Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Rudlof cringed away from both Olga and Vasilisa, his movements distracting now that he found he was without silver chains holding him prisoner. He rushed first toward one corner of the room, hands over his head, and then to the other, back and forth, agitated by the way the house appeared to have come alive and was shaking to pieces.
“Why don’t you tell her she’s losing control,” Vasilisa demanded, swinging around to confront Andros. Even pacing and throwing her arms wildly into the air, she kept her body solidly between Olga and the ruling king.
It was now or never. Afanasiv had to admire his lifemate. As a diversion, it was perfect. The chaos she created was believable. Benedek had cast the illusion of Grigor pressed up against the far wall between the door and window. The window bulged outward and his head swiveled between watching it and his sister. With Rudlof so agitated and scuddling back and forth, his bulk continuously blocked the royal from Olga’s sight, just giving flashes of him.
Petru and Afanasiv waited until they felt the presence of the high mage. The activity drew him, as they were certain it would. He tried to sort out what he was seeing. Tried to force Olga to face in the direction he wanted her to go. She growled continuously and kept shaking her head, which rocked him and gave him very little in the way of assessing the room.
Petru and Afanasiv drifted into the sliver and straight into the open mind of Xayvion. He was so occupied with trying to control his crumbling Trojan horse that he had no chance of feeling their careful entry. It had never occurred to him that he was vulnerable to an attack—or that anyone would be foolish enough to try such an audacious venture. He hadn’t erected safeguards.
They had to be very careful as they sorted through his mind, looking through his memories for the purpose behind his need of Dragonseeker blood and his plan for wiping out the Lycan species. Afanasiv caught the first hint of Xayvion studying Xavier as he repeatedly tried experiments with Rhiannon’s blood. She was Dragonseeker, a woman he had taken prisoner and had three children by. Each time he took her blood, her blood changed properties. Xavier became furious at the phenomenon. The same thing happened when he took the blood from his children and then his children’s children. No matter how he managed to get Dragonseeker blood, the blood changed properties before he could experiment on it—as if it were alive.
Xayvion was fascinated by the idea that the blood recognized an enemy. What else did it do? Were all Dragonseekers children of Mother Earth? Lycans used the ground’s warning system to talk to one another, but it wasn’t the same thing. Carpathians were rejuvenated in the soil and considered the earth to be healing and a part of them, but that wasn’t the same thing, either. A “child” of Mother Earth would be healed by her in a different way, one Xayvion had heard rumors of but hadn’t witnessed. He wanted to experiment.
In his mind, there were a number of experiments he wanted to try with a Dragonseeker. He wanted to see how the ground reacted to a wounded child of Mother Earth. He believed that once he could duplicate the blood, he could trick Mother Earth into accepting him as her child, and he would gain even more power. He also felt he could draw a female to him.
He had the Dragonseekers in one place. He believed the women held great power, maybe more so than the males. His idea was to acquire a pair. Skyler would be the perfect prize. There was such power in her, although she had not quite come into her own. The male he wanted was Afanasiv, because he was truly an ancient, and his power was beyond imagining. To control him, he would have to keep Vasilisa alive. That meant not killing all the royals, but studying her, which would yield helpful ways to draw the Lycans back who had left their country.
He knew the royals were the glue that held the Lycans together. No one spoke of them, but they protected their people from demons and vampires and worked to keep them in the modern world. Destroying the Jaguar species had been far easier. The royals actually served their people, and it wasn’t easy to turn them against one another.
Lycans had left their homeland to live in other parts of the world. They were loyal to their species and to the royals, but they were spread throughout other countries. That meant finding a way to get them to return. Xayvion had come up with a three-pronged attack. Kill the royals and as many Lycan families as possible, leaving no witnesses other than a child or two this night. Those witnesses would speak of Carpathians coming in the dead of night to murder parents and siblings.