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  “She’s actually doing it,” he heard Michael marvel.

  “What?” Yaverik asked.

  “She’s healing him.”

  Tor closed his eyes, letting the relief consume his body. In moments, there was no pain, no more open wounds. He bucked his muzzle against Jane’s chin to get her attention.

  When she sat back, Tor licked at her damp cheeks to taste the salt and magic from her tears. She smiled and embraced him as he slowly pushed himself out of the rivers of blood that flowed around them.

  “We must go,” Michael advised. “If the hunters have allies in the area, they will soon find out what happened.”

  Tor looked to his combat partners and saw them look just as ragged as himself, their clothes torn and speckled with blood. Jane stayed close by his side as they quickly made their way out through the fortress’s main gate to disappear into the forest.

  They would all live for another day, and though death had stretched out its withered and decrepit fingers to seize Tor’s spirit, Jane pulled him from the brink. What power did she have that could ward off death itself? Clearly, Michael knew of it, but did not expect Jane to wield it so effectively.

  As they ran, Tor looked to Jane and her soiled clothes that were stained with dirt, her torn dress hem dripping with the blood in which she had knelt. In all the years he had been alive, he knew of no one that cried for him. There was no one alive that cared for him so deeply that they would shed a tear if he passed.

  Yet this girl, this vampire, cared enough to weep over his body. They hardly knew one another, but she appeared devoted. Perhaps Tor had been too hasty in his assumptions of her. Jane was, after all, more than just a girl. She was a woman at heart. A woman who craved the love of a man she could not have. She deserved that love, but Tor still wasn’t so sure he could be the one to give her what she needed.

  After this night, however, Tor would never see her the same again. That was certain.

  Tehran, modern day Iran, 1570

  “We can’t leave the carriage,” Tor insisted as he squatted by Giovanni on the ground. “They won’t be protected if we leave it.”

  Giovanni tapped the end of his stick at the rough, impromptu map that he had drawn in the sand. The evening sun in Tehran beat down on the backs of their necks as the commotion of the marketplace behind them droned on.

  It had been a long trek from Istanbul. The days were long and hot as they traveled through Ankara, Cappadocia, Tabriz, and finally to this trading town just south of the Alborz mountains. Besides Michael, Giovanni was the only one who could speak the local languages, but what he learned from a silk merchant was not what any of them wanted to hear.

  “The way through the mountains is too dangerous for the carriage,” Giovanni reiterated. “There is plenty of space to ride horseback along the Haraz River banks, but the carriage wheels won’t last long.”

  Tor leaned forward on his knuckles, glaring at the lines and wavy marks. Giovanni had the entire way memorized, but the height and rocky terrain of the mountains was unexpected. He and Michael had discussed the route around the mountains, but that would take longer and their supplies were dwindling at an alarming rate since they had not planned on the accompaniment of Jane and Francesca.

  “What do you suggest?” Tor asked, the frustration in his words building.

  If anyone was having a difficult time on this trip, it was Tor. Several times, he had to escape away from the party to change into his wolf form to release the knotting tension. The nights were worse when Jane was awake enough to cling to him.

  Whatever happened the night they rescued Jane, it changed something in Tor. Giovanni wasn’t the only one who noticed, because he heard the blood servants whisper about it occasionally. Tor was more open to conversation than he was before, more relaxed in dealing with the others, except when he had to turn. Michael encouraged the shifts, perhaps aware that he was used to changing far more frequently than he had over the course of this journey.

  This was the first time Giovanni had seen Tor angry in days.

  “We have to take inventory,” he replied. “We can only carry what we need between here and Amol on the other side of the mountains. We should sell the carriage and try to find a camel trader. We can sell the horses as well.”

  What he wasn’t telling Tor, was that he had no intentions of returning with the others. When he came back through Tehran, he would be alone.

  “What will the others do to protect themselves from the sun? Traveling only by night isn’t feasible.”

  “I agree. We will have to purchase more clothing for them. Turbans, shrouds, shawls, anything.”

