Christine Feehan - Dark Curse 19

Lara stopped just inside the room where Razvan had been kept chained. Memories rose along with bile and she couldn't hold the form even with Nicolas helping her. She needed to kneel on the ice floor and put her head down to keep from passing out.

Nicolas dropped a hand on her shoulder. «You do not have to do this.»

She drew a breath and nodded. «I do. I do have to do this.»

But she couldn't look at that alcove where her father had been chained so much of the time. Where she had been kicked and beaten, where the flesh had been torn from her wrist so sharp greedy teeth could bite deep and drain her to the point she was dizzy and wheezing for air. She remembered crawling across the floor, the cold biting into her knees and arms, on her belly, like a dog, he'd said, too weak to get up.

«There's fresh blood here,» Natalya said. «It's all over the place.» She touched a manacle, smeared the blood on her fingers and held it to her nose. Her face paled. «Razvan. This is my brother's blood. He had to have been here within a rising or two.» The blood was sticky and congealed, but not dry.

Vikirnoff examined the manacles. «Vampire blood to burn him while he's chained.»

Lara shuddered. «There's so much blood, and stab wounds in the ice. Look at that,» she pointed to the wall. «It looks as though he was stabbed and the instrument went through him and out the other side.»

Natalya skimmed her palm down the wall without touching the blood spatter. Lara could hear her heart pounding and the rhythm matched the drumming of the water coming out of the walls. Natalya's body trembled as she kept her hand over the blood of her twin.

«There's something here.»

Lara put out her palm to feel the energy band. It was low, humming, very much alive. «The energy

doesn't feel dark.»

Natalya shook her head. «It's Razvan. He left something here. When we were children we used to leave messages for one another right under Xavier's nose.» She frowned and paced the length of Razvan's prison, both hands palm out away from her body as if feeling the air.

Lara tried not to be that little girl, worthless and lonely in the cave with only ice spiders for friends. She detested how pathetically jealous she was that Natalya had good memories of her father. She rubbed at the ridges on her wrist.

Nicolas reached over and took her hand, bringing it to his chest.I love you, sivamet .

Her heart fluttered. She wasn't that lonely child anymore, living in terror, feeling worthless and unloved. She looked up at him, at his beautiful face, so masculine and strong. There was love in his eyes, tenderness in the way the pad of his thumb swept back and forth over the palm of her hand. This tall, dangerous man loved her.Loved her. With all her failings, even her aversion to letting anyone take her blood, he loved her, and that was everything.

Nicolas turned up her wrist and brushed his lips over the fading scars.I am very grateful that I found you .

She sent him a quick, teasing smile.Actually, I found you .

Natalya's gasp drew her attention.

«I found it. He left a message behind.» Natalya leaned over the ledge of ice, waved her hands gracefully, murmuring low.

That which is hidden from all sight, created between two who shared the fight. Blood of blood, twin and twine, show me now the twining rhyme.

The ice lit up from within and an image wavered, a hologram of a man ravaged by time and torture. He was manacled to the wall, no shirt and his trousers in shreds. Lines cut deep into his face. His hair was in dreadlocks, streaked with gray, but it was his eyes that Lara couldn't look away from-so filled with sorrow and pain.

The hologram began to glow and the man spoke, but his words were garbled, unintelligible, a twin talk devised and scrambled between the brother and sister. Natalya's hands moved, gently weaving another unlocking spell, rearranging the notes of his voice, working to make sense of the message left long ago-and meant only for her eyes and ears. Slowly she began to see the pattern of the language, unraveling it until he made sense.

«Natalya. Beloved sister. I pray you find this message I've hidden at great cost. I dare not let Xavier ever touch you or my Lara. He's evil beyond all imagining. I no longer have the strength to fight him, although I believe I've put up a worthy battle. He uses my body to produce children he can feed on and, although I have tried, I cannot stop him.» He shuddered, pain crossing his face. «The knowledge that it is me he uses to cause such harm to others, to those I love, is far worse than any physical torment he has ever devised.»

Natalya let out a soft cry of distress. Vikirnoff circled her waist with his arm.

«When I could, I helped their mothers escape him and take the children far from him, but I do not even

have that ability left to me. I opened my soul in a moment of weakness and he owns it now, commanding me for his foul purpose and, though I am aware on some level, I cannot resist his commands. I think that amuses him so much he wants to keep me alive. Few things amuse him these days.»

«Razvan.» Natalya whispered her brother's name and turned her tear-streaked face up to Vikirnoff. «Look what Xavier did to him.»

There were scars. Horrible scars on his neck and throat, on his arms and chest, his wrists, even his legs. The links of the chains smeared in vampire blood had burned the images into his skin-Carpathian skin that didn't scar.

Natalya drew in a sobbing breath. «He is Dragonseeker. He would never turn. I should have known and believed in him. Instead I tried to kill him.»

The hologram continued. «I beg you to find my daughter. She is so like you. Tatijana and Branislava have agreed to help her escape. I've convinced them not to tell me their plans. Xavier still likes to occupy my body and I'm afraid if he does, he'll discover the plan and we won't be able to get her out of here. I dared not let Lara know too much because if Xavier suspected anything, he would torture her until she told him everything.»

He hung there, his chains cutting into his flesh, his tangled hair hanging down his back and around his shoulders. He was painfully thin. Even talking tired him out, that and the use of magic as he recorded his message to his sister. He moistened his cracked lips.

«He keeps us all drained of blood and weak. He's using me to find a way to kill the Carpathians. Everything from poisons to parasites. He has to be stopped. Find the prince and tell him, Xavier has to be stopped. But first, find my child. Her mother was not my lifemate, but the mage in me loved her dearly. She was sunshine in a world of madness. Find Lara for us and love her, Natalya. It is the last thing I ask of you.»

He looked to his left. His body shuddered and his skin took on a grayish tinge. «He's coming for me and I'll hold on as long as I can until Lara is out of his hands, and then I will find a way to force him to kill me. Natalya, do not ever come back here. And don't look for me. Find Lara and let that be enough.» He turned his head and looked straight at them.

Lara could feel his piercing gaze right through to her soul. The mental anguish he suffered was far worse than any physical torture Xavier could conceive. She didn't even realize she was sobbing until Nicolas turned her into his arms and held her close.

«I've hated him for years. I thought of him as a monster,» she whispered. «He wanted me to think of him that way so he could protect me.»

«He's alive,» Natalya said. «He's out there, Xavier's prisoner, and he's alive.»

«We don't know that,» Vikirnoff objected. «There's so much blood here,sivamet , and it is all his. If he survived this, it would be a miracle.» He caught her to him. «I know what you're thinking, but he does not want you to try to find him. Either of you.» He glanced at Lara before turning his attention back to his lifemate. «Don't you see? You and Lara are the two people he loves most and he's managed to protect you. We have to give him that. It's all he has to hang on to to keep him sane. This man has given up his life, his soul, everything he is or ever was in order to insure you and Lara have a life. You cannot take that away from him.»