Passing layers of rock, crystal caves and ice, all the while using the small crack that ran from the highest point to deep beneath the ground, she moved steadily lower until heat began to warm her and the pressure on her body increased. It always took a few moments to adjust to the depth beneath the earth, but over the years her body had adapted. If the Dragonseeker had been held prisoner by Xavier, then he’d been underground in the ice caves where Xavier ruled and his body would be somewhat acclimatized to the depths.
She continued down, past the caves where bats dwelled and even lower beyond the depths of the ice caves, where no Carpathian she knew ever slept. She’d found rich soil and a hollowed out cavern. Over the centuries she’d enlarged her living quarters to include several rooms. She’d brought in books, storing them on the floor-to-ceiling shelves she’d created. She’d painstakingly re-created each spell book she’d studied when she’d attended school under Xavier, back in the old days when Xavier had been thought to be a friend of the Carpathian people.
Her furniture suited her and her candles were made with the best healing fragrances and minerals she could find. In enlarging her lair, she’d come across a small flow of water, and although it had taken nearly seventy-five years, she’d hollowed out a natural basin in the solid rock and formed a pool for herself. She loved her pool, the cool, clean water that always flowed and cascaded down through the floor into the next bed of rock beneath them.
Once down in her lair, she reprogrammed her unique alarm system with its gems that not only weighed the mass dropping through the crack but provided light for her far beneath the surface. She shrugged off the wolves the moment she was inside her home, allowing them to take their natural forms, while she strode through the outer rooms, her sitting room where the wolves liked to curl up while she read or painted or played her instrument, and then the rooms where she did her metal work, constructing her weapons, before going down the stairs leading to the last room where they all slept.
A violin lay in a case against one wall of her bedchamber; nearby sat a deep rock basin that she’d filled with the richest soil. She set the Dragonseeker down on the rejuvenating earth and studied him a moment. He was struggling, fighting off the slumber spell. She had the feeling he hadn’t been as deep as she’d intended, but all that really mattered was that he hadn’t seen the location of her lair.
Taking a deep breath, she laid aside her weapons and reversed the spell. The Dragonseeker, in spite of his starved and weakened condition, came up out of the soil, his eyes mercilessly angry. She fell back away from him, landing on her rear so that she had to tilt her head up to see him.
“What have you done, woman?” he roared.
Before she could answer, Raja burst into the room and hurled himself at the intruder’s throat. He launched himself high, teeth bared.
“No!” Ivory commanded.
The Dragonseeker caught the huge wolf by the neck, the force of the attack driving him back into the bed of soil. She saw his hands clamp down like a vise. The wolf fought instinctively for air.
Little brother, he is not an enemy. He is my mate
. She bared her teeth at the wolf and he went still and submissive in the Dragonseeker’s hands.
“Let him go,” Ivory ordered. “Do it now, or I will retaliate.”
The Dragonseeker raised his eyebrow, his hands remaining firm around the wolf’s neck. “You seek to threaten me with bodily harm? I doubt there is much you can do that has not already been done. And if you desire to kill me, that is my wish, so I do not believe that it will serve your purpose to intimidate me.”
She spat out another curse. “
Veridet peje
—may your blood burn!”
He released the wolf a little warily, keeping his gaze fixed on the large alpha and not on Ivory, which only served to irritate her more, as if he thought the animal was more of a threat to him than she was.
“My blood has burned on many occasions,
avio päläfertiilam—
my lifemate.”
Her breath hissed out of her lungs. “Do not
ever
say ‘my lifemate’ to me. I am not yours. I belong to no one. I trust no one, least of all the grandson of Xavier and a Dragonseeker on top of that.” She put every ounce of contempt and disgust that she could summon into her voice.
Before he could respond, Ivory switched her attention to Raja who, picking up on her mood, was baring his teeth again, low warning growls rumbling in his throat.
Little brother, I have no patience now to deal with two males and their egos. Go to your mate who will soothe your nerves and leave me to deal with this . . . this
. . . There was no word bad enough to describe him.
The wolf sent the Dragonseeker one last look of warning and then loped out of the room, leaving them alone in the bedchamber.
