Zacarias frowned. What was Ruslan playing at? Testing him to see if he had emotions? If he had a lifemate? Every other De La Cruz brother had found his lifemate. Ruslan would hate them all the more for that. He believed himself superior to all of them - so why shouldn't he have the women? Zacarias and his family were unworthy of such things.

"I thought more of you, Ruslan. This is a tired trick. Show yourself and be done with it." For the first time he realized that not feeling emotion without Marguarita locked to him could be more than a curse. Ruslan could not endanger what he did not know of.

Zacarias waved his hand with a true casualness, as if that perfect image of his father didn't bother him at all - and in truth - he felt nothing at all at the sight of the man who had been his childhood hero. His wave removed the illusion and revealed Ruslan's true form. For one second he stood stripped of civility, his body rotted through with a thousand maggots crawling through him. His face was pitted with holes, his eyes sunken and his teeth blackened and

serrated, pointed like ice picks sticking up through his gums.

In the time it took Zacarias to blink, that image changed as if it had never been. Ruslan stood before him as he had all those centuries ago. Young. Virile. His face without lines, almost beautiful rather than handsome. Zacarias looked rugged and older in comparison, lines etched into his face and a few scars intersecting here and there.

"I see your vanity has not changed at all," Zacarias greeted. "You did so love your pretty face. I suppose that is half the reason you chose to become vampire."

Ruslan brushed back his long length of hair. "At least you still know pretty from ugly. I have long kept tabs on you, old friend. You refuse to join us and you refuse to die. In all the centuries you have never stayed in one place more than a single night or at best two. Yet here you remain." He swept his arm toward the hacienda and the wind changed course, following his direction, taking with it dozens of small fireballs to rain down across the pastures and structures.

Zacarias sent the rain in a fast deluge, putting out the small fires immediately. He flexed his shoulders, now burned through to bone with a thousand brands from the acid rain and the small, pebble-sized fireballs Ruslan was now using against the ranch.

"We can do this all night, but surely you did not think I would be impressed by such childish games? I play them with your puppets, but they are not really worthy of my attention. I thought at last I might have an opponent of merit."

"You do not heal your wounds."

Had there been a hint of eagerness in Ruslan's tone? Zacarias shrugged again. "I do not feel such things, so how necessary is it really?" He observed Ruslan closely, watching the vampire's nostrils flaring and his tongue continually licking at his lips. "Does the scent of my blood bother you?"

Ruslan shook his head. Shook it again. Much like a twitch he couldn't stop. The licking of his lips continued compulsively. "No more than the scent of any blood I consume. You have not fed this night. I offer my blood."

"How very gentlemanly of you." Zacarias gave a short, mock bow. "What do you want, Ruslan? I grow weary of your games. Have you come for deliverance? Justice? I'll be more than happy to send you from this earth if that is what you wish."

" Justice is a good word to use for a betrayer of friendship. Of brotherhood. You turned on us and made an alliance with that brat of a prince. He is worse than his father before him." Ruslan spat a mouthful of wriggling white worms.

Zacarias shrugged. "What is it then?"

"I had long thought to have you join our ranks, but you never came. Then you sent me such an insult, destroying my army to the last puppet."

"They were merely pawns you sent to test me. You expected me to kill them. Cannon fodder, Ruslan, nothing more. Your silly plot to kill the prince didn't work. You had to know testing it on me would prove that to be so."

"You were never supposed to be there." Ruslan's voice rose to a higher note. His beautiful mask slipped a little. The trees shivered as he shrieked out his rising anger. He could barely contain his rage, his fingers curling into tight fists. "You never spend time with your brothers. You never stay in one place. Why? Why would you change your pattern after so many centuries? Did you do so just to irk me?"

"You flatter yourself, Ruslan. I do not give as much thought to you as you give me credit for. I am a hunter - nothing more and nothing less."

All the while he spoke, Zacarias didn't allow himself to focus wholly on Ruslan. The vampire had traps just waiting to be sprung. He noticed every detail, including the rising wind. It was subtle, but the grass bent just that little bit more toward him. The leaves fluttered and spun, a strange grayish when they had been a dull, muddy greenish-brown.

The wind teased the ground around his feet, stirring the leaves and vegetation on the forest floor. Strangler vines shivered. Flowers winding up tree trunks lost petals. To Zacarias they looked like white-gray ash falling to the forest floor.

"You have not told me why you stayed here, old friend," Ruslan coaxed. "It is odd behavior for you."

