“Is this going somewhere?” Zev asked, lifting his lashes enough to peer at Fen. “Because I figured that out all by myself.”

“I can try taking you inside where no one can get to you, but if you don’t have enough Carpathian blood, it won’t work. We’ll have to make a run for it and I’m not certain where to take you. I’ll need to go to ground. Is there anyone you trust at this point? Trust them with your life?”

“They’re in the Carpathian Mountains guarding the council. That’s why they’re there, because I trust them,” Zev said. He tried sitting up, but a wave of weakness sent him back to the ground. “Get out of here, Fen. Go while you can.”

Fen snorted his derision. “Tatijana’s sister isn’t here to see your heroics, so just stop. I’m going to try to bring you inside. You can rest and guard us while we sleep.”

A faint grin softened the rough edges to Zev’s face. “Now I see where this is going. I’m the one injured and you’re going to bed expecting me to guard your sorry ass.”

“That would be about right,” Fen said with an answering grin that faded very quickly. “We have one fully human boy who would have to sit through the day alone. He’s wounded, courageous and he’ll stand, but the responsibility of guarding his father, uncle, my brother and Skyler as well as Tatijana and me, is a huge one for a kid.”

Zev patted his sword. “No problem then. I can take on the entire Lycan world for you, with a kid no less, just so you can get your beauty sleep.”

“My lifemate is Tatijana and you see what she looks like. I can’t risk looking like I’m Dracula.”

Zev laughed softly. “I don’t know what that woman sees in you.”

“Quite frankly, neither do I.” Fen huffed out his breath. “You ready for this?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Zev answered.

Once again he struggled to sit up. This time he made it. His face, weathered and tanned over the years, had gone pale. He looked as if he might be sick, but he forced himself to stay sitting upright, swaying a little.

“Give me a second and then we’ll try standing.”

“Once we’re up, we’ve got to make it to the fortress,” Fen cautioned. “Tatijana can only shield us from so many positions. If they put snipers in the trees . . .”

Zev nodded. “I feel them. They’re surrounding us.” He looked at Fen. “That’s how I knew I was becoming something different. I felt the others sometimes when I shouldn’t have. Lycans don’t give off energy.”

“They do, but they contain it,” Fen corrected. “As your body becomes a Guardian, your senses grow even more acute.”

If Zev was at the point where his awareness had grown to such an extent, it might be enough to allow him into Skyler’s shelter. Weeks earlier they’d been in several battles together. Tatijana had given Zev blood. Other Carpathians had. It was possible those last infusions had pushed Zev into the actual transformation. No one really knew when it happened.

Going from Carpathian to Lycan was easier to know because the wolf was a dead giveaway. One slowly became aware of his presence. A Lycan already had the wolf in him. There was no way to realize what was happening until it was far too late. If Zev suspected he had become a mixed blood, he more than likely was.

Something smacked into the shield Tatijana had provided, a bullet splintering the transparent armor so that it spiderwebbed outward into a starburst pattern.

“I think we just ran out of time,” Fen said. He leapt to his feet and reached down for Zev.

Zev was game, Fen had to hand it to him. He struggled up as Fen pulled him into a standing position.

“I’m good,” Zev assured. “The dizziness is beginning to pass.”

That was probably bull, but Fen wasn’t about to argue. A second bullet joined the first, and then a volley rang out. He got his arm around Zev and they sprinted for the shelter. Fen heard the bullets hitting the shield from every direction. There had to be at least five shooters—all marksmen if the bullet patterns were anything to go by. Each would have been a hit in the head. Whoever was running Gunnolf’s army had recruited some sharpshooters.

Once they reached the shelter wall, that rippling transparency that held out Lycans and bullets alike, Fen stepped back to allow Zev to go through first.

“What do I do?”

“You just walk through. If you make it, you’re in, if not, I don’t know what happens to you.”

“You haven’t been inside?”

“No, but Dimitri is in there and he’s like us.”

Zev took a deep breath, let it out and took a step. The wrench to his bones was horrendous, a twisting, yanking sensation ripping at him that drove the air from his lungs and seemed to pull apart muscle and tissue. His heart accelerated, beating so hard his chest hurt.

He would have pulled back but he knew Fen would stay with him, continuing to risk his life. They wouldn’t stand a chance outside the fortress, either one of them. Not alone. He plowed forward while his cells screamed and his body felt torn into pieces.

Suddenly he was free of the sensation, falling to the ground, able to breathe again, his heart slowing to a more normal pace. He rolled over, coughing, pulling air into his burning lungs. He kept his gaze fixed on Fen. Fen had been mixed blood for centuries. He was truly half Lycan and half Carpathian. There was no doubt in his mind that Fen experienced that same wrenching, tearing apart of his body when Fen fell to the ground beside him, breathing just as hard.

“Just who is this girl who managed to construct this thing?” Zev asked.

Fen would have laughed if he could get enough air to do so. His body still felt as if it had been jerked in a thousand different directions. How did one describe Skyler? “She looks like an innocent angel. That’s how my brother describes her. Her name is Skyler.”

Zev brought his hand to his forehead. “I met her. In the forest. She was lost, she said. She had a sprained ankle and couldn’t find her way back to her camp.”

Fen did laugh then. He couldn’t help himself. “She totally suckered you.”

“She’s human.”

“She’s Skyler, Dimitri’s lifemate. The Lycans took him, and she took him back.”

Byron approached them with a hint of caution. He smiled, but his eyes were flat and cold. “Tatijana told me you were bringing him inside, that he was injured very badly. Does he need blood?”