The vampire reared back, spittle and blood foaming around his mouth. He slammed his fist at her chest, trying to get at her heart, striking the double row of buckles. Howling, he withdrew his hand, the burn marks evident in the flesh of his knuckles. The tiny imprints of crosses woven into the silver and blessed with holy water burned through his flesh almost to the bone.
The vampire roared, clubbing at Ivory's throat in spite of the wolves hanging on his arms. His nails scraped across her neck and shoulder, gouging flesh away as he struggled wildly. The alpha male hit him full force in the torso, driving him back and away from Ivory before those poison-tipped talons could pierce her jugular.
Ivory leapt on him, punching down and through with her fist, reaching for the heart, ignoring the acid as it poured over her coated gloves and began burning through quickly. The vampire thrashed and ripped at her, but the wolves pinned him down as she extracted the pulsing black heart, flinging it from her and raising her hand toward the sky.
Lightning zig-zagged, streaked down and slammed into the heart, jolting the ground. The wolves leapt out of the way and the bolt of cleansing energy jumped to the body, incinerating the vampire and cleaning her arrows. Wearily, Ivory bathed her gloves in the light and then sank down into the snow, sitting for a moment, hanging her head, struggling to draw in air when her lungs were burning with need.
One of the wolves licked at her wounds in an effort to heal her. She managed a small smile and laid her fingers in the fur of the alpha female, rubbing her face in the soft pelt for comfort. These wolves, saved from death so many years earlier--more even than she remembered--were her only companions, her family. They were her true pack and she owed no loyalty to any other but them.
"Come here, Raja," she crooned to the big male. "Let me take a look at the damage."
Still trapped behind the shield she'd created to protect the natural wolf pack from the vampire, the alpha roared a challenge. Raja ignored him as he'd done so many others over the years. The natural pack lived and died, the cycle of nature intervening, and he'd learned such petty rivalries didn't touch him. He sent the natural alpha a look of pure disdain and crawled to Ivory, lying on his side so she could inspect his wounds. She'd healed him countless times over the years, just as his sisters and brothers healed the slayer's wounds, their saliva containing the healing agents.
She scraped snow from the frozen ground and dug deep until she had good soil. Mixing her saliva with the soil, she packed the wounds and then hugged him. "Thank you, my brother. As so many other times, you've saved my life."
He nuzzled her and waited patiently while she inspected each of the pack. The strongest female, Ayame, named after the demon princess wolf, cuddled close to him, inspecting his wounds and passing her tongue over the other scratches he'd received. Their littermates formed the rest of the pack: Blaez, his second in command; Far kas, the last male; and Rikki and Gynger, the two smaller females. They crowded around Ivory, pressing close to her battered and bruised body in an effort to aid her.
The littermates were very distinctive with their thick, silver-tipped coats and a shimmering fall of luxurious fur. All were larger than normal, even the two smaller females. Each had the blue eyes from their puppy days when Ivory had tracked blood and death back to the den, finding the mangled bodies of her natural wolf pack all those years ago. Even then, she'd become a scourge to the vampires, a whisper, the beginnings of a legend, and they'd sought to destroy her. Instead, they'd killed and mutilated the bodies of the wolf pack she'd befriended.
She'd found the puppies dying, their torn bodies wriggling across the blood-soaked ground, trying to find their mother. She couldn't bear to lose them, her only family, her only contact with warmth and affection, and she'd fed them her blood out of sheer desperation to keep them alive. Carpathian blood. Hot and healing. She'd stayed in the den with them, back away from the light of day, nearly starving herself and, again out desperation, having to take small amounts of blood from them to stay alive. She hadn't realized she was giving blood exchanges until the largest and most dominant of the pups underwent the change.
The pups had retained their blue eyes as they'd grown, the Carpathian blood giving them the ability to shift. Their ability to communicate with Ivory had saved them, giving them the necessary psychic brain function to live through the conversion. They had been wounded a thousand times in battle, but over the last century they'd learned how to successfully bring down a vampire, the seven of them working as a team.
