Feehan's Dark Carpathians - Part 4

Dark Dream (Dark Dreamers)
Christine Feehan
Book 7: Dark Series
ISBN: 0-8439-5687-9

"I am Falcon and I will never know you,
but I have left this gift behind for you,
a gift of the heart."

Hundreds and hundreds of years ago the Prince of the Carpathian people, Vladimir Dubrinsky, summoned forth his most ancient hunters.  It was in a desperate act to do all he could for the future of his people that he asked for volunteers to go out into the world.  Alone or in pairs, completely cut off from their people, these Guardians would protect the human and Carpathian races alike.  Each of them were already encumbered with the weight of darkness spreading across their souls, all of them understood that to go would be a death sentence - for away from their people, the hunters would have no chance of finding their lifemates and salvation - yet all those who answered the summons, agreed to go.  Each of them had only their honor and their loyalty to Vlad, to see them through the long, bleak years intact.  All of them knew that if they turned into the very things they hunted that no one would be safe.

When Falcon knew that he had little strength left to hold the demon at bay he started his journey back to his homeland.  In his fnal days, his only desires were to feel the soothing comfort of Carpathian soil, to look upon Mikhail and his lifemate - a former human psychic who had been converted - and know that his sacrifice had not been in vain.  The very last thing that he ever expected to find was his own lifemate, another human psychic ripe for conversion.  Sara Marten slips into his life and with her pure heart and sweet, compassionate soul, she breathes color and life back into him.

"For my beloved lifemate,
my heart and my soul. 
This is my gift to you."

Sara has lived with a nightmare chasing her for 15 years but it is her dark dream that haunts her mind and soul.  Even as her life changed drastically when a vampire killed her whole family, it was the face of her Dark Angel that gave her the strength to go on.  In the midst of chaos she forced herself not to succumb to her grief but to continue on and do what good she could wherever she went.  Then out of the night, the face that haunts her appears and becomes more then a dream, he becomes her reality as well.

"My Dark Angel. 
Falcon, Lifemate to Sara."

The bonds between Sara and Falcon, already established in her dreams and visions, are formed and cemented very quickly.  Sara has been on the edges of Carpathian society for so long, she barely has to consider the choice.  She wants Falcon, she needs him just as much as he needs her, and she'll do whatever it takes to stay by his side for all eternity.  With the help of Mikhail, Raven, Jacques and Shea, Falcon and Sara are able to defeat her old enemy and establish themselves, and the 7 psychic children they adopt, deep in the Carpathian mountains.

"For my beloved lifemate,
my heart and soul."

It is in this, the seventh book of the Dark series that we see for the first time the ancient, Ancients of the Carpathian people.  It is with the reappearance of Falcon that we gain a new hope, along with a new set of fears, for the race.  For his appearance gives Mikhail the knowledge that there are true Ancient hunters in the world helping to fight off the vampire threat, but also the bleak understanding that there are seriously ancient vampires with powers unlike anything his hunters have seen, or fought, before.  In this shorter tale, a novella really, we learn that love and the bonds of lifemates can transcend the vagries of time and unite the souls of mates even before color and feeling returns to them.

Watch for Part 5 of the review series when we discuss the Legendary Carpathian Twins, the dark twins - Lucian and Gabriel.