Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 118860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 594(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 594(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
The vampire whirled around the moment he was free, desperate to take the heart from Tomas. He slashed viciously at Tomas’ face and neck, going for the jugular. Hot, fetid breath, poisonous with just the fumes, blasted Tomas in the face. He didn’t allow his concentration to be interrupted even for a moment. He tossed the heart high into the air, a stellar throw when the heavy canopy gave very few openings. At once, the jagged bolt of lightning slammed into the blackened heart, instantly turning it to ash.
Tomas leapt away from Gustov as he directed the lightning at the body of the vampire. Gustov tried to dodge the lightning spear, but Tomas’ aim had been perfected over hundreds of years. Gustov was instantly incinerated.
It took time to deal with the ashes before Tomas bathed his arms and hands in the white-hot glow of the lightning whip, removing the acid before he took the time to push parasites out of his body through his pores. It was always a messy business ridding the body of the parasites, which entered when the hunter was wounded. They couldn’t afford to miss one.
His brothers joined him as he was dealing with the mess that was his legs, where the vines had struck over and over. Mataias immediately worked on one leg while Lojos did the other. It wasn’t long before they were moving as quickly through the forest as possible, hoping to pick up the trail of Gustov’s elusive master.
“Did you believe the reading of the tarot cards for each of us?” Tomas asked his brothers as they followed the game path into the deeper jungle, searching for tracks—anything at all to indicate their quarry was in front of them.
Lojos cast him a quick look and then went back to examining the animal track they followed. Tomas felt that measuring look. He knew his brothers. He could feel Mataias’ penetrating stare as well. He kept his gaze fixed on the faint animal track.
“It isn’t as if I didn’t believe what they said was true, that our lifemates are somewhere in this century waiting for us, but it’s more as if I wonder if you believe we have the right to claim them.”
That was met with intense scrutiny. He didn’t look at either of his brothers as he proceeded to examine the foliage around him for the slightest clue that something—or someone—had come before them. Just feeling the heavy weight of their gazes was enough to know they didn’t think like him.
“I’m not sure what you’re saying,” Mataias ventured, a question in his voice.
“You took a vow with us to stay strong and endure no matter how long we had to wait for our lifemates,” Lojos said. “We’re closer than we’ve ever been, and we know we will be able to find them if we stick together and follow the dictates of the cards.”
“Hints,” Tomas corrected.
“Then you don’t believe the cards,” Lojos clarified.
The rotting vegetation on the ground on either side of the narrow track had piled up, even more than usual due to the passage of larger animals on the thin pathway. In a few places, there was a tangle of vines forming tunnels, but they didn’t miss a step, simply shimmering into molecules and passing through with ease before reforming.
“I do believe the cards,” Tomas clarified. “I saw them work for others. It isn’t that. We’re beyond the time we were supposed to have lived. Like the other ancients, I believed it was our duty to hold on for our lifemates and to keep the world safe from the undead. Knowing we are becoming something else—and we are—there is most likely a reason that we’ve survived far too long.”
The game trail wound around several trees with massive trunks. He paused to study the crooked limbs, most thick enough to support jaguars as they used the arboreal highway to traverse the rainforest.
“We are tracking Justice, and as far as I can tell, he is no vampire, but he is no longer Carpathian. The danger he represents is very real to every species,” he pointed out as he continued to examine the branches, looking for the smallest detail out of place.
“Benedek is the oldest of us,” Mataias said softly. “He was closest to becoming the beast, closer than the three of us, and yet has found his lifemate, and they seem happy together.”
Several flower petals were crushed against the thick bark on the trunk approximately thirty feet up. The branch extending toward another tree was wide and thick, very strong.
“Do we know if finding our lifemates stops us from continuing to evolve into something other than what we were born to be?” Tomas posed the question deliberately to his brothers.
They were getting away from his original question, but since he appeared to be the only one wrestling with the ethics of binding a human woman to him without her consent, he decided he could contemplate the morality of it alone. Because he was very certain his lifemate was not Carpathian.