Dark Possession Page 0,127

Dubrinsky betrayed you for his son. He betrayed all of us for his son."

Manolito stiffened, his mind racing. The answer was right in front of him if he could just fit the pieces of the puzzle together. Maxim wanted to tell him, wanted to show his superiority; Manolito just had to have patience and lead him in that direction. "Do you think your childish taunts are going to impress me the way they do your ridiculous dogs?" Deliberately his gesture took in the vampires desperate for Maxim's attention.

"I am a hunter. I have been a hunter for a thousand years. You have become amusing, the greatness in you long gone. You turned yourself into a puppet for the likes of Xavier."

Maxim looked as if he might explode. His eyes spun in the deep sockets, glowing red orange and yellow. He spewed venom from between his teeth, the acid landing on Manolito's skin, where it sizzled and smoked.

Manolito remained stoic beneath the attack, never blinking, never changing expression, simply watching Maxim with that same small smile of contempt that continued to get under the vampire's skin.

"You know nothing. Nothing. You also thought your intellect superior to everyone's. You and your precious brothers. Zacarias ordering us to follow that murdering, sniveling prince. Dubrinsky could have a female killed, but not his own son, and the De La Cruz brothers follow like puppies."

Manolito rolled his shoulders in a casual shrug. "Like you are doing with Xavier. Believing in his lies. He does not want to be fodder for the undead. He will tell you whatever you want to hear."

"I saw the portal," Maxim snapped. "And she will return. You are the conduit. She will come for you when she hears you screaming."

Manolito felt his heart jump, but he kept his expression the same, careful to keep his gaze filled with contempt and not blink at the revelation. He had expected it, but hearing it brought fear for MaryAnn. He pushed emotion down somewhere deep and faced the master vampire. "It will be interesting to see you do that."

"At this very moment my puppets do my bidding, attacking her while your body lies vulnerable. We will burn it and there will be no hope for your return. She will hear you screaming and she will merge with you fully as she did before. Once she is here, we can use her living spirit to return."

Manolito tasted fear now, but he forced his heart to beat with an easy rhythm. "And just how do you intend to make me scream, Maxim? So far you have failed utterly."

Maxim smirked. "There is only one capable of following every path of communication." He waved his arms, satisfaction glowing in his eyes. "Meet Draven Dubrinsky, Mikhail's older brother."

Manolito turned, and Vlad's son stood behind him, glowing with the power of his family's legacy, his eyes bright with hatred, his handsome face twisted with malice.

"She will come for you," he agreed. He stood tall, his arms out from his side, and Manolito felt the power of his mind-merge the moment it hit him.

Chapter Seventeen

The vampire crashed through what remained of the barrier surrounding MaryAnn, shredding Manolito's safeguards. The creature's talons were extended in an effort to reach Manolito's body as it sat on the deck high in the canopy. The werewolf met the undead in midair, the two slamming together, the wolf driving the

vampire backward with the force of her forward momentum. Like a child protecting a cub, she slashed relentlessly at the vampire as they fell together.

They dropped toward the forest floor, the wolf on top of the undead, the two writhing forms breaking branches as the vampire hit bough after bough with his back as they fell one hundred and fifty feet. All around them the jungle came alive with the noise of the battle, the shriek of hundreds of birds, the cries of the monkeys, the growls of the vampire and the crack of splintering wood as they plummeted the distance.

The vampire clamped his spikes of teeth into the wolf's shoulder and tore, savaging with talons, raking at the wolf's belly. MaryAnn felt the talons digging deep; she could even hear the sound of flesh and fur being torn from the wolf. Her stomach lurched, but the wolf knocked the head aside, tearing the teeth from her shoulder, ignoring the blossoming pain as flesh shredded and blood spattered across the leaves.

The vampire hit the ground, half-formed, trying to dissolve out from under the wolf, but MaryAnn's