Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 141492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
There was an impossible choice put before me, and I had to decide in a split second. We had battled the worst of the demons and hellhounds for several risings, losing far too many humans and Carpathians. There were so many—armies of demons coming from beneath us. It took me far too long to figure out how to stop them. I had no experience with such things. No one had. We knew we could not allow them to win. We had to drive the demons back and seal them underground, and we had to wipe out the vampires, even if it took every last one of us to do it.
You had to have been a young warrior, Petru, Mataias protested. Why was it left to you to figure out how to stop them? Surely there were other, much more experienced hunters present.
Even then, given time, I could envision the entire layout of a battle and how best to defeat the enemy. Knowing my lifemate was in the center of danger and I could not get her out had been distracting.
Petru could feel the puzzlement in the others.
It was Lojos who voiced the question they all had. You had not claimed this child. How is it you were not wholly centered on the battle? You should have been able to ignore the child.
I should not have been able to feel anything, Petru agreed. I had lost my abilities centuries earlier, but I could feel her emotions. Her fear. Her sorrow when her sisters and brothers were killed in front of her. When she lost aunts and uncles. Each loss she felt, I felt. She was barely five, yet she had such knowledge and awareness.
All of us saw Val with Liv. Tomas mentioned another ancient they all were very familiar with. They are lifemates and she is still a child. He stays close to her, protective, yet he cannot claim her. He is affected by her and knows when she is in danger.
That is true, Nicu agreed. And what of Skyler and Dimitri? They are legendary. Lifemates for years, and yet he could not claim her. Still, she saved him even from across an ocean once, when his wounds were severe. She held him to the earth. She was far too young, but she still felt his pain even from such a distance.
The takeaway seems to be, Benedek said, if the couple both have superior strength—and we know you do, and maybe your lifemate does, as well—it is very possible they can connect even at that young age, perhaps unknowingly.
Petru considered the possibility. The child had looked at him with those too-intelligent eyes. He hadn’t had time to get near her, not while learning to destroy the various demons preying on the humans in the fierce fighting. The worst was, they didn’t just come out at night. Many of the demons were able to influence the humans at war with one another so that the crimes they committed against each other were even more vicious than they might normally be.
Whoever was orchestrating the war, sending the demons and driving the vampires to do their will, realized that one tribe of the Amazigh people and the Carpathians were slowly turning the tide and were possibly a real threat to their plans. They concentrated on wiping out both.
The silence that followed meant his traveling companions considered what that might mean. Nicu and Benedek had already been in two major battles with the demons and, like Petru, had grown skilled in fighting them. Each type of demon had to be destroyed differently. Some were far more difficult to kill than others, just as vampires were. Experience counted. It was a common practice for the ancients to share information on their enemies and how best to defeat them. Without emotions, they had no egos, and it didn’t matter who was the most skilled hunter; it only mattered to rid the world of evil.
Did you get a sense of who was orchestrating the war? Benedek asked.
At first, I believed the oldest master vampire was behind the attacks, but I realized over time that whoever had sent the demons from below was the true commander. I began to get a feel for how they communicated with their army and who their generals were. When they began to concentrate their forces on Carpathians and the Amazigh people, I countered.
Tomas understood immediately. You used the common path of communication all Carpathians use while orchestrating a defense. Vampires were Carpathian before they chose to give up their souls, so they heard and understood you were the one directing the others.
Yes. They sent as many at me as possible. My family stood in front of me, although I did not want them to. I didn’t mind that they all came at me. I welcomed the battles. It was my duty to destroy the undead. I felt the same about the demons. They were just as evil.