  Tor wiped the sweat from his brow and nodded. “Very well. I will inform them of the plan while you procure the supplies. We can move out at dusk when it’s less dangerous for the others.”

  “I’ll take Francesca and Marco with me. They know how to haggle better than me. We should be able to find everything we need. If we can’t, this is a poor excuse for a trading hub. It is fortunate that most of the towns we have visited are used to seeing foreigners, otherwise trade would be far more difficult.”

  Giovanni stood and tossed his stick to the side before kicking the dirt to erase his map. It was a risky plan, especially since they were just a little over halfway to their destination – if there was a destination at all.

  He looked to the north, to the snowcapped mountains that stretched across the horizon. Beyond them, the Caspian Sea awaited and hopefully would disclose her secrets. Giovanni desperately wanted there to be a civilization, for Michael’s sake. It would be one last gift to the vampire.

  Turning, he caught Tor’s thoughtful stare pointed toward the north as well.

  “Something wrong?” he asked as he pulled out his pouch of coins to count how much local currency he had left.

  “I’ve never seen such white sand on top of mountains.”

  Giovanni chuckled and clapped his werewolf companion on the back. “My friend, that is snow.”

  “Snow?”

  “Si. It is as cold as ice, and sometimes soft to the touch.”

  “Ice?” Tor looked to Giovanni in puzzlement.

  He waved his hand in dismissal. “Never mind. You’ll see soon enough. We will pass Mount Damavand on its eastern slope and you will see it more closely.”

  “There is still so much about this world I don’t know.”

  Giovanni cinched the pouch opening and secured it to his belt once more. “Just wait until you see the rest of it. Deserts and mountains are just the beginning.”

  It was a lie. Giovanni didn’t know whether Tor would ever see such things as the Great Wall of China, the Atlantic Ocean or the highlands of Scotland. If his contacts were correct and they were making good time, they would meet the party on the eastern edge of the sea. From there, Giovanni almost didn’t care what happened. There was no money in his pocket that exclusively belonged to him and there were more trusting padrones waiting in Italy for his services.

  However, his heart was saddened by the thought that Tor might share the same fate as Michael and the others. Tor was an unnatural being, a werewolf, but he did not always behave as such. The Egyptian priest was generous and kindhearted, though perhaps a little less amiable than others due to his lack of exposure to sophisticated society. Tor was a dying breed of an ancient world, just as Michael was.

  Yet, the course of events could not be changed. Amol and a few trading posts along the coast would be the last bits of civilization they would see and there was no telling where his contacts were, so communication was impossible now. There was no turning back from the decision he had made. Giovanni could only hope that time would prove he had made the right one.

  “I have a question,” Giovanni said after a moment of thought. “Michael told me how you nearly died to save Jane. Is there something more between you two?”

  A muscle jumped in Tor’s jaw. “No,” he replied through his teeth.

  Giovanni held up his hands in surrender, as if to be
g for mercy from the werewolf who was able to tear apart a small army of men. “I was just curious. Men usually don’t go so far for people they hardly know.”

  Tor let out a long breath through his nose before speaking again, making solid eye contact with Giovanni. “I wasn’t doing it for Jane, or even Michael. I did it for my father.”

  Giovanni lowered his hands and wrung the neck of his coin purse. “May I be so bold as to ask what you mean?” The way Tor talked about his father along the journey, Giovanni knew that he was no longer alive. There must have been something deeper, something hidden under that tough exterior that for which Tor seemed to pride himself .

  “When I was young, just a short time after I became a priest, I caught the attention of a band of travelers. I had changed and run out into the desert around dusk. They spotted me and spread rumors about beasts in the desert around our temple. Soon, hunters came and…” Tor shook his head, his expression melting into a show of regret. “The hunters tracked us down. One by one, they picked off the other priests. Most fled, but my father elected to stay. We defended our temple and my father sacrificed his life for it.

