Fen could see the damning arrow. How could he not? Carpathians finally beginning to recover and suddenly they are overrun with a species so elusive one nearly forgot their existence. Had it been just coincidence that the rogue pack had run this way? Led by Bardolf, Fen might have believed the choice had been a random one. But Abel, not Bardolf, really led the pack.
"Fen?" Mikhail prompted.
"I don't honestly have an answer for you. I ran across werewolves committing murder and knew I'd discovered a rogue pack. A single hunter can't take on a small pack by himself, let alone a large pack. And this is a very large pack. I followed them and began picking them off one at a time. It's dangerous and time-consuming, but believe me, it's the only way if you want to survive."
Fen sighed, shaking his head slowly. "I traveled this way only to be close to my brother once again. I felt drawn here. In doing so, I ran across the kills." He looked at Tatijana. "I had resisted for well over eighteen months. I found I had to come, although I felt it dangerous to do so."
"Did you think we wouldn't welcome you? Gregori tells me you are of mixed blood. You thought this would matter to us in some way?" Mikhail inquired, his tone deceptively mild.
Fen spread his hands out in front of him, fingers wide. "People like me are called Sange Rau, literally bad blood in the Lycan world. We are hated and hunted the instant it is known we exist." He shrugged. "I could live with that from the Lycans. I understand their reasoning. The only mixed bloods they have known have been vampire-Lycan. To them, that is what I am should I be discovered. The idea of my own people condemning what I've become did not sit with me so easily."
Gregori turned his head, those pale silver eyes moving over Fen in a careful study. "You are not so easily killed, even by one of us."
Fen gave him a slight nod in response to the compliment. Gregori only stated the truth, he wasn't out to flatter Fen. Clearly Gregori had made a show of Jacques and Falcon's presence because he knew they would need more than one hunter to try to kill him. And then whose side would Tatijana come down on? She had sworn her allegiance to the prince, and no Dragonseeker would ever break their word after giving it.
He took another slow look around the room. There were others. There had to be more than just these three warriors protecting the prince. He had allowed the house to confuse his senses while they distracted him with talk. He was happier to be in his homeland, surrounded by his own people, than he'd let himself believe. That had also thrown his guard off a bit. And then there was Tatijana . . .
He sighed. "You may as well tell the insect in the rafters to come on down. The mouse in that tiny hole over there"-he indicated his left-"and the knot directly behind me is concealing a beetle of some sort. If there are others, they certainly are adept at hiding, but being in the body of something so small for so long, makes for slow fighters."
The flying insect in the rafters responded first, shimmering into the form of a tall, broad-shouldered male with strange-colored, nearly aquamarine eyes. His hair was very long, nearly to his waist, thick and tethered with a single long leather cord winding all the way down to secure even the ends, a typical way to bind hair for battle. Fen recognized him immediately and to his shock, relief spread through him. Mataias had been a childhood friend.
Fen had known Falcon, but he'd grown up close to Mataias and his brothers. They'd run wild together in the mountains, learned battle skills and shifting on the run. They'd been like family, and he'd lost track of them. He came to his feet and clasped Mataias's forearms in the age-old traditional welcome between two warriors.
"Arwa-arvo olen isanta, ekam-honor keep you, my brother," Fen greeted.
Mataias's answering grip was strong. "Arwa-arvo pile sivadet-may honor light your heart."
"It's good to see you," Fen said, meaning it. He truly felt as if he had come home, seeing Mataias, knowing he hadn't succumbed to the ever-present darkness.
The fact that Mataias was there meant the other two guarding the prince had to be his brothers. The siblings were never far from one another. Coming from a long line of respected warriors, they had traveled together to see each other through darker times. They were lethal hunters, calm, experienced, and coordinated their attacks with expertise, much like the packs of Lycans. A master vampire had killed their parents when their mother was pregnant and they'd hunted the vampire across two continents, with a ruthless, implacable purpose, never stopping until they had found and destroyed him.
"Lojos and Tomas may as well show themselves," Fen added.
"Did you smell them?" Gregori asked.
Fen glanced over at him. Clearly he'd been testing something new. He shook his head. "No, not even with my Lycan senses heightened."
Gregori nodded. "Good. We've got a couple of brilliant researchers working for us, and this was one product I thought would be good to use if the Lycans are invading."
Fen shook his head. "They aren't like that. They've never been like that. They remain in the background, working quietly to keep their packs as strong as possible, but they've integrated into human society well. I can't see them making a decision out of the blue to suddenly go to war with Carpathians."
The small mouse grew and kept growing fast, until another Carpathian male, looking very much like a clone of the first one, came forward to greet Fen with the traditional forearm clasp. His eyes were as brilliant aquamarine as his brother's. His hair was identical as well as body frame, but Lojos had a web of scarring running down his left shoulder and arm, all the way to his hand. It was very unusual for any Carpathian to scar. The wounds had to be near fatal, the suffering great.
"Well met, brother," Fen said, meaning it. "Veri olen piros, ekam." Literally the greeting translated to blood be red, my brother, but figuratively, it meant "find your lifemate."
They stood eye to eye, staring into each other's pasts. Fen knew what it was like to struggle against the darkness, to be alone in the midst of others-even those you could only cling to the memory of loving.
"This is your lifemate? A Dragonseeker?" Lojos shook his head. "You are a very lucky man, Fen. This Lycan hunter you call Zev, the one so badly wounded, with his belly ripped open. I have watched him, and he is healing at a remarkable rate for the extent of his injuries."
Fen knew they all were listening for every detail. "Lycans regenerate very quickly, which is one of the reasons, when you take them on, you have to know how to properly kill them. They aren't easy. Zev is an elite fighter, one of the best I've ever seen. He was willing to take on the rogue pack alone in order to allow me to get Tatijana out of harm's way."