his ebony hair around his face. he stood as straight as an arrow, his broad shoulders like an ax handle, his powerful body radiating strength and elegance.

julian actually felt the gathering of power in the air. it vibrated around him. below, the ghouls began their rush at darius. near the motionless bodies of syndil and barack, the ground swelled until it bulged ominously. julian began his descent, forcing his mind to stay focused on his own battle. when it struck, the strength of the attack was enormous. for a moment julian couldn't breathe, his lungs fighting for air, so that it was only his tremendous discipline that allowed him to remain calm. in the next heartbeat he realized the attack was directed at desari. the undead had bypassed syndil and barack to trace desari's beautiful voice back to the source. he was striking directly at her, projecting his will to choke the life out of the source of that voice.

the vampire knew her through julian. he had betrayed his own lifemate.

the ugliness, the shame, the horror of that childhood moment rose up to engulf him, so that for one moment he was a boy again facing an utterly terrifying monster. the vampire had whispered to him for over five hundred years, whispered of using him to harm those he was loyal to. his prince. his twin. his lifemate, should he ever have one. julian had studied, experimented, battled hundreds of years to prepare himself for this moment, certain he could protect those around him from the eyes of the shadow within him. but he had betrayed his beloved desari.

no!

desari reached for him, her fear choking her but her warmth invading the coldness of his bones, of that terrible haunting moment that had changed his life for all time and driven him to a barren, lonely existence.

he found you through me!

it is but a trick. keep to your duty. ignore the undead's grip on me.

every instinct in him cried out that that was illogical. he knew he had felt her panic, her throat closing. his mind was still partially merged with hers, and his body was so tuned to hers that he shared her pain and fear. but could what she said be the truth?

as her lifemate, his entire being, every nerve, muscle, and sinew in him screamed at him to go to her, to aid her, to join his strength with hers. he agonized over it for what seemed an eternity yet was but a heartbeat. he had waited for this moment, prepared for this moment, for centuries. he did the most difficult thing he had ever done. he closed his mind solidly to his lifemate.

julian plunged straight toward the bulge in the soil, moving relentlessly toward the two helpless bodies. the undead had no choice when he realized his attempt to distract julian had failed. the vampire had to release his grip on desari and remove the energy holding his trap in place so that syndil and barack's spirits were free to return to their own bodies. he needed every vestige of power he had to fight the hunter. his merciless enemy. the enemy he had created.

he had sensed julian's presence only when he had traced the source of the voice holding his prey with so much strength from him. enraged, he had thought to destroy the woman, yet he had sensed the larger threat to him. he then recognized through her the boy he had made into a merciless, relentless solitary killer. for centuries he had tormented julian from across time and distance. until, one day, recently, without warning, he could no longer connect totally with the shadow within savage. the boy had become far stronger than the vampire had imagined. now he knew he had no option but to destroy julian, or at least seriously wound him to give himself time to escape. for the first time in hundreds of years, he felt something close to fear.

the leader of the group was engaged in battle with his ghouls, but the ghouls' movements were directed by him. if he had to withdraw from them, darius would certainly triumph and join this new threat to destroy him. with a vulgar cry of rage, the undead burst from beneath the earth, flying straight toward julian with daggerlike talons stretching toward his enemy's eyes.

julian was shape-shifting as he closed the distance to the vampire. he stretched into a long, scaled serpentine creature shooting out of reach of the talons and breathing a burst of flames over the half-man half-beast rushing toward him.

the vampire screamed as the fire poured over him, withering the twisted talons back into curled fingernails stained and blackened with the blood of his many victims. the undead whirled in midair and slashed at julian's exposed chest.