1
"Your Highness, Asta Gregorski did not perish with her parents."
The two men who'd been quietly talking on Prince Mikhail's front porch enjoying the late summer evening, turned and stared at the male walking slowly up the steps to join them. Nolan Sejka pushed back his thick, jet black hair and silently waited for them to digest the news he'd brought.
All three were similar in looks, they had broad chests, were tall and fit with long dark hair. There, though, the similarities ended. Although the other two were undeniably handsome men, Nolan was the epitome of male beauty. Through all the ages he'd lived, never had there been a time he wasn't admired for the perfection of his appearance. His strong masculine features were offset by his flawlessly arched eyebrows, and thin, well-defined lips. His strong jaw was the only thing that saved him from being 'pretty'. That and his expression. Always serious, almost cruel. His eyes, though, were what most people remembered. A blue, so light and intense, so very beautiful, most didn't notice that it was only the color that was passionate, nothing of the man could be seen or felt, no matter how long or deeply you looked.
"Where is she?" Prince Mikhail demanded. 'Raven, come out here, this could be very good news.'
Nolan turned to face his prince, "She was in the southwest of the United States," he told him. "She's lived there for the last few years. I don't know where she is now."
Raven stepped through the front door. She smiled a greeting to the two men and looked to her lifemate. Knowing Mikhail was happy about something made her own blue eyes sparkle. "What is your good news, my prince?" she teased him as she took his hand.
"A long lost Carpathian has been discovered," he told her. Mikhail looked to Nolan, "She is safe?" he asked him.
"Yes," Nolan replied. 'I think so. She hasn't told me she's not.' he more accurately finished the thought.
"Please, tell me about her," Raven requested of Nolan. "What is her name?"
"Asta Gregorski." he told her. "She is a contemporary of Lucien and Gabriel. She and her parents left here not long after so many of our people were massacred by the Turks. We thought they had been attacked and killed in Tibet by vampires over 500 years ago."
"Was she captured by the vampire, Nolan?" The prince's concern and anger were both evident in his tone.
"No," Nolan leaned against the railing on the porch. "She wasn't with them when it happened. Asta was away exploring caves in an area called Mustang. Her father called to Gregori when they were attacked," Nolan nodded toward the Carpathian on his left. "but her parents didn't let her know they were in danger. Asta only realized something was wrong when they didn't answer her call. She went back to their home but…" he lifted an elegant shoulder, "by then it was over."
"I answered Reginald's call," the somber Gregori said. "when I got there the house was burned to the ground. The only remains I found belonged to their human servants. For a short time, I thought there was a possibility they had survived. I searched meticulously for all three, but I found no trace of them."
"Asta arrived there before you, Gregori," Nolan said. "She was the one who burned the house. She made sure the deaths of her parents and the humans looked as though they had been caused by a fire that got out of control." He looked at the healer, "She left no trace that vampires had been in the area."
"That is true," said Gregori, "it was only because Reginald told me they were being attacked that I searched for and so found signs of vampires there. If I had just chanced upon the place I would have never noticed anything amiss."
"Reginald died protecting Tanya and the humans who served them. He killed one of the undead before he died. After his death, Tanya had no choice but to meet the dawn to save herself from being captured by the remaining one." Nolan sat on the bench next to him looked up at the intent faces patiently waiting for him to go on. He sighed, and continued the story.
"Asta went to ground for many years. When she decided to live again she sailed across the ocean and explored the New World. She travels extensively, but has been in the United States more than any other place. She spends her time teaching humans." 'Among other things,' Nolan thought to himself. He looked at the two men knowing they would soon be asking him more difficult questions. He wondered to himself how this night would end. Before he approached the Prince he'd very carefully thought through the only two possible outcomes. Whatever ultimately happened, he knew this night would be both a beginning and an end for him.
"Tanya was a relative of the Trigvise's." said Mikhail. "Traian needs to know we have found a long lost cousin of his." He smiled at his lifemate, knowing what he was about to say would make her happy. "I believe he and Asta played together as children."
"Oh, Mikhail," Raven beamed, "what wonderful news for him to learn while he and Joie are here waiting for the birth of their child."
But Nolan knew they hadn't really found Asta, they only knew she was out there, somewhere. Alone and unprotected. And that went against every male Carpathian instinct he'd been born with. She was going to have to be found. Even though she'd managed this long on her own, cut off from all she'd known, enduring hostile environments and people, even flourishing in her chosen pursuits, it was time for her to come home. The danger that surrounded her, that she had brought on herself, could easily end in her death.
She needed the shelter and safety that only came when surrounded by familiar places and loving family. Nolan drew a deep mental breath, there was no escaping that both Mikhail and Gregori were going to be displeased when they learned the rest of her story. Or that he was going to have to be the one to tell them.
