Dark Slayer Page 0,64

slammed his head against Razvan's. He tried to dissolve, but the coated arrowheads prevented his chest from shifting to vapor. Raking at Razvan with talons, he tore the flesh from the heavy muscles covering Razvan's chest in an effort to dig through and get to his heart. Razvan yanked his arm back, using more strength than he had thought it would take. The heart was black, but still a normal size.

"Do not look at it. Incinerate it," Ivory said.

Razvan called down the lightning, careful to keep it from striking anything but the vampire and his heart. He bathed his arms and hands in the white-hot energy field. "Controlling the lightning is difficult. I almost missed and nearly hit you."

"I was prepared for it." She sighed and regarded him with worried eyes. "Hesitation can get you killed. You were on him fast enough, but you cannot count him dead until the heart is incinerated. You should have burned that first. A more experienced vampire would have repaired himself while you were still marveling at your work."

Razvan laughed aloud. Killing vampires was dirty work. The fetid breath and claws tearing into his chest and belly had been both frightening and exhilarating. He'd done it. He'd killed his first vampire. It hadn't been a perfect kill, but he had destroyed the undead and saved the farmer. It felt good to do something positive instead of waking up to find that his body had impregnated a woman, or delivered a poisonous blow to his sister or her lifemate. There was no way to tell Ivory how he was feeling, so he didn't try. He flashed her a smile and bowed.

"I will remember."

She was certain he would. He looked so happy standing in that bare, run-down stable with his clothes torn to shreds and his blood streaking his chest and arms and belly. She ran her worried gaze over him. Blood dripped steadily, but there was light in his eyes and in his mind. He made her feel humble with his simple pleasure in doing something she considered a job. He considered it good.

"Thank you for allowing me the experience. It is the only way I will learn to become an asset on our hunt."

Ivory shrugged, feigning indifference when everything feminine and nothing warrior about her was reacting to that look in his eyes. "It was your plan," she pointed out.

He flashed a half grin at her, shrugging modestly. "In the old days, before I realized Xavier was in my mind, I was good at planning battles. I kept myself sane, exploring his weaknesses, and everyone else's as well. The vampires. Carpathians. Even the Lycans. But one day I realized that whenever I discovered that Xavier had a weakness it suddenly would be found and shored up. I was aiding my own enemy."

She wanted to comfort him, to just wrap her arms around him and hold him close; instead she leaned down to casually pick up her arrowheads and place them in the small pouch at her side. Razvan wasn't asking for pity; he was stating a fact. But it struck like a blow, that boyish memory that had to hurt like hell. "You took the vampire down fairly easily. And that's what counts."

"I am grateful you let me practice on him. Thinking it through in one's head is not the same as actually experiencing it. Taking the heart was harder than I expected. I am strong, and yet you make it look easy when it is not. There must be a trick to it that I have not gotten yet. But I will. I do think I had an advantage in that I can barely feel the burn of the vampire's blood anymore."

To Ivory, it was heartrending that he thought the buildup of scar tissue from his vampire blood-coated chains was an asset. She wanted to weep for him. Instead she forced a casual response. "He was hardly worth messing up my fingernails." She waved her hand and the ashes blew from the rickety building. "Come here. Let me make certain there is no poison in the lacerations."

Razvan crossed to her side without hesitation. He caught her hand to examine her fingernails. "You are right. He was not worth messing them up. You have beautiful nails."

To her consternation he brought her fingertips to his mouth and kissed them. "You forget to warm yourself." He blew on her fingers and then drew them into the warmth of his mouth.

Her heart nearly stopped and then began