The men looked at one another, secretly amused that a Lycan thought to protect a Carpathian, especially one who was Dragonseeker.
"Obviously he didn't know what, or who she was," Fen said.
"You admire this man." Gregori made it a statement.
"Yes, very much. You don't get to his position without seeing hundreds, if not thousands of battles with packs. The moment he and Dimitri realized the one leading the rogues was one of the Sange rau, they held off the pack in order to allow me the opportunity to destroy the demon. Zev didn't hesitate to put himself in a very dangerous situation. He knew he could die, but he didn't back down."
The small beetle fit snugly in the knot landed on the floor and grew with alarming speed into the shape of the first two brothers. When he clasped Fen's forearms in the warrior's greeting, Fen could see the droplets of scars down the right side of his face, almost like tears, all the way to his jaw. The same strange scars ran up his temple and disappeared into his hairline.
"Bur tule ekamet kuntamak-well met, brother-kin," the third brother greeted Fen. "It is good you found your lifemate. I have thought often of you over the last centuries, and hoped I would never have to meet you in battle."
"I felt the same, Tomas," Fen admitted honestly. "So many of us have been lost to the darkness."
He took another careful look around. The prince had these three experienced warriors, Gregori, Falcon and Jacques to protect him against an unknown Lycan/Carpathian combination. In his house. Close quarters. Gregori had an inkling of what he could do. There was another somewhere. Someone extraordinary, their ace in the hole. There was one other from his childhood. A little older, only by a decade or so, which was nothing in the years of Carpathians. He'd always been a little odd, but he'd been a source of vast knowledge. Andre. Some called him the ghost. He often passed through, wiped out any vampires in an area and was never seen or heard from. But he left his mark, and Fen had tried to keep track of him. He'd heard that he often was near the triplets, banding to hold on in order to keep the darkness at bay.
The Carpathians had prepared for a war. They'd spent the last two years of peacetime getting ready for anything that might threaten them as a species. He was just seeing the tip of the iceberg.
"Fen." Mikhail's cool voice brought him back to the business at hand. "The Carpathian people know the difference between a Carpathian and a vampire. You are no threat to us. In fact, your added speed and abilities as a Lycan only serve to aid our cause."
Fen frowned and sank back into the comfortable chair. "The Lycans' fear of the combination of blood is so deep that they would go to war should they find you are giving aid and harboring one of us. My presence here puts you all in jeopardy."
He dropped the bombshell quietly, knowing he didn't need to embellish. The stark truth was enough. Mikhail Dubrinsky was no one's fool. He would grasp instantly the enormity of what Fen was telling him. He would hear the ring of truth and know Fen had brought a problem of an alarming magnitude to him.
"I see," Mikhail said, steepling his fingers. "We're going to need to know everything you know about the Lycans. Everything. The smallest detail."
"There are very few like me," Fen cautioned. He certainly didn't want to be the cause of a war. "The Lycans are essentially good people," he added. "I like them and respect them. As fighters there are few who could surpass them. They don't look for power or glory as a rule. They live their lives within their small packs, happy with their families."
"I am certain they are good people," Mikhail agreed. "However, they have come to my lands without contacting me, a general courtesy, which I find unusual. A rogue pack with two of these creatures you refer to as Sange rau have also come when it simply has not happened before. We have several children who have survived into their second year. Are these coincidences? I am not such a fool as to believe that. I cannot afford to be that foolish."
Fen had his own doubts that the timing was coincidental.
"What is your experience with becoming Lycan? What do you know of them?" Mikhail asked.
"I can tell you as the wolf gets older so does the integration between wolf and man. In the beginning the wolf is separate-a guardian so to speak, protecting the host body as soon as the other half feels its presence. The wolf brings with it history and facts it has known throughout its lifespan and that of its ancestors. He passes that information to the man half and he moves to protect that man when necessary."
"As you grow older and more comfortable, the two, wolf and man, become one entity?" Mikhail reiterated to make certain they all understood.
Fen nodded. "Yes, that's as close to an explanation as possible. All senses, even when in the form of a man, are heightened beyond all reason. A young wolf often cannot control the transformation-usually before the full moon. He's clumsy and the pack watches him closely to make certain he or she doesn't get into trouble. It's an awkward stage."
"One of our males has a lifemate who was Lycan but didn't know it," Falcon said. "How is that possible?"
"Sometimes members leave the pack, falling in love with an outsider. Their children can carry the Lycan gene, but often it doesn't develop. Females in particular don't always know because their wolf doesn't come forward right away." Fen shrugged again. "I didn't stay with packs for long periods of time. It was too dangerous for me. They couldn't detect the difference most of the time, but during the week of the full moon, any of them could have figured it out. I spent the full moons in the ground as often as possible. Over the last century I traveled outside of packs."
"When do they begin training?" Gregori asked.
"In a pack, all children are trained almost from the moment they can talk. Education is all important, world affairs, the politics, cultures and running of every country. They are also taught fighting techniques and of course tracking and shifting. They're fast. Really fast. And they're taught battle strategy as well, training with all kinds of weapons."
"Much like what we do with our youth," Jacques said.
Fen nodded. "They work in the human world. They take jobs and actually serve in the militaries of whatever country they're in. Always, always though, they answer to their pack leader, and the pack leader answers to the council."
Mikhail got up and paced restlessly across the room. The stone fireplace was enormous and drew one's eyes. Fen was still looking for the last warrior's hiding place. The ghost. He was there somewhere in the room. The house was interesting in that no matter how many tall, broad-shouldered men were at the windows and close enough to guard their prince, the room felt spacious and open. Sometimes he almost felt as if the stone and wood were alive, and breathing, and watching them all.