Vikirnoff and Natalya stepped up to the amber, as expressionless as their prince. Neither flinched when Abel began the complicated process of unraveling the safeguards. He did so with astonishing speed, proving he could see the coding. He made short work of the intricate guards that would have stopped even a master vampire. Next he began systematically tearing at the thick amber sheet. The amber stuck to his claws and muzzle when he leaned in to tear at it with his teeth. Still, he made steady progress.
Dimitri saw his brother materialize directly behind Abel, plunging his fist once more into the
Sange rau
’s back. Clearly Abel had been so focused on tearing down the amber guard that he hadn’t detected Fen’s approach. His mouth opened wide in a silent scream, blood trickled from his mouth. He shifted immediately, his body jerking and twisting as he did so, trying to dislodge the stake.
Fen streaked after him as Abel abandoned the tunnel and emerged out into the early morning sunlight. His high-pitched shrieks reverberated through the cavern, shaking loose more crystal, dirt and rocks. The debris fell on Fen, smashing him to the tunnel floor. Several larger boulders crashed down around him. He was pinned for just one moment before he dissolved the rocks and was up and after Abel. The scent of burning flesh was unmistakable. Abel had pushed his limit of being outside in the sun.
He’s gone, Fen,
Mikhail said.
You need blood and care. Dimitri needs the earth.
Both still live.
Fen was deeply disappointed that he hadn’t killed at least one of them.
We’ve learned more than we ever could have expected. You and Dimitri took them both on and yet you still are alive. They are not invincible. Come back and let us attend your wounds. The sun rises and soon we’ll need to go to ground.
Fen sighed. He could feel Dimitri’s exhaustion and weakness. Dimitri’s lifemate Skyler was going to get angry with him soon if he didn’t take better care of his brother. Mikhail was correct, they both needed to go to ground and allow Mother Earth to heal them. He would gladly take ancient Carpathian blood to help heal his wounds. And he intended to give Dimitri more of his mixed blood. The Lycan would repair him at a much faster rate.
He frowned up at the sky for a few moments and then turned back to join the others.
12
T
he cave of warriors was the most sacred place the Carpathian people had. Fen had come here only a few times in his youth, and the power of the caves had been felt deeply then, but even more now. He walked with Dimitri on one side and Tatijana on the other, through a series of smaller caves, each descending deeper into the earth. Each time they moved into the lower tunnels, that great labyrinth of caverns and chambers, he felt the absolute majesty of the place.
Few could take the heat in the lower caves. Carpathians could control body temperature so they were immune to the searing heat, but few other species found their way into the environment. The cave they moved through had crystalline flows draping the high ceilings. Overhead the formations appeared as great chandeliers, some with long white fringe hanging from nature’s masterpieces.
Fen hadn’t been in many cathedrals, but in his travels, he’d seen a few, and the series of subterranean chambers he moved through, undisturbed, untouched, the natural artistry of nature itself, seemed just as much or more places of worship.
Great columns, sculpted and beautiful, stalactites and stalagmites, grouped together in various shades of color formed a jungle as they went deeper.
Tatijana stumbled a few times on the uneven surface, busy looking in awe at her surroundings. “I lived in ice caves and didn’t think anything could be more beautiful, but this is amazing,” she whispered.
Fen found it interesting that when speaking, all of them, even the warriors during a meeting, tended to lower their voices out of respect for raw nature.
“As we go lower, it’s even more beautiful,” he confided.
They made their way through another long chamber, nearly four hundred feet long and almost as wide filled with more towering columns draped with various colors and shimmering shallow pools that reflected back the startling crystalline flows overhead and the sculptures surrounding them.
Fen knew part of the mystique of the cave of warriors was this long walk to gain entrance. The deeper into the earth one went, the more they felt at home. They were creatures of the night. Places like this massive maze of caverns felt like part of them.
