Desari broke away from him to pace restlessly across the pine-strewn forest floor. Her movements were graceful, her ebony hair gleaming as if a thousand stars were tangled in it. “Tell me more of my blood kin, Julian. Tell me of their fate.”
He nodded. “You must remember, Desari, the twins had lived centuries longer than most of our people without finding a lifemate. They were hunters, having to kill often, the kind of double burden nearly impossible to long endure. As each century passed and their legends grew, more people feared and shunned them. It was rumored they were more powerful than the Prince, much more dangerous. It seemed not to matter that they followed him and protected those that could not hunt. Their lives were ones of nearly total isolation from all society. It had to have been torment.” Julian knew the torment of isolation.
“Yet they continued, as you continued.” Desari pressed back against a tree, her eyes enormous, searching his story for a shadow of hope for her brother.
Julian nodded. “Always they endured. They went after the vampires high society had embraced. The battles were long and fierce, as the undead were ancients with much power and now government backing. Rewards were posted for Gabriel and Lucian so that humans and the undead alike hunted them. They fought the many servants of the vampire, hosts of ghouls and zombies and demented creatures created at the undead’s whim. Always they were the victors, and while our people were thankful, each time the twins emerged alive, the whispers grew of creatures half in our world and half in that of the darkness.”
“How unfair!” Desari was angry at such treacherous behavior by those of her own race. What if Darius were to be treated in such a manner by those who followed Mikhail? Her fists curled at her sides until her knuckles grew white.
“Yes, it was unfair, yet not altogether untrue. As a male ages, as the hunter grows in strength and the number of his kills, he does live partially in the world of darkness. How could he not? They were powerful, and there were two of them, their pact strong. They would be invincible should they turn. Who could destroy them? Gregori was young then, as was Mikhail, though they sometimes secretly sheltered the two warriors when their wounds were severe. I know that Gregori and Mikhail both supplied blood on more than one occasion.” Julian rubbed one eyebrow thoughtfully. “Gregori knew I saw them, but he said nothing to me. I was very young, you understand, no more than nine. I was very awed by the two legends, and, even then, by Gregori, who was rapidly growing in stature, and Mikhail, in line to be Prince. I would never have betrayed their secret, and I think they knew that.”
“How sad the twins’ lives must have been.” Desari sounded as if she might weep. Julian was across the distance separating them instantly, wrapping her in his strong arms. “Really, Julian, to have the people so unappreciative of their sacrifices must have been a terrible thing. They were like men without family or country or even friends.” As Julian had been. She suddenly realized the enormity of his sacrifice. He had been a man without family, country, or friends, and he did not even have his twin brother beside him. Love and compassion surged through her, strong and powerful. Julian would know love. He would have a home, a family, everything she could give him.
“That is the danger inherent in the hunter’s acquisition of power and skill and experience in centuries of battles. The two were lethal hunters, equal in strength, in intellect, in fighting ability. None was their better. And then the wars came. The Turk invasions that depleted the ranks of our people, destroyed our women and children. Our people had chosen to fight alongside those humans they had befriended and known for years, but we lost the ancient prince and most of those skilled in hunting.”
“That is when Darius saved us,” Desari offered.
Julian nodded. “During that period, yes,” he agreed. “It was at that same time that Gabriel and Lucian really became legendary warriors, two against the Turk multitudes and the vampires thriving among them, driving the armies to do hideous things to their captives—the tortures and mutilations you can read about in history books. Some individuals slaughtered countless innocent women and children, drank blood, bathed in it, and feasted on living flesh while the orchestraters, the vampires, looked on and rejoiced. But Gabriel and Lucian were in constant pursuit of these enemies, and the body count the two of them achieved was so high, no one could believe they were real and not some mysterious death winds blowing in and out of villages, leaving little in their wake. Vampires disappeared by the dozens, and legions of their soldiers and demented creatures, mostly noblemen and women, were killed or exposed. War raged everywhere. The damage to humans and Carpathians alike was devastating. Sickness and death followed, homelessness and hunger, savage slavery of the impoverished. It was a hideous, merciless time for all.”
“And my kin?”
“Few actually could claim to have laid eyes on them, but they were everywhere, tirelessly destroying the enemy, saving our few remaining women, still without lifemates or hope of their own. It is said they consulted with Gregori and Mikhail at this time, and I witnessed one such meeting right after Mikhail’s father was killed trying to save a human village. Shortly after, at Mikhail’s order, I was taken from the region and placed in hiding with the remaining children. Mikhail was young to be a leader, but he had vision and realized our people were facing extinction. He and Gregori, the next oldest to survive, moved at once to protect the few surviving women and children. Gregori and Mikhail seldom spoke of the two ancients or that time, perhaps because both had lost—or thought they lost—their own families while trying to save their race. But their skills and accomplishments at such a young age were almost inconceivable.”
“And what of the twins?” she prompted, intrigued by this history she had never known, her roots, her bloodline.
“When things finally settled down in Transylvania and Romania, throughout the Carpathian Mountains, it is said the pair traveled to Paris and London and anywhere else in Europe vampires were striving for a foothold. They hunted throughout the continent, always working together as a single unit. The stories of their unearthly powers grew beyond legends to mythology.”
Julian moved away from her and shoved a hand through his golden mane. “The rumors started about half a century later. That Lucian had fallen to the dark side. That he was vampire, preying on the human face. No hunter could find him or even his trail. Only Gabriel would have been able. The hunt for Lucian went on for well over a century. It was unlike anything our people had known. Vampires are messy killers, leaving a trail of blood and death recognizable to any of us, exposing us to discovery by mortals and their inevitable mistaken assumptions that vampire and Carpathian are one and the same. In some ways it is fortunate for us that human police often label the murders and mutilations as the work of serial killers or cults. Otherwise we all would be hunted until we were no more.
“But Lucian was unlike any vampire ever known. There is no record of him slaying a woman or child, of creating servants or ghouls. He made hundreds of kills but only among the corrupt, the evil, the scourges of the earth. Many of our hunters were misled, perplexed, and came away thinking perhaps the twins were mythical, not reality. Only Gabriel recognized Lucian’s work. Only Gabriel could track him.”