Carpathian 20 - Dark Slayer

living quarters to include several rooms. She’d brought in books, storing them on the floor-to-ceiling shelves she’d created. She’d painstakingly re-created each spell book she’d studied when she’d attended school under Xavier, back in the old days when Xavier had been thought to be a friend of the Carpathian people.
    Her furniture suited her and her candles were made with the best healing fragrances and minerals she could find. In enlarging her lair, she’d come across a small flow of water, and although it had taken nearly seventy-five years, she’d hollowed out a natural basin in the solid rock and formed a pool for herself. She loved her pool, the cool, clean water that always flowed and cascaded down through the floor into the next bed of rock beneath them.
    Once down in her lair, she reprogrammed her unique alarm system with its gems that not only weighed the mass dropping through the crack but provided light for her far beneath the surface. She shrugged off the wolves the moment she was inside her home, allowing them to take their natural forms, while she strode through the outer rooms, her sitting room where the wolves liked to curl up while she read or painted or played her instrument, and then the rooms where she did her metal work, constructing her weapons, before going down the stairs leading to the last room where they all slept.
    A violin lay in a case against one wall of her bedchamber; nearby sat a deep rock basin that she’d filled with the richest soil. She set the Dragonseeker down on the rejuvenating earth and studied him a moment. He was struggling, fighting off the slumber spell. She had the feeling he hadn’t been as deep as she’d intended, but all that really mattered was that he hadn’t seen the location of her lair.
    Taking a deep breath, she laid aside her weapons and reversed the spell. The Dragonseeker, in spite of his starved and weakened condition, came up out of the soil, his eyes mercilessly angry. She fell back away from him, landing on her rear so that she had to tilt her head up to see him.
    â€œWhat have you done, woman?― he roared.
    Before she could answer, Raja burst into the room and hurled himself at the intruder’s throat. He launched himself high, teeth bared.
    â€œNo!― Ivory commanded.
    The Dragonseeker caught the huge wolf by the neck, the force of the attack driving him back into the bed of soil. She saw his hands clamp down like a vise. The wolf fought instinctively for air.
    Little brother, he is not an enemy. He is my mate . She bared her teeth at the wolf and he went still and submissive in the Dragonseeker’s hands.
    â€œLet him go,― Ivory ordered. “Do it now, or I will retaliate.―
    The Dragonseeker raised his eyebrow, his hands remaining firm around the wolf ’s neck. “You seek to threaten me with bodily harm? I doubt there is much you can do that has not already been done. And if you desire to kill me, that is my wish, so I do not believe that it will serve your purpose to intimidate me.―

    She spat out another curse. “ Veridet peje —may your blood burn!―
    He released the wolf a little warily, keeping his gaze fixed on the large alpha and not on Ivory, which only served to irritate her more, as if he thought the animal was more of a threat to him than she was.
    â€œMy blood has burned on many occasions, avio päläfertiilam— my lifemate.―
    Her breath hissed out of her lungs. “Do not ever say ‘my lifemate’ to me. I am not yours. I belong to no one. I trust no one, least of all the grandson of Xavier and a Dragonseeker on top of that.― She put every ounce of contempt and disgust that she could summon into her voice.
    Before he could respond, Ivory switched her attention to Raja who, picking up on her mood, was baring his teeth again, low warning growls rumbling in his throat. Little brother, I have no patience now to deal with two males and their egos. Go to your mate who will soothe your nerves and leave me to deal with this... this ... There was no word bad enough to describe him.
    The wolf sent the Dragonseeker one last look of warning and then loped out of the room, leaving them alone in the bedchamber.
    Ivory moved back across the floor until there was space between herself and the Dragonseeker. She pressed her back to the wall, fighting to maintain her