The crowd roared approval. Zev slowly straightened. As he did, the assassin made his move. He shuffled forward with others around him, gawking, seemingly trying to get a look at the dead body of Gunnolf. The moment he was close to Zev, his entire demeanor changed. There was nothing awkward about him. He was fast and smooth, keeping his knife low and covered with his fist, driving the poisoned blade straight at Zev's kidney.
Fen caught him from behind, twisted him around, his grip like steel, thumb digging into the pressure point of the wrist, exposing the knife and the assassin's intent. Zev spun around to face the killer. He caught the dagger as it fell from paralyzed fingers. Fen let the assassin go, and Zev stepped forward into the man's attack, plunging the silver blade into the heart.
A hot breath of fire swept over the crowd. Everyone looked up. There were three dragons in the sky, all circling around for a run at them. The lead dragon was blue, the neck elongated, stretched toward that outer circle of Lycans. Fire rained down, a steady stream that burned the fur on the Lycans' heads and shoulders.
Tatijana had learned from previous clashes just how high a wolf could jump. Her blue dragon was in the lead, staying high enough to keep out of harm's way, yet low enough to singe fur. The dragons circled the outer ring of Lycans, flames shooting down in long, steady streams. The Lycans broke formation, abandoning whatever plans they had to kill Zev's force.
The Lycans scattered, a few dropping to their knees to take aim at the impressive sight of dragons in the sky. They fired off several rounds, but the bullets seemed to bounce off the tough scales of the dragons. When the creatures flew over for another fiery pass, the rest of the Lycans took to the forest, sheltering beneath the canopy of the taller trees.
"I see you're still hanging around that woman," Zev observed. He hadn't moved a muscle when the dragons flew over, spraying the Lycan ranks with fire. "I can understand why you want to hang with her, but seriously, what does she see in you?"
Fen grinned at him. "I'm smart enough to always play the hero, unlike you, who seems to get into trouble every time you open your eyes."
"You like to play with fire, don't you?" Zev asked with a wry grin. He had warned Fen more than once that a relationship with a Carpathian woman was trouble--forbidden even. The council had decreed centuries earlier that all Lycans should avoid Carpathians so there was no chance of creating the dreaded Sange rau.
"Ha ha. You're very funny," Fen retorted. As far as Zev knew, Fen was Lycan. He might understand Fen's attraction to Tatijana, but he couldn't condone a union.
Zev nudged Gunnolf's body with the toe of his boot. "The really sad thing is, I liked him. I've known him for years." He looked up at Fen. "What the hell is going on?"
Fen nodded toward Gunnolf. "I'll ask him."
Zev shook his head. "It's too dangerous. I respect you as a fighter, Fen. I've told you that before. I can't understand why you're not running an elite pack, but questioning a dead Lycan, even for someone as strong as you, is not a good idea."
Fen shrugged. "One of us has to do it, and I'm more expendable than you are." And he had a lifemate, waiting to pull him back from the edge. It wouldn't be his first time extracting information from a dead Lycan. Zev was right, it had been dangerous, but Tatijana was powerful and she would never fail to pull him back. He had complete faith in her.
Zev shook his head and made a movement toward his lifeless opponent. Fen was there before him, grasping the head between his two hands. The Lycan became aware of him almost instantly and mentally fought him, desperate to protect his secret. Black hatred poured over and into Fen. Rage took hold, a violent, churning cauldron of such fury that Fen's body shook with it. The emotions of the dead wolf, still active in his brain, found a new home in Fen.
As if a great distance away, Fen heard Zev cursing, knew he'd drawn his sword and was close, very close. His hatred spread to the elite hunter like an infection. Why should he have to put up with the scout's orders? Why, each time Zev returned to the pack, did Gunnolf have to relinquish authority?
Zev was a traitor. He mingled with the Carpathians. He danced with one of them, clearly smitten. He'd allowed the woman to enter his mind, take his blood. Every member of the pack knew he was pining for her. He had even committed the biggest sin of all--he'd argued that there was a difference between Dimitri--their prisoner--and any other Sange rau.
