“I was born with the other half of his soul, Garald,” Vasilisa informed her brother very gently. “I have known almost from birth that I was destined for a Carpathian male. Mother knew this and did her best to prepare me for his coming.”
Garald continued to shake his head. “Vasi, you are Lycan royalty. Don’t you understand what I’m saying to you? This could cause a war. Thiswillcause a war.”
“Not if you, Grigor and Andros stand with me. In any case, there is no way to stop what is already done.”
“I forbid this. You come home, and he must leave this land.”
Afanasiv had had enough. “Do not speak to my lifemate in such a tone of disrespect. You must go to Dimitri and Skyler and warn them that there is danger. Mars believed that he was promised Skyler should he defeat me in battle. It is not only possible but probable that others have been promised something similar. I must find Vitus and destroy him. My brethren have run into others on your land. Master vampires with their pawns looking to destroy your people. They too have made pacts with those from the underworld.”
“Vasilisa will come with me,” Garald commanded.
Afanasiv remained silent, showing no impatience, although he needed to follow Vitus as quickly as possible. This was a matter for his lifemate to settle with her brother. Her decision whether to stay with Garald or go with Siv would set a course for their future.
“Vasilisa speaks for herself, brother,” she corrected softly. “I always have. I go with my lifemate. His journey is dangerous and he will have need of me. What’s more, I have need to be with him. Our soul is joined together. Where one goes, so must the other. We will return when we have destroyed the master vampire. We need to discover who else is betraying our people and why, because it seems as if the whisper of conspiracy has spread in all directions.”
Garald swore under his breath and turned away from them. “You are taking a dangerous path, Vasilisa. One I don’t know if we can save you from.”
“She will not require you to save her,” Afanasiv assured. “I am quite capable of defending my lifemate from any who wish to harm her.”
“I am quite capable of defending myself, as you well know, brother,” Vasilisa assured him. “Having a lifemate adds to my protection. I also feel that Dimitri and Skyler are in grave danger. He is on our land. Send word to Grigor and Andros that we have a traitor, someone close to us, within the council. We must be very careful. I’ll return as soon as possible.”
“Three ancients travel with me. They are staying at the inn but may find refuge in other places if they have battled the undead and cannot make it back. Benedek Kovac, Petru Cioban and Nicu Dalca. These men are ancients and very dangerous. They are hunters of the undead, Carpathian, but I cannot stress to you how dangerous they are. Do not challenge them in any way. Keep your young Lycans from them if they are feeling a need to prove themselves. These are not the men to test their mettle on.”
Garald did not take offense as Siv feared he might. He gave a shortnod, his worried gaze on his sister. “Good hunting,” he murmured. “Vasilisa, come home to us.”
“Always, brother.”
Afanasiv didn’t much like the sound of that. He started to shift into a bird and at the last moment stopped himself. His lifemate was quite capable of doing the same, but from the concerns with their union—specifically the mixing of their blood, allowing them both to become so much more than either Carpathian or Lycan—he realized Garald had no idea Vasilisa already was more. He held out his hand to her, his much larger fingers engulfing hers when she took it.
He’d never held hands with a woman in his life—certainly not that he could remember. She felt small and delicate through her gloves. He glanced at her as they walked swiftly away from the black ashes in the snow and her brother, who was quickly moving in the opposite direction. Since they had to slow down anyway, Siv wanted to take the opportunity to catch Vitus’ imprint near the falls.
“You are not only extremely intelligent, but you are an accomplished fighter, Vasilisa. I’m honored to be your lifemate.”
She glanced at him from under her long lashes, a small smile briefly flirting with her lush lips. “Thank you.”
His eyebrow shot up. “I have said something amusing?”
“No, I quite liked your compliment. It’s just that most men would have complimented me on my looks. That’s all they would have seen. They wouldn’t have noticed that I am intelligent, or if they did, it wouldn’t have mattered to them. They wouldn’t have wanted me to be good at fighting because they would want me to stay at home.”
“Lycan women are very good hunters. I recall hearing that one of your most experienced hunters had a female Lycan on his team who was every bit as skilled as her male counterparts.”
“Her name is Daciana, and she’s an excellent example. She’s an elite hunter. Many of the Lycans belonging to the Sacred Circle have decided they don’t want the females serving on the elite teams no matter how good they are. The Sacred Circle forbade them to do so.Although many have said they no longer practice those beliefs, they do,” she admitted.
“The one thing I have noticed as I have moved through the centuries is if you do not keep up with the times, you eventually become extinct. You cannot hope to survive. I am not going to say I am in any way modern. I am not. In fact, I cannot keep up with technology at all. Computers and the like defeat me completely. Young Josef did his best to try to teach us, but since it is so much easier to just pull the information from other’s brains, I admit I saw no use for the device. He tried his best to explain it to us. When he was explaining, it made sense. When I was attempting to learn, it didn’t.”
Vasilisa smiled up at him. He liked that she was tall. He was a tall man, and he wouldn’t have to stoop low to reach her. Still, she was a few inches shorter, and when she looked up at him, as she did now, she made him feel things he couldn’t identify. Sensations were strange and new to him. These were good emotions. Powerful ones. He found himself enjoying these new feelings.
He slid his thumb over the back of her hand and then turned her hand so he could feel for the pulse in her wrist. “You didn’t flinch once. Demons or vampires. You were prepared.”
“I trained from the time I was a toddler—I could barely walk. My mother knew I held your soul and would possibly face vampires. She also knew I would need to know how to face anything that might slip through from the underworld. I must guard one of the gates created in the underworld to hold a beast that is uncontrollable by the demons or by those aboveground.”
“There are four gates,” he said, confirming his knowledge.
Her head came up, and her eyes went from soft to suspicious. “How would you know this?”
He liked that she was so careful. “I traveled with Sandu, one of my brethren from the monastery, when he journeyed with Adalasia to repair the tears in the earth around the gate she was ensuring stayed closed. We spoke with Liona, a Carpathian woman guarding that gate forcenturies. She is Sandu’s sister. The reason Adalasia’s tarot cards survived all this time is because Liona’s blood was spilled on them.”
Her eyes had gone soft again, all suspicion gone. “I have met Liona. She is a strong woman, and one I admire greatly. She spoke of Sandu often and couldn’t understand why he didn’t come to her.”