Carpathian 01 - Dark Prince

where the assassins had approached the house. Four men. He lingered over each scent until they were imprinted deeply in his mind. He took his time unraveling the macabre, gruesome story.
    The men had approached stealthily, even crawling from cover to cover at times. The wolf followed their path, straying here and there to cover ground, looking for hidden traps. At the door he paused, circled warily, backed off. Suddenly his hind legs dug into the dirt, and he launched himself straight through a window, shattering glass and landing a good six feet into the room. Deep within the wolf's body, Mikhail's laughter was grim and without humor. The four assassins had returned to the scene of their grisly murder to set up cameras to capture images of his kind. If the assassins had had guts, they would have stayed and waited for the body to be discovered. They had done their brutal business and had run like the cowards they were.
    Bile rose in his throat. The wolf shook its head, growled low. Three of the scents were unknown to him, the fourth very familiar. A traitor. How much had he received to betray Noelle? The wolf leapt again, crashing through a second window. The camera would record a huge wolf, a blurred movement of shattered glass and mist and the wolf again. Only Mikhail, and a few other hunters, Jacques and Gregori, Aidan and Julian were capable of such speed in shape-shifting.
    He began backtracking the assassins. One scent split off from the rest, wound into deep forest, came out near the timberline very close to Edgar Hummer's cabin and Dr. Westhemer's office. The wolf stayed in the trees, staring at the small house behind the office with cruel, red, unblinking eyes. Abruptly the wolf spun around, trotted back to where the assassins had split paths, and picked up the trail of the other three. It led straight to the inn where Raven was staying.
    Mikhail joined Byron and Jacques in the treetop. "Three of them stay at the inn. I will recognize them when I am close to them. Tomorrow I will escort my woman back to collect her things. While I am there, I will be able to pick out their scents. There is no way of knowing if others are involved. Until we find out, we will have to be very careful. They have a video camera set up in the house; the trigger is on the Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    door. Everyone needs to stay out of there." Mikhail was silent for a long moment.
    "Does Celeste go to Dr. Westhemer?" he finally asked softly.
    "I think she sees Hans Romanov's wife. She works with the doctor and delivers most of the babies,"
    Jacques replied.
    "And Eleanor?" Mikhail asked.
    Jacques stirred uncomfortably. "I believe so."
    "This woman assisted Noelle's birth?"
    Byron cleared his throat. "Noelle delivered the child at home with Heidi Romanov helping her. Rand was there; I came at his call. After the midwife left, Noelle hemorrhaged. Rand had to give her blood. I stayed with Noelle while Rand hunted. And no, Mrs. Romanov did not see any of it. There was no one close; I would have known."
    "It was Hans Romanov who led the others to Noelle. I do not know if his wife was involved, but someone informed the assassins that the Carpathians were reproducing." Mikhail gave the information in a soft monotone. His eyes burned, glowed, his body trembled with fury; his hands opened and closed, but his voice was perfectly controlled. "It is necessary to know if the woman is involved."
    "She must be," Byron snapped. "Why are we waiting?"
    "Because we are not the barbaric animals these evil ones have named us. We have to know if the midwife is a traitor. And it is not your duty to dispense justice, Byron. It is not an easy thing to live with, the taking of life." Mikhail had felt the weight of each of those lives down through the centuries, but as his power and responsibilities grew, so did the ease with which he killed. As his emotions had faded, it was only his strong will and sense of right and wrong that prevented him from losing his soul to the insidious whispers of the darkness struggling for supremacy.
    "What do you want us to do?" Jacques asked.
    "It is not safe for Eleanor or Celeste to be in their homes. No more trips to the midwife. Take Celeste to my home above the lake. Eric will be able to study the ancient arts, which he has neglected. It is an easy place to defend. Eleanor cannot travel as far."
    "They can use my home," Byron offered. "They will be close if they need