Mikhail’s black eyes smoldered an eerie red, a burning flame he turned on Slovensky as the man approached him. The power in those chilling eyes stopped Slovensky for a moment. “You’ll learn to hate me, vampire,” James Slovensky snarled. “And you’ll learn to fear me. You’ll learn who really holds the power.”
A slight, mocking smile touched Mikhail’s mouth. “I do not hate you, mortal. And I could never fear you. You are but a pawn in a game of power. And you have been sacrificed.”
Mikhail’s voice was very low, a musical thread of sound that Slovensky found himself wanting to hear again. Hypnotic. Slovensky shook his head to clear it. He knelt beside his victim, smiling his pleasure at the other’s pain. “Andre will give us the rest of you bloodsuckers.”
“And why would he do that?” Mikhail closed his eyes, his face lined and strained, but the hint of a smile remained.
“You turned him, forced him into such an unholy life, the same way you turned the woman. He is going to try to save her.” Slovensky leaned closer and drew his knife. “I think I should dig that slug out of you. We wouldn’t want you getting an infection now, would we?” His giggle was high-pitched with anticipation.
Mikhail didn’t flinch away from the blade. His black eyes snapped open, blazing with power. Slovensky fell backward, scrambling away on all fours to crouch against the far wall. Fumbling in his coat, he jerked out the gun and held it pointed at Mikhail.
The ground rolled almost gently, seemed to swell so that the concrete floor bulged, then cracked. Slovensky grabbed for the wall behind him to steady himself and lost the gun in the process. Above his head a rock fell from the wall, bounced dangerously close, and rolled to a halt beside him. A second rock, and a third, fell, so that Slovensky had to cover his head as the rocks rained down in a roaring shower.
Slovensky’s cry of fear was high and thin. He made himself even smaller, peering through his fingers at the Carpathian. Mikhail had not moved to protect himself. He lay exactly as Slovensky had positioned him, those dark eyes, two black holes, windows to hell, staring at him. Swearing, Slovensky tried to lunge for the gun.
The floor bucked and heaved under him, sending the gun skittering out of reach. A second wall swayed precariously, and rocks cascaded down, striking the man about the head and shoulders, driving him to the floor. He watched a curious, frightening pattern form. Not one rock touched the priest’s body. Not one came close to Mikhail. The Carpathian simply watched him with those damn eyes and that faint mocking smile as the rocks buried Slovensky’s legs, then fell on his back. There was an ominous crack, and Slovensky screamed under the heavy load on his spine.
“Damn you to hell,” Slovensky snarled. “My brother will track you down.”
Mikhail said nothing, simply watching the havoc Gregori created. Mikhail would have killed James Slovensky outright, without the drama Gregori had such a flair for, but he was tired, his body in a precarious state. He had no wish to drain his energy further. Raven would be in the vampire’s hands for the time it took Gregori to heal him. He couldn’t allow himself to think of what Andre might do to her. For the first time in centuries of living, Mikhail was forced to rely on another being. Gregori. The dark one. A royal pain in the neck.
I read your thoughts, my friend
.
Mikhail stirred, pain shafting through him. More rocks fell on Slovensky in retaliation, covering him like a blanket, beginning to form a macabre grave.
As you were meant to.
Gregori moved into the room with his familiar silent glide, grace and power clinging to him as he strode through the wreckage of the wall. “This is becoming a bad habit.”
“Oh, shut up,” Mikhail said without rancor.

Related Quotes

Mikhail pushed a hand through his thick mane of hair. “Our people cannot do without you, Gregori, and quite simply, neither can I.”
“You are so certain that I will not turn?” Gregori’s smile was self-mocking. “Your faith in me exceeds my own. This vampire is ruthless, drunk on his own power. He craves the killing, the destruction. I walk the line of that madness every day. His power is nothing, a feather in the wind compared to mine. I have no heart, and my soul is dark. I do not want to wait until I cannot make my own choice. The one thing I do not want is to force you to seek me out to destroy me. My life has been my belief in you, in protecting you. I will not wait until I must be hunted.”
Mikhail waved a tired hand to open the earth above his brother. “You are our greatest healer, the greatest asset to our people.”
“That is why they whisper my name in fear and dread.”
Beneath their feet the ground suddenly shook, heaved and bucked, rolling perilously. The center of the earthquake was obviously a great distance away, but there was no mistaking the howl of rage produced by a powerful vampire at the destruction of his lair.
The undead had entered his lair confidently, until he found the body of the first wolf. Each turn or passage entrance was marked with one of his minions, until his entire pack lay dead at his feet. The burned bodies of his sentinels, the bats, lay in a mound of blackened ashes. Fear turned to terror. It would not be Mikhail, whose sense of justice and fair play would be his downfall, but the dark one. Gregori— the most feared of all Carpathians.
It had not occurred to the vampire that the dark one might take a hand in this game. Andre hurtled himself from the safety of his favorite lair just as the mountain heaved and the chamber walls collapsed in on themselves. Cracks widened in the narrow passageway, and the rock faces inched closer and closer together. The clap of granite grinding against granite nearly burst his eardrums.
A true vampire making numerous kills was far more susceptible to the sun, and to the terrible lethargy that claimed Carpathian bodies in the day. Andre had little time to find a safe hole. As he burst from the collapsing mountain, the sun hit his body, and he screamed with the agony of it. Dust and rock spewed from his home, and the echo of Gregori’s taunting laughter drifted down with the debris from the earthquake.
“No, Gregori.” There was amusement in Mikhail’s soft voice as he floated into the soothing arms of the earth. “That is a good example of why they whisper your name in fear and dread. No one understands your dark humor the way I do.
Christine Feehan
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Gregori,” Mikhail reminded him softly, “if the child is your lifemate, and you do something careless, you are condemning her to death. Keep that in mind when you enter this place of madness.”
Gregori’s silver eyes slashed at his old friend. “Do you think I would chance harming her in any way? I have waited several lifetimes for her. These humans are nothing. They have persecuted our people for far too long. I mean it to stop.”
Mikhail nodded, his dark eyes, so like his brother’s, black ice. “You are up to this, Jacques?”
Jacques’ smile was a humorless promise of retaliation. “Have no worries about me. I am looking forward to this.”
Mikhail sighed. “Two bloodthirsty savages thinking they are in the dark ages.”
Jacques exchanged a humorless grin with Gregori. “The dark ages were not such a bad time. At least justice could be dispensed easily without worrying about what the women would think.”
“You both have gone soft,” Gregori snickered. “No wonder our people have such problems. The women are ruling, and you two besotted idiots just follow along.”
Jacques’ solid form wavered, became transparent. “We will see who proves to be the soft one, healer.” His body completely disappeared from sight.
Mikhail glanced at Gregori, shrugged, then followed suit. None of this was to his liking. Gregori was a time bomb waiting to explode. And only God knew what Jacques was capable of.
Christine Feehan
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