She didn't change expression or step away from him. She just looked at him as if expecting more. He cleared his throat. "Perhaps you don't understand what I said. I am not Carpathian and I am not Lycan. I am both. An outcast that cannot be tolerated by either species. The Lycans have elite squads that hunt and kill someone like me on sight."
Tatijana frowned. "Why would that be? Lara is lifemate to Nicolas, and his brother Manolito is lifemate to MaryAnn. Manolito and MaryAnn are as you are, and no one is hunting them."
Fen shook his head. "That cannot be."
"I heard Nicolas telling the prince that MaryAnn was Lycan and they were as you describe. No one seemed upset by it."
"No one can know. They cannot. This has not been made common knowledge or my brother would have told me. They are in terrible danger. If the Lycans hear of this, they will send their hunters. They hunt in packs and once set on a trail, they do not stop until they kill their targets."
Tatijana drew in her breath. "If the Lycans killed or attempted to kill MaryAnn and Manolito, his brothers would start a war. As I understand it, the De La Cruz brothers would take on the world for one another. Lara and Nicolas gave us quite a bit of information when they would come to give us blood while we were healing in the earth."
"It is important, Tatijana. You have to warn them. Once the death sentence is handed down by the council, the elite hunters will spend centuries, if necessary, to find and destroy them. There are only a couple of us. Vakasin was killed by his own kind after he helped me to rid the world of Vitrona. They were savage with him when he had done nothing wrong. He tried to tell them that Vitrona had turned vampire, that he didn't represent what we could be, but they wouldn't listen."
"Could Vakasin have turned vampire?" Tatijana asked. "That's what they were afraid of, wasn't it?"
Fen nodded slowly with a small sigh. "He didn't have time to find out. Like Carpathians, Lycans live long lives. I don't know what the consequences of a Lycan-Carpathian cross would be. Obviously, I could turn without my lifemate, but staying in Lycan form helped throughout the long, empty years." He hesitated. "The gifts grow stronger over time, mutating, and as one grows more powerful, that aid disappears and the call to darkness grows."
He shook his head, sorrow nearly overwhelming him. He had respected Vakasin as a hunter and a man, but until this moment he hadn't realized he'd felt affection for him. Camaraderie. The bond between two men who shared battles and watched each other's backs. He'd been unable to feel those things until Tatijana. Emotions, he found, were both a blessing and a curse.
"From the Lycan's point of view, I can see why they would condemn such a powerful being. It took years to bring Vitrona to justice. During the long centuries he nearly single-handedly destroyed the Lycan world. He killed pack after pack in brutal and vicious ways."
"He was vampire," she pointed out. "It's unreasonable to think every single Carpathian-Lycan cross would do the same, any more than it would be reasonable to think every mage is evil because Xavier was."
"Surely there must be some suspicion when Carpathian meets mage," Fen replied. "You know there would be. The Lycans are fully integrated into the human world. They take jobs in the field of law enforcement and they keep small packs within the cities, all with jobs of humankind. They are ruled by a shadowy government of their own and those who rule use human resources. Nearly all the elite hunters are considered wildlife experts or specialists and they travel the world secretly hunting rogue werewolves."
"How many are like you?"
Fen hesitated. He didn't know exactly what that answer was, and he feared the truth. "As far as I know for certain, there is only me, and now Manolito De La Cruz and his lifemate." He had a small suspicion that his brother might have already crossed into his world as well, but he didn't know for certain.
"So few," Tatijana mused. "That does present a problem. If there were more, perhaps the Lycans would think twice before they decided to try to kill all of you, but with only three, they could strike and no one would know."
"You are kin to this Lara?"
Tatijana nodded. "She is the daughter of my brother's son, Razvan. My brother, Soren, was killed by Xavier and Xavier held Razvan and Lara prisoner as well."
"Get word to the De La Cruz family through Lara to be very careful and do not let anyone know of their cross-species."
"Did you think that I would leave you to face this alone?" Tatijana asked. "What kind of a lifemate would I be if I abandoned you?"
He felt an unexpected urge to laugh. "The kind of lifemate who does not want to be claimed."
"That was before I knew you were in trouble." She tossed her long braid over her shoulder, her eyes glittering like emeralds. "I am Dragonseeker. We do not run."
"I'm beginning to understand how true that is," Fen conceded. "Still, the Lycans have existed for centuries, adapting and evolving with each new generation, and they are well integrated into human society. They use their human counterparts to aid them in investigations and tracking down those they deem criminals."
"Like you."
"Vakasin did not tell his slayers about me and they have not discovered my identity. Elite hunters tracking a rogue pack came across me when I was hunting the rogue pack as well, but they have no knowledge of my identity. Perhaps Zev suspects what I am, but he doesn't know. There is only a short window of opportunity for hunters to find me. They can identify me only one week out of every month. It's only during the weeklong cycle of the full moon that my energy feels different to the Lycans and they know immediately what I am."
Tatijana frowned, her delicate eyebrows drawing together. "Why are you here? In the Carpathian Mountains? You didn't come back to inform the prince of your duality. And you didn't come back to swear your allegiance to him. You're a hunter. You hunt the vampire. Ancient hunters don't change their ways."
Fen sighed. Tatijana looked a fragile flower but she had a spine of steel, and she was highly intelligent. She might not know about fire, but she hadn't wasted her time during her centuries-long incarceration. She had studied each of her father's victims carefully. She had learned to read them and draw on their abilities and experiences. She had looked for hunters and those who knew how to fight in order to further her chances of escaping. He could almost feel her brain putting the pieces of a puzzle together with lightning speed.