Dark Demon Page 0,64

draining from his body in a long tube.

Father! She screamed it-tried frantically to reach him, but he shook his head and looked straight at her. His eyes clouded and she could see a knife reflected there. It was obviously ancient, ceremonial, the handle studded with gems, the blade slightly curved. The knife spun, pointed at her, turned again so that she could see it from every angle. You want me to find the knife. For a moment the vision held and then the knife wavered and was gone. His gaze dropped to his hands. She saw that he was holding a huge tome. An ancient spell book. It was closed, the cover etched in dark reddish brown stains. The book is important.

A shadowy figure, the man she recognized from her childhood nightmares loomed over Soren. Instinctively Natalya pulled back. Movement must have caught the eye of her father's tormenter, because she saw the dark shape turn toward her and heard a slow hiss of rage. She felt the icy breath of death on her and her spirit trembled.

Graphic images of her father being tortured overwhelmed her. Vivid details of her mother being devoured by vampires followed. Of her father finding her mother, his grief so deep he was nearly insane. Each explicit vignette was in horrifying detail, each worse than the one before until she was paralyzed with grief and horror. She felt the darker shadows tugging and pulling and drawing her to them, but she couldn't move, couldn't break away. Evil laughter echoed. Something clawed at her mind, raked at her.

Natalya! Come to me now! Vikirnoff issued the command with every bit of power he possessed. Her body had begun to fade. It started on her arms, as if something was taking bites of flesh from her, replacing her skin with a thin opaque shell. She was becoming translucent, a ghostly image rather than a flesh-and-blood body.

Fear nearly consuming him, Vikirnoff plunged his mind into hers. Ainaak enyem, I will not let you go. They cannot have you. You are ainaak'sivamet jutta, forever to my heart connected. Come to me now, Natalya, your lifemate commands this.

Guilt and fear warred with self-preservation, but the power of her lifemate was incredible, even there in the realm of past and present. In the midst of a living storm, with the fury of the wind tearing at her, Natalya turned to Vikirnoff. The reassuring warmth of his presence enveloped her, his memories, his character, the way he thought and acted. His integrity and strength of purpose. She focused on his steadfastness. For the first time she was happy that they were connected, that his strength of will could be added to her own.

I can't make myself leave my father.

She couldn't find her way back. She was too exhausted, too tired of being alone. Her father and mother and Razvan were all here, in this place. She could stay with them, be with

them. So many years had gone by with her moving from country to country with no one to talk to, no one to share with. What awaited her but endless loneliness if she returned?

It is another lure, Natalya, an attempt to cloud your thinking. You belong with me. Your father would not want you trapped here with him. You cannot save him. What was done cannot be undone. Come with me, ainaak enyem, merge and become one with me. Vikirnoff used every art he possessed. Beguiling her. Compulsion. Seduction. Commanding-all wrapped together in his softly spoken words, dragging her back up the strands of time through the sheer strength of character and will he had come to possess over so many centuries.

She heard a roar of fury as she moved away from her father and his tormenter, from the tearing claws of the smaller dark shadows, climbing ever higher. The shadows streaked after her, reaching with hands and claws in an attempt to stop her and as she approached her own time, dazzling white orbs spun and beckoned, attempting to lure her with glimpses of the future.

Natalya clung tighter to Vikirnoff, crawling deeper into his mind where she knew she would be safe. Vikirnoff would never abandon her. She closed her mind to the all too-vivid memory of her father's tortured death and embraced life in her own time, whatever that might be. She didn't need to stay in the past. She chose the here and now.

Natalya found herself back in her own body, so weak she would have collapsed onto the