Dark Wolf (55 page)

Skyler reached out her hand to Dimitri. Immediately his fingers closed around hers and she felt the warmth of his love enfolding her like a blanket. More, the wolves felt it as well. Already, she was tuning to them, sharing her mind with them, as Dimitri did so naturally. They seemed to snuggle closer to her, brushing against her back in affection before settling.

She knew they had difficult times ahead. A war with an unknown enemy was brewing and her people had to be protected. She wanted to be able to fight if necessary, to protect those she loved. The wolves gave her added confidence.

“The tattoos suit the two of you,” Razvan said. “I would never have thought those scars would diminish in the way they have, Dimitri. I can barely see evidence of them, only faint white circles. On your back, the fur of your wolves just blends seamlessly.”

Dimitri tugged until Skyler was beneath the protection of his shoulder. “Skyler has skills beyond anything I’ve ever seen.”

A flash of pride lit Razvan’s eyes. “We were all amazed that she was able to save Zev. Has anyone heard how he’s doing?”

Dimitri shook his head. “He’s still hanging on, thankfully. Branislava has woven her spirit to his and holds him to this world. Fen says they aren’t out of the woods yet, but he has taken blood each time they’ve gone to feed them both.”

Razvan’s breath hissed out and Ivory moved closer to him, simply touching his arm in a silent gesture of comfort, reminding Dimitri that Tatijana and Branislava were Razvan’s aunts. They’d all three been prisoners together in the ice fortress where Xavier had ruled and carried on his malicious experiments.

“Bronnie barely had surfaced again before she did this,” Razvan said. “I hadn’t even seen her.” There was quiet acceptance in his voice, learned no doubt from centuries of torture and having to accept things outside of his control, no matter how distressing.

“Bronnie knew what she was doing,” Skyler explained. “There was no other way to save him. His wound was so bad, fatal, however you want to put it. It took all three of us working for what seemed hours to mend him from the inside out. Had Bronnie not woven her spirit to his, and locked him to her, he would have drifted away.”

“I don’t understand,” Razvan said. “A spirit can be surrounded and held, why would she have to tie her fate to his?”

Ivory took his hand. “He would have chosen to leave us,” she said softly. “But his instincts to protect others are very strong in him. She knew that, didn’t she, Skyler?”

Skyler nodded. “We all saw it in him. He’s deadly and scary when you first get inside his head, but then you find his first instinct is to defend and shield others. By weaving her spirit through his, Bronnie took away his choice to leave. He would take her with him if he did, and that is something almost beyond Zev’s capability.”

“Unless the wound kills him,” Razvan said.

Skyler nodded. “There’s always that. But I go nightly to work on him, and Mother Earth has accepted him as her son. She works harder than I do to attempt to save him. I think he’s getting better. A wound like his is such a trauma to the body. It takes time.”

“He’s Lycan,” Dimitri added. “Lycans regenerate faster than most, and because he’s now mixed blood, that should give him added strength and speed to recover.”

Razvan nodded, his gaze on his daughter’s face. “Thank you. I know what you did was extremely difficult, no matter how many times you say you had help. The toll it took on you showed for many days after. If Bronnie lives, it is due to your continued healing of Zev’s wounds.”

Color rose in Skyler’s face and she moved closer to Dimitri. She was very glad she finally had a relationship with her birth father and that she could do something to make him proud of her.

“Are you ready for another run at this?” Ivory asked. “This time you should hunt together and when you find your prey, release the wolves and coordinate the attack on the vampire with your pack to give them hunting experience with the undead.”

Skyler’s heart jumped with pure joy. “I’m ready.” She looked to Dimitri.

He leaned down, uncaring of their audience, and found her mouth with his. He took his time kissing her, allowing himself to get lost in her for just a moment. He lifted his head, his eyes dark with desire. Very slowly he smiled down at her. “Let’s do this then.”

Skyler went up on her tiptoes and kissed him back. “I’m with you.” She always would be. Right there, by his side.

