Drake Sisters 07 - Hidden Currents

vampires. Our leaders say to leave you alone.â€
    â€œYour leaders? You have joined them then, banded together against the prince and his people? Why seek death when you have a plan to rule every country? The world?†She laughed softly. “It seems to me that this is a sil y wish, and a lot of work. In the old days, we lived simply. Those were happy days. Do you not recal them?â€
    Cristofor studied her flawless face. “I was told you were pieced together, one strip of flesh at a time, yet your face and body are as you were in the old days.â€
    She shrugged her shoulders, refusing to al ow the images of those dark years, the suffering and pain—agony, real y—when her body refused to die and lay deep in the earth, stripped of flesh and open to the crawling insects abounding in the dirt. She kept her face serene, smiling, but inside she was stil , coiled, ready to explode into action.
    â€œWhy not join us? You have more reason than any other to hate the prince.â€
    â€œAnd join the very ones who betrayed and mutilated me? I do not think so. I wage war where it is due.†She flexed her fingers inside the thin, skintight gloves. “You real y should not have touched my wolves, Cristofor. You have left me little choice.â€
    â€œI want your secret. Give it to me and I wil let you live.â€
    She smiled then, a beautiful smile, her teeth smal and pearl white. Her lips were red and ful , a teasing, sexy curve inviting him to share the humor. She tilted her head to one side, her gaze moving over his face, assessing him careful y. “I had no idea you had become such a fool, Cristo.†She cal ed him by the name she had used when they were children playing together. Before. When the world was right. “I am the slayer of vampires. You summoned me with your trapsâ€â€”she waved a contemptuous hand—“and you think I should be intimidated by you?â€

    He grinned at her, an evil, malicious smile. “You have become arrogant, Slayer. And careless. You had no idea the trap was for you and not your precious wolves. You have no choice but to give me what I want, or you die this night.â€
    Ivory shrugged her slender shoulders and the silvery ful -length coat rippled, moved as if alive. One moment it loosely flowed around her ankles and the next it was gone, settling over her skin until six ferocious wolf tattoos adorned her body from the smal of her back to her neck, wrapping around each arm like sleeves.
    â€œSo be it,†she said softly, her eyes on his.
    Spinning, she drew her sword with one hand, rushing toward him, going up and over a snowcapped boulder to launch her body into the air. She felt the bite of a hidden snare, and inwardly cursed as the noose closed around her neck. Already she was dissolving, but blood spattered across the snow in bright crimson drops.
    Cristofor laughed and leaned down to scoop up a handful of snow and lick at the droplets, savoring the taste of pure Carpathian blood; not just pure—the slayer was Ivory Malinov, from one of the strongest Carpathian lineages in existence. He fol owed the arc of blood, saw her forming a few feet from him, closer to the treeline, and satisfaction made him cackle.
    Ivory saluted him with two fingers, touched the thin line running across her neck and put her finger in her mouth, sucking off the blood. “Nice score. I did not see that coming and I shal have to apologize to my wolves for scolding them. But, Cristo, if you believe your partner back there in the woods is going to help you after slaying my wolf pack, you are doing some serious underestimating of your own.â€
    She ran forward again, her hand low, drawing and throwing the smal arrowheads, snapping them with tremendous strength so each buried itself deep into his body, in a straight line from bel y to neck. The vampire roared and tried to shift. His legs disappeared, melting into vapor. His head swirled and disappeared. Fog drifted in from the trees in an attempt to help conceal him, congealing around his body, forming a thick veil. The torso remained, that straight, damaging line from bel y to neck, exposing his heart.
    Her sword sank deep, her body weight, strength and momentum from her run driving the blade through the body right beneath the heart. The vampire screamed horribly. Acidlike blood poured from the wound, sizzling over the sword and splattering across the snow. The metal should have been