Something’s happening above us, Dimitri said as he withdrew the sword from the tigerfish’s mouth, spinning to the side of the large fish and slicing down to cut the head off. Near the shore, there’s a disturbance.
Go. I’ve got this.
Fen stopped the flow of blood and dove deeper, ignoring the small bits of silver still burning through his body. He found an entrance to the underwater rooms in Abel’s lodge. To enter the lair of a vampire was a very risky thing. There was water in the first room. Part of the wall had been blown away. The Sange rau had stored his food there and the bodies had risen to the surface.
Fen swam through it to the entrance to the second room. Immediately he felt the resistance blocking him. He waved his hand and at once the safeguards symbols and code flowed in front of his vision, a little blurry at times and very fast. He unraveled them just as fast, but was far more careful going into the second chamber.
Abel slept here. It was dark and dank and snug, warm even, all the comforts of a cave. Fen looked around carefully. There was no one there, but he hadn’t expected Abel to make it easy for him. This was a cat and mouse game. He was the mouse, the bait to bring Abel out. He made his way slowly across the room. He hadn’t gone more than three steps when his warning radar shrieked at him. Screamed. Flashed. He wasn’t alone in the close confines of that room.
Abel dropped down on him from above, driving him to the floor of the lodge. The curved claws dug deep, tearing at him. The moment his body hit the floor, the walls of the room came alive, bats, clearly carnivorous, abandoning their resting place to join their master.
Feast. Feast my brothers, Abel commanded.
The bats dropped to the floor, coming from all directions, leaping on Fen and biting deep.
Dimitri surfaced, going straight out of the water, to see two of the elite hunters, Convel and Gunnolf, tangled up in the reeds. Clearly Zev had sent them scouting and the dead bodies in the lake had attracted them to the shore. They both had fallen into one of Abel’s traps. Thick vines burst from the reeds, wrapping the two Lycans up tightly in the stranglehold of an anaconda.
Cursing under his breath, Dimitri rocketed across the sky, dropping down behind the first Lycan, making certain not to touch any of the reeds. “Stop struggling. You’re only making it worse,” he advised.
Both Lycans, elite hunters, stopped moving instantly, although it had to have been difficult to obey when the vines continued to wrap them tighter, squeezing until their very bones were in danger of snapping.
Dimitri tried his sword, but the moment he touched the vines, others sprang up around him to try to cage him in. He could hear a quiet hum, the faintest of sounds, and knew the reeds and vines communicated with one another.
Although he didn’t move, Gunnolf began to make a sound of distress. Dimitri had run out of time. Using the strength and speed of the Guardian, he caught at the vines with his bare hands and yanked them away from the hunter, crushing the wood in his bare hands. The vines disintegrated into sawdust from the sheer strength he used. He pulled the hunter free and took him to a safer spot away from the reeds before going back for Convel.
The reeds had come alive, swaying and stretching, trying to find a target. Again, he dropped down fast from above, coming in behind Convel, grasping the thick vines, crushing them in his hands and snatching their prey from them to rise just as quickly into the air. It was his speed that saved them both. The vines shot up from all directions, but he had Convel safe and away. He set him down beside Gunnolf.
“Thanks,” Gunnolf said, holding out his hand. “You saved our lives.”
Dimitri was impatient to get back to Fen, but he gripped Gunnolf’s extended hand. Gunnolf slapped loops of silver around his wrist, a long chain like a leash attached. From behind him, loops of silver chain were flung over his head to drop around his body. The chain was pulled tight and agony shot through him. Before he could call out to Fen, something hard struck his head and everything went black.
“Let’s see what’s inside a hunter, my pets,” Abel said. Smiling, exposing his brown-stained teeth, he reached down in slow motion and deliberately ripped open Fen’s belly. The vampire/wolf took his time, wanting Fen to feel the pain as he eviscerated him. The bats uncovered the raw flesh where his missing skin should have been and tore into him.
“Eating people alive is what they do best and I so enjoy watching,” Abel taunted. “You weren’t quite as good as you thought, now were you?”
