7
I
vory woke knowing three days had passed and the sun had already sank from the sky. She was used to the way time passed so deep beneath the earth and the rhythms spoke to her, as she had become accustomed to them. It had been disorienting at first, which was when she’d come up with her prism system for bringing a small bit of light into her sanctuary. It rather shocked her that Razvan woke with her. The wolves would, of course, after so many years, but she had thought to go hunting alone and to give herself time to prepare for another in her lair.
She stared at his face, the lines etched there, the way his eyes seemed so compassionate and understanding. His life had been nothing but struggle and pain, yet he seemed, when she touched his mind, to be truly kind. Why then, did her hands tremble? Why did she feel as if butterflies had taken flight and were winging their way through her body whenever she looked at him? She had absolute confidence in her abilities as a warrior, but had no idea how to interact off the battlefield.
Razvan’s expression softened when his eyes met hers and he smiled. Her heart jumped in response. His smile was sweet and made him look years younger. “Good evening. You certainly are beautiful to wake up to.”
She wasn’t. She knew she wasn’t. She was in her true patchwork form—her body put together in pieces and a little mismatched here and there. She rubbed at one of the worst offending scars, the one dissecting her collarbone, and was shocked to find the ridge lessened. The healer had done more than heal her wounds. The scars would never disappear completely, but he had helped them to fade to thinner, flatter lines.
“I am not, you know.” She could feel color rising under her skin.
It embarrassed her that she no longer knew the civilities. Once, long ago, she had run a warm, happy household. Somehow, seeing that sweet smile on Razvan’s face brought bittersweet memories rushing back. There had been so much laughter and love in her house. How could her brothers have turned their backs on everything honorable and chosen to give up their souls? They hadn’t suffered the way Razvan had suffered, and he had endured the centuries of torment, being branded a criminal, despised by all those around him, his body used for vile things. Yet, still, he kept his honor.
She had told herself that her brothers had been grief-stricken over her disappearance, but she knew better. Everyone experienced loss. All five of them had turned together—unheard of in Carpathian history. She knew them better than anyone else, and she knew that meant it had been a conscious decision, not one made from too many years of lack of emotion or killing friends who had become vampire. The decision hadn’t been made because they were desolate from grief or had waited too long for lifemates. She knew their decision had been reasoned out together. They wanted power. They believed they were smarter, stronger and more deserving than anyone else. Her disappearance had been the excuse they needed to finalize something they had often discussed in the privacy of their home.
“You look so sad, Ivory.”
She never thought to hide her expressions in her lair. She didn’t hide her true form and now didn’t know what to do or how to act. She gave a small shrug. “This is a little awkward.”
“Only if you wish to make it that way. I will not intrude where I am not wanted.”
Ivory shook her head. “No, do not feel that way, as if I would not want you here. I invited you. After all these centuries, I just am not certain how to act with company.”
His smile widened, reached his eyes, warming them into soft velvet. “But then, I am your lifemate, not company. Act as you always have. I am here to learn from you.”
That hurt, struck her in her belly like a knotted fist. He wasn’t in her lair to be her lifemate in the way a man might claim a woman. She knew that. She wanted no part of that, yet she still felt slighted. It was the perverse reaction of a woman, not a warrior, and she was disappointed in herself. She had set the terms; he was merely abiding by them. She pushed at the fall of her heavy hair, more for an excuse to hide than because it was bothering her.
“I will get more at ease over time.” It was all she could think to say.
Ivory watched the wolves as they gathered around him. In spite of his older appearance, he was a handsome man. Now that the earth had revived and rejuvenated him, his frame was filled out and muscular. His hair fell in a long wave nearly to the middle of his back. It was thick and dark, and she knew from three weeks of holding him and feeding him, running her fingers through that soft, thick fall, that many colors made up that heavy mane, not the least of which was gray.
Razvan, instead of towering over the pack and bullying his way into leadership, crouched down in the midst of the six wolves and allowed them to take their time pushing their noses into him and rubbing along his legs and back.
