“I don’t have anything to prove to him,” Artur snapped, almost gleeful, although he shot a glance toward the door behind him, as if Sergey Malinov might step through at any moment.

Dragomir inched closer to the open door. Inside he could see a second female, and this one looked very young, maybe in her early twenties. She was chained to the wall and hadn’t fared any better than the other woman, maybe worse. She’d been severely beaten. Her face was swollen and bruised. Streaks of blood were smeared at her rib cage and along her right arm, where there was a large cut.

Eugen stomped back to the girl and grabbed her throat, his thumb forcing her face up. “If you don’t give Sergey the information he wants this time, I’m going to hurt you like you’ve never been hurt.” A malicious smile revealed his spiked, stained teeth. “Or I’ll tell him you’ve deceived him all this time and you don’t know how to undo Xavier’s spell.”

Dragomir had continued floating, inching his way around Eugen, but that brought him up short. Xavier had been one of the most powerful mages ever born. He was wholly evil and had almost succeeded in stamping out the Carpathian people.

There was a stir behind him and both vampires trembled, fear removing the cocky looks on their faces. Eugen had always been a fighter. He was no newly turned vampire. In fact, Dragomir would have thought he was well on his way to becoming a master vampire, yet whoever was coming to the chamber had inspired pure fear. It permeated both rooms. Even the two women looked scared.

Artur quickly began to lay out a tray with instruments of torture. That was purely psychological for the humans. No vampire needed such things to hurt a victim. Dragomir studied the older woman. Her gaze was glued to the door, but he felt a warning, a distinct push to leave the chamber. To leave the women to their fate.

Everything in him stilled when he felt that delicate push. He studied the woman much more closely, moving slowly to the cage. She wasn’t human, this one. She was ancient. A Carpathian. The Malinovs had a Carpathian woman in their possession. He couldn’t begin to recognize her. He’d been gone far too long to identify her. He’d heard news, of course, of lost women, those who had disappeared, but too many centuries had gone by. He didn’t remember who they were or if they’d been found.

Eugen’s fingers tightened around the throat of the girl hanging by chains on the wall. He squeezed down hard, cutting off her airway. Immediately the woman in the cage reacted, throwing herself at the bars, kicking at them. She didn’t call out or speak, but she made such a ruckus with her body against the bars that Eugen whirled around with a hiss.

“Stop it or I’ll kill her.”

Instantly the woman in the cage subsided. The girl in chains gasped for breath, coughed, wheezed and then drew in a lungful of air. The outside door to the chamber opened and Sergey Malinov strode in. Dragomir had encountered him several times. In the pack of five brothers, Sergey had never stood out. He seemed to disappear when there was a fight and almost never voiced his opinion, preferring to follow his brothers’ lead.

The temperature in the chamber dropped several degrees. Sergey looked handsome, a man made for the present century. He first looked to the woman in the cage. He smiled at her, and bowed slightly, an old-world, courtly gesture. “Good evening, Elisabeta, I trust you slept well.”

The woman inclined her head, but didn’t speak. Her eyes, on Sergey through lowered lashes, held a kind of terror, yet there was defiance in every line of her body.

Sergey’s eyebrows went up. “Really, Elisabeta, I tire of your continued behavior. This girl is not a good influence on you.”

Elisabeta seemed to shrink, looking smaller and defeated.

Sergey turned to the vampire standing beside the girl in the second chamber. “Have you gotten the information I require?”

Eugen turned stark white beneath the sallow, grayish skin. “There hasn’t been enough time. She is strong and doesn’t react to the —”

Sergey raised his hand, one finger apart from the others, his nail a long, thick talon. He slashed down, and Eugen screamed as the good side of his face was torn nearly in two. The master vampire did it casually, with no expression on his face, sending a chill through Dragomir. Sergey wasn’t weaker or less dangerous than his brothers. This man was fully in control. Fully in charge. Those in the chamber knew it. Both women had gone utterly still, as if faced with a venomous viper, and neither wanted to draw his attention.

Sergey ignored Eugen to focus on the girl. At once the chains holding her began to smoke. She gasped but didn’t cry out. The skin on her wrists where the cuffs held her began to blister.

“I suggest, Julija, that you give me what I want, or you are of no use to me. I have run out of patience.” He snapped his fingers, and the chains fell to the dirt floor and slithered there like snakes. He pointed to the stone table behind him and the girl’s body jerked and then began to come toward him, one unwilling step at a time.

Sergey had escaped death several times, and watching the casual way he wielded power, Dragomir was reminded of Xavier, and recalled that Sergey had a splinter of the high mage in him. He had obviously utilized it, learning from it. This was a dangerous adversary. Clearly he had been all along, but none of the hunters had recognized that he was far more powerful than his brothers. More cunning – hiding his skills and biding his time. He allowed his brothers to shine, to be the most feared while he worked in the background. That made him the most unusual vampire in the history of Carpathians.

Was he hiding those same skills from his brothers? Dragomir compared him to Vadim. Vadim was always the one in charge. He directed everyone, including Sergey, taking the lion’s share of whatever they received for himself. He was always the first to feed and the one to make the decisions. Vadim considered his brother as less than himself – and he was making a big mistake. Sergey was recruiting quietly behind his brother’s back. He had a plan, a strategy, and so far, it seemed to be working.

Before Dragomir made a move, he had to determine just what was going on. He needed information. He would have to send for backup in case one of the vampires escaped the chambers, but that required energy and Sergey would feel it. He remained very still. If Sergey tried to kill the girl he would have no choice but to intervene immediately, information, backup or not.

Julija made it to the stone table, her eyes on Sergey the entire way. There was fear, but there was defiance. She was a fighter, this one, and she was angry.

From the cage came waves of soothing peace. The feeling settled over all of them, vampire, hunter and enraged female. Sergey glanced up, his face softening. He smiled at Elisabeta.

“I see you are determined to work your magic on all of us, my dear. You don’t have a mean bone in your body. I would give you anything you asked, but this one continues to defy me. We must move you. We must find a way. Vadim wants this part of the city abandoned. If he knew I was returning here, he would know I had a very good reason, and he would find you. I keep you safe from him. The least you can do is be grateful and tell this idiot mage to give us the proper spell. She isn’t helping us, Elisabeta, and I cannot have that.”

“If you move her, you know you will hide her away somewhere the Carpathian hunters will never find her,” Julija said. “Giving you the spell will harm her, not help her.”

Sergey turned the power of his penetrating glare on the mage girl. Both Eugen and Artur took a step back as if any moment he would explode into violence. “I spent a good many years searching for a direct descendant of Xavier…”

“Well, you didn’t find one.”

The vampire’s hand struck like lightning, slapping her face and then catching her arm, turning it over to show the mark on her forearm. “This is the mark of a high mage. You must be born with it. No one can wear such a mark without a direct lineage.” He hissed each word. Enunciated as if she were a child and wouldn’t understand.

“I am aware I was born with the mark,” Julija answered. She didn’t touch her reddened cheek. She didn’t rub at the blisters circling her wrists. She stared up at the vampire with a calmness that belied her years. “I am the direct descendant of Xaviero. Or perhaps Xayvion.” She shrugged. “Maybe I am from Xavier’s bloodline. Who knows? I understand they liked to share. At least Xaviero and Xayvion did. In any case, I am far more powerful than you know.”