Dark Predator Read Free Page A

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 before him 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 an ever present jackhammer, drilling through his very bones.
    Weeks earlier, he had been so close to turning vampire, the desire for relief from emptiness so strong in him, the blackness of his soul without the least relief, 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?
    The harpy eagle slowly folded his seven-foot wingspan, talons as large as grizzly bear’s claws digging deep into the roof of the stable while the feathers at the top of his head formed a large crest. The great predator went completely still, sharp eyes moving over the terrain below. He had amazing vision within the harpy’s body and his hearing was aided even further by the focusing of sound waves by the smaller feathers forming his facial disk.
    The horses in the corral a short distance away reacted to his presence, tossing heads, moving restlessly and bunching together tightly. Several whinnied in distress. A woman emerged from the stable beneath him, a large horse following her. Immediately his gaze fixated on her. Her hair was long, to her waist, pulled back in a braid that was as thick as his wrist. The long rope of hair attracted his gaze. When she moved, the woven strands gleamed like spun silk.
    Zacarias saw in the shadowy colors of gray and dull white for centuries. Her braid was fascinating because it was a true black. He was nearly mesmerized by the long, dark hair, the strands shimmering even without the sun. Somewhere in the vicinity of what would have been his belly, his stomach gave a slow somersaulting roll. In a world where everything was the same and nothing moved him, that small sensation amounted to a bomb going off. For a moment he lost his breath, shaken by the strange phenomenon.
    The horse following the woman wore no saddle or bridle and once he emerged from the building, he began to dance with restless unease, head tossing, eyes rolling as he circled the woman. The horses were purebred Peruvian Paso, a breed renowned not only for their natural gaits, but for temperament as well. The woman glanced toward the horses running in circles in the corral—it was unusual for them to be nervous—and then lifted a calming hand to the horse half rearing so close to her. She laid her hand on his neck and looked up at harpy eagle sitting so still on the roof.
    Those dark chocolate eyes penetrated right through the feathers and bones of the eagle, straight to Zacarias. He felt the impact like an arrow through his heart. Marguarita . Even from the distance he could see the scars at her throat where the vampire had torn out her vocal cords because she refused to give up Zacarias’s resting place to the undead. She’d once been a carefree young woman, or he’d imagined her to be, but now, someone was using her to trap him.
    It all made sense now. The compulsion to come to this place, to think of it as home. Was she possessed by a vampire? Only a master could