Fen felt a burst of pain that was not his own. That agony galvanized him into action as nothing else could. He was Carpathian before all else and he could shut off the pain from battle wounds. He’d done so for centuries. The silver was a different matter, but he could endure until something could be done.
“What happened to her, Abel?” Fen asked, forcing himself to lie quietly beneath the assault on his body. He stayed absolutely relaxed so Abel unintentionally relaxed as well. “Your lifemate? What happened to her?”
Abel went still. For one moment the malevolent lines disappeared from his face and he looked like the hunter Fen had known so long ago. The change in the Sange rau was fleeting, but it gave Fen that split second that he needed.
He slammed his empty fist into Abel’s chest wall with the incredible strength of a Guardian. He drove straight through with astonishing speed, his fist wrapping around the heart and extracting it before Abel even realized Fen had attacked him. As he extracted the heart, Fen rolled right over some of the bats, uncaring that they still bit at his flesh. All that mattered was destroying Abel.
A roar thundered through the lodge, shaking apart the structure that was left above them so that logs and debris rolled into the lake. Holes sprang in the walls. Fen palmed a silver stake with one hand, the heart in the other. Abel went insane, thrashing and screaming, his terrible claws reaching into Fen’s belly, pulling and tearing through everything he could grasp. His face contorted at the same time and he bit down on Fen’s shoulder and neck, tearing out chunks of flesh and wolfing them down whole.
“Get it, take it from him, my pets,” Abel screamed. “My heart!”
Fen didn’t dare drop the heart on the floor. Already Abel’s bats had begun biting at his clenched fist to try to retrieve what the Sange rau had lost. He palmed a silver stake with his other hand, opened his fist and slammed the dagger home, driving it all the way through the heart, his own hand and into the floor.
Abel’s wail rose to a screech. He slapped both hands over the hole in his chest, shock and horror on his face.
“Go to her, Abel. Seek her forgiveness,” Fen said. With his other hand, he used a downward motion, slicing through Abel’s neck with the silver knife he carried. He was forced to use the strength of the Guardian to remove the head.
There was so much blood. His. Abel’s. He was tired. So very tired. He expected the bats to leap upon him and tear him to shreds, but as Abel toppled to the floor, more water poured into the lodge, faster now, rising quickly and the bats retreated. With his last effort, he looked up at the sky through the holes in the roof. Lightning continued to edge the clouds. He called it down, directing it over Abel’s body and head, watching it burn in spite of the rising water. It seemed to take a long time and a tremendous amount of effort to finish burning the body, but finally, there was nothing left but ashes.
Fen looked around him, a little astonished that it was over. The water was more red than brown. He closed his eyes. Tatijana, my lady. I may not be able to keep my promise to you, but know that I love you with all my heart.
20
Fen, you have to open your eyes. Wake for me. Tatijana called to her lifemate for the seventh straight rising.
In all honesty, he slept as one dead, and his wounds had been so horrific had not Gregori found him when he had, Fen would have died within another few minutes. It had taken everyone to save him, all Carpathians, participating in the healing chant. The peop
le had come together providing strength and much needed blood, while Gregori, Tatijana, Branislava and Mother Earth fought for his life.
“I don’t understand why he doesn’t wake up.” Tatijana looked to Gregori, her eyes welling with tears.
Gregori reached over and covered her hand gently in a rare gesture of compassion. “He’s alive. He’s rejuvenating far faster than I expected. I will tell you now, Tatijana, I did not expect him to survive at all. You must have patience. His spirit seems far away, but he hangs on.”
“I can touch him sometimes, but then he slips away again,” she said. “I just need him to let me in, just for a moment, and then I’ll feel like I can breathe.”
“That is simply a reaction of lifemates,” he advised matter-of-factly. “When you’re separated too long, the effects can be damaging. You know he lives. You know he will come back to you.”
