Plus, some group was actively trying to get rid of her. It was obvious from Algerian’s story that Petre didn’t want Nathan getting involved.
Without Carl, she was seriously hampered in information acquisition. She needed to find a core group who knew more about the UnknownWorld and could help her understand what she could and couldn’t accomplish with the movers and shakers in that area. If Carl and Michael had both been taken out of the equation, she would need to build her own team. She had some people she could contact from her previous life, but that would be chancy as hell. They would have split allegiances and her friendship wasn’t going to trump their allegiance to the U.S..
Then she would need funding. Her previous Bethany Anne Reynolds finances were probably already dispersed, especially after the going away party she and her father put on her credit cards that last night. That might have been a little irresponsible in light of what had happened to her since, but it had been a hell of a night! She would have to see what was in the accounts Michael had Carl setup for her.
Her father was certainly on her side. But getting in touch with him would be a real problem. Any contact would certainly be expected and she would need to be careful before getting him involved. The same would be true for Martin, if she could convince herself that it would be safe to confide anything in him.
She stood up, moving her head from side to side, cracking her neck. It was time to get back and find out what resources she did have. As far as she knew, she had a wolf, a bear, a pretty Romanian girl, and the name of someone who could supply information.
Well, she had wanted to be on the sharp point, and it didn’t get any sharper than where she was. She considered her options and the number of challenges ahead. Oh well, she thought, no time like the present to get her information and let Petre suffer for his sins.
She set off back towards the camp.
Nathan was sitting on the log next to what was now mostly just ashes in the firepit and tossed in a couple of small logs, considering the situation.
Obviously, he had found Michael’s new child, and she was nothing like he was expecting. Well, mostly not.
She had the scary-as-hell-kill-you-dead part down pat. His wolf would normally have issues with any challenges, but she was so far above him that the wolf just accepted her alpha-ness. He only accepted Gerry as an alpha because Gerry never pushed it. He would ask Nathan to do something for him and Nathan was as happy with the relationship as he possibly could be.
Until this little trip, his time working with Michael’s group was high-risk, low-probability. So, he only had to keep his head down for a short time to come out ahead, and the risk had been more than enough to keep him out of everything else related to the pack.
It seemed he had lost the roll of the dice now. If he ever got out of this situation, he would have to admit that Gerry had played the better, longer game. Nathan’s markers had all come due and the bill was going to be significantly more than he thought he would ever have to pay. That tended to weigh down the scales on the ‘I’m so screwed’ side.
However, Ecaterina was on the other side of the scale and so it was possible he would still come out ahead. One should always look for the sunshine peeking over the mountain in the morning. The view was breathtaking.
Speaking of breathtaking, Ecaterina was presently kneeling with her head inside her tent and the rest of her body outside the entrance and the view was causing him problems, serious focus problems. My God…
“What is it, exactly, that has your attention Mr. Lowell?”
A little red-faced, Nathan had forgotten about Ecaterina’s uncle who had finished cleaning up the bodies and dumped them away from their site. He quickly pulled his attention back to the flame and blurted out the first thing on his mind.
“The woman Vamp.”
“Ah.” Alexi sat down on a log to Nathan’s left. He had gotten dressed again after the Vamp left. Nathan must have really been distracted to not hear him coming back. Now he was blushing again at his mistake.
He was acting like a stupid teenager, and it kinda felt good. At least he wasn’t so old that he wasn’t capable of being pulled in by a fantastic female. She was the right package of outdoors and smoldering heat and he was trying like hell to find out what the price tag might be. Not that he cared. If he had what it cost, he was spending it for the chance to know her better.
He just had a thousand pounds of uncle to deal with, a Vamp that wasn’t going to let him just move on with his life and someone or someones trying to take down his company. He needed his head screwed on straight, but his hormones were making that a stone cold bitch to achieve. He had to grin at the reality that the world was going down the deep, dark hole of perdition and he was going to smile on the way.
Alexi carried on with the conversation, “Yah, she is a package. I wasn’t sure what happened. She just appeared, took care of the first wolf without paying any attention to me and went into the bushes to you guys like she was getting a little fresh air. Of course, with all of that blood on her face, it was a little frightening, even to me.”
Alexi pulled the old coffeepot out of the ashes and retrieved a cup nearby. Pouring some dregs from the pot, he cupped the mug with both hands and took a small sip.
Carrying on the conversation, relating his experience, Nathan continued the story. “I was in a bad strait. I was in a horrible tactical position thinking I might try to join up with you against all three of them when in the middle of our fight she walks in, takes out the first wolf and demands we change. I’m a betting man, Alexi, but I never bet against Vamps. I knew who she must be, but her coming here, day walking, surprised the hell out of me. I’m not ashamed to say I just laid down as quick as gravity would take me and changed like a pup would.”
Alexi looked at Nathan. Taking in his size and stature, this man was a killer. If he was fighting two wolves, including that alpha, and was mostly holding his own it was a testament that he was no pushover. To have dropped his head and submissively shown his neck explained he knew power and respected it. That he had stood up for Ecaterina when questioning the vampire was something Alexi still considered.