She lay back in the snow, catching her breath, letting her body absorb the pain of her wounds. The one in her neck throbbed and burned and she knew she had to clean it immediately. She was impervious to the cold, as all Carpathians were. Her race was as old as time, nearly immortal, as she had discovered, to her horror, when the prince's son had betrayed her to the vampires for his own gain. She'd never known such agony, an endless battle deep in the earth as years went by and her body refused to die.
She must have made a sound, although she didn't hear herself. She thought her cry was silent, but the wolves pressed closer, trying to comfort her. Behind the shield, the natural pack took up the cry. Looking up at the night sky, she let her wolves soothe her, the love and devotion a balm to her whenever she thought too much about her former life. Time was creeping forward. This time of day was as much an enemy as the vampire. She had to hurry to get to her lair; there was still much to be done before dawn.
Ivory pressed her fingers to her burning eyes and forced her body to move. First, she removed the poison from the lesions in her flesh, where the vampire's poison-tipped claws had torn her open. The vampires who banned together used tiny, wormlike parasites to identify one another, and those parasites infected any open wound. She had to push them through her pores fast, before they could take hold and require a much more in-depth healing. Again she brought down the lightning to kill them before mixing soil and saliva to pack her own wounds.
"Ready?" she asked her family, picking up her weapons and shoving the used arrows back into her pack. She never left a weapon or arrow behind, careful that her formula didn't fall into the hands of the vampires, or worse, Xavier, her mortal enemy.
Ivory stretched out her arms and the pack leapt together, forming the full length coat in the air as they shifted, covering her body, the hood over her head and flowing pelt surrounding her with warmth and affection. She was never alone when she traveled with her pack. No matter where she went, no matter how many days or weeks she traveled, they traveled with her, keeping her from going insane. She'd learned to be alone and had the wolf's natural wariness of strangers. She had no friends, only enemies, and she was comfortable that way.
Striding through the snow, she waved her hand and allowed the shield to disintegrate. The wolf pack milled around her, weaving in and out between her legs and sniffing at her coat and boots, greeting her as a member of the pack. The alpha marked every bush and tree in the vicinity to cover Raja's scent marks. Ivory rolled her eyes at the display of dominance.
"Males are the same the world over, no matter what the species," she said aloud and checked the wolves one by one, assuring herself the vampire hadn't harmed any of them.
"All right. Let's get you fed before dawn. I have a ways to travel and the night's fading," she told the pack. Catching the alpha's muzzle, she looked into his eyes. Find and drive prey to me and I'll bring it down for you. Hurry, though. I don't have much time.
Although she talked to her own pack all the time and they understood her, it was easier with a wild pack to convey the order in images rather than in words. She added a sense of urgency at the same time. She needed to begin the trek back to her lair. Ordinarily she would fly, and each of her weapons was made of something natural that could shift with her, to transport her arsenal over long distances. But first she had to help the pack find food. She didn't want to lose them over the winter, and another storm was coming in soon.
The wolf pack melted away, once again fading into the forest to look
for prey. She shouldered her crossbow and began walking through the wilderness in the direction of her home. She'd only make a few miles before the pack would flush something her way, but she would be that much closer to home--and to safety.
She understood little about the modern way of life. She'd been buried beneath the ground for so long, the world was unrecognizable when she'd risen. She'd learned over time that the prince's son, Mikhail, had replaced him as the ruler of the Carpathians, and his second in command, as always, was a Daratrazanoff. She knew little else of them, but even the Carpathian world had changed drastically.
There were so few of her species, the race nearing extinction. And who knew? Maybe it was for the best. Maybe their time was long past. So few women and children had been born over the last few centuries that the race was nearly wiped out. She wasn't a part of that world any longer, no more than she was a part of the modern-day human world. She knew little of technology, other than from the books she read, and she had no concept of what it would be like to live in a house or village, town or--God forbid--a city.
