Dark Fire by Christine Feehan. Dark Series – book 6

For just a moment the golden eyes flickered over him, cold with menace. Then Julian’s white teeth gleamed in a semblance of a smile. “It is true, and I can do no other than be grateful to you.”

Darius shook his head slightly. He was still unused to tolerating the presence of any male not of his own small group. Accepting his sister’s new lifemate traveling with them was one thing; liking it was quite another. Julian had been raised in the Carpathian Mountains, their native land, and though he had been forced into a solitary existence, he had had the benefit of years of training in their ways, of adult Carpathian guidance during his fledgling years. Darius knew Julian was strong and one of their people’s most skilled hunters of vampires. He knew Desari was safe with him, but he couldn’t quite relinquish his own role as her protector. He had had far too many centuries of leadership, of learning the hard way, through experience.

Some centuries ago in their almost-forgotten homeland, Darius and five other Carpathian children had seen their parents murdered by invaders who thought them vampires and carried out their ritual slayings: a stake through the heart, beheading, with garlic stuffed in the mouth. It had been a frightening, traumatic time as Ottoman Turks overran their village while the sun was high in the sky, just as their parents were at their most vulnerable. The Carpathians had tried to save the mortal villagers, standing with them to fight the invasion despite the fact that the attack had come when the Carpathian people were at their weakest. But there were far too many assailants, and the sun was too high. Nearly everyone had been massacred.

The marauding armies had then herded the children, mortal and immortal alike, into a straw shack and set it on fire, burning the youngsters alive. Darius had managed to fabricate an illusion to cloak the presence of a few of the children from the soldiers, a feat unheard of at his age. And when he noticed a peasant woman who had escaped the bloodthirsty assailants, he had cloaked her presence as well and forced a compulsion upon her. He embedded within the woman a deep need to flee and take with her the Carpathian children he had saved.

The woman took them down the mountain to her lover, a man who owned a boat. Though sailing the open seas was rarely attempted in that century, since tales of sea serpents and falling off the earth abounded, the marauders’ cruelty was a worse fate, so the small crew took their vessel far from their shores in an attempt to flee the steadily advancing army.

The children had huddled together in the precarious craft, all terrified, all shocked at the hideous deaths of their parents. Even Desari, a mere infant, was aware of what had happened. Darius had kept them going, insisting they could make it if they stuck together. A terrible storm had come up, washing the crew overboard, the sea rising up to claim the sailors and the woman as efficiently as the Turks had massacred the villagers. Darius had refused to yield his charges up to such a fate. Although still very young, he already had an iron will. Holding the image of a bird in their minds, he forced the children, as young as they were, to shape-shift with him before the ship went down. Then he had flown, clutching tiny Desari in his talons, leading them to the nearest body of land, the shores of Africa.

Darius had been six years old, his sister barely six months. The other female child, Syndil, was one. With them were three boys, the oldest four years of age. Compared to the familiar comforts of their homeland, Africa seemed wild, untamed, a primitive, frightening place. Yet Darius felt responsible for the safety of the other children. He learned to fight, to hunt, to kill. He learned how to exert authority, to take care of his group. Carpathian children did not yet have the extraordinary talents of their elders-to know the unknowable, to see the unseeable, to command the creatures and natural forces of the Earth, to heal. They had to learn these techniques from their parents, study under those who would teach them. But Darius didn’t allow those limitations to stop him. Though he was just a little boy himself, he would not lose the children. It was that simple to him.