Ragnar pushed against the instincts urging him to get his lifemate as far away from those vampires as possible. He turned to bring them back to the scene of things.

Upon his descent through the clouds, he saw that Natalia's fear was in fact true. Simon and Talon were surrounded. One vampire, though, had already been incapacitated. That one, in truth, was nearly dead, his blackened heart which had been removed and thrown far away from his body was working its way back toward the gaping hole of his chest cavity. The other two Carpathians were obviously too busy fighting the still standing vampires to destroy the heart. The returning Ragnar immediately summoned lightning and incinerated the heart with the bolt as soon as he landed with Natalia.

As this went on, the rest of the band members were on foot, trying to circle around the main confrontation and reach the open road. Of the four remaining vampires, the one closest to their position sped over to the young people, grabbed Steve and James by their heads and knocked their skulls together. There was a sickening 'crunch' sound from at least one of the young men as Jewel screamed, "Nooo!" The sadistic vampire laughed at her distress.

Ragnar saw the situation. Had he been alone, it would have been easy to simply speed over and help them. But he could not do so because he would leave Natalia behind. He grabbed her by the hand, keeping her behind him, and attempted to go around the fight between the two Carpathian hunters and the three vampires, but another of the vampires left the fight with the hunters and jumped in front of him, engaged him in direct battle. It prevented Ragnar from getting to the band members on time to prevent what happened next.

Since she was now the one closest to the undead at that point with Steve and James knocked out, Derek tried to grab Tanya and pull her in another direction. The vampire stood and waited, toyed with them a little first. Since he did, it looked as if, for a split second, they might make it away from the scene of the battle. The four remaining band members were already at a preliminary run when the vampire literally reached out one hand and pulled Tanya back by grabbing a handful of her braids. He dragged her back to him and lifted her body as if she weighed nothing. The band members realized something was wrong and turned to look just as the horrifying monster bared his teeth menacingly at them. He proceeded to intentionally bite down as hard as possible into her neck, then began to roughly shake his head this way and that as Tanya's body jerked from side to side and she screamed in agony. Then he seemed to settle in, relax and begin to enjoy his 'meal'.

Derek, running purely on instinct, tried to return to get her away from him. Both Lena and Jewel were at his heels, also trying to see what they could also do. But when he reached out his hand to grab her, "Get them out of here!" Tanya shrieked at him as she kicked his hand away with her foot.

"I'm not leaving you!" her cousin shouted, tears flooding his eyes, as he fell to his hands and knees. At that moment, Derek was honestly ready to die where he was along with her. Lena and Jewel had their hands under his arms, trying to get him to stand up.

"Get OUT of here!" she said on a scream as the pain from the vampire gnawing into her neck increased. The light left her eyes and she began to go limp right before them.

Derek, tears still running down his face, stood quickly as an even worse feeling of horror overwhelmed him. Despite that, he went to carry out what he saw as her last request and tried to grab Lena and Jewel's hands as they went to turn and go, but the vampire dropped Tanya to the ground quickly as if she were a doll he was throwing aside. He sped close before they could even finish turning around and backslapped Derek so hard, the young man was knocked out cold.

Lena and Jewel had no time to react, only grabbed one other's hands and began running indiscriminately as the vampire stood there and laughed. He obviously thought there was no way they could escape since he was not pursuing. They ran right in the opposite direction they had been trying to go before and stumbled into the side of a very dazed looking Natalia crouched off to the side of Ragnar, tears running down all of their faces. "Keep running!" Ragnar told them as he circled around to cover their flight. "Natalia, go with them! Go NOW!"

With the shove of command in his voice, Natalia found herself standing and running away along with the other two girls as Ragnar launched himself into the battle with now two of the vampires by throwing himself directly into the path of the one that had been chasing them.

The situation was a true mess.

##

It was quiet up in the clouds at least.

Darius and Julian shapeshifted into their human forms as they fell out of the sky. They saw and now heard the horrible scene playing out before them. Tanya was lying on the ground, bloodied and obviously nearly drained of her life essence. All three of the human young men were on the ground, unconscious.

There were now two dead vampires, one whose heart had already been incinerated and the other one had not. Ragnar, Talon and Simon were still fighting three others. But Darius and Julian felt bewildered as they wondered: Where was Natalia, Jewel and Lena?

Darius called lighting down and incinerated the other dead vampire's heart, then disposed of the two remaining vampire bodies in the same manner. After he was done with that, he directed the lighting into the exposed wound in the chest of one of the vampires. It was the one fighting Ragnar. He had obviously struck a blow there, but hadn't been able to remove the heart. But with help from Darius, that vampire instantly died on the spot as the lightning exploded into his chest, burning his heart and destroying him utterly.