She quickened her steps and again glanced at the sky. She would give the wolf pack another twenty minutes to flush game before she took flight. As it was she was pushing her luck. She didn't want to be caught out in the light of dawn. She'd spent so much of her life underground, she hadn't developed the resistance to the sun as many of her kind had done, able to stay out in the early morning hours. The moment the sun began to rise she could feel the burn.
Of course, it might have something to do with her skin taking so long to renew itself, scraped from her body as it had been until she was nothing but bones and a mass of raw tissue. Sometimes, when she first woke, she still felt the blades going through bone and organs as they chopped her into little pieces and scattered her across the meadow, left to be eaten by the wolves. She remembered the sound of their rasping laughter as they carried out the orders given to them by her worst enemy--Xavier.
The wind began to increase in strength and dark clouds drifted overhead, heralding the coming storm. She sought the haven of the trees and took refuge, closing her eyes to seek the wolf pack. They had discovered a doe, thin and drawn from the winter, hobbling a bit from an injury to her old body. Giving chase, the pack had taken turns, running her toward Ivory.
She whispered softly, asking for the doe's forgiveness, explaining the need to feed the pack as she lifted her weapon and waited. Minutes passed. Ice cracked with a loud snap, disturbing the silence. Hard breaths burst from lungs in a rapid puff of steam as the deer broke through the trees and ran full out over the icy ground.
Behind the doe, a wolf ran, silent, deadly, hungry, moving across the expanse of ice on large paws. Surrounding them, the pack came in from various angles, keeping the doe running straight toward Ivory. They'd hunted this way more than once, bringing the prey to her in desperate times.
Not wanting the doe to suffer, Ivory waited until she had a kill shot before releasing her arrow and taking the animal down. Before the alpha could approach the carcass, snarling at the others to wait until he had his fill, she hurried to it and retrieved her arrow, striding away fast, not wanting to use energy to control a starving pack when there was a banquet in front of them.
Increasing her speed until she was running, Ivory sprang into the sky, shifting, the wolves sliding over her skin to become the ferocious tattoos as they streaked through the clouds with her. She always felt the joy of traveling this way, as if a burden was lifted from her shoulders each time she took to the air. Spinning dark clouds helped to ease the light on her skin as she moved quickly toward her home. Maybe that was what made her feel less weighted down--that she was heading home where she felt safe and secure.
She'd never learned to be relaxed and at ease above-ground where her enemies could come at her from any direction. She kept her lair secret, leaving no traces near her entrance, so no one had the opportunity to track her. The entrance wasn't protected with a spell, so if a Carpathian or vampire found it, they wouldn't know it was occupied. Many years earlier she'd learned the areas underground where her enemies were most comfortable, and now she avoided them.
Ten miles from her lair, she went to earth, landing, still running, skimming across the surface, arms outstretched so her wolves could hunt. They all needed blood, and with all seven of them spreading out, they'd run across a hunter or a cabin. If not, she would go into the closest village and bring back enough to sustain the pack. She was very careful not to hunt near home, not unless she absolutely had to.
As she slipped through the trees, the mountain rising high in the distance, she came across tracks. An early morning wanderer out to get wood perhaps, or hunting himself. She crouched low and touched the tracks in the snow. A big man. That was always good. And he was alone. That was even better. Hunger gnawed at her now that she'd allowed herself to become aware of it. Ivory ran in the footsteps, following the male as he made his way through the trees.
The forest gave way to a clearing where a small cabin and outhouse sat, a stream dissecting the meadow surrounding it. Ordinarily the cabin was empty, but the tracks led through the snow and inside. A thin trail of smoke began to float from the chimney, telling her he'd just come home and lit a fire.
Ivory threw her head back and howled, calling to her pack. She waited on the edge of the clearing and the man stepped outside, rifle in his hands, looking around at the surrounding forest. That lonely call had spooked him and he waited, quartering the area around his house.
