The wind picked up, the subtlest of movements. The tops of the trees swayed just a little more, leaves fluttering. Along the ground the grass undulated in a slow wave. This was the opening gambit. The battle always felt a little like a chess match to him. Combat was his world and he understood it, every nuance.
Zacarias continued his casual stride, drawing closer to the fence and the trees. The rain forest appeared quiet and dark. The rain fell steadily, soft drops that shifted a bit as the wind blew away from the trees and toward the hacienda. The land sloped down just slightly, the grass a little higher near the fence line. Zacarias walked along the fence, all the while keeping an eye on the birds gathering in the dark of the rain forest. Even as he walked, his arms swinging naturally at his sides, his hands wove a seamless pattern.
He barely noticed the rain. Cool water dripping steadily from the sky, from the rolling clouds above his head. A drop hit his neck and burned through his skin. He shut off the pain instinctively, throwing his woven shield over his head as he ran toward the fence and the forest to take the fight to them and away from Marguarita.
A deluge opened of small acid drops raining from the sky, even as the wind picked up. His shield protected his head, but the wind blew the burning drops into his back and thighs as he sprinted for the cover of the canopy. Fireballs slammed into the earth all around him, several striking his shield with alarming force. Overhead, a towering dark cloud churned with a fiery mass of red and orange threads.
Zacarias took another step and the ground opened up, a long jagged fissure, deep and gaping. He tumbled in, his shield falling a distance away from him. The acid rain and the fiery darts sliced through him. The earth shuddered and moved, closing that foot-wide gap. Zacarias dissolved into tiny molecules, speeding up toward ground level, trying to beat the closing of the fissure. The clap of the two sides of rock and dirt coming together was horrendous, echoing for miles. Birds shrieked and took to the air. Great predators darted down in a frenzy, looking for prey.
The ground shook, a tremor rocking the foundations of the stables and hacienda. Zacarias rose into the air. At once the birds screamed in exaltation, programmed eyes finding those tiny molecules through the rain and wind, diving for them as if streaking for the surface of water to plunge below for fish.
Zacarias had no choice, unless he wanted to be torn apart and consumed by birds. He streaked toward them, meeting the attack, shifting from molecules to a fire-breathing dragon, something he rarely did, but right now, he needed to rid the sky of the predatory birds. He shot through their ranks as they tore at his flanks, pecking like mad so that ruby red droplets dripped from him.
The scent of blood added to the frenzy of the birds. He wheeled and banked, coming above them, sending a stream of fire sweeping through the mass. The stench of burning meat permeated the night as blackened bodies fell from the sky. The remaining birds kept coming, pouncing on the dragon, hundreds multiplying into thousands, pecking and tearing with razor-sharp talons, digging through the tough hide to try to get to the Carpathian inside.
The sheer weight of the birds sent the dragon tumbling toward earth. Torn and bloody, Zacarias burst from the dragon before it hit the ground, the majority of the birds riding the great carcass to the ground, tearing at it in a kind of fury. Calling to the sky, he used the churning cloud of masses of red-orange flames, drawing them down to slam into the birds in great fireballs. Screaming, the vicious creatures tried to rise into the air, but long spears and tiny darts of flames leaped from one to the other until they were all engulfed in fire.
“Do you wish to keep up this silly charade, Ruslan,” Zacarias called as he settled in the slight clearing just on the other side of the fence, in the rain forest itself. He continued to edge deeper beneath the canopy of trees, taking the fight farther from Marguarita.
Thunder rolled in answer. The clouds churned and boiled. The black cloud burst upward, a tower of fire and brimstone roiling angrily in the sky. The wind rushed through the trees, yet didn’t move the clouds from overhead. Branches swayed, great stick arms reaching almost to the forest floor, as though bowing—or looking to grasp someone with bony fingers.
A dark, hooded figure emerged slowly from the trunk of a large kapok tree. He moved slowly, without any sign of hurry. It was a testament to the power of a master that the tree and surrounding ground didn’t recoil from his presence. Nature could not stand the abomination of the undead, yet a true master was so adept at illusion, for brief periods, even Mother Earth could be deceived.
Not a single leaf or blade of grass withered. The figure was tall, imposing, shoulders wide and he walked with complete confidence. Stepping into the grove of trees where the canopy protected the forest floor, he flung off his hood. Long flowing hair was as black as night, his face young and brutally handsome. He smiled and held out his hand to Zacarias.
“Son. We meet again under more pleasant circumstances, I hope.”
Zacarias frowned. What was Ruslan playing at? Testing him to see if he had emotions? If he had a lifemate? Every other De La Cruz brother had found his lifemate. Ruslan would hate them all the more for that. He believed himself superior to all of them—so why shouldn’t he have the women? Zacarias and his family were unworthy of such things.
“I thought more of you, Ruslan. This is a tired trick. Show yourself and be done with it.” For the first time he realized that not feeling emotion without Marguarita locked to him could be more than a curse. Ruslan could not endanger what he did not know of.
Zacarias waved his hand with a true casualness, as if that perfect image of his father didn’t bother him at all—and in truth—he felt nothing at all at the sight of the man who had been his childhood hero. His wave removed the illusion and revealed Ruslan’s true form. For one second he stood stripped of civility, his body rotted through with a thousand maggots crawling through him. His face was pitted with holes, his eyes sunken and his teeth blackened and serrated, pointed like ice picks sticking up through his gums.
In the time it took Zacarias to blink, that image changed as if it had never been. Ruslan stood before him as he had all those centuries ago. Young. Virile. His face without lines, almost beautiful rather than handsome. Zacarias looked rugged and older in comparison, lines etched into his face and a few scars intersecting here and there.
“I see your vanity has not changed at all,” Zacarias greeted. “You did so love your pretty face. I suppose that is half the reason you chose to become vampire.”
Ruslan brushed back his long length of hair. “At least you still know pretty from ugly. I have long kept tabs on you, old friend. You refuse to join us and you refuse to die. In all the centuries you have never stayed in one place more than a single night or at best two. Yet here you remain.” He swept his arm toward the hacienda and the wind changed course, following his direction, taking with it dozens of small fireballs to rain down across the pastures and structures.
Zacarias sent the rain in a fast deluge, putting out the small fires immediately. He flexed his shoulders, now burned through to bone with a thousand brands from the acid rain and the small, pebble-sized fireballs Ruslan was now using against the ranch.
“We can do this all night, but surely you did not think I would be impressed by such childish games? I play them with your puppets, but they are not really worthy of my attention. I thought at last I might have an opponent of merit.”
“You do not heal your wounds.”
Had there been a hint of eagerness in Ruslan’s tone? Zacarias shrugged again. “I do not feel such things, so how necessary is it really?” He observed Ruslan closely, watching the vampire’s nostrils flaring and his tongue continually licking at his lips. “Does the scent of my blood bother you?”
Ruslan shook his head. Shook it again. Much like a twitch he couldn’t stop. The licking of his lips continued compulsively. “No more than the scent of any blood I consume. You have not fed this night. I offer my blood.”
“How very gentlemanly of you.” Zacarias gave a short, mock bow. “What do you want, Ruslan? I grow weary of your games. Have you come for deliverance? Justice? I’ll be more than happy to send you from this earth if that is what you wish.”
“
Zacarias shrugged. “What is it then?”
“I had long thought to have you join our ranks, but you never came. Then you sent me such an insult, destroying my army to the last puppet.”
“They were merely pawns you sent to test me. You expected me to kill them. Cannon fodder, Ruslan, nothing