She knew he was giving her a warning. It was difficult to keep her mind steady and focused when she feared Fen had already slipped too far away from her. She’d made a promise to him though, and she would keep it. No matter how much sorrow weighed on her, she would find a way to hang on as he was doing.
The cave of healing was a peaceful place. The soil was dark and rich with minerals. Fen had been brought directly there by Gregori and the Carpathians had hastily gathered to try to save him. Tatijana had been horrified when she saw him. His skin had been peeled from his body in numerous places and he had chunks of flesh missing along the long raw patches. Larger chunks of flesh were missing from his shoulder and up close to his neck. The worst was his belly. Gregori had to keep his insides from falling out as he transported him back to the cave.
“Tatijana,” Gregori said sharply, and then gentled his voice. “He grows stronger with each passing rising.”
“Then why isn’t his spirit where I can touch it?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps he is traveling on his own while he heals. Look at his body. He rejuvenated far faster than I expected.”
She nodded her head. “You’re right. I know you’re right.” It was just that she wanted to hold Fen in her arms close to her body, feel his heart beating the same rhythm as hers. Just for a moment and then she knew she could breathe easier. Right now, it felt as though she couldn’t draw a full breath into her lungs.
“What are you going to tell him about Dimitri?” Gregori asked, clearly to distract her.
Tatijana forced herself to respond. Distraction was exactly what she needed. Still, she put her hand on Fen’s chest, right over his heart. “Even young Skyler has been unable to reach Dimitri, and their connection is unbelievably strong. I don’t know how to tell him that Dimitri was taken by the Lycans, and no one, not me, not his lifemate or any of you can reach him.”
She swept back her hair, although there was really no need. No stray strands had escaped, but she felt shaky and in need of covering it. “I feel as if I failed him. The moment we knew Dimitri was missing—that Vikirnoff found evidence he’d been taken by the Lycans, both Bronnie and I took to the sky, but even with dragon vision we couldn’t find him. I was so worried about Fen, I felt so desperate to save him, that I just didn’t take my dragon up fast enough.”
“Our best and fastest hunters raced after them,” Gregori pointed out. “Nothing has ever escaped so many hunters, and yet they came up empty, Tatijana. Dimitri’s disappearance is not your fault.”
“Zev told Mikhail that two of his elite hunters had taken him,” Tatijana said, shaking her head. “Do they want to start a war? Don’t they realize Fen will never stop until he gets Dimitri back? Never, Gregori, he’ll be relentless in his pursuit.”
Gregori nodded. “I’m well aware of that and so is the prince. Zev has given Mikhail reassurances that Dimitri will be safe for the time being. The Lycan council has sent word that they will come to a meeting with Mikhail. The Lycans don’t want a war with us. Neither species will win. We all know that. They won’t harm Dimitri while this summit takes place.”
“Why can’t we reach him? Why can’t Skyler?” With her hand still over Fen’s chest, for a moment, she thought she felt his heart flutter, and her heart jumped for joy, but when she looked down at him, he hadn’t moved.
“She’s little more than a child,” Gregori said dismissively. “You say they have a particularly strong connection, but look at you and Fen. He’s right here, close to you and yet he doesn’t awaken at your request. Sometimes the spirit travels on its own while the body heals.”
“Are you saying you suspect Dimitri is so hurt that he can’t respond?” Tatijana asked. “Because if that’s the case, time is of the essence and we need to go after them. Zev must know where the Lycans would take him.”
“I’m certain he does. Dimitri is probably on his way to their council. He is Hän ku pesäk kaikak—Guardian of all to us, but Sange rau to them and they fear the Sange rau more than anything else,” Gregori answered.
“Do they fear the Sange rau more than they fear war with us?” Tatijana asked.
Gregori sighed. “I wish I knew the answer to that, but Mikhail has called in all Carpathians for this summit. We’ve made it very clear to the Lycans the summit doesn’t happen if they kill Dimitri. They’re still coming, which they’d be insane to do if he wasn’t alive.”