They traveled farther down into heat. At first, Tatijana forgot to regulate her breathing and body temperature she was so busy staring in awe at the curtains and draperies, all different colors, some translucent and some dark with impurities, constructed out of calcite. Long fringe gave the illusion of shawls carefully woven, while other sculptures appeared to be capes or scarves. Overhead and dropping near the wall like great coverings were long, wide sculptures of breathtaking flowing stone, so that the entire chamber looked like a theater with thick, intricate drapes.
“How could you not come here every day just to look at this?” Tatijana asked. “My form is a blue dragon, so I need the cooler water, but Branislava would totally love this. Not that I don’t. It’s so beautiful, but I have to keep remembering to keep my temperature regulated.”
Fen brought their joined hands to his face and rubbed the back of her hand against his jaw. “Your skin is always so cool,
sívamet
. No matter how hot it gets in these caves your outside temperature remains quite cool. I find that . . .” He waited until her eyes met his.
Sexy.
Tatijana laughed softly. “You’re such a flirt, wolf man.”
Dimitri groaned. “Enough of that. My woman is too far away for me to hear this kind of talk from you two.”
That distracted Tatijana immediately. “She’s so powerful! I couldn’t believe her strength. I’ve never actually experienced that kind of healing power from a distance by anyone else. And she’s so young. A child really.”
“In Carpathian years, a child, yes,” Dimitri said. “In terms of human years and what she’s been through, she’s years ahead.”
“Whatever the case, she’s amazing. I can’t wait to meet her.” Tatijana narrowed her eyes. “Which means you can’t go near the
Sange rau
again, not for any reason. It took all of us to heal you the first time, along with Mother Earth. I think Fen nearly drained every drop of blood out of his body replacing yours. And now this time. Three days in the ground and more blood . . .”
“Hey now,
all
of us took a few days to heal,” Dimitri protested.
Tatijana flashed him a grin. “Perhaps some of us heal faster than others.”
“Perhaps you think you’re safe, sister-kin, because my badass brother is looking out for you, but he isn’t so tough.”
She laughed softly. “You’re as crazy as your brother, aren’t you?”
Dimitri and Fen exchanged a long, pleased look.
They were coming to the end of the long theater. The draperies only became more intricate and translucent. The smiles on their faces faded, leaving them all sober. There was a change in the feel of the caves. Where before they felt like a series of inspiring cathedrals, the atmosphere surrounding them as they neared the most sacred of places—the warrior’s cavern, became much heavier.
They stepped inside the worn passage, centuries old, carved out by their ancestors, the rock smooth where feet had trod over so long. There was no doubt it was a little like stepping back in time. The stalagmites and stalactites were everywhere, hanging from the ceiling and thrusting upward from the floor. The circumference of the bases was quite large and there were many of varying sizes and color. Each was sculpted and one could make out faces up and down the stone as if each was a totem pole hand carved rather than fashioned by nature itself.
Tatijana stopped just inside the chamber and looked suspiciously around. The oppressive silence was far different than the other caverns. Not even the three pools of water made her feel better. One was crystal clear, lined with stone, and looked deep and cool, almost an ice blue. The second pool gave off a cloud of steam and was slightly tinged red orange. The third bubbled with mud.
“The stalagmites and stalactites used to hum as we entered,” Fen said. “Our ancestors greeting us. I wonder when that stopped.”
“They hummed the last time I was here,” Dimitri said.
The moment Fen had entered the chamber, he had the sense of being weighed, judged, not by the few living who had gathered, but by the dead whose spirits gathered at every meeting. The presence of his ancestors, warriors long gone from the world, was heavy there in that chamber. The fact that they hadn’t greeted him boded ill.
Tatijana tightened her fingers around Fen’s. “I don’t like the feel of this,” she whispered. “They know what you are, and some of them feel antagonistic. We should make certain we have an exit plan.”
Fen glanced down at her. There was genuine worry in her voice. He was a little worried about the outcome of this meeting, but he was certain he hadn’t passed that on to his lifemate.
She’s got a point, Fen. The air is heavy in here,
Dimitri told him.
With judgment.
Fen couldn’t say the two didn’t have a point, but he didn’t want Tatijana to worry. He was grateful Dimitri had used their private telepathic path.
