“Why do you look so worried? You need for this man of yours to be strong. You’re in an untenable position, Vasi. You have to protect everyone, and suddenly you’ve become vulnerable through no fault of your own. You are going to need help. His help. All along, you must have known this. Your mother must have told you when she said he was coming.”
Vasilisa pushed back her dark hair. “I had my girlish fantasies,” she admitted. “It isn’t the same thing as facing a real living man in the flesh. For all I know, he could be a raving madman bent on ruling me. You know that’s not going to happen.”
Sorina smiled. “I know he might try. He’s Carpathian. The males were born with an attitude. They speak the ritual binding words and you’re stuck together. That gives them an advantage.”
“Carpathian?” Vasilisa all but spat the word at her. “I don’t want him to be Carpathian. Do you know how much trouble I have as it is hiding what I am from my brothers? From my people? Can you imagine what it would be like trying to hide it from him? I don’t think you can have secrets from Carpathians.”
Sorina shook her head. “You’re right about that. For one thing, he wouldn’t stand for it, and for another, he’ll be able to read your mind.”
“Just great. I mean, that’s just great.” Vasilisa slumped back in her chair. “As if I didn’t have enough problems. I’m going to avoid him.”
“What does the chariot mean as far as the relationship goes?” Sorina sounded curious.
Vasilisa looked at her suspiciously. “Did you just read my mind?”
“No, of course not. I promised you I wouldn’t unless you gave me your permission. It’s just that if you’re going to believe in the cards, you have to actually believe everything, not just pick and choose what you want to take from them.”
Vasilisa waved her hands in the air. “It doesn’t always work like that, Sorina. Card readings are never absolute.”
“Most cards readings aren’t, because they aren’t your card readings,” Sorina corrected. “You don’t want to tell me.”
Vasilisa sighed. She didn’t want to tell her, but she knew she was going to, so she might as well get it over with. “Fine. It’s time to move forward with confidence in my relationship. But that could mean our relationship. My relationship with my brothers.”
Sorina’s laughter was bright. Joyous. Musical. The sound, although soft, dispersed the blanket of negativity in the room, replacing it with cheer. The flames in the fireplace responded, leaping and springing higher, throwing orange and red figures dancing on the walls. The competing conversations vying for air space grew animated and happy, voices soaring with enthusiasm.
“You don’t lie very well,” Sorina told her.
Vasilisa flung herself backward in her chair again. “I know. I’ve never been able to tell a decent lie. I used to try, but I always got caught. Fine. I’ve got this impression of a massive man. Not in terms of his body but his brain. One who is very intelligent, quick-witted and stubborn as hell. He goes his own way.” She frowned, concentrating. “I just got a small glimpse of him, but his mind is a minefield.”
“What does that mean?”
“All joking aside, he’s scary, Sorina, and very dangerous. I just caught a glimpse of what he’s capable of.”
“When a Carpathian male is born, his soul is split. He retains the darkness, and the light is given to the female to protect. It is his responsibility to find her. He loses his ability to see in color and feel emotion when he is around two hundred years old. Sometimes it happens to him much earlier, depending on the circumstances. He hunts the vampire and searches for his lifemate. There is only one woman who can restore color and emotions back into his life. If he lives for centuries, can you imagine how difficult it would be killing old friends or even those he grew up with in his family? Seeing people from his village die? It wouldn’t matter if he had emotions or not, it would still register somewhere.”
Truthfully, Vasilisa couldn’t imagine such an existence. “Why in the world would fate complicate his life even more by matching him with someone like me? I’m the absolute worst of the worst as far as matches go.”
Sorina shrugged. “You may think that . . .”
“I know it. He’ll be under such scrutiny. The moment I show any interest at all in a male, my brothers are going to study him with a magnifying glass. You know they will. Then it will be the villagers. Not one or two, all of them. And we don’t know if we’re compatible. I’ve become someone different. He might not like that.”
Suddenly, a headache came out of nowhere, her temple pounding. It came on fast, a hard punch over her left eye that felt as if someone had shoved a hot poker into her skin, right through her bone. It was excruciatingly painful, so much so that she clapped her palm over the offending spot with a soft cry.
“What is it?” Sorina asked.
“Pain,” she managed to gasp out. “It’s bad.”
Sorina reached out and gently removed Vasilisa’s hand to place her two fingers over the pounding spot. She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply. “Vasi, let me in for just a moment.”
Vasilisa hesitated and then opened her mind to her friend. The pain was so bad she knew she needed help. She didn’t want to cause a scene in front of everyone. At the moment, they were in a secluded corner where no one was paying attention to them, but if she began vomiting, everyone would look.
“This isn’t your pain,” Sorina said. “This is his. You have to disconnect from him. You’re feeling a kind of echo of what he’s enduring.”
“His pain? What’s happening to him? What do you mean, echo?” If she was feeling just a portion of what he was feeling, he needed help. She had to find him. She kept one hand pressed tightly over her eye.
“He’s in some kind of battle. Sit down, Vasi. That’s what these men do. They go after vampires. Evidently, he’s found one.”
“You don’t know that. He’s in wolf country. He could have stumbled onto a large pack.” She sank back into the chair she hadn’t realized she’d vacated.
“It didn’t feel like wolves to me.”
“Or worse. When the earthquake occurred, it opened a vent to the underground. I think something evil is escaping,” Vasilisa continued. “He could need assistance. That’s what I’m trained for. Even if he’s an expert in vampire fighting, it isn’t the same thing as battling demons from the underworld.”
She rubbed at her head and started to make a deliberate attempt to disconnect from the man who she was supposedly destined to be with for the rest of her life. She stopped. She would need a way to find him. Perhaps distancing herself just a little bit would ease the ache in her head.