an effort to restrain him, but Terry was amazingly strong for someone so injured, fighting free and leaping with outstretched hands, already curved into claws at Mikhail's eyes.
Nicolas waved his hand at exactly the same moment Gregori did. Lara whispered a shielding spell, her hands weaving a complicated pattern. Terry slammed into an invisible barrier. Teeth rattling, eyes spinning in his head, he rammed his skull over and over into the shield protecting the prince.
Gerald staggered across the bed, trying to control him, but Terry punched at his face, still growling like a rabid animal. Gerald fell back across the bed and Terry resumed head-butting the invisible wall to get at the prince.
Lara reached for Terry's mind in an attempt to calm him. She touched his mind gently, in reassurance. At once a boiling ball of parasites reacted to her presence, twisting and thrashing in a frenzy of venomous need. One moment she was in Terry's head, the next she found herself thrown out, a hard male shove sending her careening out of Terry's brain.
She spun around to glare at Nicolas. She was beginning to recognize his touch. He didn't spare her a glance, his entire attention on controlling Terry. She glanced over at Gregori. The healer actually had Mikhail pressed against the wall, but the concentration on his face indicated he was with Nicolas, restraining Terry.
Terry lay back on the bed, eyes unfocused, but his body calm, no longer fighting. Lara let her breath out slowly. Gregori motioned to Mikhail to leave and Mikhail flicked one look at him. He wasn't going anywhere and it was evident on his face-in his eyes.
"Get to work," Mikhail ordered.
Gregori shrugged his broad shoulders and once more, using pure healing energy, entered Terry's body.
"What's going on?" Gerald asked, scrambling off the bed and moving around the Carpathian healer toward Lara.
Nicolas glided, cutting off Gerald's route. "You have blood all over your shirt. You should go take a shower."
"He's right, Gerald," Lara agreed. "It isn't safe. Burn your clothes. Anything you were wearing today."
Gerald halted, glanced at Terry, yanked the door open and hurried out to his room across the hall.
Lara leaned one hip against the wall and watched as Nicolas joined Gregori, the two of them working furiously, in tandem, to save Terry's life. And it was a struggle for his life-for his soul. The parasites were desperate to take him over, to possess his body and mind and turn him to their master's bidding.
The men worked nonstop, and time slipped away. Both grew paler until they were nearly gray in color and eventually sank onto the bed beside Terry. Mikhail once again calmly tore at his wrist and pressed his offering to Nicolas.
She tried not to look at the bright red blood. She tried not to see Nicolas holding the prince's arm, his fingers gripping as the life force flowed from Mikhail into him, yet she was mesmerized and couldn't look away.
Her wrist burned. Her lungs burned. She shivered, her body cold no matter how much she tried to restore and equalize her body's temperature. The walls around her curved and took on a bluish tinge. She sucked in her breath, trying to focus on the wall above the prince, but her gaze-and mind-were continually pulled back to the sight of the blood where it trickled down on his arm, smeared a little on Nicolas's fingers and dripped to the floor.
Her stomach lurched. Desperate, she locked on to Terry's face. That, too, was a mistake. She imagined the parasites swarming through his bloodstream to his every organ, launching a massive attack, fighting the healer and Nicolas for possession of him.
Sweat beaded on her forehead. Terry's face wavered, his boyish features changing, morphing until he was undeniably handsome, with blazing turquoise eyes and midnight black hair spilling across his forehead. The hair streaked with waves of silver. The eyes opened and locked with hers.
Her breath caught in her lungs. Agony there. Awareness. Impotent fury. Fear. So much fear the room filled with it. The walls bulged outward, unable to contain such terror.
Run. Run, Lara. Hide. She heard the sob in his voice, the overwhelming horror.
Nicolas found himself shivering with cold in an ice chamber. Chained to a wall, arms and chest burning from links coated with acidic vampire blood, Razvan fought to maintain possession of his own soul. Agony lived in his eyes and his black hair banded with platinum.
Lara. The voice whispered with love. With fear. With despair.Baby. Run. He is coming