He struggled to get up, to try to go to his sister's aid.
The singsong voice soothed him. «Not Natalya, Dragonseeker, the vampires attacked me. Xavier wanted the most horrendous death he could envision for one like me. He had them chop off my head and then cut me to pieces, scattering me across a field so the wolves could consume me. They should have incinerated my heart. I did not have the will to die, not when I needed to see Draven and Xavier gone from this earth.»
For a moment the horror and agony of what she had endured was in her mind-and his-and then, before he could possibly assimilate and process what she had given to him, it was gone, replaced once more by the soothing touch of her fingers stroking over his temples and her whispered, seductive voice.
You are so hungry, Dragonseeker. You have been starved for so long and kept without true strength. I am offering you life. Strength. A chance to join me in defeating the devil himself. You have only to take what is freely given. If, when you are at full strength, you choose to walk away, I will take you from here and you are free to go your own way.
The thought of separation from her gave him pain somewhere in his tattered soul. She was his lifemate; once found, he could not simply abandon her, yet he knew-frowning-that there was a reason he must not utter the words that would bind them together.
She rubbed gently at the frown lines between his eyes. Be at peace. You are safe here.
He shook his head, although it was difficult to do so. More than anything he wanted the touch of her magic fingers and the warmth of her body after he'd been cold for so many centuries. He'd existed in the ice caves with so little blood to live on, Xavier determined to keep him from strength, that he had all but forgotten warmth-or kindness. He didn't want to destroy the illusion that someone cared enough for him to render him aid without strings.
It wasn't true, of course; he'd learned that painful lesson over the centuries. No one could be trusted, least of all himself, but the illusion could sustain him when his starving body and his shredded mind could no longer function properly.
She leaned closer. Her breast grazed his face and his body tightened strangely in reaction. Hear the beat of my heart. Match your rhythm to mine.
He could hear her heart, steady, like an unfaltering beacon, a signal for him to find his way home.
Ivory looked over his ravaged face and her heart contracted painfully. She hadn't felt compassion for another in centuries. She'd been careful to avoid the traps and pitfalls of emotion. Her beloved brothers had betrayed her. Her own family. She would never forget how she sought them out, crawling out of the ground, her flesh barely intact, fighting every inch of the way back home, only to discover that centuries had passed and her brothers had joined the very ones who had chopped her into little pieces and left her for the starving wolves.
Hearing Razvan confess to the betrayal of his own sister and aunts, of his child, she had thought to aid him to find the dawn, even though it would mean condemning herself. But once inside his mind, she realized more than he did the centuries of struggle, of fighting to protect everyone around him from a monster. And he had held out in spite of torture and starvation and anything else she could ever conceive of.
In some ways it scared her to think what his will and determination would be when he was at full strength. Never once during the time Xavier held him captive had he been at full strength. He'd been a youth when Xavier had taken him, and even then, as a mere boy, he'd protected his sister. He didn't consider himself good with spells-his sister was a far better mage-but he was Carpathian male through and through, strong and protective and unflinching in his fight, no matter how weak he had grown.
Hear the blood rushing in my veins. It flows like the tide itself, like sap in the trees, nectar of life, flowing for you. Can you smell it? Do you feel your body crying out for life?
She drew a line across her breast, one of many lines, but this one welled bright red blood. Shifting him again, she pressed his mouth to her. There was a heartbeat. Two. Everything in her stilled. Veri olen elid-blood is life. Saasz han ku andam szabadon-take what I freely offer. She put every ounce of compulsion she had into her soft entreaty.
She felt him stir. His tongue licked over the raw wound and her womb clenched. Teeth sank deep, a biting, burning pain that gave way to a rush of heated pleasure.
She stroked back his hair and began to chant the Carpathian Lesser Healing Chant. Her voice rose, soft and melodious, filling the chamber with the rich gift of song.
Kunasz, nelkul sivdobbanas, nelkul fesztelen loyly-You lie as if asleep, without beat of heart, without airy breath.
Ot elidamet andam szabadon elidader-I offer freely my life for your life.
O jela sielam jorem ot ainamet es so?e ot elidadet-My spirit of light forgets my body and enters your body.
O jela sielam pukta kinn minden szelemeket belso-My spirit of light sends all the dark spirits within fleeing without.
Pajnak o susu hanyet es o nyelv nyalamet sielametsivadabat-I press the earth of our homeland and the spit of my tongue into your soulheart.
Vii, o verim so?e o verid andam-At last, I give you my blood for your blood.
Weary, Ivory closed her eyes. She dared not give him more blood than she was able. One healing session and one feeding was not going to be nearly enough. A week, a month… time mattered little, but she would heal him. For now, she'd done all that she could do.
Find peace, Dragonseeker.
