Dark Possession by Christine Feehan Page B

played a large part in the destruction of the jaguar people.
    The man stayed quiet within the jaguar. Tied to him by blood, Manolito could feel his alarm. He was no young man, cocky and full of bravado; he was old enough to know the danger of the vampire, and he had been questioning what was happening among his kind for some time. The cat crouched low and nodded the broad head, the gaze shifting from Manolito to their surroundings, as mindful of the danger as the Carpathian.
    In the canopy above them, the leaves rustled ominously. Clouds moved across the dark skies, bringing the promise of more rain. Already the air was heavy with moisture and the rivers and streams were swollen beyond the banks. Water poured over rocks and out of banks and made waterfalls where there had been none before. Most of the water was white and bubbling, but on the edges of the rocks, the water was stained with tannin and appeared a dull reddish brown.
    Manolito took a deep breath and pulled his gaze away from the blood-colored water, and let his air out, breathing away everything but the task at hand. He had to let go of his physical body, making himself incredibly vulnerable to a potential enemy already occupied by the vampire. It was much more difficult than he expected, now that he could feel emotion and it mattered that he stayed alive.
    The dark spot in the jaguar-man’s brain recoiled, minute wormlike creatures writhing as his spirit entered the other man, bathing the brain in white-hot energy. Manolito heard the jaguar roar and the man hiss out a warning. Manolito hesitated, afraid of injuring the warrior.
    Do it. I do not want that thing inside of me.
    Manolito attacked the stain, breaching the outer rings and burning them clean with healing light. The tiny parasites tried to dig deeper into the brain in an effort to escape. As they scattered, Manolito could see to the core of the jaguar-man. The parasites tried to keep the light out of the jaguar-man’s memories and hide what the vampire had done, but, unexpectedly, the jaguar-man joined his strength with Manolito’s, using his well-developed telepathic abilities and their newly established blood tie.
    He opened his memories to Manolito and flooded him with as much information as possible. His name was Luiz. For many years he’d worked to restore the dwindling strength of his species. Too many of their women had left, seeking companionship and love with human males rather than the careless abandonment of their own males. He’d influenced the others to follow the way of the Carpathians and mate for life, to provide a home and a family, a reason for women to stay with them. At first, many had gone along with his ideas and had begun to give up their solitary way of life, but recently, they had become divided in their thinking, as a slow, subtle change occurred.
    Packs of men had begun committing terrible crimes against women. A “new order” of jaguars had begun searching for women of their kind and raping them in an effort to have pureblood children. Luiz hadn’t known of the horrors, other than unconfirmed rumors, for the first few years, but now more and more men had joined the bands of marauding rebels. He feared not only for the women, but for their entire species. What woman would want to be with men who did such terrible things? He had heard that some of the women now were rescuing those in captivity. Their world had turned upside down, and Luiz had never once considered a vampire might be at work. Now it all made sense.
    Vampire. The vilest creature on the face of the earth. Since when had they tried to kill off an entire species? Manolito knew. He and his brothers had once known the Malinov brothers. Sadness crept in. The five Malinov brothers had been best friends with his family. Now it seemed as if they may have all turned vampire. The idea of losing all of them was distressing now that he was capable of emotion. With the Malinov brothers, they had spent many hours