, trying to beat the closing of the fissure. The clap of the two sides of rock and dirt coming together was horrendous, echoing for miles. Birds shrieked and took to the air. Great predators darted down in a frenzy, looking for prey.

The ground shook, a tremor rocking the foundations of the stables and hacienda. Zacarias rose into the air. At once the birds screamed in exaltation, programmed eyes finding those tiny molecules through the rain and wind, diving for them as if streaking for the surface of water to plunge below for fish.

Zacarias had no choice, unless he wanted to be torn apart and consumed by birds. He streaked toward them, meeting the attack, shifting from molecules to a fire-breathing dragon, something he rarely did, but right now, he needed to rid the sky of the predatory birds. He shot through their ranks as they tore at his flanks, pecking like mad so that ruby red droplets dripped from him.

The scent of blood added to the frenzy of the birds. He wheeled and banked, coming above them, sending a stream of fire sweeping through the mass. The stench of burning meat permeated the night as blackened bodies fell from the sky. The remaining birds kept coming, pouncing on the dragon, hundreds multiplying into thousands, pecking and tearing with razor-sharp talons, digging through the tough hide to try to get to the Carpathian inside.

The sheer weight of the birds sent the dragon tumbling toward earth. Torn and bloody, Zacarias burst from the dragon before it hit the ground, the majority of the birds riding the great carcass to the ground, tearing at it in a kind of fury. Calling to the sky, he used the churning cloud of masses of red-orange flames, drawing them down to slam into the birds in great fireballs. Screaming, the vicious creatures tried to rise into the air, but long spears and tiny darts of flames leaped from one to the other until they were all engulfed in fire.

“Do you wish to keep up this silly charade, Ruslan,” Zacarias called as he settled in the slight clearing just on the other side of the fence, in the rain forest itself. He continued to edge deeper beneath the canopy of trees, taking the fight farther from Marguarita.

Thunder rolled in answer. The clouds churned and boiled. The black cloud burst upward, a tower of fire and brimstone roiling angrily in the sky. The wind rushed through the trees, yet didn’t move the clouds from overhead. Branches swayed, great stick arms reaching almost to the forest floor, as though bowing—or looking to grasp someone with bony fingers.

A dark, hooded figure emerged slowly from the trunk of a large kapok tree. He moved slowly, without any sign of hurry. It was a testament to the power of a master that the tree and surrounding ground didn’t recoil from his presence. Nature could not stand the abomination of the undead, yet a true master was so adept at illusion, for brief periods, even Mother Earth could be deceived.

Not a single leaf or blade of grass withered. The figure was tall, imposing, shoulders wide and he walked with complete confidence. Stepping into the grove of trees where the canopy protected the forest floor, he flung off his hood. Long flowing hair was as black as night, his face young and brutally handsome. He smiled and held out his hand to Zacarias.

“Son. We meet again under more pleasant circumstances, I hope.”

Zacarias frowned. What was Ruslan playing at? Testing him to see if he had emotions? If he had a lifemate? Every other De La Cruz brother had found his lifemate. Ruslan would hate them all the more for that. He believed himself superior to all of them—so why shouldn’t he have the women? Zacarias and his family were unworthy of such things.

“I thought more of you, Ruslan. This is a tired trick. Show yourself and be done with it.” For the first time he realized that not feeling emotion without Marguarita locked to him could be more than a curse. Ruslan could not endanger what he did not know of.

Zacarias waved his hand with a true casualness, as if that perfect image of his father didn’t bother him at all—and in truth—he felt nothing at all at the sight of the man who had been his childhood hero. His wave removed the illusion and revealed Ruslan’s true form. For one second he stood stripped of civility, his body rotted through with a thousand maggots crawling through him. His face was pitted with holes, his eyes sunken and his teeth blackened and serrated, pointed like ice picks sticking up through his gums.

In the time it took Zacarias to blink, that image changed as if it had never been. Ruslan stood before him as he had all those centuries ago. Young. Virile. His face without lines, almost beautiful rather than handsome. Zacarias looked rugged and older in comparison, lines etched into his face and a few scars intersecting here and there.

“I see your vanity has not changed at all,” Zacarias greeted. “You did so love your pretty face. I suppose that is half the reason you chose to become vampire.”

Ruslan brushed back his long length of hair. “At least you still know pretty from ugly. I have long kept tabs on you, old friend. You refuse to join us and you refuse to die. In all the centuries you have never stayed in one place more than a single night or at best two. Yet here you remain.” He swept his arm toward the hacienda and the wind changed course, following his direction, taking with it dozens of small fireballs to rain down across the pastures and structures.

Zacarias sent the rain in a fast deluge, putting out the small fires immediately. He flexed his shoulders, now burned through to bone with a thousand brands from the acid rain and the small, pebble-sized fireballs Ruslan was now using against the ranch.

“We can do this all night, but surely you did not think I would be impressed by such childish games? I play them with your puppets, but they are not really worthy of my attention. I thought at last I might have an opponent of merit.”

“You do not heal your wounds.”

Had there been a hint of eagerness in Ruslan’s tone? Zacarias shrugged again. “I do not feel such things, so how necessary is it really?” He observed Ruslan closely, watching the vampire’s nostrils flaring and his tongue continually licking at his lips. “Does the scent of my blood bother you?”

Ruslan shook his head. Shook it again. Much like a twitch he couldn’t stop. The licking of his lips continued compulsively. “No more than the scent of any blood I consume. You have not fed this night. I offer my blood.”

“How very gentlemanly of you.” Zacarias gave a short, mock bow. “What do you want, Ruslan? I grow weary of your games. Have you come for deliverance? Justice? I’ll be more than happy to send you from this earth if that is what you wish.”

“
Justice
is a good word to use for a betrayer of friendship. Of brotherhood. You turned on us and made an alliance with that brat of a prince. He is worse than his father before him.” Ruslan spat a mouthful of wriggling white worms.

Zacarias shrugged. “What is it then?”

“I had long thought to have you join our ranks, but you never came. Then you sent me such an insult, destroying my army to the last puppet.”

“They were merely pawns you sent to test me. You expected me to kill them. Cannon fodder, Ruslan, nothing more. Your silly plot to kill the prince didn’t work. You had to know testing it on me would prove that to be so.”

“You were never supposed to be there.” Ruslan’s voice rose to a higher note. His beautiful mask slipped a little. The trees shivered as he shrieked out his rising anger. He could barely contain his rage, his fingers curling into tight fists. “You never spend time with your brothers. You never stay in one place. Why? Why would you change your pattern after so many centuries? Did you do so just to irk me?”

“You flatter yourself, Ruslan. I do not give as much thought to you as you give me credit for. I am a hunter—nothing more and nothing less.”

All the while he spoke, Zacarias didn’t allow himself to focus wholly on Ruslan. The vampire had traps just waiting to be sprung. He noticed every detail, including the rising wind. It was subtle, but the grass bent just that little bit more toward him. The leaves fluttered and spun, a strange grayish when they had been a dull, muddy greenish-brown.

The wind teased the ground around his feet, stirring the leaves and vegetation on the forest floor. Strangler vines shivered. Flowers winding up tree trunks lost petals. To Zacarias they looked like white-gray ash falling to the forest floor.

“You have not told me why you stayed here, old friend,” Ruslan coaxed. “It is odd behavior for you.”

Zacarias shrugged his shoulders, loosening his muscles. “A bit of an injury, but nothing for you to worry about. Plenty of ready sustenance while I recouped. Have no worries, I am in top condition now.”

Ruslan clucked his tongue. “That was not what was reported to me. My men have much to answer for. I was told your injuries are still quite severe.”