Pressing her hand to his mouth, she whispered for him to stop before placing him in the deep, rich loam of her bed. Calling to her pack, she signaled them to take their places around her lifemate-claimed or not-and she pressed close to him before allowing the dark soil to engulf them, her protections around their bedchamber the strongest she knew.
CHAPTER 3
The search for Razvan had been intense over the past three weeks. Ivory crouched below the snow-covered slope, raising herself just enough to study the forest beneath her. She couldn't see anything, but the wind had shifted enough on its own to bring her the scent of blood and death. Along with that scent came the soft sobbing of a child.
She had been careful to feed far from her lair, but then her travels had taken her closer to the Carpathian world where Mikhail Dubrinsky, the prince of the Carpathian people, and his legendary guard, Gregori, made their homes. There seemed to be far more Carpathians than the last time she'd been this close. That meant, when she hunted for food enough to feed her pack, she had to avoid not only vampires, Xavier and his servants, but the hunters as well.
She knew the vampires and Xavier searched for Razvan. They had visited the cabin where she'd fed from the human in the forest, but, thankfully, the human had been long gone. The stench of vampire remained in the cabin, and fortunately the vampires were unable to track her. They found the spot where Razvan had fallen. Footprints circled the area and the foul stench of vampire radiated from that central spot for days before they'd moved on.
She'd made certain neither she nor her pack set foot on the ground close to her lair after that. She'd even resorted to visiting the village to bring rich blood back to feed Razvan, barely rousing him, healing him each night and keeping his mind free of the damaging images and memories that haunted and tormented him. If, after he was at full strength and fully healed, he chose to meet the dawn, she vowed to herself that she wouldn't stop him a second time. But night after night, holding him in her arms and singing the healing chant, her blood flowing into him, she knew it would be difficult to let him go. She would though. She would set him free, with no guilt, because saving him had been her choice. Staying to help her defeat Xavier had to be his.
The child's cry drew her attention back to the forest below her. Why hadn't an adult answered that distress call? What kind of parents would leave a young one to the dangers of a snow-covered wood at night? Even the villagers crossed themselves, hung garlic and crosses in the windows and over doors, believing in the persistent rumors of the undead walking the night.
She sank back on her heels. She didn't do children. She hadn't even held a baby, not once in her entire life cycle. She couldn't remember interacting with children when she was younger-before-in the before. If a child saw her in her true form, especially a Carpathian child used to the perfection of form, the child might run from her.
She touched her neck. In this form, she never gave a vampire the satisfaction of seeing her scars. The vampires and Xavier had done their worst to her, but she remained flawless, untouched, unmarred by their barbarity. If nothing else, it gave her a psychological boost to know they were so shocked by her beautiful appearance.
The child's voice crescendoed and Ivory winced. She was going to have to at least check that the little thing wasn't injured, but that meant exposing herself when she was certain there were both vampires and hunters in the vicinity. She took a deep breath and shrugged, allowing her pack to merge with her skin in the form of tattoos. They would watch her back, and could draw more information from the wind than even she could. With six pairs of intelligent eyes and six noses gathering every detail around them, she felt more secure.
Let us get this done. And when we find the child, no scaring it. We will take it back to its mother and be done with this.
The pack didn't seem anymore enthusiastic than she was. She hadn't let them run free for some time, knowing the vampires often searched out the wolf packs, hoping to find evidence to track them back to her lair. Soon, she assured.
She dissolved into vapor and streaked over the snow, staying low to the ground, giving the wolves every opportunity to take in every scent.
Foul ones. Humans. Carpathians. Blood. The walking dead.
Ivory processed the information and directions as fast as the wolves fed it to her. Foul ones was the wolf name for vampires. But the walking dead were puppets-nonpsychic humans given vampire blood and promised immortality. The vampires often used them to attack during the day. They were nearly as foul as the vampires themselves.
She moved even faster, suddenly afraid for the child. For one moment, below her, she caught a glimpse of a man running through the snow, and then he disappeared in the trees. The child's father? If so, he was arriving a little late.
She spotted a little boy, thin, with a mop of dark hair reaching his shoulders, struggling against the type of snares that had trapped the wild wolves. Her heart dropped. Another trap. She wasn't fool enough to believe that the boy had walked into the mass of snares himself. He'd been forcibly taken from somewhere-she knew by the smell of death and blood-and staked out like a sacrificial goat, the thin wires cutting into his hands and ankles. There was one around his neck. He was crying, but he stood stoically, refusing to fight and worsen the already deep cuts.
She didn't believe this boy had been set out as bait for her-more likely for Razvan. He had a child and he had given his soul, or at least a piece of it, to save her. Xavier would know he would risk everything to save a child. She was in for a fight, but she couldn't leave that child. The vampires were expecting a starving, sick, tortured Razvan, not the slayer, scourge of all undead.