Keep reading for an excerpt from the next exciting Carpathian novel by Christine Feehan

DARK BLOOD

Available September 2014 from Berkley Books!

S
ound came to him first. A low drumming beat growing louder. Zev Hunter felt the vibration of that rhythmic booming throughout his entire body. It hurt. Each separate beat seemed to echo through his flesh and bone, reverberating through his tissue and cells, jarring him until he thought he might shake apart.

He didn’t move. It was too much of an effort even to open his eyes and figure out what that disturbing, insistent call was—or why it wouldn’t go away. If he opened his eyes he would
have
to move, and that would hurt like hell. If he stayed very still, he could keep the pain at bay, even though he felt as if he were floating in a sea of agony.

He lay there for a long time, his mind wandering to a place of peace. He knew the way there now, a small oasis in a world of excruciating pain. He found the wide, cool pool of blue inviting water, the wind touching the surface so that ripples danced. The surrounding forest was lush and green, the trees tall, trunks wide. A small waterfall trickled down the rocks to the pool, the sound soothing.

Zev waited, holding his breath. She always came when he was there, moving slowly out of the trees into the clearing. She wore a long dress and a cape of blue velvet, the hood over her long hair so that he only caught glimpses of her face. The dress clung to her figure, her full breasts and small waist, the corset top emphasizing every curve. The skirt of the dress was full, falling over her hips to the ground.

She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Her body was graceful, fluid, an ethereal, elusive woman who always beckoned to him with a soft smile and a small hand gesture. He wanted to follow her into the cool forest—he was Lycan, the wolf that lived inside of him preferred the forest to the open—but he couldn’t move, not even for her.

He stayed where he was and simply drank her in. He wasn’t a man clever words came easily to, so he said nothing at all. She never approached him, never closed the distance between them, but somehow, it never mattered. She was there. He wasn’t alone. He found that as long as she was close to him, the terrible pain eased.

For the first time though, something disturbed his peaceful place. The booming beat found him, so loud now that the ground lifted and fell with an ominous, troubling thump. The water rippled again, but this time he knew it wasn’t the wind causing the water to ring from the middle of the pool outward. The drumbeat throbbed through the earth, jarring not only his body but everything else.

The trees felt it. He heard the sap running deep in the trunk and branches. Leaves fluttered wildly as if answering the deep booming call. The sound of water grew louder, no longer a soft trickling over rocks, not a steady drip, but a rush that swelled with the same ebb and flow as the sap in the trees. Like veins and arteries flowing beneath the very earth surrounding him, making its way toward every living thing.

You hear it now.

She spoke for the first time. Her voice was soft and melodious, not carried on the wind, but rather on breath. One moment she was on the other side of that small pool of water, and the next she was sinking down into the tall grass, leaning over him, close to him, her lips nearly skimming his.

He could taste cinnamon. Spice. Honey. All of it on her breath. Or was it her skin? His Lycan senses, usually so good at scent, seemed confused. Her lashes were incredibly long and very dark, surrounding her emerald eyes. A true emerald. So green they were startling. He’d seen those eyes before. There was no mistaking them. Her bow of a mouth was a man’s perfect fantasy, her lips full and naturally red.

The booming continued, a steady, insistent beat. He felt it through his back and legs, a jarring pulse that refused to leave him alone. Through his skin, he seemed to follow the path of water running beneath him, bringing life-giving nutrients.

You feel it, don’t you?
she insisted softly.

He couldn’t look away. Her gaze held his captive. He wasn’t the kind of man to allow anything or anyone to ensnare him. He forced his head to work—that first movement that he knew would cost him dearly. He nodded. He waited for the pain to rip him apart, but aside from a little burst through his neck and temples that quickly subsided, the expected agony never came.

What is it?

He frowned, concentrating. The sound continued without a break, so steady, so strong and rhythmic, he would have said it was a heart, but the sound was too deep and too loud. Still, it was a pulse that called to him just as it called to the trees and grass as if they were all tied together. The trees. The grass. The water. The woman. And him.

