Dark Lycan (49 page)

Lightning fast, it streaked toward Fen, the olive-colored back barely visible. All Fen could see was the dagger-sharp teeth coming at him. The aggressive, powerful goliath was known to attack and kill crocodiles. With barely any lips and teeth set into the jaw, the fish was deadlier than the smaller piranha and once its teeth clamped down on its prey, the cut was so clean it was almost surgical.

Fen, using his Guardian speed, managed to just slip sideways out of its way. The huge body drove passed him by a few feet before the enormous fish could stop its charge. Fen dove below it, coming up under its softer silver belly, reaching around it to take a good grip.

His upper arm and shoulder, chest and side, every part of his body coming in contact with the fish, instantly burned like fire, the pain excruciating. He tried to pull away, but that soft underside was not the tigerfish’s own belly, but a solid sheet of thin silver. Already the metal burned into his skin, so that he was attached and unable to break loose.

The fish tried turning its head to snap at him with dagger teeth, but Fen stayed well under the body, fighting off the pain. He tried to push pain aside as Carpathians did when wounded severely, but the silver seemed to be melting, finding his pores and working its way into his body. The more he fought, the worse the pain and the deeper the silver went. Abel had come up with another form of
Moarta de argint
—literally—death by silver.

Fen forced himself to remain absolutely still, while the tigerfish whirled in circles snapping at him. Suddenly it streaked straight through the water as if it was as anxious to dislodge Fen and get away.

Dimitri saw the fish rocketing through the deep lake with his brother attached somehow to the underbelly. The goliath swam directly toward the reeds and the lodge that was partially dismantled. He spotted a single flash of movement and instantly dove deep, intercepting the second tigerfish head-on, his body between his brother and the new threat. He drove his silver sword through the massive, open jaws.

Dimitri, the underbelly is pure silver, don’t touch it,
Fen warned.
Take off its head, but keep a distance.

The werewolves are attacking,
Tatijana reported.
They’re coming at us in great numbers, maybe forty strong. Three hunters and Zev have spotted Abel. He’s commanding them himself.

Fen removed his sword with his free hand. If it was possible beneath the water while one was being rocketed across a lake, he felt as if he might be sweating. Between the pain that seemed to grow worse with every passing second and the thought of what was to come, he had to keep up a shield to prevent Tatijana from knowing just how bad it really was. She would come to him no matter the danger.

Abel has sent a clone. Gregori will know what to do.

You’re certain? He appears real enough.

It was all Fen could do not to snap at her. He snapped his teeth together instead and forced calm.
Abel is here.
He broke the contact abruptly. He couldn’t be in two places at one time, not when Abel was doing his best to kill the two biggest threats to him.

Without waiting he took the sword and sliced upward in one motion, removing his own skin from elbow to shoulder that had adhered to the tigerfish. He forced himself not to feel the pain, but managed a second slicing motion, stripping the skin from his waist, up his rib cage to just below his arm. Blood poured into the water. The tigerfish went crazy and began snapping at itself, the teeth missing him by inches. It took every ounce of discipline he possessed to make the last cut to free himself from the monster before slicing the head off the goliath.

Something’s happening above us,
Dimitri said as he withdrew the sword from the tigerfish’s mouth, spinning to the side of the large fish and slicing down to cut the head off.
Near the shore, there’s a disturbance.

Go. I’ve got this.

Fen stopped the flow of blood and dove deeper, ignoring the small bits of silver still burning through his body. He found an entrance to the underwater rooms in Abel’s lodge. To enter the lair of a vampire was a very risky thing. There was water in the first room. Part of the wall had been blown away. The
Sange rau
had stored his food there and the bodies had risen to the surface.

Fen swam through it to the entrance to the second room. Immediately he felt the resistance blocking him. He waved his hand and at once the safeguards symbols and code flowed in front of his vision, a little blurry at times and very fast. He unraveled them just as fast, but was far more careful going into the second chamber.

Abel slept here. It was dark and dank and snug, warm even, all the comforts of a cave. Fen looked around carefully. There was no one there, but he hadn’t expected Abel to make it easy for him. This was a cat and mouse game. He was the mouse, the bait to bring Abel out. He made his way slowly across the room. He hadn’t gone more than three steps when his warning radar shrieked at him. Screamed. Flashed. He wasn’t alone in the close confines of that room.

Abel dropped down on him from above, driving him to the floor of the lodge. The curved claws dug deep, tearing at him. The moment his body hit the floor, the walls of the room came alive, bats, clearly carnivorous, abandoning their resting place to join their master.

Feast. Feast my brothers,
Abel commanded.

The bats dropped to the floor, coming from all directions, leaping on Fen and biting deep.

Dimitri surfaced, going straight out of the water, to see two of the elite hunters, Convel and Gunnolf, tangled up in the reeds. Clearly Zev had sent them scouting and the dead bodies in the lake had attracted them to the shore. They both had fallen into one of Abel’s traps. Thick vines burst from the reeds, wrapping the two Lycans up tightly in the stranglehold of an anaconda.

Cursing under his breath, Dimitri rocketed across the sky, dropping down behind the first Lycan, making certain not to touch any of the reeds. “Stop struggling. You’re only making it worse,” he advised.

