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)
It does matter. I have inadvertently dragged you into an old war. One of hatred. And I did betray my lifemate. I did not remember these things, or I would have told you before we set out. If you wish to turn back, I will not hold it against you. I was not to come back and my lifemate was not to be reborn until evil was rising again. I will be facing my greatest enemy. This time my lifemate will be fully grown, and she will have knowledge that I betrayed her.
Petru felt Benedek sigh in his mind. Really, my brother? You would deprive me of a fierce battle with both demons and vampires? You know I have fought at your side for centuries. I will do so again.
Nicu, who had stayed mostly silent, as was his way, agreed. I go with you.
The triplets murmured their agreement.
Finish your explanation before the sun sinks and we must rush to beat your enemies to your lifemate, Benedek counseled.
His brethren. He could count on them the way he could the cycles of the moon.
I found that the outpouring of loathing and vile glee at those being attacked, tortured and killed was a direct pathway leading back to the one giving the orders. It was feminine and cruel. Sadistic. Gloating. I could read her in the same way all of us read the undead when they are before us. She longed for power over all things. She had long been plotting for this opening gambit in her takeover of the world aboveground.
She had her eyes on me. She realized I was the one standing in her way, and she had found my greatest weakness—my lifemate. That little girl. I didn’t even know her name, but I had exposed her to my enemy in that one unguarded moment when I felt her emotions and I responded.
When the hellhounds rushed the children, and the demons and vampires attacked the families, burning most alive, Nicu guessed, your lifemate was taken.
That is so, Petru told them. She was brought to the master vampire. His name was Eduardo, and he was repulsive. He enjoyed such cruelties as I have not seen in many centuries. Between the female leader beneath the earth and the master vampire, the human race and Carpathians were in trouble. We had few defenders left. We had to end the war before it was too late.
But then Eduardo gave her family and me an ultimatum. We must put down our arms and walk away with her. We had to leave everyone else to their fate, but she would live and so would we, or she would have her heart ripped out right then, on the spot.
I had a split second to weigh the consequences. I knew Eduardo had spoken to the leader below and assured her no Carpathian would allow his lifemate to die. In our history, I had never heard of a single instance.
My parents and two brothers still lived. Her parents, grandparents and some of her tribe still survived. There were two surviving Carpathian families and a small female child from one of them. They would all die, as would everyone else. We knew that. I saw her mother and grandmother look at me as Eduardo held her high. There was sorrow on their faces. The battlefield had gone quiet. My father and mother looked at me with compassion. Even my lifemate was looking at me. She made no sound, just stared at me with her green eyes as if she could see into my soul. Her mother nodded her head very slowly, one hand going to her heart. I knew what she felt I had to do. All of that happened in a split second.
Through the battles, I had been following the trail of venom and hatred back to the exact location of the leader beneath the ground. I made the decision to kill the leader and then the master vampire, even knowing the child would die. She would be reborn, but if I didn’t shut this war down that night, it would not matter. The world would not ever be the same.
My family had a private path we could communicate on, and we did so. We gathered energy, as much as possible, and as my father opened the earth over her head, I slammed a lightning bolt straight down on top of her.
She screamed hideously, and black blood erupted from the ground. The demons shrieked and moaned and went into a frenzy of killing, but they were without direction. Eduardo clearly couldn’t believe his eyes and just held the child in the air for a second, giving me time to take flight. He was halfway across the valley, surrounded by his lesser vampires and several demons.
Petru felt as if he were there in that valley all over again, staring into his lifemate’s terrified eyes. She was so little, but she refused to scream, refused to give the hideous vampire the satisfaction of hearing her cry out.