Worse, Zev had sided with Dimitri and had even given him blood. The Sange rau should have died within three days. Everyone who had ever been sentenced to the Moarta de argint had succumbed to the pain and writhed and moved until the silver had managed to pierce their heart. Not once had there been a survivor beyond the third day, yet Dimitri had lasted over two weeks. Zev had to have been helping him.
The Sange rau was weak, dying. They had a chance to destroy the monster. It was the woman with him who had somehow, through a dark practice, managed to protect the abomination. Revulsion spread like cancer. A disgust and loathing like no other. They had the scent of her blood, it permeated the meadow and the very air itself. She had to die. Her very existence was an outrage to humanity. What if the Sange rau began breeding? They had to be stopped. It was a sacred mission.
Kill. Kill. Kill him. Kill her. They both have to die. Kill Zev. He should die with the monsters, the abomination. Kill them all. The chant was loud in his mind, echoing through his veins with a need and hunger that shook him.
Fen let the savage emotion wash through him, but he refused to stay there and wallow in it as Gunnolf wanted. The Lycan would trap him there or Fen would be forced to leave to prevent the intensity of the hatred and rage from consuming him.
The feelings of superiority helped. The emotion flooded his mind and Fen caught at the opinion and nurtured it. He was more than Gunnolf. More than Zev. He was Guardian, and this Lycan who wished to trap him for all time in the black mire of prejudice and hatred would not do so. Fen was too strong to be ensnared by the Lycan. Too intelligent.
He was ruthless, refusing to back down but searching through the memories to find a thread that would lead him back to Gunnolf's master. The Lycan reeked of fanaticism. His emotions were fiery, intense--and he believed in his cause with a single-minded purpose.
War. They had to wipe out the Carpathians to stop the spread of the mixed bloods. All Lycans who refused to join them, who frowned on the sacred code, would be wiped from the face of the earth as well. They were enemies of the great council--the great ones who had kept them alive and thriving for centuries. Those past moral compasses were slowly being forgotten or deliberately pushed aside by the new council who only wanted their own glory.
The zeal of devotion permeated every move and memory that Gunnolf had. It was difficult to find a single thread to get back to the one master who fed his extreme fervor. Fen couldn't stay much longer. The intolerance and radicalism was slowly eating at him, threatening to consume him in spite of his strength. He'd never encountered such vehemence.
It wasn't necessarily that Gunnolf was a bad man. He believed passionately that he was right. There was no other way, no other room for any other's beliefs. He would not only die for his cause, but would kill for it. Those who opposed him were the enemy and not fit to walk the same earth.
The vehemence and ardor of the fanatic turned everything to red and black. Emotions took hold, fighting to poison him, to spread that infection to every cell in his body.
Lifemate. The light to his darkness. All darkness. Nothing this ugly could ever touch something so bright. One word. One breath. That was all it took. He had complete faith in her to call him back from the brink of madness.
She was there instantly, pouring into his mind, lighting every dark place, pushing out the stench of fanaticism and hatred, replacing those intense, damaging emotions with her unconditional love.
He released Gunnolf's head, turning away, fighting down the terrible need to retch after being so consumed by the fervor of the Lycan's need to kill every living creature who did not believe as he did.
/> Zev swung the silver sword, slicing through the Lycan's neck, severing the head. There was a long moment of silence. "Was it worth it?" Zev asked quietly when Fen sank into the green grass.
At once Fen felt Mother Earth reaching for him, comforting him. He felt oily and dirty, shaking his head repeatedly to try to get Gunnolf's emotions out of his head. He swept his hand over his face and it came away bloody. Tiny beads of blood had pushed through his pores. Not a good thing. Lycans didn't sweat blood.
"You tell me," Fen managed to say. "This is all about the Sange rau. Gunnolf felt you were becoming too close to the Carpathian people and he had to act to save all Lycans from the damage that would do. The ultimate goal is to start a war between the two species. If they do that, then all Lycans would side with his faction--those who believe in the old ways--the strict code of morality--he used the term sacred code."