This is Razvan. My mate
.
She included Razvan in the circle of communication, knowing when they went into battle together that leadership was essential. Raja had to accept him as her partner and therefore coleader of the pack. He would only do that if she named him mate.
Razvan glanced at her. Ivory willed herself not to blush. She tried to look as nonchalant as possible. Razvan seemed very large in the confines of the bedchamber. His masculine frame filled up the entire room. Every breath she took seemed to draw the scent of him into her lungs. Every breath he took made her ultra-aware of him, the way his heavy chest muscles moved beneath his thin, tight tee; the way his body looked in that brief moment before he’d donned that thin, tight tee.
Raja turned his head and looked at her, giving her an aloof glare, baring his teeth at Razvan. The Dragonseeker shrugged his shoulders.
“I know what it feels like to be displaced, old man,” he soothed. “We will get along.”
“Offer him your blood.”
Razvan stood slowly, his eyes meeting Ivory’s. “You feed them Carpathian blood?”
“You do not remember much of our first meeting.”
“Some.”
She took a breath, let it out, and then made her confession. “Many years ago, so long now that I cannot remember when it all started, a wolf pack helped me. They found pieces of me and would have consumed them, but I was able to touch their minds, and instead they buried the pieces of me together. In return, I found their descendents and I made certain they thrived. I did not spend much time aboveground in those days. My body just could not handle it. But when I did, the wolves were all that kept me sane. They were my only companions and all I had to trust.”
She spoke in a soft, clear voice, as if she was telling a tale she had heard about someone else, as if the horror of those endless years had not been hers to bear. He had his horror locked away in his mind, but somehow hers seemed so much worse.
Something frightening deep inside Razvan lifted its head and roared in rage. He had long ago buried any aggressive feelings. Too many years of captivity, of being unable to do anything about it had pushed rage and anger aside, and then, finally, his emotions had faded into oblivion, so that he forgot the intensity, the sheer strength of feelings.
“That was a terrible time for me. I couldn’t be out of the ground for very long, but I went looking for my brothers. I needed them. I could barely function. My mind or my body.” She ducked her head and her hair fell around her face, hiding her expression. Her voice remained as steady as ever. “It took me twenty-two years to locate the first of my brothers. I had a few run-ins with vampires along the way and inadvertently began building a reputation for slaying the undead. They began to hunt for me. I still had to spend most of my time in the ground in order to hold my body together.”
“You do not have to tell me this if it distresses you,” Razvan said.
Ivory shrugged her shoulders and tossed back her hair, her eyes steady. “It matters little now. It was a long time ago. Over the next fifty years I searched for my family, only to find that they had all turned. It felt very much like they had betrayed me.”
Ivory felt the lump rising in her throat, threatening to choke her, threatening to humiliate her. She shrugged a second time. “I had the wolves. You understand? They were everything to me. They do not have a long life span in the wild and so each new litter of cubs, each renewal, was my only family. I needed them.”
Razvan wanted to hold her, to offer her comfort, but when he took a step toward her, she moved away from him, back toward the other room as if she hadn’t noticed. He followed her, moving through the pack of wolves, ignoring Raja’s bared teeth as if the wolf was beneath his notice. He couldn’t help but be intrigued by the story. He had no idea that wolves could carry Carpathian blood, and he doubted if anyone else had known it either.
“So these wolves are not the original pack,” he prompted, watching as she picked up a comb and began running it through her hair. It was a soothing action, not one of necessity.
Ivory moved restlessly to her memorial wall. Her family wall. She touched Sergey’s face, traced the beloved lines carved there. “No, several generations were born and died, but they were always with me. Eventually the vampires began trying to find my pack to kill them. They came to think the wolves protected me in some way. Believe it or not, the undead can be very superstitious, especially since they have an alliance with Xavier. He feeds them stories to make them believe he is stronger than they are.”