It was obvious to Alexi that Nathan liked his niece. Hell, most everyone liked his niece, but she had wanderlust, she wasn’t going to stay here in the Brasov area. While he wouldn’t want her to get caught up in this world, if she wasn’t going to be wiped, she probably wouldn’t find a better relationship for protection than this Were and the Vamp. Well, if the Vamp cared to protect her, that is. He needed a chance to talk to Ecaterina and explain what was going on.
He got up. It was time to talk with her.
Nathan watched Alexi put his cup down and start toward Ecaterina. While he could sit right there and listen in to the conversation with his hearing, that would go badly when she realized what he had done later. He was sure that she would clue in eventually and then she would feel like he hadn’t been respectful of her privacy. He stood up, went over to his rig and got the last shirt.
Yelling to Alexi to let him know he was going to wash up a little, he left the clearing and headed for the lake.
That was where Bethany Anne found him.
Carpathian Mountains, Romania
Ecaterina wasn’t doing much in her tent. Mostly, she was hiding from the situation.
She had already changed her clothes and the first aid that Nathan had provided was sufficient. She had some pain relievers and they were starting to take effect.
She was a little pissed that she had been taken so easily. With her eyes on where the shot had come from, she never noticed the guy coming up behind her. She wasn’t sure how he had found her under the brush—she’d considered herself well hidden.
She supposed that the mythology obviously had truth to it and they could sense more than she as a human could.
It wasn’t as scary as she thought it would be. She had thought that people changing to wolves might be like that Michael Jackson video, painful and scary looking. Since they jus
t seemed to ‘change,’ without grotesque bones, stretching and howling, that part was less of a put off than she would have thought.
That her uncle was a bear was startling. It explained his absence and why she always felt safe in this area. She had seen his tracks from time to time, but they had never been too close and while she had been careful, there was never any feeling that the large bear had been upset with her being up here.
Her hands were still shaking. She had willed them to stop, that this wasn’t how her family reacted, wasn’t causing them to still. Yeah, she was freaking out but her body was handling the situation in her subconscious, while her mind worked to piece everything together.
Then, the obvious protection of Nathan as he held her when the woman approached her. His talking to her with the utmost of respect. This was a woman Ecaterina wanted to know more about. This woman walked, well, she wasn’t sure what way but it was obvious that whatever path she took, it wasn’t going to be a normal, well-trodden path. It would be a path of excitement, of stories that she would never get a chance to be a part of if she stayed in Brasov.
She wanted to go with this woman. That was her decision. Her hands stilled and she started pulling her gear together. Bethany Anne had said they were going to stay the night to make sure she was OK. Playing the weak woman card wouldn’t score her any points, and frankly it wasn’t who Ecaterina was. Well, unless she was using it as bait.
She heard her uncle coming up behind her. She got out of the tent and started striking it.
She looked up at her uncle as she pulled a stake and saw the concern plainly written on his face. Dropping the stake, she walked to him while opening her arms. She could see he was trying not to scare her, to give her space.
That wasn’t flying with her, this was her uncle, who had protected her, taken bullets for her, the guardian on the mountain. She wrapped him in her biggest, most loving hug, resting her head on his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. She stayed like that for a couple of minutes.
She stepped away and looked him in the eyes, “Thank you, Uncle. I care not what you are, I only know I care who you are in here.” She touched his shirt where his heart would be.
“Ecaterina, my favorite niece.” His eyes shone brightly, a feeling of relief that she gave him her love so willingly. “I’m sorry you were a part of this. If I had known anything was going to happen, I would have been up here last night. I am ashamed I didn’t know about the pack.” He looked around her space, noting that she had traps, some already dismantled, around where she slept.
He sighed, “But, I have to give you some information if you are going to survive the coming discussions. This woman, you know she is what we call a vampire. There are no good vampires, at least not that I know. The best, if you will, will leave you alone if you abide by their rules, but they don’t suffer much and the most powerful one will kill you as soon as look at you if you don’t respect him. Please, can you hold that quick spirited tongue of yours?” His eyes entreated her to answer the question with a ‘yes.’
“I do not have a spirited tongue! This is just a tale Mama tells to make me more subservient so men will like me more.” Her uncle raised an eyebrow as if she had just made his point.
Maybe she was a bit quick, she reasoned. Even Ivan would occasionally suggest she not be so argumentative. “OK, maybe I am a little quick, but that is only with family.”
Her uncle raised his other eyebrow.
She slumped a little. Who was she kidding? She loved a good verbal fight. She hadn’t felt scared around this woman, so it wasn’t like she felt a need to be meek.
“Why is this so important, Uncle? What is she that would have even you, as big as you can be, doing her bidding?” She crossed her arms, waiting for an answer.
Alexi looked around and realized that Ecaterina had been packing. She obviously didn’t want to wait through the night. Knowing he was going back to Brasov, where he hadn’t been for a while, he was actually ready to go himself. He started helping her disable the rest of the traps. If you weren’t going to be checking the traps, you didn’t leave them to hurt anything that might pass by. It wasn’t what a good hunter and trapper would do, so no one in his family would do it.