With five hunters, total, in no time the fight turned lethal for the last two remaining vampires. Within seconds, they diminished them to nothing. As Darius disposed of the bodies with lightning, Ragnar said, "Natalia is in danger, I must go and find her!"

"We will go with you," said Talon. "We must find the other females, as well."

Julian wanted to go with them, but he turned to check on the unconscious band members still there, on the ground. He knew he was being biased, but he found himself drawn to checking on the female first and saw that she was struggling to breathe. He lifted the girl delicately and her head lolled back, long braids dragging in the dirt, a gaping wound in her neck. Whichever of the vampires had done this intentionally inflicted as much pain and suffering on her as he could while still keeping her alive.

Closing his eyes, Julian briefly checked for her life force. "She is dying," he said in a strained voice as his eyes opened. There were tears stinging the backs of his eyes, but he would not let them fall. There was possibly some Carpathian out there who this girl belonged to. If they could not save her, what life would he be doomed to?

Darius looked at the three hunters, "Go, find the females. We will attend the young humans. I called Gregori to me a day ago and I sense that he is near. He shall help us heal them all. We will bring them to the caverns near our home."

"I will tell Andriev to find Lena," said Julian. "He was already en route the last I contacted him since she mentally called to us."

The three hunters nodded their acknowledgement and then took to the sky leaving Darius and Julian to deal with the unconscious band members.

But they all knew it did not look good for Tanya. Literally only Gregori could save her now.

##

Far away, the three missing ladies felt as if they were in some kind of a vice grip though no physical hands held them. There was a snarling, disgusting creature that had intercepted them not three minutes into their run.

He had bound them by means of some spell or Dragonseeker magic none of them had ever heard of and all three lost consciousness for an unknown amount of time.

When they 'came to' they saw they were all in some kind of a cave. Since he had not been with the other five vampires that had originally attacked the bar, they all realized that the events of that night were simply a ruse for him to grab one or all of the women in the band.

Jewel was still halfway unconscious because this vampire seemed to be quite powerful. Although she seemed to draw them to her, unusually more so than any other, being near them always made her sick and woozy.

This thing was just too close for any of their comfort. He was standing at the mouth of the cave and it looked as if he were in the middle of strange half dance, obviously erecting safeguards…

We have to distract him before he finishes what he's doing! Lena mentally sent to Natalia.

I'm on it! Natalia acknowledged. She concentrated hard, trying to telekinetically knock the vampire's legs out from under him. She felt a brief flare of satisfaction as he did the most strange looking 'legs in the air' maneuver as he howled and hit the ground.

They were in fear for their lives and horrified at their predicament, but poor Jewel was so woozy and out of it she couldn't stifle a gust of quick laughter that jumped out of her at the sight of the way he hit the ground.

The horrid vampire turned, safeguard unfinished, and his haunted eyes raked over the three of them. He was a decrepit fearful sight to behold. Grey skinned with scraggly tufts of red hair, his teeth had rotting black blood between them. His clothes were disheveled and Lena felt as if she were reliving that first vampire all over again that had tried to snatch her when she was fourteen. She realized at that moment what would have happened to her had Andriev not come to help her all of those years ago… Eventually something like this would have gotten to her. She closed her eyes tight, tried to tell herself that she could feel Andriev drawing closer to their location. But this felt just like her recurring nightmares from years before after that vampire attack. And why did this vampire look so much like that other one? Was her mind playing tricks on her?

The undead looked at them and all three girls knew better than to look him in the eyes. He hissed angrily. "Who did that to me?" His voice grated at their ears. The disgusting sound was just too much on top of all else and poor Jewel began to scream in horror and found herself unable to stop. If being near vampires hurt her physically, she now saw that hearing their voices was ten times worse!

"You will stop that noise!" he snapped. "SHUT UP!" he barked.

"YOU shut up!" Natalia snapped back at him, trying to take his attention off of the now whimpering Jewel. "Don't you talk to her like that!"

The vampire's head rolled around, serpent-like, as he began inspecting Natalia from afar. "Songbird!" he tried to say sweetly, but it didn't come out that way. "I will enjoy violating you."

Lena tried to pretend she wasn't stuck in the situation. She didn't have to worry, though, because Natalia seemed determined to keep his attention on her and off of the two of them. "My Lifemate will kill you!" she boasted.

"Lifemate!" he spat with his almost guttural voice as he stood back up from where he had been knocked down. "Then why did he allow you to be on your own?" was his seemingly cunning question to her.

There was no answer to that one. Natalia felt patently guilty. She was back with them now because she had insisted that he turn back and help the other hunters fight the vampires. If she got out of this, she suspected she would never hear the last of it from Ragnar about making him go back and bring her back into danger.

But the vampire took her silence the wrong way. Perhaps, he figured, she was in doubt of her lifemate's intentions to save her? "You are here, alone, because either your lifemate is not truly your lifemate or he does not care for you properly. But with me, none will be able to take you away. You will be at my side F.O.R.E.V.E.R! None will ever come near you again."

