Dark Slayer by Christine Feehan Page B

most would never notice. He streamed to the surface, a threadlike trail of vapor moving upward, weaving back and forth through the layers of rock bed for what seemed an interminable amount of time before he saw a sliver of sky overhead.

    I will come. I will be there, Ivory. Do not lose hope .
    In hundreds of years she had never relied on anyone but herself and her pack. She was Ivory Malinov, slayer of the dark ones, and she trusted no one, believed in no one. That way, no one could tear her heart out, physically or figuratively. She took a breath and pain nearly blinded her, made her stagger so that the dark one leapt toward her.
    Ivory pulled a knife from her belt and stood facing him. She knew his reputation, but thankfully, he didn’t know hers. It was an advantage, no matter how small. He wasn’t aware the wolves were Carpathian and all the more lethal. He would try to control them—it was standard defense—but it wouldn’t work, and that would also give her a small advantage. Ordinarily she would have rushed to attack already, not wait for him to make the first move, but a part of her didn’t want to start a war with the Carpathians.
    Mikhail held up his hand. “Gregori. There is no need for this.” It was a warning, delivered in a soft, almost gentle voice.
    She remembered that same tone—his father’s, so gentle and benevolent, the kind eyes, the compassionate, caring wisdom. The voice of reason. He wanted only to help her. An unselfish, gentle man who lived to serve his people. Whatever was best for them. She remembered that voice all too well. The eyes looking at her, looking through her, piercing her soul, seeing her need of knowledge, her need to learn when her brothers couldn’t—or wouldn’t. That voice soothing her, telling her he would make it right, that he would talk to her brothers when they returned and explain why it was necessary for her to go to the school and learn.
    The prince understood. How could he not, when he knew so much more than everyone else? How could he not, when his reasons for doing everything were to serve his people. He had known that she hungered to do more than sit in her home and wait for her lifemate. She wanted to be something, to do something. The prince understood and helped her as she had known he would.
    Something twisted inside her stomach. For a brief moment she couldn’t feel the throbbing pain in her ribs or the terrible agony of her shoulder, not even the burn from the acid blood or sharp stabbing of the parasites as they bored into her cells. It had never occurred to her in her naivete that the prince had another agenda altogether—that he wanted to get rid of her, send her away because he knew his sick and twisted son would never leave her alone, and that her brothers or the De La Cruz brothers would kill Draven. Instead, she had happily gone off, believing the prince, in all his wisdom, knew so much more than her own family. She’d felt so grown up, so validated. She’d been hopelessly young and trusting in those days.
    You have to hurry. I cannot hold out much longer .
    She didn’t know if her weakness was as much physical as mental. Seeing her brother had shaken her more than she’d realized. She’d vowed to avoid them and hadn’t prepared herself mentally for seeing Sergey in his state of evil. He had changed his appearance when he recognized her, giving her a glimpse of her past, of a beloved man who’d held her and rocked her and spent hours teaching her to fight.
    It had made her physically ill to shoot him with an arrow. She thought she had successfully separated the past from the present in her mind, but seeing him in person wasn’t the same as thinking about him abstractly.
    I am coming to you. Stall for time. Use the wolves if you must .
    “Allow our healer to help you,” Mikhail said, his voice dropping another octave, becoming almost hypnotic.
    She couldn’t help but feel the pull of that pure voice, even though over centuries