Mikhail must have told more than just Traian and Joie about Asta. Nolan sensed two couples heading toward them to find out first hand about the missing Gregorski female. One of the females coming to the prince's home was pregnant, she had been Carpathian for less than five years.
Everyone believed it was a miracle that some Carpathians had been able to find lifemates among the human population in the past few years. They believed there was now 'hope' for the future. Nolan alone seemed to think that finding lifemates was as effective at staving off Carpathian extinction, as throwing rocks into the ocean would be at stopping the tides.
For all of his own 1,100 years of life Nolan watched his race dwindle. Now there were so very few left. Almost all males had become hunters. The few females left to them were unable to bear and raise their children in safety. No matter what precautions the Carpathians took, no matter how skilled their hunters, the undead continued to destroy everything they attempted to rebuild. And now, human women were being drawn into the death throes of their race, they were even bringing infants into his doomed society.
The Carpathian race needed their children to survive for it to continue. They especially needed females to be born, there had been only four born in last 500 years who were still living. Without a female to bond with more males than ever before were choosing to become the undead. He understood Mikhail's desire to find a way to save them all, but Nolan believed that the danger and death the women and children faced in his world were too high a price for them to pay for the continuation of his species.
Although, he couldn't feel what the bonded males felt he listened to their words. They said they loved their small families. They talked of protecting them from any and all threats. Nolan didn't believe that love was best expressed by exposing innocents to constant peril. And protection wasn't possible when they were being attacked on so many fronts. The very earth that gave them life was being poisoned against them and made the continuation of their species next to impossible. Humans hunted them, vampires hunted them, wizards and jaguar men and even some of their descendants worked toward their annihilation.
And that was only what they had to fight externally. The Carpathian males who couldn't find their lifemates were turning. So many had chosen to give up their souls, there wasn't a single Carpathian family that hadn't lost someone. The males who hadn't turned were forced to hunt the traitors down and destroy them. If the hunter actually survived the fight with the former friend or relative and managed to kill him, the darkness inside him grew, drawing the hunter ever closer to the darkness himself.
The only color in an unmated male's world was shades of gray, the only emotion, the thrill of power that coursed through him when he fought, fed or took a life. That feeling of power was the lure that led so many of his brethren to choose to become undead. The hunger for blood the closest thing to an emotion they had. Feeling the beast inside rise up during a fight or when feeding the only time they lived in the moment. Knowing if they fed until they drank the life of their victim into them, the intensity would be even more was pure enticement. Taking a life that way would be so very easy when caught up in the frenzy of their bloodlust. And for some, the transient adrenaline rush of passion that came with the kill was worth the cost of their honor. The darkness a part of their soul from birth spread until they were no longer Carpathian, but instead eternal evil; vampire. Their true selves now anathema to all things living.
There were a few 'lucky' ones. Males who'd found their lifemates. Color and emotion restored to them, so they could see the beauty and feel the joy of being with the only female who could ever let them know happiness. But Nolan saw the whole truth. Having a lifemate in their world now, meant suffering the pain you and your beloved would feel when she was unable to conceive. If she could conceive, bearing the loss of child after child to miscarriage. Or if a healthy child was born having it die in her arms a few months later because so few of their young ever saw their first birthday. Knowing that as a male he could only helplessly stand by as his lifemate died a little more each time she endured another loss. Feeling both your own and your lifemate's pain, as friends and relatives became your enemies and your children died.
A normal life wasn't possible for Carpathians anymore. The women and fledglings had to be protected constantly. Although they had the Carpathian abilities of telepathy, shape-shifting, strength and more, a visit to a friend was a cause for concern and worry. Even though the males didn't speak of it, if a female went outdoors without her lifemate, she was guarded by another male.
Maybe it was the memories of his own youth, when he had been allowed to explore far and wide, when he'd lived and grown as a Carpathian, not hiding his true nature for fear of bringing danger to his family, but something in Nolan rebelled at thought of raising a family where it would be surrounded by constant fear and persecution.
The bonded Carpathians were tied to doomed future. They threw around the word 'hope' all the time. As though, hoping for a better future would change the reality of what they faced. As though, there was reason to believe they could stop the destruction of their species. Their researchers and doctors hadn't really discovered any answers in past twenty years only that their enemies were stronger, more organized and much more myriad than they'd ever guessed.
There were no long term solutions. Not unless, 'find your lifemate and have a baby' was a solution, and Nolan didn't believe it was. No matter how he looked at it, towns decimated by the Black Death had had more reason to look forward the future than his fellow Carpathians did. And yet they were actively searching out lifemates and trying to have children. It was foolish and selfish.
Nolan had lived with no emotions for many hundreds of years, he recognized there was more darkness than light in his soul. He'd been fighting vampires since his fledgling days ended, the pull of darkness was inevitable. He knew, though, he would choose the dawn before he chose a lifemate.
