Free Dark Slayer by Christine Feehan Page A

All the while, Sergey stood his ground, his glowing eyes burning, pitiless holes, glaring at Ivory as she rushed him, sword drawn.
    At the last moment, before that tip of a sword could sink into his flesh, he moved so fast he blurred, raking across her face with poison-tipped claws, creating gouges in her skin. She traveled beyond him, somersaulting into the soothing icy powder, coming up on one knee behind him and hurling a much more lethal star toward the back of his neck. It caught him as he spun to face her, a lucky break, the spinning points slicing through the side of his neck, cutting through the jugular.
    Black blood sprayed across the snow and all pretenses of civility and sibling affection was gone in an instant. Sergey threw back his head and howled, the sound excruciating, an energy wave that blasted everything in its path, knocking her back and setting the wolves whimpering.
    Ivory landed flat on her back, the air rushing from her lungs, leaving her gasping. Automatically she rolled several times, saving her life. Jagged bolts of lightning hit the ground where she’d been and followed her across the snow, leaving great gaping holes where each white-hot strike landed.
    She came to her feet a short distance away, blurring her body and sending replicas of her form at him from every direction, rushing in, slamming the sword deep into his chest. Before she could twist the hilt or withdraw, he sank his teeth into her shoulder, clamping his mouth down around the thin bone and grinding. She screamed as pain burst through her, radiating outward, her flesh burning away from the acid blood pouring over her.
    “Mmm, sisar —sister, you taste delicious,” he whispered, a contemptuous smirk in his voice. “I have not tasted Carpathian blood in a long while. Perhaps I will keep you to myself instead of sharing your delightful taste with my brothers.”
    Ivory clawed at his face, trying to gain enough leverage to get him off her. She dared not take the wolves off the ghoul, afraid the child wouldn’t get away. Her knee came up into Sergey’s crotch, the heel of her boot raking down his leg to smash into the side of his knee. His bite deepened, tore at her flesh as if he were trying to consume her.
    She fought to stay conscious through the pain, drawing both hands back and smashing her fists to either side of his jaw, driving through bone. His mouth blew open in a screaming gasp and he lifted his head.
    Gary fired the crossbow, hitting the vampire in his right eye.
    The boy? Ivory gasped as she dropped to the ground, blood pumping from her mangled shoulder. She dissolved as Sergey reached for her, his claws going through vapor. Droplets of blood followed her across the snow as she streaked away from Sergey.
    Gary backpedaled when the vampire snarled and turned to look at him with one glowing eye. “I sent him back to the village. I couldn’t leave you behind.”
    “You will wish you were never born,” Sergey promised him and reached up to yank the arrow from his eye. Black blood poured down his face. The vampire didn’t bother to wipe it away; instead he bared his savage teeth at the human.
    Ivory materialized over the ghoul, slicing through his neck with one hard stroke, sending the head bouncing obscenely across the slope. The wolves pinned the thrashing body to the ground, holding him there while she gathered energy from the sky.
    Move! Already she hurled the bolt toward the soulless creature, striking just as the wolves leapt back, in a move they’d perfected countless times.
    Orange-red flames erupted, turned black, a foul stench filling the air as the carcass burned. Ivory kicked the head into the flames and faced the vampire over the rising fetid smoke. Her sides heaved for air; her body was covered in her blood—and his. Trails of blackened flesh streaked her shoulder and went down her arm, but she faced him stoically, with one eyebrow raised.
    “You look a little worse for wear there, brother,” she