Razvan watched the pads of her fingers move over her brother’s face, stroke after stroke, the gentle, loving motion mesmerizing. He could only imagine someone loving him that much, missing him and wanting to save his soul the way he sensed she did her brothers’. He was dead to his own sister, much in the same way he knew Ivory had to have separated herself from her brothers now to keep her sanity, to keep from being overwhelmed by sorrow.
Feeling a driving need to hold her in his arms and comfort her, he did the only thing he could think to do that wouldn’t earn him a blow. He stepped up behind her and held out his hand for the comb. “Let me.”
There was silence. She held very still, her face turned toward her memory wall, her hand not moving, her breath not flowing. He could feel the faint trembling of her body. A wild creature held captive, unknowing whether or not to accept kindness. Very slowly, she held the comb back over her shoulder, not looking, not letting him see her face.
Razvan’s fingers were gentle as he took the instrument from her and began a slow glide through her hair. “How did you come to have your present pack?”
Again there was a brief moment of silence while she tried to accustom herself to Razvan combing her long hair. She cleared her throat. “I still could spend little time aboveground. When I did, it was with the wolves or hunting. My pack had given birth to a new litter of pups. Six of them. Three male, three female. The entire pack was excited, and I more than any of them. The pack’s good times were mine.” This time her fingers traced the ancient Carpathian text.
Sív pide köd. Pitäam mustaakad sielpesäambam
. Love transcends evil. I hold your memories safe in my soul.
He realized the importance of that simple statement. She had no other contact, human or otherwise, that wasn’t an enemy. The pack had virtually become her family and her friends, her very community and only confidants. She had seen the empty shell of her brother and needed the reassurance of her wall, her home, the words she had come to believe in. He felt the first stirrings of love for her, the beginning, and recognized he was stepping on a path he would not—could not—leave.
“Over the years, while living with the wolves, I realized a few had the ability to communicate with me telepathically. At the time the litter was born, the alpha male and female were both able to talk to me and I was not quite as lonely. I felt as if I had a family again.”
She dropped her hand from the wall as if bracing herself. “One evening I rose and went in search of the pack. The vampires had gotten there before me. There was blood everywhere, fur and bones and carcasses strewn over the very meadow where they had done the same to me.”
She pulled away from him, paced across the room. He could see her hands were shaking, but she put them behind her back as she turned and faced him. There was guilt and defiance mixed on her face. “I found the cubs in the den. All of them were dying. The vampires had inflicted wounds on them, but hadn’t killed them outright, leaving them to suffer horribly before they died, or for other wild animals to finish them off.”
She tilted her chin. “I saved them. I crawled into the den and I fed them my blood. I did not think beyond that moment. I just could not bear to lose everyone all over again. I had promised their ancestors that I would look out for them, but because they had aided me, the vampires destroyed the entire pack.”
“It was not your fault.”
“Perhaps not, but it felt as if it was my fault. I stayed in the den to protect them, burrowing beneath the ground during the daylight hours and staying with them during the nights. I had to give them blood and, at times, I had to take theirs as I couldn’t hunt. Raja was the first to turn. I had no idea it was even possible, but I knew the ramifications. No wolf pack could be Carpathian and let loose on unsuspecting humans. They would be immortal, or nearly so as we are. The first was an accident, but the rest, although it broke a moral law, was done with great purpose.”
She met his eyes, expecting condemnation. Razvan shook his head. “It seems all of us have chosen a path that perhaps has not always been the wise one. You. Me. The healer. Yet our paths have merged and become the same.”
Ivory shook her head. “You are a very different type of man.”
“Am I? Perhaps I have been away so long I never learned what a man was supposed to be.” He gave her a lopsided half smile that stole her breath. She had never felt the strange girlish fluttering a mere smile from him seemed to generate, but the very feel surrounding him was one of peace and gentleness.
“I was not insulting you. I like that you are different.” Maybe a little too much. She had a purpose—they both did—and it required full effort and attention. They didn’t dare lose sight of their final objective, nor could she change the course she had set herself on.