Gregori’s body shimmered, dissolved, so that mist swirled in the room, long snakelike ribbons of fog where the Carpathian had been. The vapor approached Romanov where he cowered close to the floor, streamed close to his head, his throat; then the mist poured from the room, leaving Romanov sobbing helplessly.
Mikhail and Gregori glided through the corridor, swiftly, silently, hurrying into the night’s freshness. After the depravity of Rudy’s mind, they needed the connection with the earth again. Once outside, Gregori forced the drugs through his pores to rid himself of the poison. Mikhail watched him do it, marveling at his ease. Gregori was quiet on the journey to Romanov’s cottage. Mikhail respected his need to breathe in the night’s scents, to feel the ground beneath his feet, hear the music of the wolves, the night creatures calling with their soothing rhythms.
In the safety of the Romanov home, Gregori made his way unerringly to the papers crudely hidden beneath the floorboards. Mikhail took the old photographs and the bundle of papers without even glancing at them. “Tell me everything in his mind.”
Gregori’s silver eyes glittered dangerously. “A man named Slovensky, Eugene Slovensky, is a member of a secret society dedicated to wiping out vampires. Von Halen, Anton Fabrezo, and Dieter Hodkins are the so-called experts who investigate and mark victims for kills. Slovensky recruits, and confirms and records kills.”
Mikhail swore softly, eloquently. “Another vampire hunt will destroy our people.”
Gregori shrugged his massive shoulders. “I will hunt and destroy these men. You take Raven and go far from this place.
I feel your protest, Mikhail, but it is the only way, and we both know it.”
“I cannot trade my happiness for your soul.”
The silver eyes moved over Mikhail, then sought the night. “There are no other choices left to us. My only hope of salvation is a lifemate. I no longer feel, Mikhail; I fulfill my needs. There are no longer desires of the body, only of the mind. I cannot remember what it is to feel the things you feel. There is no joy in my life. I simply exist and do my duty toward our people. I must have a lifemate soon. I can only hold out a few more years; then I will seek eternal rest.”
“You will not seek the sun, Gregori, not without coming to me first.” Mikhail held up his hand when Gregori would have protested. “I have been where you are, alone, the monster in me struggling for dominance, the stain on my soul dark. Our people need you. You must remain strong and fight the monster crouching so close.”
Gregori’s silver eyes glittered dangerously in the darkened room, pale and menacing. “Do not overestimate my affection or loyalty. I must have a mate. If I feel something, anything—lust, possession, anything—I will take what is mine and dare anyone to take her from me.” Abruptly Gregori’s large frame shimmered, dissolving into water crystals, and streamed from the house out into the welcoming arms of the night. Let us leave this house of madness and death. Perhaps it is the tainted blood I took into my body speaking.
With a sigh, Mikhail followed Gregori into the night. The twin ribbons of vapor glinted in the moonlight, joined the tendrils of fog rippling several feet above the forest floor. Anxious to return to Raven, Mikhail streamed through the trees toward the clearing that separated the houses from the deep forest. As he flowed past the priest’s cabin and into the meadow, his mind rippled with uneasiness. The warning jarred enough that he retreated back to Father Hummer’s home and, in the shelter of the trees, took back his human form. His mind touched Raven’s. Nothing threatened her.
“What is it?” Gregori materialized beside Mikhail.
They scanned the immediate area for danger. It was the soil that told of violence—trampling boots, droplets of blood.
Mikhail raised stricken eyes to Gregori’s pale ones, and they both turned simultaneously to look at the cabin of his old friend.
“I will go first,” Gregori said, with as much compassion as he was capable of interjecting into his voice. He stepped smoothly between Mikhail and the entrance to the priest’s home.
The neat little cabin, so comfortable and homey, had been destroyed, ransacked. The simple furniture was broken, the curtains askew, old pottery dishes smashed. The priest’s precious books had been torn, his pictures slashed to ribbons. Father Hummer’s herbs, so carefully kept in tins, lay in a heap on the floor of the kitchen. His thin mattress was in scraps, his blankets shredded.
“What were they looking for?” Mikhail mused aloud, wandering around the room. He stooped to pick up a rook, curling his fingers around the familiar chess piece. There were bloodstains on the floor, on the old carved rocking chair.
“There is no body,” Gregori pointed out unnecessarily. He reached down and picked up a very old leather-bound Bible. The book was well worn, the leather shiny where the priest’s fingers had so often held it. “But where there is stench, there is a trail.” Gregori handed Mikhail the Bible, watching as their prince wordlessly slipped the book under his shirt, against his skin.
Gregori’s broad, muscular frame bent, crackled. Glossy fur rippled along his arms, claws burst from his fingernails, and fangs exploded into a lengthening muzzle. The huge black wolf was already springing for the window, changing on the run. Mikhail followed, leaping through the trees, circling back, nose to the ground. The scent led away from town toward the deep forest. The trail climbed higher and higher into the mountains. The direction took them away from Raven and Jacques. Whoever had taken Father Hummer wanted to be alone with him to do his dirty work.
Mikhail and Gregori raced at a ground-eating run, shoulder to shoulder, dark deadly purpose in their hearts. They ran noses to the wind, lowering their muzzles occasionally to the trail to assure themselves that they were following the priest’s scent. Their powerful muscles rippled along their backs, their hearts and lungs working like well-oiled machines. Animals scurried out of their path, hunkered down in terror at their passing.
A pungent, unfamiliar odor marked a tree on their present course. Mikhail broke stride. They had crossed the boundaries of Mikhail’s wolf pack and entered another’s territory. Wolves frequently attacked intruders. Mikhail sent out a call, allowing the wind to carry their message in an attempt to locate the dominant pair.
With the smell of the priest’s blood, it was fairly easy to follow the trail. But a strange uneasiness began to grow in Mikhail. Something was eluding him. They had covered miles at a dead run, yet the trail never changed. The scent was not fresher, not fading, simply the same. A slight noise above them was their only warning, a curious grinding like rock against rock. They were in a narrow ravine, with steep walls rising on either side. Both wolves immediately dissolved, became tiny droplets of fog. The shower of rocks and boulders from overhead pelted uselessly through the insubstantial mist.
Simultaneously, Mikhail and Gregori launched themselves skyward, bodies forming as they landed with catlike grace on the cliff above them. There was no priest and certainly no attacker. Mikhail glanced uneasily at Gregori. “No human could have done this.”
“The priest did not walk this distance, and no mortal carried him,” Gregori said thoughtfully. “His blood was used as a trap then, to draw us here.” Both were scanning, using every natural weapon they possessed. “This is the work of a vampire.”
“He is clever enough not to leave his own scent for us,” Mikhail observed.
A pack of wolves boiled from the trees, red eyes fixed on Mikhail. Snarling and snapping, the animals sprang for the tall, elegant figure standing with casual grace so close to the edge of the cliff. Gregori was a whirling demon, flinging animals down the ravine, snapping bones as if they were match-sticks. He never made a sound, and his speed was supernatural—so fast he seemed to blur.