Zacarias shrugged his shoulders, loosening his muscles. "A bit of an injury, but nothing for you to worry about. Plenty of ready sustenance while I recouped. Have no worries, I am in top condition now."

Ruslan clucked his tongue. "That was not what was reported to me. My men have much to answer for. I was told your injuries are still quite severe."

"Do not believe such tales. I would not want you to worry, Ruslan, about your old friend. I am quite capable of bringing justice to every undead who walks this earth."

Flames leaped to life in Ruslan's eyes. He grimaced and once again that handsome mask slipped revealing blackened, serrated teeth and muddy receding gums. His fingers twitched, and then closed once more into a tight fist.

The wind tugged harder at the debris on the forest floor. Zacarias felt a jab of pain, which he instantly stemmed as something large went through his leg. Glancing down he saw creeper vines rising and writhing together, coiling around and through his leg, starting at his foot and ankle. They grew together, and through his flesh, driving like spears to weave in and out of his leg, making him a part of the new plant.

The vines were covered in moss resembling scales with little hooks. Every scale had snapped up as the thing snaked up and through his leg, hooking into his flesh. He attempted to shift and found his leg was held fast, as the vines growing through his leg locked him in place.

Immediately he knew something alive was being injected into him, tiny bodies running beneath his skin, boring into muscle and tissue, digging deeper still. He ignored the sensation. More than likely the object was to

weaken him, bleed him, until he was unable to effectively fight Ruslan while the vine literally held him in place, making him part of its structure.

The master vampire was too experienced to directly challenge him in hand-to-hand combat. He would trade blows from a distance and continue his battle plan of nipping at Zacarias, taking bites out of him until he was certain the hunter was unable to defend himself. Only then would he move in for the kill.

The strategy had one flaw. Zacarias was a single-minded hunter. His body meant nothing to him. Only the kill mattered and he would kill Ruslan Malinov. Nothing else in that moment could concern him. Ignoring the vine winding up his leg, now almost to his thigh, he raised his own hands toward the rain forest and called his own weapon.

The wind shifted back toward Ruslan, a swift change, giving him no time to gloat. The sky around the vampire darkened as thousands of tiny biting flies swarmed over and into Ruslan. Every rotting hole provided an entrance, his mouth, eyes and nostrils. Illusions didn't matter, they saw only rotting flesh.

Like tiny missiles they torpedoed deep into Ruslan's body, breeding as they went, depositing larvae and reproducing at a rapid rate. The flies multiplied even as they attacked. Ruslan tore at his chest, sharp nails slashing his face open, giving Zacarias the necessary time to study the vine growing through his leg.

It was a simple enough trap, utilizing what was already in place. The plants were dead, as were the leaves and vegetation lying on the forest floor. In order to breathe life into them, Ruslan had to put some small part of himself into those dead plants. The leaves on the forest floor continued to feed the vines, so that they bored through skin and muscle driving deeper still until they emerged on the other side.

Zacarias let go of his physical self in order for his spirit to enter his body. The vines winding their way through his body, stabbing and spearing through flesh and bone moved toward one thing - the small light of his spirit in him. Granted, without Marguarita, that light was small, but it was there, keeping his honor. The tiny bugs consuming his insides were also sustained by that light. Zacarias took a deep breath and let go of life. All life. He stopped his heart for a moment, refused to allow air through his lungs. The plant loosened immediately, but when he forced his body to work again, the bugs continued to feast.

Zacarias was mostly darkness. Shadows and stains, tainted in a way few if any other hunters were. That darkness was the very thing that allowed him to ignore such wounds, such excruciating pain. He was already part of that world. His father had been legendary with amazing skills in battle, but he was the only Carpathian Zacarias knew of who carried shadows within his soul - until his son had been born.

Now, deliberately, Zacarias reached for those shadows - embraced them - let himself lose all light, drawing on the darkness that seemed to make up so much of him for aid. The moment all light within him was extinguished, the bugs began to die. The shadows were too dark to keep them alive. The plant lost its ability to continue growing, and with an already loosened hold on him, Zacarias was able to sheer off the outer woven branches, leaving the vines still inside his body.

There had to be a source for bringing the dead leaves and vines to life. Zacarias was a hunter and he scented the undead immediately, a small slice of Ruslan giving life to his creation. Ruslan couldn't sustain being in two places at one time, not while fighting off the attack of tiny flies. It took only moments to slay that dark force and take control of the vine within his body. Ignoring Ruslan's scream of fury and promises of retaliation, Zacarias changed the molecules of the remaining plant, reshaping, absorbing, utilizing the thick vines inside him to replace the muscle and tissue lost. He could do nothing about the blood loss, but anything natural and of the earth was within his ability to manipulate.

