No, get back! Jacques’s cry was sharp, imperious, and laced with terror.
No, Raven! Mikhail echoed the command from a distance.
No, woman, do not! Gregori’s voice whispered fiercely in her head.
Not understanding, but certain she was in deadly peril, Raven tried to jump off. The vampire clamped one hand around her wrist in a viselike grip and turned his head, triumph in his glowing eyes. Sharp teeth bit into her wrist, and he was gulping dark, rich blood. It burned and hurt like a red-hot brand. Her flesh was ragged and gaping, his fangs tearing at her.
Mikhail and Gregori mentally struck together at the vampire’s throat. Although such an attack was not very successful against one of Carpathian blood and they were still some distance away, their combined assault closed off the undead’s air momentarily. Jacques struck the vampire with renewed ferocity, driving him backward, dislodging Raven so that she fell free. Blood sprayed in a shower of crimson droplets across the forest floor, and for one moment both fighters froze, distracted by the red shower, turning almost in unison toward her.
“Close that wound!” The vampire snarled, his voice gruff.
Raven, you will bleed to death. Jacques struggled for calm, wanting her to understand the seriousness of the situation.
The vampire struck, claws ripping at Jacques’s stomach so that he was forced to bring his hands down to protect himself. The vampire’s head contorted, lengthened to a long muzzle, and lunged like a wolf at Jacques’s exposed throat, ripping and tearing.
Raven screamed and threw her body at the vampire, beating wildly at his head and shoulders. Contemptuously he dropped Jacques’s body so it lay broken like a rag dell in the rotting vegetation. He dragged Raven’s wrist to his mouth, his eyes smiling into hers, and deliberately ran his tongue across the wound to close it. Her body and mind rebelled at the hideous contact, her stomach heaving and protesting the unclean touch.
“Remember, mortal, she is mine,” he commanded Slovensky. “I will come for her this night. Get her out of the sun.” The vampire released her and launched himself skyward.
Raven spit into her hands and stumbled forward toward Jacques’s motionless body. “That vampire killed him,” she screamed hysterically. As her hands touched the forest floor she scooped up handfuls of dirt. “Oh, God, he’s dead. You let that thing kill him!” Using her slender body as a shield so no one could see what she was doing, Raven packed the wounds in Jacques’s throat with the soil and her healing saliva. Drink, Jacques, now, so that you can last until Mikhail and Gregori arrive. Her wrist over his mouth, Raven continued to sob dramatically, thankful for once that men often thought women hysterical in a crisis.
Mikhail! Jacques is mortally wounded. He is in the sun. She sensed the approach of the human male and twisted her wrist gently in warning. Jacques was so weak; feeding blindly, he nearly missed the signal. His loss of blood was enormous.
With great dignity Raven covered his head and her handiwork with her cardigan and bent as if kissing him good-bye. Don’t let me down, Jacques. You must live. For me, for Mikhail, for all of us. Don’t let them win. Even as she sent the words to him she could detect no pulse, no hint of his heart beating.
Slovensky gripped her shoulder and yanked her to her feet. She was deathly pale, dizzy, very weak. “Enough crying. You give me any trouble and I’ll kill the priest. If you harm me, the vampire will kill the priest.” He shoved her down the trail.
Raven lifted her chin, regarded him coolly with red-rimmed eyes. “Then I guess, for your sake, it’s imperative you keep Father Hummer in excellent health, isn’t it?” Raven knew from touching the man that he didn’t believe for one moment that the priest was an advocate of the devil or one of Mikhail’s servants. He had seen the vampire’s power and craved it, believed he would soon be rewarded.
James Slovensky could easily see the contempt and the knowledge in her large blue eyes. He didn’t like the picture reflected there and gave her a shove toward the trail.