Dark Secret

shaft burned and foul smelling, but clear for the two hunters.

As the hunters moved cautiously down the now-empty mine shaft, Vikirnoff's hands flowed gracefully in the air as he hurried to unravel the vampire's safeguards. Rafael continued to feed energy into the white-hot light surrounding them, keeping the shadows at bay. More than once, the dark, amorphous shapes lunged at the Carpathians only to shriek and fall back when Rafael struck at them with the lasered beam of light.

'The last safeguard is down,' Vikirnoff said.

'Stand clear. He will have something waiting in the chamber.' Rafael pressed his body against the blackened side of the tunnel and waited for Vikirnoff to do the same before waving his hand to send the boulders rolling away from the entrance.

Gas and steam poured from the interior, carrying with it a noxious, foul odor. Bats with sharpened fangs followed, a dark cloud of them, swarming the hunters instantly. Vikirnoff flung up a barrier as he and Rafael peered into the heated cavern. The bats crashed into the invisible barrier over and over, smashing their bodies in frenzied need to carry out the commands of the undead. The hunters stepped onto the steaming floor of Kirja's lair.

The chamber was hot and the vaporous gas held traces of sulfur and poison. The Carpathians floated upward as the acids in the soil melted their boots, seeking to penetrate to their skin. 'Good one, Kirja,' Rafael muttered, shaking his head to rid himself of the lethargy seeping into his body and mind, making him careless.

They began to quarter the ground, seeking the exact position where the vampire lay beneath the poisonous brew of acid and foul soil. 'Here, Vikirnoff,' Rafael said, indicating a spot directly below him. 'He is here.'

The two began to unravel the final safeguards, going fast, but being careful to remain alert. Movement on the ground caught Rafael's eyes just to the left of where the vampire lay, a small spewing of dirt, a disturbance beneath the soil. As he watched, the same thing happened in a half dozen other places, until he and Vikirnoff were surrounded by a loose circle. The soil burst open in a dozen spots and ghouls poured out of the earth.

'Keep going, Rafael,' Vikirnoff said. 'I will hold them off.' He was already dropping low, flying at a ghoul with tremendous speed. He wrenched at the ghoul's head, knocking the creature off its feet so that it landed hard in the poisonous soil.

Rafael concentrated on unraveling the last lock to get to Kirja while Vikirnoff's battle with the ghouls raged ferociously around him. Several times he heard Vikirnoff grunting as he took a particularly nasty hit, but Rafael remained focused on disassembling the vampire's final safeguard. The moment the last element clicked in place, the ghouls howled and shrieked in fury, redoubling their efforts to destroy the hunters. Vikirnoff kept the dozen zombies away from Rafael, giving him the time needed to peel back the layers of soil from the vampire's resting place.

And then the last of the soil fell away and Rafael found himself looking down into Kirja's hate-filled eyes.

For a moment there was an eerie silence. The vampire was utterly motionless, trapped in the earth by the terrible lethargy of his kind. You will never win, Rafael. You are doomed. The voice rasped with hate even as Rafael plunged his fist through the vampire's chest cavity and ripped out the blackened, rotted heart of his childhood friend.

Kirja screamed, and Rafael hissed as the acid from the vampire's blood burned through his skin and muscles right to the bone. He threw Kirja's heart to the ground, but before he could call fire to incinerate the decayed thing, it burrowed deep into the soil, making its way back to its host. Black hatred vibrated in the air between them, then triumph as the heart reunited with its host. Cursing, Rafael drove his fist a second time toward the vampire's chest, staring down into the red-rimmed eyes.

But it was no longer Kirja lying helpless in the earth. Rafael stared down at Colby, her beautiful face, her wealth of red hair, her incredible soft skin. For a moment he hesitated as he leaned over the undead.

'Rafael,' she cried softly, 'help me.'

'Colby?' Rafael blinked in confusion and shook his head and for one uncertain moment, he hesitated.

