Arwa-arvo olen gaeidnod susu, ekam--honor guide you home, my brother, Riordan said.
It had been a long time since he'd heard the native tongue of his people. They spoke the languages and dialects of wherever they were. They'd taken names as they'd moved from country to country, even a surname, when Carpathians never had such names. His world had altered so much over time. Centuries of transformation, always adapting to fit in, and yet never really changing when his world was all about death. At long last he was going home.
That simple statement meant nothing--and everything. He hadn't had a home in a thousand years. He was one of the oldest, certainly one of the deadliest. Men like him had no home. Few welcomed him to their fire, let alone their hearth. So what was home? Why had he used that word?
His family had established ranches in the countries they patrolled throughout the Amazon and the other rivers that fed it. Their range was spread out and covered thousands of miles, making it difficult tont>
Their Peruvian ranch was situated on the edge of the rain forest, a few miles away from where the rivers formed a Y and dumped into the Amazon. Even that region was slowly changing over the years. His family had appeared to come into the area with the Spaniards. They had made up names, uncaring how they sounded, as it mattered little to Carpathians what they were called by others, unknowing they would spend centuries in the area--that it would become more familiar to them than their homeland.
Zacarias looked down at the canopy of the rain forest as he flew. It, too, was disappearing, a slow, steady encroachment he didn't understand. There were so many things about modern times he didn't understand--and really, what did it matter? It was no longer his world or his problem. The compulsion driving him puzzled him more than the answers for the vanishing environments. Little aroused his curiosity, yet this overwhelming need to return to a place he'd been few times was disturbing on some level. Because the drive was a need, and he didn't have needs. It was overwhelming, and nothing overwhelmed him.
Small droplets of blood fell into the misty clouds surrounding the emergents, the scattered trees rising above the canopy itself. Beneath him, he could feel the fear of the animals as he passed. He saw a band of douroucoulis, very small night monkeys, as they leapt and performed amazing acrobatics in the middle layers of branches. Some fed on fruit and insects, while others watched for predators. Normally they would screech an alarm as soon as the harpy eagle was spotted, yet as he passed over the family of monkeys they went completely and eerily silent.
He knew it wasn't the threat of the large bird flying overhead that caused the forest to go so still. The harpy eagle sat still in the branches, often for long hours at a time, and waited for the right meal. He would rocket down with shocking speed and snatch a sloth or monkey right out of the trees, but he didn't, as a rule, hunt in flight. The mammals hid, but snakes lifted their heads at his passing. Hundreds of dinner-plate-sized spiders crawled along branches, migrating in the direction he flew. Insects rose by the thousands at his passing.
Zacarias was used to the signs marking the darkness in him. Even as a young Carpathian, he had been different. His fighting ability was natural, bred into him, almost imprinted before birth, his reflexes fast, his brain working quickly. He had the ability to assess a situation with lightning speed and come up with a battle plan instantly. He killed without hesitation, even in his early days, and his illusions were nearly impossible to detect.
His darkness went deep, a shadow on his soul long before he'd lost his emotions and color--and he'd lost both far earlier than others his age. He questioned everything. Everyone. But his loyalty to his prince and his people was unswerving, and that had earned him the undying hatred of his best friend.
He flew with strong wings, fast through the night, ignoring the wounds and his need for blood. As he crossed the border and dropped lower into the canopy, he felt the pull of the compulsion grow. He needed to be on his Peruvian ranch. He simply--needed. The forest stretched out under him, a dark tangle of trees and flowers, the air heavy with moisture. Mosses and vines hung like long, flowing beards, reaching nearly to the watery pools, streams and creeks. Tangled ferns vied for spacotions reeping over long-exposed roots on the dark floor beneath him.
The harpy eagle dropped through branches covered with flowers, liana and all kinds of insects hidden in the jumble of greenery. Far below him he heard the soft call of a tree frog calling a mate and then a coarser, much more grating sound adding to the chorus of frogs. An almost electronic trilling joined the symphony as thousands of different voices rose to a crescendo, abruptly going silent in an unnatural, spine-chilling alarm as the predator approached, then passed overhead.
The dark night sky turned to a soft dove gray as dawn crept in, stealing away the night's powerful reign. The harpy eagle dropped from the canopy, spiraling down into the clearing where the ranch house was situated. With his sharp vision he could see the river running like a thick ribbon dividing the land. Gentle slopes gave way to steep ridges, deep ravines cutting through the forest. Trees and vegetation snaked across the rocky ground, a dark tangle of growth determined to reclaim what had been taken.
Neat fences bisected the slopes, and hundreds of cattle dotted the grasslands. As the shadow of the bird passed over them, they lifted their heads in agitation, trembling, knocking into one another as they turned back and forth trying to find the danger they scented.
The eagle flew over several fields and at least an acre of gardens, all well tended, as Zacarias had come to associate with the extended family who served him. Everything was neat, kept in meticulous repair, every chore done to their best ability. Pastures and fields gave way to the large corrals where the horses whirled and tossed their heads uneasily as he flew over them. Below him, the ranch was laid out like a perfect picture he could not appreciate.
As he approached the stable, a rush of heat slid through his veins. Deep inside the body of the bird, where he should have felt nothing at all, his heart gave an unfamiliar stutter. The strange fluttering nearly knocked him from the sky. Naturally wary, Zacarias didn't trust what he didn't understand. What could possibly send heat rushing through his very veins? He was exhausted from the long battle, the long flight, and the loss of blood. Hunger throbbed with each beat of his heart, clawing and raking for supremacy. Pain from the wounds he hadn't bothered to heal ripped through him like a jackhammer, drilling through his very bones.
Weeks earlier, he had been so close to turning vampire, the need for relief from emptiness so strong in him that his reaction now made no sense. He was in worse shape, starving for blood, more kills staining his soul. Yet there was that strange reaction in the vicinity of his heart, that heat pulsing through his veins in anticipation. A trick, then? A lure set by a vampire? What was he missing?