Ecaterina finally joined him.
“These vampires, the strongest ones, the powerful ones, they are not like the stories. The weaker ones, yes, they are. But there are two groups. One good and one bad, yes?” He looked over to make sure Ecaterina was listening. That wasn’t a problem, Ecaterina knew how to strike camp in her sleep. She was listening.
“None are fun to mess with. The good ones can be OK to deal with, but very touchy about their honor. The head of that family is named Michael. He is the one who created a list of rules when he found out about us, the Wechselbalg. Most people, if they know anything about us, think of us as werewolves and werebears and other things. Pretty much we all talk that way, but it isn’t what we are.”
He finished disassembling the traps and placed the parts by the tree, so Ecaterina could find them again. If she ever made it back up to this mountain.
“This happened centuries ago. It is what was told to me. Michael found the heads of the Wechselbalg and told them that they had to find better ways to hide themselves. There were too many stories of vampires and men who became wolves and preyed on people. It is the time his own children were causing havoc as well. He let it be known that if you let humans know what you were, that you had to take care of the problem. If that meant the human had to die, then you had to take care of it. He was busy for a while with two of his children that disappeared leaving too many young vampires, almost Nosferatu, he had to track down and dispatch dozens and those two children were not seen again. It was difficult in those days to find anybody if they didn’t want to be found. I can tell you, those two children did not want Michael to find them.”
Ecaterina stopped filling her backpack, “Why is he considered the good side, if everyone is afraid of him and he killed so many that even his own children fled?”
“The stories say that they felt they should be allowed to become the dominant species, rulers setup for all to give fealty to. Michael didn’t agree. Those children he had left and all of their children have been in a struggle to contain the forsaken ever since. Now, it is probably too late for the forsaken to overtake any world power with the weapons and technology they have. At least, I would think so.”
“What about this one, this Bethany Anne?”
Alexi’s faraway look focused on Ecaterina. “Katia, you need to be careful with this one. She is powerful. I know from Nathan that she is a new vampire, and she was chosen by Michael to become one of the family, but she is something different. She doesn’t show the respect to Michael every other vampire does. Something strange is going on here and I don’t know the answer. She isn’t the same as any of the others I’ve heard stories about. She is able to take the sunlight, and only two can do that. She is dangerous, like all vampires, but even so, I don’t know what to think about someone so new walking into a fight and ending it so quickly.”
“Is she more powerful than the others? The other children?”
“I can’t answer that. I don’t know, and I have no idea what she wants yet. According to Nathan, he was sent here to find her and Michael. Now that he has found her, I think he just wants to lose her again.”
“So he can go home? Back to America?” Ecaterina glanced over to where Nathan’s tent was.
Alexi, following her gaze, answered as casually as he could. “Maybe, maybe not. I think he has found a new thing he wants to learn more about. I don’t believe he is going to be given much of a choice as to whether he can go back by himself—from either the vampire, or this other interest he has.” Alexi had to look down toward the lake to keep Ecaterina from seeing his smile.
He heard a soft mumble, barely audible to even his enhanced hearing. “I wonder what he is so interested in?”
23
Carpathian Mountains, Romania
She wasn’t hiding from him, and he knew she was there when he came out of the trees on the small path. He spoke easily to her, his voice a fine mellow sound.
“Hello, again.” Nathan took off his shirt and went to the cool, clear water and used it as a rag to clean his upper body.
Bethany Anne noticed he was ripped. His clothes did a good job hiding the muscles, but he had a chest to die for, well, if she could. Maybe Ecaterina would appreciate it? She knew that there was a connection between them. It was obvious by the fire and Bethany Anne, who could appreciate a side of beefcake if it was going to wash right in front of her, didn’t have the time or inclination to get involved romantically with everything else going on.
Although she could just about sneeze on the amount of pheromones he was throwing off. He had it bad.
After washing a little, he turned towards Bethany Anne who had just sat down. “I want to thank you for helping earlier. If you hadn’t gotten involved, that group would have most likely taken Alexi and me out, and Ecaterina would probably have been hurt before she was killed. They wouldn’t have wanted any witnesses and Ecaterina isn’t the type to just lay there and take it.”
“You’re welcome, but I wouldn’t have killed Algerian if he hadn’t disobeyed my order to stop and change. I wasn’t protecting you, I was punishing disobedience. I suppose that worked out for you, in the end. I killed the sniper as the most expedient action and I was a little unfocused. I noticed the first wolf trying to get around Alexi and attack the girl. I wouldn’t allow that to happen. The wolf I killed next to you had attacked me, it wasn’t personal and I needed the…” she didn’t want to admit energy, since she didn’t know if anyone understood how her capabilities worked, so she finished her sentence, “…sustenance.”
Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set One: Books 1-7, Death Becomes Her, Queen Bitch, Love Lost, Bite This, Never Forsaken, Under My Heel, Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets) Page 18