Dark Challenge Page 0,100

do hideous things to their captives - the tortures and mutilations you can read about in history books. Some individuals slaughtered countless innocent women and children, drank blood, bathed in it, and feasted on living flesh while the orchestraters, the vampires, looked on and rejoiced. But Gabriel and Lucian were in constant pursuit of these enemies, and the body count the two of them achieved was so high, no one could believe they were real and not some mysterious death winds blowing in and out of villages, leaving little in their wake. Vampires disappeared by the dozens, and legions of their soldiers and demented creatures, mostly noblemen and women, were killed or exposed. War raged everywhere. The damage to humans and Carpathians alike was devastating. Sickness and death followed, homelessness and hunger, savage slavery of the impoverished. It was a hideous, merciless time for all."

"And my kin?"

"Few actually could claim to have laid eyes on them, but they were everywhere, tirelessly destroying the enemy, saving our few remaining women, still without lifemates or hope of their own. It is said they consulted with Gregori and Mikhail at this time, and I witnessed one such meeting right after Mikhail's father was killed trying to save a human village. Shortly after, at Mikhail's order, I was taken from the region and placed in hiding with the remaining children. Mikhail was young to be a leader, but he had vision and realized our people were facing extinction. He and Gregori, the next oldest to survive, moved at once to protect the few surviving women and children. Gregori and Mikhail seldom spoke of the two ancients or that time, perhaps because both had lost - or thought they lost - their own families while trying to save their race. But their skills and accomplishments at such a young age were almost inconceivable."

"And what of the twins?" she prompted, intrigued by this history she had never known, her roots, her bloodline.

"When things finally settled down in Transylvania and Romania, throughout the Carpathian Mountains, it is said the pair traveled to Paris and London and anywhere else in Europe vampires were striving for a foothold. They hunted throughout the continent, always working together as a single unit. The stories of their unearthly powers grew beyond legends to mythology."

Julian moved away from her and shoved a hand through his golden mane. "The rumors started about half a century later. That Lucian had fallen to the dark side. That he was vampire, preying on the human face. No hunter could find him or even his trail. Only Gabriel would have been able. The hunt for Lucian went on for well over a century. It was unlike anything our people had known. Vampires are messy killers, leaving a trail of blood and death recognizable to any of us, exposing us to discovery by mortals and their inevitable mistaken assumptions that vampire and Carpathian are one and the same. In some ways it is fortunate for us that human police often label the murders and mutilations as the work of serial killers or cults. Otherwise we all would be hunted until we were no more.

"But Lucian was unlike any vampire ever known. There is no record of him slaying a woman or child, of creating servants or ghouls. He made hundreds of kills but only among the corrupt, the evil, the scourges of the earth. Many of our hunters were misled, perplexed, and came away thinking perhaps the twins were mythical, not reality. Only Gabriel recognized Lucian's work. Only Gabriel could track him."

"No one else would help him?"

Julian shook his head. "No one else could help him. Gabriel was a legend himself. An angel of death. No one approached him or dared try to ease his task. He pursued Lucian, often found him, but because they were equals, the battles were long and ferocious but never decisive, with both striking terrible blows, only to break apart and attempt to heal themselves for the next battle. It went on for years until, one day, they both simply seemed to vanish off the face of the earth."

Desari's long lashes fluttered for a moment. "That is it? The entire story? They just disappeared?"

"There are many stories our people believe. One is that Gabriel ended Lucian's life and then chose to greet the sun. I believe that is what happened. Ancient as he was, he would have been so close to the darkness himself, and without a lifemate or even his brother to hold