The moment his body was healed, he attacked without hesitation, a blur of motion, speeding across the distance between the vampire and himself, closing fast. Ruslan shrieked and rushed toward him. Thunder cracked. Shook the earth. Lightning sizzled across the sky in great whips as the two crashed together.

Zacarias drove deep with his fist, piercing the rotted chest. Acid blood poured over him, burning through skin to bone. He hit something solid, abruptly stopping his attack, preventing him from reaching the blackened heart. The jar rode up his arm, and a burning vise fused around his arm sending waves of pain he cut off. The tiny stinging flies took to the air in a black swarm, closing around both vampire and hunter. It was difficult not to breathe them into his lungs. Talons tore at his chest, carving out great chunks of skin and muscle.

Zacarias dissolved, allowing the wind to take him away from Ruslan, giving himself time to temporarily heal injuries and to keep as much blood as possible from leaking onto the ground. Ruslan licked at his fingers, his tongue long and obscenely thick, forked like a serpent's. His face no longer wore his mask of beauty. The real vampire was revealed.

Zacarias had seen his share of rotting corpses, but nothing equaled Ruslan Malinov. Flesh peeled off of him. Worms crawled through gaping holes in his flesh. His mouth was more of a gaping hole, without lips, his eyes sunken. Every living thing shrunk from him, grass withering, ferns and moss going muddy brown. Even the insects scurried away. Only the black flies persisted, feasting on the rotting flesh and depositing as many eggs as possible in the blackened organs.

"You really have let yourself go, old friend," Zacarias observed. "I think your arm is about to fall off."

Ruslan roared, the threat rumbling through the forest, shaking the trees. He raised his arms, up and down, palms pointed to the sky. All around Zacarias the leaves rustled, came to life, whirling and flying with the chaos Ruslan created. It was impossible to see through the whipping leaves as they stacked and formed one creature after another.

He extended his arms and closed his eyes, removing the distraction of thousands of leaves coming alive around him. He reached with his other senses to find the threat within the moving debris. The figures surrounded the entire area, forming a loose ring and adding numbers inside the circle until the forest was populated with great monsters all moving toward him. The shadows in him called to the darkness in them. Ruslan had learned quickly.

"I fear it matters little how I look to you, Zacarias. My little army does not care, either. I have no need to expend energy for your last moments. You should have joined me. In truth, you have always had the darkness in you - far more than I ever had. This was your legacy, the greatest gift of your father yet you refused to embrace it." There was real contempt in Ruslan's voice. "You had greatness handed to you, but you chose to be a martyr, suffering alone while I have whatever I want."

Zacarias slowly opened his eyes, smiling, knowing his white teeth were a stark contrast to Ruslan's blackened, gaping maw and that small detail would prick Ruslan's vanity as nothing else could.

"I cannot fear you, Ruslan. I cannot feel what you do to me. I do not care about anything other than destroying you. You think you have the advantage, but in fact, I do. You want to continue your pitiful existence. You seek power. You wish to rule the world. To destroy the prince. To kill me."

Zacarias's smile turned as cold as ice. "So many wishes, when I have only one. Your death. You are kuly  - nothing more, an intestinal worm, a demon who devours souls. You are truly h?n ku vie elidet  - a thief of life and for that, I pronounce sentence on you."

The dead and rotting vegetation, collected over hundreds, perhaps thousands of years went into a frenzy, flapping arms and growing teeth as they shuffled toward him. Zacarias sent the wind, but the leaf creatures weren't in the least affected, holding their own against the blast.

Ruslan's laughter grated on the ears of any within hearing range. Joyfully he danced around. "I do not think it will be me who dies this night, hunter."

The creatures closed in, making the air stagnant, oppressive, smelling of dead, rotting things. He needed something completely the opposite to oppose Ruslan's force, giving him the necessary time to kill the vampire. Deliberately Ruslan had preyed on his worst secrets, those shadows cutting through his body, taking his soul.

Now was not the time for pride. Or for fear. He was a hunter and he had no choice but to use every resource possible. Ruslan Malinov was the biggest threat to the Carpathian people. Without him, the army of vampires would diminish, giving Mikhail, the

prince, time to bring together his people and shore up all defenses.

He did the unthinkable. Marguarita. You must wake.

He could not allow himself to think of her and what she might go through upon waking beneath the ground. She was human and he had already asked so much of her. This vampire was responsible for bringing the Carpathian people to near extinction. He could not escape no matter the cost to the hunter - or his beloved lifemate.

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