Free Dark Celebration by Christine Feehan

halted abruptly and blinked up at Alexandria. "Wearing them? The potatoes? Did you throw them at him?" A slow smile transformed her face. "I wish I could have been there."
    "I wish I hadn't been there. Josh ran to me frightened and I turned around, forgetting I had a high-speed mixer in my hand, a mixer Josh and Josef had revved up for me. The potatoes splattered all over Mikhail."
    She met Skyler's gaze and they both burst into laughter. The sound drifted through the forest, rising upward to meet the floating snowflakes. Somewhere an owl hooted, the sound lonely. A wolf answered, the howl long and drawn out, as if he might be calling to a long-gone pack.
    "Alexandria," Skyler said, and abruptly fell silent.
    Something in her voice caught Alexandria's immediate attention. "What is it?"
    Skyler shrugged, attempting to look casual. "A silly question really. Do you ever hear the earth screaming?"
    "Screaming? The earth?" Alexandria echoed.
    "I know it sounds crazy. I shouldn't have said anything, but sometimes"—she wasn't about to admit how often since she'd been in the Carpathian Mountains—"I hear screaming."
    Alexandria shook her head. "I've never experienced that. Have you talked to Francesca about it?"
    Skyler shrugged. "I'm probably being silly. I do that a lot, sort of a leftover childhood thing."
    The wolf howled again, and this time another answered it. It sounded like a challenge. Alexandria glanced into the darkened forest interior, a small shiver running down her spine. She began to walk faster.
    "I played your new video game," Skyler said. "It was awesome. Josh and Josef and I play late at night online. Some of the men join in too. I'm just as fast as Josef. Gabriel thinks it's because he and Francesca gave me their blood, but I think it's because I can focus so well. I have the ability to just go into my mind and it's like I'm in the game. Josh told me you were working on something special for us. Is it finished yet?"
    Alexandria pressed a hand to her burning throat. The nonexistent wound throbbed as if it was still raw and the cold affected it. "Almost. I was hoping to give it to Josh for Christmas, but I wanted to tweak it a little bit. The graphics are almost too real. I think I may tone them down a bit. Do you play with others beside Carpathians on the internet?" She knew Joshua wanted to, but she didn't allow him the contact with anyone on the internet other than the Carpathians Aidan knew.
    "Josef does. He plays all sorts of games with people from all over the world. He has a really high ranking. He's really good on a computer too. He can hack into anything—at least he says he can. Once he hacked into some Russian site he swore was a message center for a group of assassins for hire."
    Alexandria frowned. "Is he telling these stories to Josh?"
    "Probably. Josh really looks up to him because he's so good at video games."
    "Great. That's my fault."
    Leaves rustled and branches hit together with a muffled clack. The sound sent a shiver down Alexandria's spine. The path to the house where Gabriel and Francesca were staying was little used and much more overgrown than the trail leading to the home of the prince. Alexandria tried to watch the forest, but there were rocks and long stems from wild bushes making the ground uneven and treacherous. If Skyler hadn't been with her, she would have taken to the air and returned home.
    "Josef is going to get himself into trouble. Hackers can be traced."
    "I told him that." Skyler deliberately stepped on several small puddles so that the thin ice crunched beneath her feet and cracks veined out toward the expanse of snow-covered ground. For good measure she jumped onto the next one, splattering ice and dirt out onto the snow. "He thinks because he's Carpathian he's invincible."
    "Well, he isn't." Alexandria tried not to look at the spreading mud over the pristine snow. It looked too much like the long shadowed arm reaching for her—reaching for victims—in her nightmares.