He tried to keep the note of worry from his voice. The Carpathians were fairly new in their dealings with the Lycans and they tended to underestimate them. Because of an order centuries earlier by their council, Lycans avoided Carpathians as much as possible and the two species hadn’t interacted.
They’ll be military trained with weapons, most likely guns, he warned, including Branislava in the circle of information. Don’t forget, they’re fast and strong and they hunt in packs. This one could have more than one partner. The one you see is not the one to worry about.
He gave the advice to Dimitri, but he was more concerned with imparting the information to the two women, although both had fought Lycans before. Still, he was worried. Dimitri had fought with packs and against them at various times throughout the centuries. Dimitri knew wolves and he would know how best to fight them. He was also a mixed blood, a Hän ku pesäk kaikak, guardian of all, which meant he could utilize both Lycan and Carpathian gifts. He was fast and intelligent and enormously strong.
Lycans can leap great distances, never assume you’re safe if you take to the air, he added, unable to stop himself from reminding Branislava, although she’d done battle with the rogue packs before.
Branislava moved in silence, staying directly behind him. He realized she was following exactly in his footsteps, choosing the same path. There wasn’t so much as a whisper of her clothing brushing against the leaves. Not a single twig or leaf snapped or crackled beneath the soles of her boots. She might as well have been a ghost floating through the night toward her destination.
Zev was Lycan raised and Lycan in his mind. He knew forests and how to travel through them in silence, but she astounded him.
You gave me the knowledge, she said. I’m in your mind and your ways are ingrained in you. I simply have to absorb that vast collection and I’ll be up to speed. I refuse to be a liability to you when we hunt.
He felt pride in her. Her confidence level as a hunter was far stronger than when she was in a social setting. He understood why. As a prisoner, she had never really had a chance to learn the niceties that most learned as children growing up. She had learned battle tactics from prisoners, but not how to interact socially.
Her behavior made sense. She remained quiet, absorbing the knowledge of those around her, learning quickly. She appeared to be no threat whatsoever to anyone. All the while she was honing her skills for combat. In that time, she was also trying to learn how to behave in social situations.
Unfortunately, she had met—and recognized—her lifemate. He had been mortally wounded, and all her plans of slowly absorbing the culture and society of Carpathians and humans alike had gone out the window in her efforts to save him.
His every sense was on full alert. He could hear the slightest movement, the mice scurrying in the vegetation, the various creatures that made their home in the underbrush. The insects continued to drone but he expected that. Wolves didn’t disturb the natural order of the night. Still, he was uneasy and certain they were closing in on their quarry. He slowed his pace even more, inching his way through the brush, his gaze continually sweeping his surroundings, examining above, below and to both sides of them as well as in front of them.
He took two more steps and a frond attached to a very large fern moved slightly, a small jiggle. The wind was above them in the canopy, not moving through the forest around the large trunks. There was no legitimate reason for the branch to move as it had.
He stopped abruptly, but she didn’t run into him. When he glanced at her over his shoulder, her gaze was fixed on the same branch. Pride welled up. Branislava knew what she was doing. She knew what to look for.
Zev held up his fist without thinking, sinking low in the brush. She obeyed the silent signal to halt, crouching even lower almost simultaneously with him. There was no sound, no whisper of movement. She was very good and he found himself giving her the respect he would a fellow woodsman.
Lycans feel the energy of Carpathians when they use any of their gifts, he cautioned her.
He was mixed blood and could contain his energy. Skyler was the only full Carpathian he had seen able to do it. Lycans couldn’t sense her presence, not even after her conversion, and she wasn’t yet a mixed blood like Dimitri.
He studied the ground around the fern. The forest floor was uneven. Roots ran along the surface like veins. Downed tree trunks, rotted and hollow were scattered around as if flung by a capricious hand. Leaves and pine needles were inches deep, undisturbed for hundreds of years—until now.
Zev spotted the twisted, bruised shoots at the root of the fern. Four large bushes intersected with the ferns springing up everywhere around them, nearly choking them. He could barely make out the sole of a heel of a boot, peeking out of the undergrowth. He touched Branislava’s shoulder and indicated the telltale sign. She nodded.