Read Online Dark Peril by Christine Feehan - Free Book Online Page B

but to see this burden through to the end.”
    “Your lifemate may feel differently.”
    “If she is my true lifemate, she will understand that I can do no other than continue on this course. I would not expect another, no matter how generous the offer, to take my place. It would be a disservice both to him and to his lifemate. You cannot fail your own woman, Zacarias, by giving her up too soon.”
    A faint smile touched Zacarias’s mouth, but it failed to soften his rugged features or reach the cool steel of his eyes. “I failed her a long time ago, my friend. I cannot change. I cannot be what this century dictates is proper, nor do I want to. I cannot demand a woman live within my rules.” He shrugged. “I came to terms with this long ago.”
    “Perhaps she would choose to do so, given her free will.”
    “My point. What free will would she have with me? You and I both know she would have none.”
    “You cannot know until it happens,” Dominic said. “The world changes. You feel nothing now, but should a woman restore your emotions . . .”
    “I would hold her too tightly. I am too old, Dominic, too set in my ways. My demands would be absolute.”
    “Then your lifemate would have to be an extraordinary woman who will find her way in dealing with you,” Dominic predicted. “Do not be so eager to throw away hope just yet. Lifemates are destined, Zacarias. We do not just find them anywhere. There is only one to complete us, and while I do not believe it is always easy, I do believe the binding can only take place with the one who is the other half of our soul.”
    Zacarias shrugged, unconvinced. Without further preamble, he ripped his wrist with his teeth and held out the offering to Dominic. “You will need strong blood to do this thing, my brother. Take what I freely offer. I will come at your call and sustain you throughout this trial.”
    Dominic raised the wrist to his mouth and drank, the rush of strong, ancient blood hitting like a fireball, rushing through his system to soak into infected organs. The parasites reacted with a frenzy of stabbing pain. He could feel them in his veins, crawling under his skin, ripping and clawing at his gut. He closed the wound on Zacarias’s wrist and immediately pushed as many of the parasites through his pores as possible, bleeding them off to keep the damage to his system as minimal as possible.
    Zacarias regarded the wigging mutations with interest. “Riordan told me of such things. This is how they identify the ones who work with the Malinovs?”
    Dominic raised his hand to call down the lightning, incinerating the vile creatures. “Yes. I must keep them inside of me and they multiply very fast. Gregori first brought these to our attention when he found them in Destiny, Nicolae’s lifemate. Gary, a human male who works closely with him, compared those parasites with the ones I have since ingested and found the newer ones to be far stronger. He is not certain what that means, only that Xavier mutated them further. I think they drive those who host them to insanity. They whisper continually . . .” His voice trailed off and his eyes met Zacarias’s.
    “When I was close to the jaguar, the voices ceased. The parasites stopped moving within me, almost as if they were afraid, as if they were hiding.”
    “From what?” Zacarias asked. “Your woman?”
    “If they fear a female, they could not have infected Destiny,” Dominic pointed out.
    “Perhaps, with Solange close, the pain simply was easier to ignore.”
    Dominic shook his head. Zacarias’s eyebrow shot up. “While I appreciate your current disguise as a vampire, parasites wiggling near your eye are a bit much.”
    Dominic flicked the offending creature off and watched it incinerate. Lightning forked overhead and the trees shivered.
    “They are drawing closer, Zacarias.”
    Zacarias regarded him with his cool eyes. “Did you think I have traveled all this way to run when the enemy approaches? I will stay