Ivory moved back across the floor until there was space between herself and the Dragonseeker. She pressed her back to the wall, fighting to maintain her composure. “It has been centuries since I have been alone in a room with another person,” she confessed. “I am no longer certain what one does.”
“You could start by telling me your name.”
He didn’t smile. He didn’t look at her as if the moon rose and set with her, as lifemates were reputed to do. He didn’t even argue that she did belong to him as every cell in her body screamed at her was true.
Ivory moistened her lips. “I am Ivory Malinov, sister to the five raising an army and a rebellion of vampires. Sister to the ones in league with Xavier.” She took a deep breath. “And this is not my true form.”
“I am Razvan, grandson of Rhiannon and Xavier. I am a dealer of death and torture to any who dare come near me, especially those I care most for. I will never lay claim to you, so have no worries, Ivory. I will leave you as soon as I am able to do so.” He tilted his head to one side and studied her flawless body. “Do you fear showing me your true form?”
Her chin went up. “I do not fear much of anything, Dragonseeker, least of all you.”
“I can see that,” he said, faint sarcasm sliding into his tone. “Though, in truth, you should fear me. Not me: Xavier. He can find me wherever I am. You must believe me in this.”
“I believe you. I studied under Xavier, many years ago. Far longer than I care to remember. I know him well—too well.”
“You displeased him in some way.” Razvan made it a statement.
She found she could barely breathe in the close confines of the room with the Dragonseeker’s hunger beating at her. Maybe it wasn’t just his hunger. Maybe it was the way his eyes moved over her with a hint of possession, a male’s intense look of interest. No one had looked at her that way since the prince’s eldest son—and that hadn’t turned out so well.
Her skin ached. Her bones. She’d forgotten that pain, or at least pushed it so far back in her memories that it was dull and faded. Now, looking at him looking at her, asking her questions, her body remembered the feel of sharp objects slicing through bone and tissue.
“Ivory,” he prompted, his voice gentle. “What did you do to displease him?”
She sank down along the wall, drew up her knees and clasped her arms around her legs, making herself much smaller. “I wanted to go to Xavier’s school and learn from him. My brothers and five of their friends raised me. Ten strong warriors indulging my every whim. I learned how to fight, but was never allowed to use my knowledge. I could do things no other woman could do, yet was expected to sit home and wait for a lifemate to provide safety for me.” She shook her head, remembering the frustration of having an active brain desperate for knowledge, any kind, and running into a stone wall as her brothers refused to allow her any freedoms.
She rubbed her chin on her knees. “At that time, Vlad Dubrinsky was the prince.” She was giving him a very convoluted explanation, rambling on instead of making it short and succinct. She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I think it has been so long since I have carried on a conversation with anyone but my pack that I have forgotten how.” She rubbed her palm up and down her thigh.
Razvan’s gaze jumped to her hand and lingered there, recognizing the sign of nerves. She was wild, like her pack, uneasy with his presence, not because he represented danger, or because he was her lifemate, but simply because she was inherently wary of everyone.
“Be calm, Ivory,” he said softly, crooning as he would to tame a cornered wild animal. “I seek nothing from you. I do not believe that Xavier will hunt for my body this soon. He has grown weak and old without Carpathian blood to feed on. He will need to find his strength before he can strike at me. Lara escaped his prison first and then my aunts. So for the moment you are safe, but never turn your back on me. Consider killing me.”
She ignored his last statement. “How did you escape?”
“Xavier took my body out of the ice caves when his fortress was destroyed. He needs blood now to survive and be strong.” He looked down at his worn, torn body with a brief, humorless smile. “He had used my blood until little enough remained. I believe he had it in his mind to kill me, but when the aunts escaped, he needed my blood to keep him alive. He is determined to gain immortality. As you can see, there is little left of me, and he grew weak trying to build his new fortress.”
Ivory took a deep breath and let it out. He could see she struggled with herself before she made the offer.
“You need to feed.”
Her voice was low, trembling, and his heart turned over in his chest. It had been long since another had offered a kindness to him.