Is that supposed to make you feel BETTER? Lena frantically thought at Natalia.

The vampire looked at Lena then as if he sensed her mental activities. "My brother almost attained you years ago, but he did not succeed. I have a vendetta against you for you are the true reason he is dead now!"

Lena rolled her eyes and looked up at the ceiling. No wonder he looked so much like that other undead that had come for her years before. She pretty much was done with the situation at that point and just wanted this all to end. "Lord, help me find a happy place or something…"

"I will enjoy your violation before I kill you!" he continued to threaten Lena.

Natalia was concentrating on a large rock sitting on the ground. She was waiting for the right moment, needed him to be in its path a little more since the angle was off. She had used a lot of her energy before… Lena, piss him off. Make him walk toward us…

Are you out of your ever-loving mind?

Just do it!

All right… But this better work, cause I had other plans for falling into bed with a Carpathian and it did NOT involve being abused by Sir Hair Tufts-a-Lot! Lena sucked her teeth casually. "You know why your brother really died?"

The undead looked at her, almost daring her to say something wrong.

But Lena didn't even bother looking him in the eye as she looked around herself while saying, oh-so-casually, "He couldn't fight. He was a straight up punk."

The vampire bristled at first but then he began to laugh. "Is that your infantile attempt to force me into a state of distracting anger?" He turned back around to begin the safeguards, once again.

"He's smart," Lena spoke of him to the other two girls as if he weren't even there. "But he's ugly as sin."

"I know, right?" Natalia chimed in. "Pobrecito! Look at that hair!"

The vampire whirled back around to look at them, angry. Apparently he thought he was projecting a much better appearance to the ladies than he actually was.

"So let's get down to business," Lena began a new tactic to distract him into not looking at Natalia. "What was your plan for bringing us here?" They were all glad the vampire didn't seem to notice he never finished erecting that safeguard.

Jewel was full-on crying by then. "Don't make him angry!"

"Why not?" asked Lena. "Don't you think it's a dumb thing for him to do? This man goes and grabs three women. It's the kind of men like that, trying to get with all these females at the same time?" She sucked her teeth disgustedly. "He probably doesn't even know what to do with one."

"You would do well to be quiet!" he hissed as he turned back around and started his safeguard erection all over again.

"Or else? What?" asked Lena. "What are you going to do from all the way over there?"

Natalia said out of the side of her mouth, but loud enough for the vampire to hear, "He knows he better not touch us, that's why."

Jewel was bawling as she asked, "Guys, are you crazy?"

Lena shook her head, "The therapists and the psychiatrist said not to call myself that. So I prefer to think of myself as having a few challenges… That's what those little pills are for that I take. And I'm challenged because of jerk-wads like that one standing at the front of this cave doing what looks like 'the safety dance' who keep popping up in my life!" She sighed as loudly as possible. "Went and snatched us up and is now procrastinating on whatever his original plan was." She shook her head and then dared utter one more verbal shove. "Coward."

He screamed in rage as he turned and began rampaging toward where they were being held at the back of the cave. Natalia waited until the perfect moment and then concentrated hard. She mentally lifted and hurled the almost boulder-sized rock at the vampire's head. When it impacted, the rock hit the vampire and pinned him, head-first, to the cave wall. The sight was almost grotesquely funny, something from out of a vintage cartoon. The three of them were immediately freed from whatever mental vise grip he had on them since he probably needed to partially concentrate to utilize it.

Natalia and Lena grabbed one of Jewel's hands each and ran past the vampire who was already trying to work his head out from under the rock.

They made it to the mouth of the cave and out of it, relieved to be back outside again. But there was nothing but land in front of them and they had no idea where they were since they had been brought into the cave while still unconscious. They took off running anway and kept on going even as they heard the rock hitting the floor from behind them. He had already worked himself free!

"And I went and made him MAD!" screamed Lena into the wind.

"Run faster! FASTER!" screamed Jewel.

"Hell, yes, I will!" screamed Lena. "After what I said about his punk brother he's going for a bite of brown sugar as soon as he can!"

"Not if he's in the mood for Dulce De Leche first," Natalia shouted as her and Lena suffered a moment of hysteria mixed with laughter.

"You two are c-razy!" Jewel screamed as they all ran.

But it didn't matter how fast they ran, already they could see the shadow of the vampire via the moon, coasting along, flying above them. He was hissing with rage as he followed and then overtook their position. He landed in front of them.

"This just got realer," Natalia said as she shook her head and the three of them stopped in their tracks and began backing up from him. "Anybody got anymore ideas?"

Jewel at that point figured it was only going to go downhill so she wound up putting out, "Kung fu fighting?" in a shaky voice as hysterical laughter bubbled up out of her mouth.