  “It was my fault that he was killed,” Tor said. Giovanni could almost taste the sorrow in his words and it terrified him, almost as much as Tor’s wolfish form. Such emotion, such brokenness was not like him. Giovanni wasn’t sure whether to be flattered that the hard and calloused priest was finally opening up, or to be worried that Tor might have been losing his mind. Such a solid foundation was rocked and suddenly unstable.

  “So, you killed those hunters as retribution for your father’s death?”

  Tor nodded and Giovanni saw the reverse in his countenance. Suddenly, his walls shot back up and with a snort, he pushed away the misery that nearly crushed him just seconds ago. “In a way, yes. They weren’t the same men, but knowing I killed them gave me some satisfaction.”

  Giovanni had never killed a man. Not yet, and not directly anyway, but he couldn’t fully imagine how Tor must have felt. His own father had died of disease years ago, but if he could do anything to bring a little relief to the ache in his heart over the loss, he was sure it would have been a glorious feeling.

  6

  Jane started at the sharp rap on the carriage wall. She had been sleeping soundly for the last few hours, despite the constant noise of traders and travelers outside of her dark sleeping place.

  “Michael, we need to speak.”

  The drowsiness instantly left her the moment she heard Tor’s deep, husky voice. She sat up and scrambled to the other side of the carriage, crawling over her father’s legs as he was just beginning to stir from his sleep.

  She grabbed the handle and cracked open the door just enough for the bright sun to spill over the back of her hand. Tor struck the door hard enough to close it once more and he grumbled a word that Jane had recognized as a rather harsh expletive in his language. She had heard it several times on this journey already.

  Though the sun was no longer touching her skin, the burning did not subside right away and the scent of charred flesh filled the room, overpowering the musty smell of upholstery and wood. She could feel that the top layers of her skin had flaked away like old, peeling paint on a neglected wall, leaving the raw and bloody flesh beneath to throb and sting.

  Jane hissed at the pain, wondering how she could have been so foolish to not ask if it were night yet. When Jane came of age as a young girl, Michael had let her experience the terrible effects of the sun. Exposing one’s skin to an open flame was nothing in comparison to how a vampire suffers in the sun.

  Michael sat up and grabbed her hand to check the damage. It was only a second or two of exposure and it had already begun to heal, but nothing would hinder him from being the devoted father that he was. All along this trip, he stayed close to her, just as he had when they traveled with her mother so long ago. He had rarely showed this kind of attentiveness inside their villa and Jane somewhat resented it. She was not a child anymore, but he still treated her like one.

  There was something to be said for her father’s commitment to his family. Tor had told her about the arrow Michael took to his thigh when they had come to take her from the hunters, and how bravely he fought alongside them. She loved her father dearly, but knowing that Tor had nearly sacrificed himself to save her trumped it all. Jane had only cried one other time, but those tears were not enough to save her mother who had been stolen from them so many years ago.

  Michael gave her a chastising look and then turned to the carriage wall where Tor stood on the other side. “Si?”

  Tor proceeded to tell Michael about Giovanni’s plan to sell the carriage and the change in routes. Yaverik fumed on the other side of the carriage as he awoke.

  “We’ll surely die if we give up the carriage. It’s a ridiculous plan,” her father’s apprentice shouted. “We will repair the carriage if it’s needed.”

  “It will delay our arrival to Arnathia,” Michael countered. “It is a reasonable exchange. Tor, see that we get everything we need. As soon as night falls, we will be ready.”

  Jane listened to Tor’s feet shuffle across the sand as he walked away. If the sun wasn’t out, she would have leaped from the carriage and followed him, eager to assist in procuring the new supplies. Alas, she had to stay in the darkness, where it was safe. Oh, how she hated to be safe when she could have been by his side.

  Tor’s heart opened up a little more to her each day. Though she never carried through with her plans to tell him how she felt, Jane knew that it was only a matter of time before he would be more receptive to her affections. It was likely that if she confessed to him that night when she was captured, Tor would have disregarded he as silly and nonsensical. In just a few days, however, he might come close to feeling just half the same as she did. A few more long talks about Italy, a few more lighthearted giggles, and a touch of the hand here and there, and Tor might be hers.

