So beautiful, he whispered.

She gasped as her body clamped down hard on his. He felt the first wave like a tsunami ripping through her, taking him with her. She screamed out his name as wave after wave followed, her clenching muscles milking him dry.

Skyler collapsed forward on the bed, gasping for air. Dimitri blanketed her body, falling with her, his arms caging her in. They were still locked together, hearts pounding and lungs burning. When he managed to pull in some air, he let his body disengage from hers, and rolled to his side so that he wouldn’t crush her with his weight.

It took him a few more minutes to wave away the mirrors, stop the roaring fire and get rid of most of the candles.

“Do you think we can just sleep here?” Skyler asked. “I don’t want to move.”

He laughed softly. “We never sleep where we can be found. You know that.”

“What are safeguards for?”

He cupped her breast in his palm and locked one leg over her thigh. “It is never safe to sleep where we can be found,” he repeated. “Even with safeguards.”

She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. “Can the Sange rau stay out during daylight hours?”

He frowned, nuzzling her neck. “So far, no. Sange rau is rogue wolf and vampire. A rogue wolf can walk in daylight of course, but a vampire cannot. Fen says he can be out in the sun longer than he’s ever managed it, but he still burns if he stays too long. I was out in the sun when hanging in the trees. Fortunately, the sun never really penetrated the canopy and fell across my body, but I still blistered. Had I been fully Carpathian that may have killed me. I don’t know. Our Carpathian blood will always be Carpathian blood and the Lycan blood will always be Lycan. It’s our ability to utilize the gifts of both species that seems to increase. With that may come the ability to walk in the afternoon sun, but it’s too soon to predict that.”

“Were you listening to Arno’s voice when he talked about mixed bloods?” Skyler asked, turning over to face him.

His fingers traced her frown. “Yes.”

“Not just his words, but the passion and loathing in his voice? He’s a good man, Dimitri. He thinks of himself as a good man. He tries to do his best, tries to do the right thing, and yet he was so adamant that anyone with mixed blood needed to be exterminated. He believes that, deep down in his heart and soul. He even recognizes the difference between Sange rau and Hän ku pesäk kaikak but he wants them all dead.”

Her distress ate at him. He stroked back the wild mess of hair. He liked her hair messy. She looked as if she’d just thoroughly been made love to. “I know, csitri. Don’t let it get to you. We have no control over others. If we’re lucky, maybe in time just being around us, he’ll feel differently. The council members have voted to stay to attempt to come to some agreement. I believe a couple of the others have opted to come as well, although I don’t know that for certain.”

“He really worked hard to save Zev’s life. He knew Carpathians were giving him blood, but he didn’t object or try to stop us.” Skyler bit her lower lip. “Right then, he was so torn. Zev saved his life. Had he not covered Arno’s body with his own, Arno would be dead. Zev should have been. Fortunately he had enough Carpathian blood mixing with his Lycan blood that he held out until help came.”

Dimitri leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. “In the form of my amazing and talented lifemate. From what Fen and Tatijana told me, you were incredible.”

“It took all of us, but it certainly has made me curious to know more about my birth mother. I feel her sometimes, guiding me when I lose my way healing someone. She’s a force inside of me, unexpected and rare, but she sometimes comes to me. I can’t remember her healing people, but I dream of it sometimes. I think it’s possible I was there with her when she helped others. I had to be very young, maybe a toddler, and she showed me what she was doing.”

“I could find those memories for you,” Dimitri offered.

Skyler squirmed uncomfortably. He knew everything about her past, the fact that as a child she’d been sold to men, but he would have to get past those memories to find the ones of her mother. As much as she wanted to know as much as possible about her birth mother, she wasn’t ready for him to replay those monstrous memories.

“Sometime. When things aren’t happening so fast for me,” Skyler said. “There have been so many changes, and sometimes I feel overwhelmed. I know everything could blow up any moment between Lycan and Carpathian and the thought terrifies me. I’m still getting used to being fully Carpathian and learning everything that goes with that.” She smiled at him. “And there’s you. The love of my life. The intensity of us is a little disconcerting at times.”

He gathered her up, nuzzling the top of her head. “Dawn is breaking and you need sleep. We’ve got another big day ahead of us. Ivory and Razvan want us training hard all day, every day so that the pups accept us.”

“When they first called them pups, I thought they would be little things, but they’re huge,” Skyler said.

“Do they intimidate you?”

She shook her head. “Not anymore. When I first saw them, they did. I think they accepted me because I must have some of Razvan in me. They certainly recognized the alpha wolf in you right away.”

He growled in her ear as he opened the floor and floated down to the basement. “Of course they did.”

“Very funny. I don’t find you intimidating either.” She sniffed for emphasis.

He laughed. “After watching Ivory show you how to use the crossbow and throwing wedges she has, I think I’m becoming a little intimidated by you.”

She grinned at him. “I am getting good at it. I actually love it. Especially the wolves. In my wildest dreams I never thought I’d have my own wolf pack like Ivory and Razvan do.”

They both dissolved and slipped through the cracks in the stone floor to the ground below. Dimitri opened that for them as well. Skyler was too excited by the prospect of renewing her training with the wolves the following evening to have her usual brief moment of fear as they floated into the rich, welcoming soil.

Dimitri wrapped her in his arms, as he did each dawn, holding her close, commanding her to sleep before he settled the earth over them and secured their safeguards for the coming day.

22

Mist rolled in, long white fingers stretching through the forest and curling around thick tree trunks. The dense vapor muffled sound and lent an eerie quality to the woods. Out of that heavy fog stepped a woman. She went still, nearly blending into her background. Very slowly, she crouched low to place her hand on the forest floor, feeling the very heartbeat of the earth, checking for information, for sounds or vibrations of an enemy.