“I thank you for your offer, but I must regretfully decline. I have taken enough blood from those I should have protected and I will not take yours.”
She frowned at him. “I can feel your hunger.”
“I know. I cannot control the needs spilling into the close confines of this room. I am truly sorry for causing you distress.”
He didn’t want her dwelling on the hunger crawling through his body, every cell crying out for sustenance. He could smell her blood, rich and hot and flowing in her veins, calling to him. He could barely think with his teeth already lengthened and his saliva in his mouth. Her heartbeat matched the irregular beat of his own, and that worried him.
He knew little of lifemates, and the last thing he had ever wanted to do was feel real emotion. It was bad enough to remember what it was like to love and feel remorse for the vile things he had done, even under another’s compulsion, but she had brought it all into his mind and heart and made it real again. Where before he had been numb for hundreds of years, now every terrible, brutal act—the violation of women, feeding from his own children, stabbing his aunt, betrayal of every single person he loved and cared about—all of it was in front of him, filling him with self-loathing and disgust.
His soul was so black. The emotions poured into him with his memories. His beloved sister—he’d fought to save her, but in the end he’d betrayed her. His aunts—he’d tried so hard to save them, yet Xavier had controlled his body and he’d been the one to plunge a knife into his aunt’s chest. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find air to drag into his lungs.
His throat felt raw and he choked, closing his eyes, trying to shut out the guilt and horror of his actions. It mattered little that he had not been in control—that in itself was a terrible guilt—or that he hadn’t been strong enough to stop Xavier. Fighting him every inch of the way hadn’t been enough, and now this stranger, this woman, brought every horrifying, vivid and disgusting detail into his mind and branded his soul unredeemable.
“Razvan.” Her voice was soft. Gentle. “Look at me.”
He couldn’t move. Couldn’t face her. No, not her—
himself
. He cursed his body’s resistance to death. How could he ever face anyone after the terrible crimes he’d committed? Bile rose and he choked on it, a bitter, metallic taste. He wiped at his face and his palm came away smeared in blood.
He scented her, although she made no sound as she drew closer to him, as silent as her deadly wolves. He shook his head. “Stay back. Don’t come too close.” Because hunger turned him savage, while guilt made him a little insane. Now it wasn’t Xavier he feared; it was himself. He knew what even the best of his kind could do when starved, and he was so far from the best. He was damned—cursed, even—cunning and . . . so hungry. Ravenous.
Ivory crawled toward him. “You need to feed. I feed my pack often, it is truly of little importance. Just take the blood from my wrist.”
Between his fingers he could see her now, in front of him, concern on her face, although she was smart enough to be wary. She didn’t trust him—it was there in her eyes. One fingernail lengthened, razor sharp, and she reached down toward her wrist.
Razvan caught her hand, the rush of fear and adrenaline combining to give him strength when he really had little left. “No! I will not.” The thought sickened him. Her offered wrist conjured up a vision of a greedy mouth tearing at a small wrist. He choked again and turned away from her.
How do you tell someone you are damned?
He shook his head. “You have to take me to the surface and let me go.”
“Why won’t you feed? Perhaps if you tell me . . .”
He didn’t tell her. He
showed
her. She had to see—
know
—the monster she’d brought into her lair. He seized her mind, flowing into her, shoving the memories into her head, forcing her to watch him tear at a frightened child’s little wrist while she pleaded with him, letting her see the mother of his child rotting while he screamed and fought and wept blood, raging at the monster who imprisoned him. He made her watch as he betrayed his twin sister, Natalya, and as he plunged the knife into the breast of a dragon desperately trying to help his daughter escape.
She paled, but she didn’t pull away from his mind. He felt her move inside of him, alert, the way she was naturally, but soaking up his memories, reading his life. And he fed it to her, hundreds of years with Xavier, watching him torture and kill. Xavier had used his body over and over to commit horrendous acts, to breed with chosen psychic women, slowly taking him over, and then later, using him as a puppet to do his evil bidding. She should have recoiled, should have plunged her fist into his chest and extracted his heart there on the spot, but she stayed, looking at everything, unafraid, quiet, giving nothing of her own thoughts away.