“He’s alive,” Tatijana said. She was tired of explaining to both Mikhail and Gregori that she knew he was alive because Skyler knew. They insisted on viewing Dimitri’s lifemate as a child and didn’t really give credence to her abilities.
“Mikhail has quietly begun putting together some of our best hunters. Once you wake him and we know he’s strong enough, the hunters trying to track Dimitri will slip away with Fen leading them. We know that a couple of the Lycan hunters are nearby, watching to see that we don’t launch an attack on their people or try to retaliate, so we have to do this under their noses without getting caught.”
Tatijana couldn’t imagine Fen caring one way or the other that the Lycans knew that he was coming for his brother, Dimitri. He probably would want them to know. He would be absolutely merciless, implacable and maybe the Lycans needed to see that.
Gregori must have caught her thoughts. He leaned forward and shook his head. “You can’t let him go off after his brother without thinking of the consequences. If they know we’re coming for him, they very well could kill Dimitri. We don’t know where he is. They’ve found some way to silence him.”
“That’s more frightening than anything else,” Tatijana admitted.
Again there was that strange fluttering beneath her hand. She leaned over Fen and brushed a kiss over his mouth. Come back to me, my love. I need to know you’re alive.
“I believed Zev when he said he had no part in taking Dimitri, but more importantly, Mikhail believed him. He knows when people speak the truth. Zev didn’t give the order to take Dimitri prisoner, he didn’t even know he was of mixed blood,” Gregori said. “I suspect the two Lycans observed Dimitri in the battle and he gave himself away out of necessity.”
“Does he know Fen has mixed blood?” Tatijana strained to keep her voice even, but she thought it quivered a bit.
Thankfully, Gregori pretended not to notice. “He doesn’t know Fen and Dimitri are brothers. No, I think he believes Fen stays close because he’s fallen in love with you. He spoke to Mikhail and said such a match would be forbidden by the Lycans. It is obvious he both admires and respects Fen and wants him to join his pack as an elite hunter.”
Tatijana frowned. “It’s forbidden for Fen to fall in love with me just because I’m Carpathian? Isn’t that just a little archaic?”
“They know Carpathians exchange blood.”
“They were happy enough to have our blood when they were wounded,” Tatijana hissed. Again Fen’s heart fluttered. She pressed her palm hard over his chest, nearly crying out. That had to be a heartbeat. She wasn’t mistaken. She felt tears burning behind her eyes
and clumping in her throat. He was alive. He was coming closer to the surface.
Beside them, Fen stirred, his body still covered in the rich healing soil of Mother Earth. Tatijana let out a cry of joy. His lashes fluttered and he looked up at her. His face was very pale and there were lines that hadn’t been there before, but he smiled just for her.
“You’re a beautiful sight to wake up to, my lady.”
“I think you’re rather beautiful yourself.” She was not going to cry. She kept her palm flat over his chest, needing the reassurance of his steady heartbeat. It was music to her.
“You’re back with us,” Gregori observed, his silver eyes missing nothing. Fen was breathing a little shallow and was still in some pain, but he was very aware of everything around him. “How much of our conversation did you get?”
“Enough to know that”—Fen had to reach for his voice—“we need to find out why the two Lycans were at the lake in the first place. How did they know where we expected the last Sange rau’s lair might be? Dimitri and I found it because we knew Abel when we were young.”
“A very good question,” Gregori agreed.
“If Zev didn’t know where we were, and he didn’t send those hunters to aid us, why weren’t they with their pack, fighting the rogues?” Fen asked. “Zev is dominant over the pack alpha, he’s the big boss. No self-respecting alpha would ever allow his pack to desert a fight and go off without a word.”
“Zev left in a hurry. I wonder if he was asking himself the same questions,” Gregori mused. “He wasn’t happy.”
“I’m sure he wasn’t. If members of his pack took someone prisoner and didn’t even report back to him—that’s mutiny in the pack. That’s challenging leadership. Those two would have to fight Zev for the position of leader,” Fen explained. “The best hunter is always the scout and therefore the dominant alpha.”
Dark Lycan (Carpathian) Page 38