Both Lycans, elite hunters, stopped moving instantly, although it had to have been difficult to obey when the vines continued to wrap them tighter, squeezing until their very bones were in danger of snapping.

Dimitri tried his sword, but the moment he touched the vines, others sprang up around him to try to cage him in. He could hear a quiet hum, the faintest of sounds, and knew the reeds and vines communicated with one another.

Although he didn’t move, Gunnolf began to make a sound of distress. Dimitri had run out of time. Using the strength and speed of the Guardian, he caught at the vines with his bare hands and yanked them away from the hunter, crushing the wood in his bare hands. The vines disintegrated into sawdust from the sheer strength he used. He pulled the hunter free and took him to a safer spot away from the reeds before going back for Convel.

The reeds had come alive, swaying and stretching, trying to find a target. Again, he dropped down fast from above, coming in behind Convel, grasping the thick vines, crushing them in his hands and snatching their prey from them to rise just as quickly into the air. It was his speed that saved them both. The vines shot up from all directions, but he had Convel safe and away. He set him down beside Gunnolf.

“Thanks,” Gunnolf said, holding out his hand. “You saved our lives.”

Dimitri was impatient to get back to Fen, but he gripped Gunnolf’s extended hand. Gunnolf slapped loops of silver around his wrist, a long chain like a leash attached. From behind him, loops of silver chain were flung over his head to drop around his body. The chain was pulled tight and agony shot through him. Before he could call out to Fen, something hard struck his head and everything went black.

“Let’s see what’s inside a hunter, my pets,” Abel said. Smiling, exposing his brown-stained teeth, he reached down in slow motion and deliberately ripped open Fen’s belly. The vampire/wolf took his time, wanting Fen to feel the pain as he eviscerated him. The bats uncovered the raw flesh where his missing skin should have been and tore into him.

“Eating people alive is what they do best and I so enjoy watching,” Abel taunted. “You weren’t quite as good as you thought, now were you?”

Fen felt a burst of pain that was not his own. That agony galvanized him into action as nothing else could. He was Carpathian before all else and he could shut off the pain from battle wounds. He’d done so for centuries. The silver was a different matter, but he could endure until something could be done.

“What happened to her, Abel?” Fen asked, forcing himself to lie quietly beneath the assault on his body. He stayed absolutely relaxed so Abel unintentionally relaxed as well. “Your lifemate? What happened to her?”

Abel went still. For one moment the malevolent lines disappeared from his face and he looked like the hunter Fen had known so long ago. The change in the
Sange rau
was fleeting, but it gave Fen that split second that he needed.

He slammed his empty fist into Abel’s chest wall with the incredible strength of a Guardian. He drove straight through with astonishing speed, his fist wrapping around the heart and extracting it before Abel even realized Fen had attacked him. As he extracted the heart, Fen rolled right over some of the bats, uncaring that they still bit at his flesh. All that mattered was destroying Abel.

A roar thundered through the lodge, shaking apart the structure that was left above them so that logs and debris rolled into the lake. Holes sprang in the walls. Fen palmed a silver stake with one hand, the heart in the other. Abel went insane, thrashing and screaming, his terrible claws reaching into Fen’s belly, pulling and tearing through everything he could grasp. His face contorted at the same time and he bit down on Fen’s shoulder and neck, tearing out chunks of flesh and wolfing them down whole.

“Get it, take it from him, my pets,” Abel screamed. “My heart!”

Fen didn’t dare drop the heart on the floor. Already Abel’s bats had begun biting at his clenched fist to try to retrieve what the
Sange rau
had lost. He palmed a silver stake with his other hand, opened his fist and slammed the dagger home, driving it all the way through the heart, his own hand and into the floor.

Abel’s wail rose to a screech. He slapped both hands over the hole in his chest, shock and horror on his face.

“Go to her, Abel. Seek her forgiveness,” Fen said. With his other hand, he used a downward motion, slicing through Abel’s neck with the silver knife he carried. He was forced to use the strength of the Guardian to remove the head.

There was so much blood. His. Abel’s. He was tired. So very tired. He expected the bats to leap upon him and tear him to shreds, but as Abel toppled to the floor, more water poured into the lodge, faster now, rising quickly and the bats retreated. With his last effort, he looked up at the sky through the holes in the roof. Lightning continued to edge the clouds. He called it down, directing it over Abel’s body and head, watching it burn in spite of the rising water. It seemed to take a long time and a tremendous amount of effort to finish burning the body, but finally, there was nothing left but ashes.

Fen looked around him, a little astonished that it was over. The water was more red than brown. He closed his eyes.
Tatijana, my lady. I may not be able to keep my promise to you, but know that I love you with all my heart.

20

F
en, you have to open your eyes. Wake for me.
Tatijana called to her lifemate for the seventh straight rising.

In all honesty, he slept as one dead, and his wounds had been so horrific had not Gregori found him when he had, Fen would have died within another few minutes. It had taken everyone to save him, all Carpathians, participating in the healing chant. The people had come together providing strength and much needed blood, while Gregori, Tatijana, Branislava and Mother Earth fought for his life.

“I don’t understand why he doesn’t wake up.” Tatijana looked to Gregori, her eyes welling with tears.