Dark Challenge Page 0,48

only to the Prince - and he sensed the shadow in Julian just as Gregori did.

"And you underestimate your enemies," Darius pointed out, his voice like black velvet. "You are so sure of yourself that you take too few precautions to safeguard the one you have claimed as your own. It was unbelievably easy to unravel your pitiful attempts to divert me."

Julian's white teeth gleamed in the waning moonlight. "I knew you would follow; how could you not when you are responsible for your sister's safety? In any case, you could do no other after the assassins had been allowed to make their attempt on her life." He delivered the blow smiling but without humor. They were indeed playing cat and mouse.

Desari shoved Julian so hard and so unexpectedly, he teetered for a moment on the edge of the porch. "That is it. I have had it with the two of you." She tilted her chin at them. "I will have no more of this nonsense. I will not leave my family at this time, Julian. You can accept my decision and remain with us as a member of our unit, or you can go your own way. If you refuse to accept him, Darius, then I will be given no other option than to follow where he leads." Exasperated, she glared at them. "Get over it already. I mean it."

Julian's mouth twitched, the amber eyes softening with amusement. "Is she always like this? You are a tolerant male to have raised such an impertinent woman."

Desari shoved him again but this time Julian was ready for her, laughing out loud at the eruption of her temper, catching her wrists easily and pulling her into him. "I gave your brother a compliment, caressima." His voice was a tender caress, teasing, fanning smoldering embers within her to instant heat. "Is that not what you wanted?"

She tilted her chin. "That is not exactly what I had in mind, Julian."

"I have not had much experience pleasing women these last few centuries. In truth, I had forgotten how difficult the females of our race could be," Julian told Darius with a straight face.

"Difficult?" Desari was outraged. "You call me difficult when you and my brother were trying to tear each other limb from limb? The males of our race are in dire need of self-control. You have too long had things your own way. It has made you arrogant and conceited and very spoiled."

Darius suddenly moved, his speed incredible even within their race, his body forcing his sister's into the shelter of the porch, down low. "Merge with Savage now, as you did before," he commanded, a hiss of sound in the stillness of the night.

Desari obeyed because she always obeyed Darius, merging her mind completely with Julian's. She expected anger, at the least smoldering resentment at Darius's high-handedness. Instead, she found him on the alert, moving to position himself alongside Darius to protect her. She submerged herself within Julian's mind so that any outside source probing and seeking a feminine touch would get nothing.

She felt the darkness sweeping over the land, the perverted aberration they called the undead. The vile touch of the vampire sickened her as it moved ever closer, searching, always searching. She smelled the stench of evil, the twisted, damned soul of one who always killed his quarry, drained his victim's lifeblood, often after torturing and tormenting the doomed creature.

Sheltered between the two powerful males, Desari was unafraid, but the vileness of the vampire was making her body react, her stomach rolling and heaving. Julian enveloped her mind completely as he had done before, shielding her from the undead as it raced across the sky. Dawn was on the heels of the vampire, and it could not face even the first rays of the sun. It needed to find sanctuary immediately. It passed overhead and was gone, leaving a dark stain in the sky like an oily patch of evil.

"They seek our women," Darius hissed grimly. "Always they track us down. I know it is the women they sense." He sent an urgent inquiry traveling on the wind.

Is Syndil protected? The undead have once again found us.

Julian reluctantly allowed Desari to surface from the total submersion, his arm circling her shoulders protectively. His heart was pounding in alarm. Had the darkness in him brought this vile creature straight to his lifemate? He had to destroy the demon.

The reply to Darius's inquiry came back on the mental path used by the family