Zev sighed, wiped the blade clean and slipped the sword back into the scabbard before sinking rather abruptly into the deeper grass surrounding Fen. The laceration on his arm still bled, the wound all the way to the bone. "I'm going to pretend that I don't notice that the ground responds to you just as it does with Dimitri."
"Dimitri is my brother," Fen volunteered. He was through lying to Zev. They had a problem--a huge one. Either they were going to stop a war, or start one right there. "I was born Carpathian. I am Han ku pesak kaikak--Guardian of all."
"I'd like to say that comes as a huge surprise, but it doesn't. Tatijana is tied to you in some way?"
"She's my lifemate."
Zev's fingers played over the hilt of his sword. "I see. I'd cut off your head for you, but I'm too damned weak. You'll just have to wait for another day. How did you get this way, and when?"
"Over the centuries, it is easy to suffer severe wounds and need blood. Those I hunted with often gave me what I needed--and I did the same with them."
"That's why you were able to kill the Sange rau. You're more like they are."
Fen nodded. "Dimitri helped me. He saved both Gunnolf and Convel, but in doing so, they realized he was of mixed blood and they took him. Whoever is behind the movement to go back to this sacred code is the one trying to start a war between the two species. I couldn't stay in his mind long enough to get a name without risking infection."
Zev ripped a strip of cloth from his shirt and began to wrap it around his arm. "I've lost a lot of blood," he noted. "You may as well give me some. If I'm going to be strong enough in the future to hunt you down, I'll need to live through this."
"You risk becoming a mixed blood," Fen pointed out. "That's how Dimitri became a Guardian. There were times we hunted rogue packs and vampires together down through the ages. When wounded, we helped each other by giving blood."
"I fear it's a little too late to warn me," Zev said. He pushed a hand through his hair. "I became aware some time ago that there was something different gaining strength in me. I believe I have inadvertently become--or am becoming--the very thing I hunted for centuries."
Fen drew up his knees. The wound in Zev's arm had bled far too much. "I think Gunnolf used an anticoagulant on the blade of his dagger."
Zev nodded his agreement. "Lycans rejuvenate fast. At the very least, blood flow should have ceased. I'm bleeding out here." He gave an involuntary shiver, his body already growing cold. "Are you going to help or just sit there?"
"I'm calculating the odds that you might use one of the hundreds of weapons you've got on you, that you didn't use on Gunnolf, but should have." Fen's voice was thoughtful.
"I'm too damn tired to disarm myself so make up your mind," Zev said and lay back in the grass.
"Just know that hell is coming this way," Fen warned. "Your Lycans shot a young girl related to just about every powerful family that there is. Paul's family is every vampire's nightmare, and the boy was shot as well. Josef's family has already arrived, and when Dimitri rises again, he'll owe that boy. He'll hunt down every single Lycan who fired a weapon at those they perceive as children."
"I think you've more than conveyed the grave danger we're all in," Zev said dryly. He closed his eyes.
Fen sighed. "You know I'm mixed blood. I could call a Carpathian in to give you their blood. It might slow the process."
"Just give me your damned blood before I pass out."
"What a wuss," Fen said, matching the drollness in Zev's tone. He moved fast, though.
Zev was a man too valuable to be allowed to die. If he wasn't worried about the mixed blood then Fen knew the elite hunter was really in trouble. It would make sense, even if Zev knew he was close to the transformation, he would do everything he could to slow it down until the council ruled on the subject of the Sange rau--bad blood, versus the Han ku pesak kaikak--Guardian of all.
Fen tore at his wrist and pressed it to Zev's mouth. The danger in feeding a Lycan blood was they might become too fond of it. Lycans had forsaken the need for fresh blood and meat, embracing a civilized world, but it was impossible to tame a creature with a predatory nature. The savagery was there, lurking just beneath the surface, always threatening to overcome the hard-won shell of civilization.
Zev didn't seem to have any problems taking blood in the Carpathian manner. Fen knew that Tatijana had given Zev blood as well when he was gravely injured. More than once the Carpathians had donated their blood to keep this Lycan alive, but it wouldn't have been enough to cause the transformation. It was a slow process, happening over a long time of exposure, which meant more than once through the centuries, Zev had hunted with a Carpathian.