She formed close to the boy, noting that he didn't wince or scream out in fright, which meant he'd seen a Carpathian before and they had allowed him to retain his memories. «It's a trap,» he mouthed. He stared at the wolf tattoos with their bared teeth and lifelike eyes covering her shoulders and arms as she bent to gently set her crossbow in the snow and withdraw a pair of cutters.
She nodded her understanding. «Keep crying,» she hissed as she snipped his left wrist free. It was brave of him to try to warn her when he must have been terrified.
The boy didn't miss a beat, keeping up a lively rendition of wailing while she cut loose the wire on his neck and carefully removed it. Her fingertips brushed the thin necklace of blood circling his neck. Her fingers crept up to her own neck, fluttered there for one moment as she remembered the bite of the sharp blade.
The boy couldn't be more than eight or nine, with his thin face and large, intelligent eyes. He was watching her carefully, studying her closely as she reached across him to snip at his other hand.
Behind you.
The alpha gave her the warning and she felt the large wolf shift in preparation for the attack. Raja's head lay across her neck, his eyes looking straight back. Ever so slightly he turned his head and the movement made the boy gasp. Ivory thrust the cutters into his hands and held out her arms away from her body, bending her knees until she was in a crouch, her right arm slowly dropping to reach for her crossbow.
The child's eyes widened in alarm and fear as he looked over her shoulder and saw the large man coming up behind her with an axe gripped in his hands. The woodsman's face had a blank look and he shuffled, his eyes a strange red. He lifted the axe above Ivory's head, still several feet out. The boy opened his mouth to call a warning, but no sound emerged.
Ivory felt the slight wrench of pain that always accompanied her pack separating themselves from her as the savage wolves leapt, completely silent as they made their concentrated attack, the communication in their minds only. Her fingers closed over the crossbow and she grasped it, winking at the boy to reassure him as she dove away from him, somersaulted and came up on one knee, her crossbow aimed at the attacker. The boy stared openmouthed at the six silver-tipped wolves, more shocked at the sight of them than the soulless attacker.
The wolves drove the ghoul backward, teeth clamped around each arm, the alpha going for the throat while the other wolves grasped legs and held him. Vampire puppets were extremely strong, programmed by their masters for one task; very few things could stop them once they were set on a path. The wolves tearing at him did little other than keep him on the ground beneath the writhing mass of silver fur.
Ivory felt the surge of power crackling in the air and rolled closer to the boy. «Hurry up. We are about to have some very unpleasant company.» She kept her body between the child and the snarling, writhing ghoul and whatever else was coming at them.
A man broke from the trees, sprinting fast. «Travis! Trav! Are you all right?» He skidded to a halt, taking in the ghoul, the wolves and the woman aiming the very lethal-looking crossbow right at his heart.
«Gary! That's Gary,» the boy yelled, his voice bursting with relief.
«Stay away from the wolves,» Ivory cautioned. Her gut tightened. Now she had two humans to protect. Neither seemed shocked at the ghoul, nor at her appearance, as if a female hunter, a pack of wolves and a mindless assassin were everyday occurrences. She knew little about Carpathian politics, and didn't want to know more. She was a slayer. And a vampire was close.
One of the wolves yelped, and out of the corner of her eye she caught movement as the ghoul flung one of the smaller females. The body dropped almost at the feet of the man called Gary. He leapt back, eyeing her warily.
«You have a vampire coming down on top of you,» Ivory pointed out. «Move or die.»
Above his head, in the whirling mist of snowflakes and fog, she could see the outline of the grisly form of a vampire. Power radiated from him, and her heartbeat ratcheted up a notch. This was no lesser vampire; she'd fought enough of them to know.
Gary dove toward the boy, landing belly down, crawling the rest of the way. Travis sank down in the snow in an attempt to cut the wires from his ankles.
The vampire struck at her wolves, raising his hand to call down the lightning, thrusting the white-hot bolt at her pack, uncaring that the monster he'd created might be in the path of destruction. She slammed the bolt with a second one, driving the sizzling, crackling energy away from the writhing bodies. A tree exploded just beyond the wolves, the splinters and debris raining down on the ghoul and the pack. Her pack leapt back, circling the puppet, paying no attention to the vampire, leaving him to Ivory.
Gary rolled to finish extracting the boy, shielding the small body with his own as Ivory fired one of her small arrows into the vampire's chest. It hit him just below his heart, and he turned his head, deigning to acknowledge her for the fir
st time.
Ivory's breath caught in her throat. A small sound escaped. Stunned, she could barely stammer, nothing coherent emerging from her.
Gary looked at her sharply, and then up at the vampire as the creature slowly lowered himself to the ground. The caricature of a man had probably been handsome at one time. He was well built, with wide shoulders and long hair that once had been thick and full, but now the vampire obviously didn't bother to hide his evil appearance. His skin was pulled tight on his skull and his teeth were sharp and pointed. He not only looked strong, but the power radiating from him hung in the air. The glowing eyes were locked on the female hunter, but he looked nearly as shocked as she did.
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