“They got their butts kicked royally,” Fen said. “They’re used to being at the top of the food chain. They aren’t too happy to discover they have an enemy out there who is just that little bit faster than they are.”
“You mean superior to them when it comes to fighting,” Tatijana corrected. “You’re one of those
Sange raus
who can kick their ass. Do you think they all aren’t aware of that? They resent it, Fen. Egos can get out of hand.”
Fen shook his head. “That’s where I think the misconception comes in, my lady. The
Sange rau
is not necessarily as skilled in battle as most of these hunters. They are faster, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that with a little training, a skilled hunter can’t beat them.”
He tried to avoid Dimitri’s telling glance and focus only on Tatijana.
She stopped moving, tugging at his hand until he stopped directly in front of her. “You mean like Dimitri.” She indicated his brother. “You taught Dimitri how to fight them.”
Dimitri snickered in his mind.
You have an intelligent lifemate, Fen. She’s quick on the uptake.
Don’t I know it.
He ducked his head, avoiding Tatijana’s eyes. “I taught him how to hunt and defeat me. Just in case.”
Tatijana’s fingers tightened in his. “That’s my point. You have always acted with honor. I feel as if you’re being accused of something.”
Fen had been around Lycan society for centuries and had grown accustomed to viewing himself as an outsider who had to hide what and who he was. It was a way of life, and in the end he’d chosen to remain with the Lycans. He found it endearing that Tatijana had become so protective of him.
I agree with her, Fen. Maybe this isn’t a good idea,
Dimitri advised.
Fen did look at his brother then. Dimitri was an ancient, a skilled hunter of the vampire, but he’d spent centuries giving his brother a refuge when the traits of the
Sange rau
became particularly difficult to overcome. He knew, more than any other, that becoming what Fen was, was highly dangerous. Worse, Dimitri’s blood was already changing. Both knew it. The Carpathian council could become aware of it as well.
Dimitri had not claimed his lifemate and he could very well be in double the danger. Fen kept his fingers firmly threaded through Tatijana’s. He had expected the chamber to be filled with a good number of Carpathian males, but there was only Mikhail and his brother Jacques, Vikirnoff and his lifemate, Natalya, and, of course, Gregori.
He felt Tatijana hesitate. She lifted a hand as if she might try to straighten her hair. All eyes were on them. He gently caught her wrist.
You have nothing at all to prove to these people. You look beautiful. You are my lifemate and we’ve chosen to live our lives our way. If they do not like it, it will be no different than we have known our entire lives.
It was the truth. Tatijana’s life had not been one of acceptance. Her father had kept her prisoner, not even allowing her to be in her natural form for most of her years. Those captured and tortured by Xavier didn’t always understand that she was a prisoner just as they were. She’d spent lifetimes outside the norm.
Fen had spent centuries apart from his kind. Had the Lycans known what he was, they would have killed him immediately, without question. He was used to being an outcast, and in truth, it no longer bothered him. He never wanted Tatijana to feel less than what she was—a beautiful miracle.
Mikhail came forward to greet them. He stepped close to Fen, nearly toe-to-toe, a deliberate move that placed him in a vulnerable position. Gregori, who stepped with him, didn’t flinch, but his silver eyes had gone to steel. Mikhail gripped Fen’s forearms tight, in the traditional greeting of one respected warrior to another.
Fen gripped the prince’s arms tightly, surprised at the raw power he felt surging beneath the surface. It was impossible to be so close to the man and not feel the power emanating from him, so great there was no way to contain it.
“Thank you for coming, Fenris Dalka,” Mikhail said. “May your heart stay strong, hunter,” he added in the language of the ancients, a more traditional Carpathian greeting. He turned to Dimitri and repeated the formal welcoming. He took Tatijana’s hands in his. “Thank you for the aid you gave to our warriors, Tatijana. You definitely turned the tide of the battle in our favor.”
He stepped back and paced away from them, his quick energy flowing rather than nervous. When he turned back, his dark eyes seemed to look right through Fen. “You have indeed brought us an interesting problem.”
Fen looked around the great chamber. “You did not call a council of warriors as I expected.”