  “Honestly, the way you pine after him,” Yaverik groaned, “it’s revolting.”

  Jane’s lips puckered angrily. “I don’t see how my relations with Tor is any of your business.”

  “It’s unnatural!”

  “That’s a matter of perspective,” she sassed. “Some would say that a frog was unnatural because it can swim and walk on land too.”

  Yaverik sneered. “You are speaking of a frog. A better comparison is a flea-riddled dog trying to ride below the crupper on a thoroughbred.”

  Jane was not an innocent child, but she gasped at his euphemism. “I’ll thank you kindly not to speak of such things in my presence.”

  “Silenzio, both of you,” Michael interjected. It was not the first time her father had to break up an argument between them and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. At least she was solaced in the knowledge that she did not start it. “Yaverik,” he continued, “Whom Jane fancies is not your concern.”

  The apprentice would not be quieted so easily. “She does not need to be chasing after beasts. She needs to find a husband who is a vampire also.”

  Jane rolled her eyes. “Find a vampire worthy of me and I’ll gladly consider it.”

  There was a pause of silence before Yaverik continued. “There’s myself.”

  She shot him a look. “Now, that is revolting.”

  “What in hell’s name do you see in Tor? He’s a savage.”

  Jane lifted her chin. “Perhaps that’s why I find him attractive. He’s wild, unlike most men within our circle.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her father begin to scratch his beard, deep in thought. “He’s also kind and heroic.”

  “Need I remind you that Tor wasn’t the only one who came to your rescue?” Yaverik questioned.

  “He was the one who was dying from his wounds,” Jane pointed out. “There’s nothing more romantic and genuine than a man willing to die for his friends. I don’t recall that you were injured in the least.”

  Yaverik sat up a little straighter and was ready to match her rebuttal, but Michael interrupted
once more.

  “Jane, Tor does not have any intentions with you. He has told me so and his emotions tell the same.” Her father grimaced. “It isn’t right for you to wear your heart on your sleeve in this manner.”

  She made a sound of disbelief. “You just told Yaverik that it was none of his business whom I fancy.”

  “Yes, but it is my business. I don’t care if Tor is a werewolf or vampire. I do care that you are chasing after a man that doesn’t want you.”

  Jane’s chest seized, her father’s words echoing in her ears. “Perhaps he just doesn’t want to tell you that he cares for me, because he fears you will turn him away.”

  “I know you can feel his emotions as well as I can,” Michael said with a shake of his head. “You know I speak the truth.”

  She shrugged, trying to hold onto her hopes, which was exactly what her father warned her against. “There’s time. He’s changed over the last few days. It’s possible that he will – “

  “Jane,” he snapped. “Please, do this as a favor to me. Do not try and manipulate him into loving you. If it is meant to happen, then it will. You should not be so hasty in finding a blood mate. You are still young and you have not met all of the eligible men out there.”

  “You’re saying you want me to wait until another vampire comes along,” she replied with a snide twinge.

  Michael held up a cautionary hand. “No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying wait until the right man comes into your life. Whether he be vampire, werewolf, or human, it does not matter. You should find a mate who loves you in the same way. Don’t try to force fate.”

  Jane went silent and sat back against the carriage door, her legs stretched out across her father’s like a child. With her arms folded over her stomach, she tried to ignore her better judgment that her father was completely right on all accounts.

  It was wise to wait, to see what else the future had to offer. Yet, what if Tor was what the fates had in mind for her? What if he was her true blood mate? What if they parted after this expedition and never saw one another again? How long would it be before she found another like Tor that could make her feel so light headed and alive? Worse yet, what if she never found the one to hold her heart? She knew that she couldn’t settle for just anyone, and even if a man as noble and wise as her father came along, Jane wasn’t sure she would want him either.