“That should make you feel better,” she said, affection creeping into her tone as she scratched the ears of both wolves.
The alpha growled a warning and his mate bared her teeth; both were facing away from the woman. She smiled. “I smell him. It is impossible not to smell the foul stench of vampire.”
She turned her head and looked over her shoulder at the tall, powerful male emerging from the twisted, gnarled trunk of a large evergreen fir. The trunk gaped open, split nearly in two, blackened and peeled back, the needles on the outstretched limbs withering as the tree expelled the venomous creature from its depths. Icicles rained down like small spears as the branches shivered and shook, trembling from contact with such a foul creature.
The woman rose gracefully, turning to face her enemy, signaling to the wolves to melt back into the forest. “I see you have resorted to setting traps to get sustenance these days, Cristofor. Are you so slow and foul that you can no longer lure a human to use as food?”
“Slayer!” The vampire’s voice seemed rusty, as if his vocal cords were rarely used. “I knew if I brought your pack to me, you would come.”
Her eyebrow shot up. “A pretty invitation then, Cristofor. I remember you from the old days when you were a young man, still handsome to look upon. I left you alone for old times’ sake, but I see you crave the sweet release of death. Well, old friend, so be it.”
“They say you cannot be killed,” Cristofor said. “The legend that haunts all vampires. Our leaders say to leave you alone.”
“Your leaders? You have joined them then, banded together against the prince and his people? Why seek death when you have a plan to rule every country? The world?” She laughed softly. “It seems to me that this is a silly wish, and a lot of work. In the old days, we lived simply. Those were happy days. Do you not recall them?”
Cristofor studied her flawless face. “I was told you were pieced together, one strip of flesh at a time, yet your face and body are as you were in the old days.”
She shrugged her shoulders, refusing to allow the images of those dark years, the suffering and pain—agony really—when her body refused to die and lay deep in the earth, stripped of flesh and open to the crawling insects abounding in the dirt. She kept her face serene, smiling, but inside she was still, coiled, ready to explode into action.
“Why not join us? You have more reason than any other to hate the prince.”
“And join the very ones who betrayed and mutilated me? I do not think so. I wage war where it is due.” She flexed her fingers inside the skintight, thin gloves. “You really should not have touched my wolves, Cristofor. You have left me little choice.”
“I want your secret. Give it to me and I will let you live.”
She smiled then, a beautiful smile, her teeth small and pearl white. Her lips were red and full, a teasing, sexy curve inviting him to share the humor. She tilted her head to one side, her gaze moving over his face, assessing him carefully. “I had no idea you had become such a fool, Cristo.” She called him the name she had used when they were children playing together.
Before
. When the world was right. “I am the slayer of vampires. You summoned me with your traps”—she waved a contemptuous hand—“and you think I should be intimidated by you?”
He grinned at her, an evil, malicious smile. “You have become arrogant, Slayer. And careless. You had no idea the trap was for you and not your precious wolves. You have no choice but to give me what I want, or you die this night.”
Ivory shrugged her slender shoulders and the silvery full-length coat rippled, moved as if alive. One moment it loosely flowed around her ankles and the next it was gone, settling over her skin until six ferocious wolf tattoos adorned her body from the small of her back to her neck, wrapping around each arm like sleeves.
“So be it,” she said softly, her eyes on his.
Spinning, she drew her sword with one hand, rushing toward him, going up and over a snowcapped boulder to launch her body into the air. She felt the bite of a hidden snare, and inwardly cursed as the noose closed around her neck. Already she was dissolving, but blood spattered across the snow in bright crimson drops.
Cristofor laughed and leaned down to scoop up a handful of snow to lick at the droplets, savoring the taste of pure Carpathian blood. Not just pure—the slayer was Ivory Malinov, from one of the strongest Carpathian lineages possible. He followed the arc of blood, saw her forming a few feet from him, closer to the tree line, and satisfaction made him cackle.
Ivory saluted him with two fingers, touched the thin line running across her neck and put her finger in her mouth, sucking off the blood. “Nice score. I did not see that coming and I shall have to apologize to my wolves for scolding them. But Cristo, if you believe your partner back there in the woods is going to help you after slaying my wolf pack, you are doing some serious underestimating of your own.”
She ran forward again, her hand low, drawing and throwing the small arrowheads, snapping them with tremendous strength so each buried itself deep into his body, in a straight line from belly to neck. The vampire roared and tried to shift. His legs disappeared, melting into vapor. His head swirled and disappeared. Fog drifted in from the trees in an attempt to help conceal him, congealing around his body, forming a thick veil. The torso remained, that straight, damaging line from belly to neck exposing his heart.
