Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 141492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
“I knew you would choose the right way, Yelli. You always do.”
She couldn’t help but warm at his praise. Her grandfather had a way of making all his family feel special to him. His gift. “You’re going to be a target, Jeddi. You are too important to our people, and while we are attempting to gather information on the leader, I would bet he or she has been gathering information on us for some time.”
Amastan nodded slowly. “I believe you are correct. You must outthink them, Safia. They think you’re weak because you’re human, but you’re not. You’ve been trained by the best. Your ancestors insisted we prepare for this, and by doing so, each generation improved, not only in our ability to fight these creatures but in our reflexes and our thinking.”
Safia had to agree with him. When her brother-in-law, Zdan, joined them, he already had a reputation as a good fighter. He played in the games at the fairs and nearly always won. There were few that could match his abilities with weapons or in hand-to-hand combat, yet when he tried his skills against any of the family members in private, even his wife, he was easily defeated. They were careful to keep their proficiencies within their tribe.
“We are more prepared than ever, and yet the cards said we have no chance without this man and those he brings with him,” Safia said. She couldn’t help the speculation in her voice. “I wish he had come sooner so we had time to learn from him. I doubt we will have the time now. I have this feeling, and when I have such a strong intuition, I am nearly always right.”
She wished that weren’t the case, but she wasn’t even certain the stranger was going to make it in time before evil rose to claim them.
CHAPTER
3
A sense of urgency had taken hold of him, and Petru Cioban had learned over the endless centuries never to ignore those warning signs of impending danger. Once again, he had awakened early, before the sun had set, leaving him locked in the earth, paralyzed and unable to rise when every single cell in him demanded he streak toward his destination before it was too late.
Already he knew there had been delaying tactics, useless battles, sacrificial pawns thrown in his way in an effort to prevent him from reaching Dellys—and his lifemate. She was the target. He was certain of it now. That certainty had been growing in him from the moment he set out toward Algeria.
He was Carpathian, a race near extinction, powerful and yet vulnerable, existing on the blood of others, sleeping beneath the ground during the day, considered powerless against their enemies at that time. He was one of the oldest in existence, never a good thing, having lost his ability to see in color or feel emotion after his fiftieth year, when he was still considered a child. As time passed and he relentlessly hunted vampires, century after century, even the whispers of temptation to kill while feeding faded until there was nothing at all.
He had grown more dangerous than the vampires he hunted. He’d held on to honor—the code he had scarred into his skin—for her, his lifemate. She held his soul, such as it was, and she was alive in this century. He had searched for over two thousand years for her, and now that she was close, enemies had risen in an effort to keep him from reaching her.
Petru knew his lifemate was alive because, twice now, two women he trusted had read from ancient tarot cards. Alive and well in the century with him. Danger surrounding him. Betrayal. A terrible sacrifice. That had been the first reading by Adalasia, Sandu’s lifemate. Danger nearly always surrounded him. He only cared that his lifemate was alive and in the same century with him.
The second reading had been given by Vasilisa, Siv’s lifemate, and that reading had been more in-depth. There was transition, moving from one situation to another, hopefully a better one. Not surprisingly, she had predicted action and again danger. She had also predicted that the love connection with his lifemate would be successful. He wouldn’t allow anything less. He’d waited centuries for her. He’d locked himself away from the population to keep them safe.
It had been the last part of the reading that had been the most valuable to him. She had asked him if he had scars from a particular battle. She told him those scars were a map. “That battle, those scars, show you the way.”
His heart, a dead stone in his chest, had reacted to her revelations. Carpathians rarely scarred, only if the wounds they acquired had been mortal—ones that should have killed them. He had a road map of scars on his body, evidence that he had come very close to succumbing to deadly wounds. The strange thing was, the battle was such a distant memory, he couldn’t recall it. There had been so many over the centuries, so many times he’d gone to ground for indefinite lengths of time to heal. One didn’t measure time. Hunting the undead was his way of life.