Julian sought the man’s mind and found a red haze of hatred and rage, directed not only at this vampire but at the one who had so violently attacked Syndil and left her so withdrawn. It took a few moments to find the mental path that Desari’s family shared with one another.
Do not drink his blood, Barack. He is dead already. You have destroyed him. The blood is tainted.
Julian spoke softly into the mind of one gone mad with rage.
Do not interfere. He lives.
When Julian glided toward the struggling pair, Barack roared a warning, a growl that shook the hall. Julian stopped at once, not in the least surprised when Darius materialized at his side.
“Do not, Barack.” Darius’s voice was a soft menace. “You cannot drink as he dies. Not in the rage you are in. Release him and allow him to fall away from you.”
Barack lifted his head, his fangs stained red, his eyes glowing hotly. The heart was flung aside, still pulsing wickedly. The rumbling grew louder, a clear warning to back away from him.
Darius and Julian glanced at one another with the same thought. If they joined together, they could force Barack to obedience, but he would never trust nor respect either of them again. Barack was definitely dangerous, and neither wanted to alienate him. He was a Carpathian male, and it was his right to do as he was doing, protect the females in his family unit. Protect any female of their race. Not only his right but his duty.
Julian reached for the leopards’ minds and found Syndil nestled in the smaller female cat’s body.
Barack is in danger. We cannot reach him. You must do it. Call to him. Do it now before it is too late and he is lost to us for all eternity. He cannot consume the blood of the thing he is killing.
Julian felt Syndil’s immediate alarm. At once she shape-shifted, taking her human form, her slender, shapely figure shorter than Desari’s but radiating the same inner light and beauty of the Carpathian female. She moved with fluid, elegant grace, her dark, expressive eyes touching him, then jumping away hastily as she gave him a wide berth. Her gasp was audible as she surveyed the bloody, violent scene in the hallway and the darkness so close to the surface in Barack, his own face nearly that of the beast within the Carpathian male. Darius was close to the undead, close enough to distract Barack from feasting on its blood. Still, power and rage ate at the younger Carpathian, allowing the beast within to take over his mind, so that all that was left was instinct and fury.
Without hesitation, Syndil approached Barack. “Do not step in the blood,” Darius cautioned her, his dark eyes watchful. If Barack made one wrong move toward Syndil, there was no doubt in Julian’s mind that Barack would be a dead man. Syndil was unafraid, ignoring both Darius and Julian as if they were invisible.
“Barack,” she whispered softly, almost intimately. Her eyes were on the savage crimson streaks on his chest and face. “Come with me now. I have need to heal your wounds.” Despite his ferocious growls, she laid her hand gently on Barack’s arm, careful to stay away from the blood coating his clothing. “Come with me, brother. Allow me to heal you.”
Barack’s head swung around, red eyes glowing fiercely. For a moment his eyes switched between red and black, as if the man fought the beast within for their shared body and mind. “I am not your brother, little one,” he hissed, struggling to overcome the killing rage.
For a moment Syndil hung her head, as if his words denying their relationship had cut her deeply. Then she stepped closer to him, so that her soft body brushed against his larger frame. Barack’s hands immediately, instinctively, spanned her small waist and lifted her away from the thick pool of blood spreading across the floor. The moment he released the vampire, the body of the undead fell, thrashing around, head flopping and talons digging long, deep furrows into the wall.
“Barack, do not touch Syndil’s skin with tainted blood on your hands,” Darius cautioned with his black-velvet authority.
Julian was already gathering energy into his palms, taking it from the electricity in the air itself, rolling it into a ball to send it flaming into the vampire’s pulsating heart so that there was no chance of the undead rising again. The sparks then jumped from the incinerated organ to the blood, reducing the thick pool of curling black ashes.
Barack reluctantly allowed Syndil’s feet to touch the floor far from the hideous scene. He was breathing hard, struggling to gain control of the beast within, ashamed that Syndil should see him so out of control. At Julian’s gesture he held out his hands so that the flames danced for a moment over his stained skin, burning the tainted blood from his hands and arms. Barack took possession of the white-hot ball of energy and ran it around Syndil’s waist where he had touched her, cleansing her of any tainted blood staining her clothes. He tossed the fire back to Julian before turning his entire attention to the woman who had shown so much courage.
“Are you hurt?” Syndil asked him softly, ignoring the other two Carpathians as if they didn’t exist. Her fingertips brushed Barack’s arm, and she tried not to show how his denial of their relationship distressed her. If he chose, after all these years, to reject the ties between them, she was not going to let him see how bad it made her feel. She could only suspect it was because Savon had raped her, and Barack could not accept her anymore. Perhaps he thought she had brought the assault on herself in some way. Barack had not been the same since the attack on her. He had spent a great deal of time in the ground avoiding her and the others. Now he seemed sober and stern, so unlike his earlier, easygoing self. He watched her like a hawk, almost as if he didn’t trust her, or as if she were a fledgling not to be trusted to care for herself properly. She wanted to weep and run off and hide again, but something in her refused to leave Barack in such a state, with so many lacerations.
Syndil lifted her chin but refused to meet his eyes. “Let me heal you, Barack. It will take but a few minutes.”
Finally he took her elbow and led her away from the other two men. Julian and Darius watched them walk off. Julian glanced down at the body of the vampire and then up at Darius. “I guess we have clean-up duty.” He directed the flames toward the undead. As he always did when the vampire destroyed was not the ancient he sought, he experienced a deep letdown.
But this time he wasn’t alone. From the concert hall Desari sent him warmth, love, her beautiful, haunting voice wrapping him up and holding him close to her heart.
Darius had been ensuring they were alone in the hallway, keeping humans away while Barack destroyed the vampire. “Barack has never before fought the undead. He has never even shown interest in hunting. Yet he was here before either of us.”
Julian nodded thoughtfully. “Is it really a surprise?”
Darius shrugged his broad shoulders. “Barack has always stayed close to Syndil. He often protects her. As young children they were inseparable. Lately, though, she is so withdrawn that no one can get close to her, not even Desari.”
“She spends far too much time in the form of the leopard. There is no way she will recover from her trauma if she does not face it,” Julian replied casually.
Darius nodded. “She trusts no man. It seems a miracle she answered your call and aided us in persuading Barack to leave the vampire to his fate. She does not like to be close to any of us males.”
“I do not think one can blame her,” Julian said distractedly. Already he felt the need to be with Desari. He could touch her mind at will, see what she was seeing through her eyes, look into her mind, but he was still uneasy without her in his actual sight. Desari standing so vulnerable in front of such a large crowd brought out the worst in him. His need to protect her was so incredibly strong, he found himself fighting his own deeply ingrained primitive instincts. He went quickly to the concert hall.