Her sword sank deep, her body weight, strength and momentum from her run driving the blade through the body right beneath the heart. The vampire screamed horribly. Acidlike blood poured from the wound, sizzling over the sword and splattering across the snow. The metal should have been eaten through, but the coating the slayer used protected it, as well as prevented that portion of his body from shifting. She turned her body in a dancer’s spin, sword over her head, still stuck inside his chest so that she cut a circular hole around his heart.
Ivory withdrew the sword and plunged her hand deep. “I showed you my secret,” she whispered. “Take it to your grave.” She withdrew the heart and flung it away from her, lifting her arms to call down a sword of lightning.
The jagged bolt incinerated the heart and then jumped to the body, burning it clean. “Find peace, Cristofor,” she whispered and hung her head, leaning on her sword, tears shimmering briefly for her lost boyhood friend.
So many were gone now. Nothing remained of the life she’d once known. She took a deep breath, drawing in the crisp night before cleaning her sword and all trace of the vampire’s blood from the snow. She retrieved the eight small arrowheads and slid them into the loops on her holster before holding out her arms for the silver-tipped pelt. The tattoos moved, emerging, sliding once more over her body in the form of a coat. She allowed the silvery full-length garment to settle over her body slowly before picking up her weapons and drawing up the hood. At once she seemed to disappear, blending seamlessly with the layers of white fog.
Ivory moved in silence, feeling the hostile energy radiating from her pack. They were under attack and her wall of protection was weakening. She’d thrown the shield up around them hastily when she scented the second predator. Had he not been quite so eager for the kill, and stayed downwind, he might have managed to kill her wild wolf pack. She couldn’t reuse the arrowheads on him; the vampire’s acidic blood would have eaten through most of the coating. She had very little time to kill her enemy once she buried the small, lethal wedges in the vampire’s body before that acidic blood ate through the coating and allowed her enemy to shift.
Weaving through the trees, the slayer stayed low to the ground, taking on the shape of a wolf. With her silver-tipped pelt it would be difficult to distinguish her from the other wolves in the area as she slipped through the trees toward the second vampire. She sank behind a fallen tree, studying the man hurling fireballs at the wolves. He had cornered them just at the water’s edge, where the ice was thin and dangerous. She could see cracks spreading along the thin shield she’d thrown up where the vampire continually battered at it.
She took a breath, released it, and let herself find that place deep inside where there was stillness. Where there was resolve. In human form now, she stood and ran at the vampire, firing the crossbow as she went. Again, her aim was for his torso. She caught him as he turned, one arrow slicing into his lower back, the second missing altogether. He flung the fireball at her and Ivory somersaulted on the ground, letting it fly over her head. Then she was up on her feet, still running, always advancing, shooting at him with the crossbow.
The vampire howled in rage, the sound cut off abruptly as an arrow slammed deep into his throat. Her wolves threw themselves at the wall, frantic to come to her aid, but she knew the vampire would simply destroy them all. On the other hand . . .
The slayer shrugged, this time sending her thick, silver-tipped wolf pelt away from her. The heavy coat landed in the snow, widespread, the fur rippling as if alive. The hood stretched and elongated, and each sleeve did the same, moving with life as the body of the coat formed three separate shapes to match the ones emerging from the hood and sleeves. Ivory didn’t wait for her companions to shift to their normal forms; she rolled across the snow, coming up on one knee, firing two more coated arrows into the vampire’s chest while he was distracted by the six newly formed wolves.
The vampire hissed, his eyes glowing hot with hatred. He tried to shift, but only his legs, belly and head took the shape of a multi-armed beast, leaving his heart exposed. He realized he was trapped, but was fully aware of the small arrow weakening in his back as the metal was destroyed by his acidic blood. He whirled, sending up a spout of snow, gathering the wind to him and hurling it outward, creating an instant blizzard as the snow was drawn into his circle and flung out around him.
It was impossible to see the vampire in the center of that storm, but the wolves leapt through the swirl of icy snow, guided by scent to attack, tearing at his legs and arms, the alpha going for the throat in an effort to bring him down. The slayer followed them into the circle, knife in hand, hurling herself into the frenzied fray. One of the wolves yelped, and then screamed as the vampire ripped open its sides with curled, slashing talons and flung its body at her.
Ivory dropped her crossbow and caught the wolf as it slammed into her chest, driving her backward. The blizzard slashed across her face without mercy, tearing at her exposed skin as she went down, the wolf on top of her. She put the alpha’s injured body aside as gently as possible and crawled forward fast, covering the snowcapped ground like a snake, picking up the crossbow and loading it as she slithered forward. Firing rapidly, she struck him three more times, exploding to her feet right in front of him, driving the knife deep, her hand wrapped around the hilt, following as the blade sliced through bone and sinew in an effort to get to the heart.
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 had burned through his flesh almost to the bone.
The vampire roared, clubbing at her 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 with her fist, reaching for the heart, ignoring the acid as it poured over her coated gloves and began burning through them 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 zigzagged, 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 times before, 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; Farkas, 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.