were my only companions and all I had to trust."
She spoke in a soft, clear voice, as if she was telling a tale she had heard about someone else, as if the horror of those endless years had not been hers to bear. He had his horror locked away in his mind, but somehow hers seemed so much worse.
Something frightening deep inside Razvan lifted its head and roared in rage. He had long ago buried any aggressive feelings. Too many years of captivity, of being unable to do anything about it had pushed rage and anger aside, and then, finally, his emotions had faded into oblivion, so that he forgot the intensity, the sheer strength of feelings.
"That was a terrible time for me. I couldn't be out of the ground for very long, but I went looking for my brothers. I needed them. I could barely function. My mind or my body." She ducked her head and her hair fell around her face, hiding her expression. Her voice remained as steady as ever. "It took me twenty-two years to locate the first of my brothers. I had a few run-ins with vampires along the way and inadvertently began building a reputation for slaying the undead. They began to hunt for me. I still had to spend most of my time in the ground in order to hold my body together."
"You do not have to tell me this if it distresses you," Razvan said.
Ivory shrugged her shoulders and tossed back her hair, her eyes steady. "It matters little now. It was a long time ago. Over the next fifty years I searched for my family, only to find that they had all turned. It felt very much like they had betrayed me."
Ivory felt the lump rising in her throat, threatening to choke her, threatening to humiliate her. She shrugged a second time. "I had the wolves. You understand? They were everything to me. They do not have a long life span in the wild and so each new litter of cubs, each renewal, was my only family. I needed them."
Razvan wanted to hold her, to offer her comfort, but when he took a step toward her, she moved away from him, back toward the other room as if she hadn't noticed. He followed her, moving through the pack of wolves, ignoring Raja's bared teeth as if the wolf was beneath his notice. He couldn't help but be intrigued by the story. He had no idea that wolves could carry Carpathian blood, and he doubted if anyone else had known it either.
"So these wolves are not the original pack," he prompted, watching as she picked up a comb and began running it through her hair. It was a soothing action, not one of necessity.
Ivory moved restlessly to her memorial wall. Her family wall. She touched Sergey's face, traced the beloved lines carved there. "No, several generations were born and died, but they were always with me. Eventually the vampires began trying to find my pack to kill them. They came to think the wolves protected me in some way. Believe it or not, the undead can be very superstitious, especially since they have an alliance with Xavier. He feeds them stories to make them believe he is stronger than they are."
Razvan watched the pads of her fingers move over her brother's face, stroke after stroke, the gentle, loving motion mesmerizing. He could only imagine someone loving him that much, missing him and wanting to save his soul the way he sensed she did her brothers'. He was dead to his own sister, much in the same way he knew Ivory had to have separated herself from her brothers now to keep her sanity, to keep from being overwhelmed by sorrow.
Feeling a driving need to hold her in his arms and comfort her, he did the only thing he could think to do that wouldn't earn him a blow. He stepped up behind her and held out his hand for the comb. "Let me."
There was silence. She held very still, her face turned toward her memory wall, her hand not moving, her breath not flowing. He could feel the faint trembling of her body. A wild creature held captive, unknowing whether or not to accept kindness. Very slowly, she held the comb back over her shoulder, not looking, not letting him see her face.
Razvan's fingers were gentle as he took the instrument from her and began a slow glide through her hair. "How