You know what it is.

Zev didn’t want to tell her. If he said the words, he would have to face his life again. A cold, utterly lonely existence of blood and death. He was an elite hunter, a dealer of death to rogue packs—Lycans turned werewolves and preying on mankind—and he was damned good at his job.

The booming grew louder, more insistent, a dark heralding of life. There was nowhere to hide from it. Nowhere to run even if he could run. He knew exactly what it was now. He knew where the sound originated as it spread out from a center deep beneath him.

Tell me, Hän ku pesäk kaikak, what is it you hear?

The melodic notes of her voice drifted through his pores and found their way into his body. He could feel the soft musical sound wrapping itself around his heart and sinking into his bones. Her breath teased his face, warm and soft and so fresh, like the gentlest of breezes fanning his warm skin. His lungs seemed to follow the rhythm of hers, almost as if she breathed for him, not just with him.

Hän ku pesäk kaikak.
Where had he heard that before? She called him that as if she expected him to know what it meant, but it was in a language he was certain he didn’t speak—and he knew he spoke many.

The drumbeat sounded louder, closer, as if he were surrounded on all sides by many drums keeping the exact beat, but he knew that wasn’t so. The pounding pulse came from below him—and it was summoning him.

There was no way to ignore it, no matter how much he wanted to. He knew now that it wouldn’t stop, not ever, not unless he answered the call.

It is the heartbeat of the earth itself.

She smiled and her emerald eyes seemed to take on the multifaceted cut of the gems he’d seen adorning women, although a thousand times more brilliant.

She nodded her head very slowly.
At long last you are truly back with us. Mother Earth has called to you. You are being summoned to the warrior’s council. It is a great honor.

Whispers drifted through his mind like fingers of fog. He couldn’t seem to retain actual words, but male voices rose and fell all around him, as if he were surrounded. The sensation of heat hit him. Real heat. Choking. Burning. His lungs refused to work, to pull in much-needed air. When he tried to open his eyes, nothing happened. He was locked in his mind far from whatever was happening to his body.

The woman leaned closer, her lips brushing against his. His heart stuttered. She barely touched him, feather light, but it was the most intimate sensation he’d ever experienced. Her mouth was exquisite. Perfection. A fantasy. Her lips moved over his again, soft and warm, melting into him. She breathed into his mouth, a soft airy breath of clean, fresh air. Once again he tasted her. Cinnamon. Spice. Honey.

Breathe, Zev. You are both Lycan and Carpathian and you can breathe anywhere when you choose. Just breathe.

He was not
Sange rau
.

No, not Sange rau, you are Hän ku pesäk kaikak. You are a Guardian.

The breath she had exchanged with him continued to move through his body. He could almost track its progress as if that precious air was a stream of white finding its way through a maze until it filled his lungs. He actually felt her breath enter his lungs, inflating them.

I’m not dreaming, am I?

She smiled at him. A man might kill for one of her smiles.

No, Zev, you’re not dreaming. You are in the sacred cave of warriors. Mother Earth called the ancients to witness your rebirth.

He had no idea what she was talking about, but things were beginning to come back to him.
Sange rau
was a combination of rogue wolf and vampire blood mixed together.
Hän ku pesäk kaikak
was Lycan and Carpathian blood mixed. He wasn’t certain what or where the sacred caves of warriors was and he didn’t like the word
rebirth
.

Why can’t I move?

You are coming to life. You have been locked away from us for some time.

Not from you.

She had been with him while he was locked in that dark place of pain and madness. If there was one thing he knew for absolute certain, it was that she had been there. He couldn’t move on, because he hadn’t been able to leave her.

He remembered that voice, soft and pleading.
Stay. Stay with me.
Her voice had locked them both in a sea of agony that seemed endless.

Not endless. You are awakening.

He might be waking, but the pain was still there. He took a moment to let himself absorb it. She was correct, the pain was subsiding to a tolerable level, but the heat surrounding him was burning his body. Without the air she’d given him, he would be choking, strangling, desperate.