Written in the Stars by Patricia Rosemoor, Sherrill Bodine

shall return and together we will go to the duke to declare our
     love before him. Honor demands that I first speak to my brother.”
    Fear surged through her. She flung herself onto his chest to stop him. “No! Do not
     go! You know Carlyle has become a creature of darkness.”
    He soothed her with a kiss on her brow. “Yet he is still my blood. Do you trust me?”
    “With my soul. Always,” she whispered, an ache at the back of her throat.
    “Then I promise we shall have nights like this through eternity. Wait for me, love.
     I will return to you.”
    …
    Carlyle rode into the quiet glade and, leaving his horse tethered, quickly retrieved
     his robe and jeweled dagger from their hiding place.
    The cold air felt heavy today as if a storm might brew, yet the sky remained cloudless.
     The bright sun showed him his snare held a struggling prize.
    The hare was fat, its fur thick. A worthy sacrifice to the gods.
    Chanting the incarnations to the old, dark practices taught to him by Florea, with
     one hand he held the frightened, fighting animal high above the altar.
    “You shall show me the future,” he cried and plunged the jeweled dagger deep into
     the hare’s beating heart.
    He opened his fingers, knowing the way the sacrifice’s limbs fell upon the stone altar
     and the direction the blood spurted and flowed would reveal what was to come.
    What he saw took his breath away. For one heartbeat, a crumbling remnant of regret
     and fear for what he must do stirred deep within him. Acceptance of what this would
     bring to him extinguished all other feelings save triumph. He sucked blood-perfumed
     air into his lungs and smiled.
    …
    Will carried the image of Elizabeth in his heart and mind as he rode back to the glade
     where he’d known Carlyle would be with her yesterday.
    He smelled the blood before he saw his brother’s hooded figure holding a jeweled dagger
     and the rabbit sacrificed upon the altar.
    Sickened by what his brother had become, Will ran quickly to grab his shoulder, twisting
     him around. Carlyle’s eyes were wild with a look Will had never seen before and his
     lips were smeared with the rabbit’s blood.
    “This is madness!” Will flung his brother away in disgust.
    Carlyle pushed back the hood and, smiling, lifted his fingers to spread the blood
     over his face.
    “It is the old magic of the gods, Will. Its power shall soon be known by all.”
    Will’s hand rested on his sword. “Never will I allow this darkness to touch Elizabeth
     or any who I love. Nor will I repeat the mistake of the past.” He stared into his
     brother’s eyes. “Out of the love we once shared I have come to tell you Elizabeth
     is mine. Our love is true and everlasting. I will go to our father to ask for your
     betrothal to be severed and gain permission to marry Elizabeth.”
    Carlyle’s heavy shoulders tensed and his breath hissed. “Always the favorite son asking
     our father for more bounty. No doubt he will grant you all you desire.”
    “I pray it be true.” Regret sliced through him, for in the depths of Carlyle’s mad
     eyes he had glimpsed a glimmer of pain. Despite his loyalty to his blood, Will wanted
     to be away from this place of darkness. Away from the evil he had tried to deny in
     his brother.
    “Save yourself and end this,” Will pleaded and turned away.
    “I shall. For now I know what is to be done,” Carlyle laughed.
    Excruciating, white-hot pain exploded in Will’s back, dropping him to his knees. Shock
     rendered him sluggish, and he struggled against the nausea rising in his throat. Knowing
     to survive he must defend himself, he pushed to his feet.
    A blinding kick to his head knocked him to his side.
    Looking up through a red haze of agony, he saw Carlyle standing over him, his bloodied
     dagger in his fist.
    Rage, disbelief, and the desperate need to return to Elizabeth gave him the strength
     to rise to fight his brother for his life.
    Snarling, Carlyle kicked him in the gut, and