Dark Carousel (Dark #30) - Christine Feehan Page 0,10

with deep blues and purples shadowing the dungeonlike décor.

Tariq would never stop until he had her in his hands. She didn’t understand that about him. He was as relentless and as merciless as the raging sea. There was no stopping him once he had his prey in sight. He was Carpathian, hunter of the vampire, and he had survived when most of his kind had long ago succumbed to the lure of power. He had done his duty to his prince and people, keeping his assigned regions clean and safe from the stench of evil.

After all the long centuries, he knew she was close, yet she remained elusive, just out of his reach. He had turned his hunting instincts, honed by centuries of strategy, to finding her. He turned away from the blaring music and the scent of so much blood running hot in veins calling to him. It was a heady temptation he fought continually. Irritated at his inability to find her when she was so close, he wanted to roar his frustration to the night sky. He needed air, needed to go outside and breathe.

Tariq cursed softly in his own language, moving back from the railing into deeper shadows. Just the fact that he could feel frustration meant she was very, very close, and he could hear her voice, although he couldn’t recognize it among all the other voices. He knew she was somewhere in the building, just out of reach, by the way his emotions, long ago gone, slipped in unexpectedly to disrupt his calm, logical thinking. She had to have a strong mind to thwart his many scans of the city in search of her. She was very strong to be able to defy his commands.

He was a powerful being, one very used to getting his way with a minimal amount of effort. He had survived centuries of battles, centuries of no emotions, no color. Always the insidious whispers of the call to evil, to power tempted him, yet he had endured for one reason. A woman. The one woman. His lifemate. Other half to his soul. Only she could restore his world, his life as it was meant to be. He had long ago resigned himself to his fate, endurance in a bleak, harsh world until the temptation of power was too strong. Yet now, when he was so near the end, he sensed her presence, that ripple of hope in a world of emptiness.

“Mataias tracked Vadim Malinov to the harbor,” Maksim reported. “Vadim was always intelligent, even in his younger years. Now, as a master vampire with the splinter from Xavier, one of the most powerful mages ever born, in him, Vadim is proving to be a dangerous adversary. I do not like that he went to the harbor.”

“That would suggest he went out to sea?” Tariq made it a question. His mind should have been on the hunt for the master vampire. Vadim was, without doubt, the greatest threat to the Carpathian and human world since Xavier, the mage. Tariq was too distracted by that fragrance. Now that he’d caught the scent, he knew he had to turn his attention to finding the owner. “She has to be somewhere in the building.”

It was a big building. Enormous. Five stories plus the basement, four of them used for the various clubs and the fifth floor for his personal space. The basement was the underground club, so really, five clubs. Four bars on each of the club floors. Four dance floors on each floor with tables surrounding the inner balconies. Each floor was packed nearly to capacity. Still, he was Carpathian. He could cover a lot of ground fast.

“Go,” Maksim said. “You’re not going to be any good to me until you find that woman. Lojos and Mataias are patrolling tonight and if there is any indication that Vadim’s army is working in our hometown, they’ll find the evidence. It’s been very quiet these last couple of weeks.”

Vadim Malinov, a unique and gifted master vampire, was putting together an army of vampires. He was using the latest technology and even managing to recruit humans to do his bidding. It was unprecedented to do what Vadim had done. He’d fled the Carpathian Mountains, away from the prince of the Carpathian people and the ancient hunters there, to travel to the United States, where he clearly was amassing an army against both Carpathians and humans. He had to be stopped.

Tariq didn’t wait for further conversation. He cloaked