Dark Curse Page 0,3

snarled, his lips drawing back to reveal his stained teeth.

"Get over here!" His face was a mask of hatred. "You are nothing, cheap fodder to feed the genius of my existence. Nothing! A worm crawling on the ground to service greatness."

He pointed to the ice and for a moment she thought to fight his power.

No! You must do as he says. He cannot know the power within you. He will imprison you as Xavier has done to us. This is your chance, Lara.

Aunt Bronnie's voice whispered, cajoled, pleaded and even ordered. All of that would never have been enough to overcome Lara's instincts for survival and her revulsion of the knife and Razvan, but there was stark fear underlying each word her aunt spoke to her. Lara allowed her body to bend, to go to all fours, to crawl across the ice floor, the cold piercing her knees. She allowed the sensation, not regulating her body temperature so the distraction of the cold helped to calm her.

Razvan stood for a moment, hunched over, whispering to himself, his eyes going from blue to green. Lara winced. Her eyes often changed color depending upon her mood, and it was the one thing that tied her to Razvan, the one trait she had to acknowledge they shared-and that meant the blood of a monster ran in her veins.

He stooped, a strange expression on his face as he glanced around the chamber. One hand dropped to the top of her head, his palm stroking what could have been a caress over her coppery curls. He spoke in a whisper, his voice rusty and hoarse. "Get out. Get out before you are consumed."

Lara blinked up at him, puzzled by the strange ritual he always invoked before he caught her by her thin shoulders and yanked her to her feet. His eyes glowed a ruby red, shining with madness as he turned her wrist up and slashed the blade across it.

She cried out, tried to suppress the shock of panic and pain as the knife cut through flesh to bone, freeing the screams of multiple victims, the shadows of life still clinging to the weapon that had tortured and killed them. Razvan pressed her wrist to his mouth and began to suck greedily, his teeth biting and scraping as if at a bone. He made hideous slurping noises, the sound mingling with the cries of the dead.

Tears burned behind her lids, blurred her vision and choked in her throat. The aunts were right, she had to escape. It mattered little what was waiting in the outside world, she couldn't survive this torment day after day.

Stay strong. He is nearly sated.

She clung to that, knowing that the aunts always were aware when Razvan was about to stop feeding. She felt weak and dizzy, her knees sagging. And then everything in her went still. The hair on the back of her neck rose. Goose bumps rose on her arms and a shiver of apprehension slid down her spine.He was coming. If Razvan was a monster, her greatgrandfather was the living epitome of evil. She could feel his presence long before he ever entered the chamber.

Razvan shuddered visibly as he lifted his head and shoved Lara behind him. Lara swept her tongue across the wound, the healing agents in her saliva sealing her skin.

The scent of decayed flesh heralded Xavier's arrival. He entered, his emaciated body bent over, one hand wrapped around a walking stick as he shuffled into the chamber. The walking stick was a weapon of amazing power and could be-and often was-wielded to administer pain. The long robes covering the thin body rustled with every step, swishing across the ice floor, picking up crystals so that the hem collected shards and splinters of glistening white. The long white beard was nearly to the old man's waist. His image was blurry as he moved, but if she looked hard enough she could see the rotting flesh beneath the glamour.

Lara felt the surge of power and knew it emanated from the walking stick rather than from her great-grandfather. Razvan cowered from the old man as he approached. She knew Xavier was the oldest mage, the master of both white and black magic. His teachings had been the foundation of not only the race of mages, but of the Carpathian people as well. Her aunts had educated her in the terrible family history of kidnap, rape, murder and war. All because of this one man and his search for