Ivory took to the sky again, moving with the wind, part of the drifting mist surrounding the house. She stood above her prey on the roof while he studied the forest and then, with a small curse, went inside. She saw the shadows flitting among the trees and gestured to them. The pack sank down, waiting.
The crack beneath the cabin door was wide enough for the mist to flow through and Ivory entered the room, warm now from the crackling fire. Only one room, with a small fireplace and cooking stove, the cabin had the barest of amenities. In modern times, even the poorest of the villagers had such meager trappings. She watched him from the hidden corner of the room as he poured water into a pot and set it on the fire to boil.
Crossing the space, she materialized almost in front of him, slipping between him and the fire, her will already reaching for his to calm him and make him more accepting. His eyes widened, and then glazed over. Ivory led him to the chair where she could seat him. She was tall--much taller than many women in the villages, a gift from her Carpathian heritage--but this mountain of a man was still taller. She found the pulse beating on the side of his neck and sank her teeth deep.
The taste was exquisite, hot blood flowing, cells filling and bursting with life. Sometimes she forgot just how good it was to feast on the real thing. Animal blood could sustain life, but true strength and energy came from humans. She savored every drop, appreciating the life-giving blood, grateful to the man, although he wouldn't remember he had donated. She planted a dream, slightly erotic, wholly pleasing, not wanting the experience to be unpleasant for him.
She flicked her tongue across the puncture wounds to close the two holes and erase all evidence that she'd been there. Before leaving, she got him a drink of water and pressed it to his mouth, commanding him to drink, and then she set another glass beside him and tucked a blanket close to keep his body heat up.
The pack met her in the deeper woods, surrounding her the moment she called to them. The alpha male came first, leaning against her knee as she knelt and offered her wrist, the blood welling up. He licked the wound from her left wrist while the female fed from her right. She fed all six wolves and then sat in the snow for a moment, recovering. She'd taken quite a lot from the woodsman, although she'd been careful to ensure that he could still function, not wanting to risk him freezing to death before he recovered, and she was a little drained after the fight with the vampires and then feeding the pack.
She rose slowly and held out her arms, waiting for the wolves to shift back into
tattoos covering her skin. As they merged with her, she felt a little more revived, the wolves giving her their energy. Again she ran and leapt into the sky, shifting as she did so, giving her body wings as she flew over the forest and headed home.
The clouds were heavy and full, and small gusts of wind blew in the mist, blotting out the rising sun. The mountains rose in front of her--snowcapped and high--hiding warmth and home beneath the layers of rock. She found herself smiling. We're home, she sent to the pack. Almost. She had to scout before she dropped down, check for strangers in her area.
She felt the wolves reach out with each of their senses, just as she did, never taking safety for granted. It was how she'd managed to stay alive for so many years. Trusting no one. Speaking to no one unless far from her dwelling. Leaving no tracks. No trace. The Slayer appeared and then vanished.
She worked her way in an ever-tightening circle, closer and closer to her lair, all the while scanning for blank spaces that might indicate a vampire, or for the disruption of energy that meant a mage, might be in the area. Smoke and noise might be humans. Carpathians were more difficult, but she had a sixth sense about them and could hide herself if she felt one near.
As she began her spiral downward, unease rippled through her body and then through the wolves. Below her, through the layers of mist, she caught glimpses of something dark lying motionless in the snow. The snow began to fall, adding to her loss of vision, and she knew by the prickly sensation crawling over her skin that the sun had begun to rise. Every instinct told her to increase her speed and make it to her lair before the sun broke over the mountain, but something far older, far deeper, deterred her.
She couldn't turn away from the sprawled body lying in the snow, already being covered with the new powder falling. O kod bels--darkness take it. Cursing ancient Carpathian oaths that would have shocked her five brothers in the old days when she'd remained their protected, adored baby sister, she set her feet down in the snow and threw her arms out to allow her pack to leap down.