"You just want mixed blood because you took one look at a certain woman and all brain matter went dead," Fen accused.
Zev didn't open his eyes or stop feeding. She did make an impression.
12
The clash of swords rang throughout the room. Daciana and Makoce kept Rolf between them, while Lykaon and Arnau defended the other council members not--shockingly--from the Carpathians, but from other Lycans who suddenly turned on them.
They're trying to assassinate the council, Mikhail warned his warriors. Choose your targets carefully.
"Loyal Lycans," Rolf called out, "those loyal to the council, defend us, not from the Carpathians but from our kind."
Lucian cut down Lowell, the wolf who had tried to murder Francesca and Gabriel with one slice of his sword. Another Lycan stabbed a silver stake through the assassin's heart and sliced down with his sword to sever the head.
Gabriel thrust his lifemate to the back of the room, away from the skirmish. Zacarias leapt forward to close ranks, protecting the woman. He was everywhere, his expression never changing, reacting fast, so that it seemed each Lycan who cut down his own kind in an effort to get to a council member had to get through him or one of his brothers. Clearly, he directed his family, and they seemed to move together in a choreographed dance of death.
The Lycan faction that wanted the council dead were caught between their own kind and the Carpathians. Their bid to start a battle between species had failed when both sides kept a cool head and followed their leaders' orders.
"Lay down your weapons," Rolf commanded. "Your lives will be spared."
Not a single one of the Lycans who stood with Lowell and Varg obeyed; even knowing they would be killed, they increased their determination to get to a council member. Daciana took a vicious swipe across her stomach with a silver knife from Varg as he tried to get past her to Rolf. The sharp blade cut her open and the silver had to burn like an inferno, but she didn't flinch.
As the blade came at her a second time, she slammed her hand down on his wrist, sidestepping, trusting Makoce, her partner, to protect Rolf while she fought Varg. She knew him well, but he always had underestimated her. Lately, she'd noticed two of the elite hunters in their pack treating her just a little differently. Both Gunnolf and Convel had begun ignoring things she'd said, acting as if they hadn't heard her. They often walked away when she approached them.
Varg had the same attitude as Lowell. She should have br
ought the matter to Zev's attention, but she felt silly complaining. What had changed them? The differences had started long ago, but she hadn't really noticed until they'd become disdainful. They hadn't wanted her in their elite pack.
Using the Lycan's own momentum, she cut back with his wrist over his own shoulder, flipping Varg onto his back. He landed on the table of food Francesca had laid out for them and with a roar of rage, leapt up, throwing himself at Daciana. She had expected the move, counting on his new disdain of women fighters. She allowed him to slam her to the floor, his muzzle, as he transformed to half man and half wolf, snapping around her shoulder viciously.
In her fist she clenched a silver stake, aiming it upward. Varg's own body weight as well as the speed of his jump drove that spiraling stake straight through his heart. Her aim was perfect--as it always had been. She stared into his eyes, watching the life force fade. "That's right, hotshot. A woman defeated you. Go to hell thinking about that."
Zacarias pulled the body from her and extended his hand. She took it and leapt right back into the fray, leaving the Carpathian to slice off the head of the wolf.
The battle was over in a short space of time. A dozen Lycans lay dead on the floor. The Carpathian warriors stepped back, eyeing the remaining Lycans a little warily.
"I apologize for the behavior of my people," Rolf said, giving a formal bow. "We appreciate your help in dealing with the assassins. If you would excuse us, we will return to the inn. Our wounded need to be attended to, and the council members would like to make a few phone calls to see if we can get to the bottom of this treachery."
Mikhail swept his gaze over the remaining Lycans. If there was a faction of Lycans trying to start a war between the two species, he doubted if the twelve dead lying on the floor were all that remained.
This was a well-thought-out plot, Gregori, to make us look responsible.
I agree.
If the council members are assassinated on Carpathian soil there will be no explaining it to the remaining council members who elected to stay behind.
You and I both know the council is still not safe. Some of those conspiring against them are still alive. It would be ludicrous to believe all have been slain, Gregori pointed out.