Kirja struck. Rafael screamed and the illusion of Colby dissolved as the vampire's razor-sharp talons pierced Rafael's chest. Breathless with agony, he could feel the hand of the undead clawing for his heart, shredding through muscle and sinew with murderous intent. Kirja shrieked in triumph and Rafael screamed again as the tips of the vampire's nail gouged at Rafael's heart.

Pain swamped Rafael, excruciating pain the likes of which he'd never known in all the centuries of his existence. For one agonizing moment his muscles locked in spasms of torment, then he screamed again from another driving pain as Kirja's talons pierced the outer walls of his heart.

Blood spurted from Rafael's heart. There wasn't much time. He had to finish this now. Quickly.

He dragged himself over Kirja's body. The vampire once again assumed Colby's shape, but this time Rafael didn't hesitate. Once more he drove his fist deep into the vampire's rotten chest, crying out as the acid blood ate through the flesh of his already wounded hand. His chest was on fire, the vampire's razored claws shredding the muscles of Rafael's heart. Blood jetted out of his chest in great deadly spurts, but Rafael could not afford to stop his heart and shut down his body's functions to save himself. Kirja must be defeated.

Rafael would protect Colby and those she loved with his last dying breath. As long as Kirja remained alive, he would retain his hold on Paul and put Colby's family at risk. It had to end here. Now. Rafael would remove this threat to Paul, give the boy back to Colby in sanity and health. He would not fail her this time with yet another in a long line of selfish choices. He could give her this one gift even if it meant the loss of his own life. She was Dragonseeker, she was strong, she could go on without him as Rhiannon had. For a moment he wavered. Had it been a spell of Xavier's that had prevented Rhiannon from joining her lifemate? Would Colby survive his death? He had to believe it.

He felt Kirja's fingers close around his heart, the nails digging deep, lacerating, shredding. He heard his own screams echo through the chamber, but he hung on tenaciously. He would not fail her. His death was the only thing he had left to give her.

No! Nicolas shouted the command.

Faintly, from far away, Rafael heard his other brothers, but maybe that was an illusion, too. The voices of Carpathians near and far seemed to melt into a single voice crying protest.

Rafael held on grimly, dragging the black vampire heart from Kirja's chest. Blood loss had made Rafael extremely weak and the heart struggled wildly to get out of his possession and back to its master. He fought to keep the rotted organ caged in his hand. The acid burned through his skin to his bones, but that pain was nothing compared to the agony of Kirja's fingers literally ripping Rafael's heart to pieces.

Deep beneath the earth, Colby felt the rending and tearing of Rafael's heart. Her eyes flew open, her heart shuddering in shared pain and slamming with relentless terror against her chest. The pain nearly shattered her. Rafael!

The undead will not get your brother.

Rafael's voice was ragged, frayed with pain. In that instant she saw him in the dark of the mine with the ghouls fighting to get to him, with his arm and hand burned raw from the vampire's blood. And she saw the vampire's fist buried deep in his chest. She felt the fingernails ripping and gouging at Rafael's heart in an effort to kill him. For a moment time stopped. The world went utterly still. Realization struck her in that blinding moment.

She loved him.

All this time when she thought she was fighting him, she'd been fighting herself as well. Pitting her enormous will against her heart, the heart that had begun to love Rafael when he had rushed into a burning building on her behalf.

Rafael had freed her to be who and what she was born to be. She would finally be able to use her extraordinary gifts she had spent a lifetime hiding. She would be accepted for who she really was, not who she pretended to be. And in that moment of realization, Colby knew she could bear anything, sacrifice anyone or anything else, but not Rafael.

Tell me what to do! She issued the order to Nicolas. And it was an order. She began to claw her way through the earth to the surface. Every ounce of iron will she possessed, the will that was her birthright, that had been honed in her sweat and tears, the unbending will that had refused to let her believe she could come to love Rafael, that will she now focused on reaching him. She would save him. There was no other choice.

Stay with him. Do not allow him to separate himself from you. He will hold on with everything he is, not wanting to chance that you will die with him.