Dark Metamorphosis

This has been rolling around for weeks, and to my regular readers, yes am totally distracted but hope to be back to my usual shenanigans soon.

I normally hate crossovers but this one won't leave me alone. Christine Feehan owns everything Carpathian and Marvel comics owns everything X-Men I only own my poor little traumatized OC. Wink.

Picks up while the de la Cruz brothers are in Romania for Dark Celebration.

Zacharias de la Cruz/OC

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Kat glanced around her, waiting for the enemy to pounce out of the dark forest. He was fast, and strong, but she had youth and cunning on her side. He was hiding up wind and she couldn't get enough of a scent to know from which angle he was going to strike. She stayed low, ready to spring into action as soon as he gave her any indication of his direction.

She heard the slightest creak in a branch behind and to the left of her and leapt far to the right. She couldn't stop the pleased grin, and slight chuckle that escaped her lips.

"Good job, Cub." He growled. She grinned, but stayed in the combat crouch. He didn't compliment her often and it felt good to earn one. She knew the exercise wasn't over and wasn't going to let him get the upper hand. It was to first blood, and as always he was ahead of her in every way. She was only surprised at his speed, for his age, but she shouldn't have been, even at over two hundred years of age, he didn't look any older than she did at thirty five.

He might be her sire but he could move as fast as she could. She managed to avoid the brunt of the rush but knew he'd won by the sharp sting down her back.

"First blood to me." He grunted and she nodded. "Get cleaned up and get dinner on, cub." He grinned at her, his fangs flashing in the dying sunlight. She groaned. She hated cooking. She watched his tall frame stalk silently into the woods as she turned back to the house...if you could call it that.

Three stories of chrome and glass, it had been mistaken more than once for a Wright building. Oh, he'd had some input, but the design was all dad. She grinned. He hadn't been home in fifteen years, and he seemed calmer than he had the last time she talked to him. She opened the heavy brushed steel front door and heaved a small sigh of relief as all the minute sounds of nature were shut out. It was the main feature she loved about this place - the soundproofing. Inside the doors was a peaceful world where nothing could enter to disturb the occupants, not even dust.

She walked around the chrome island and pulled a couple steaks from the refrigerator. She tossed them in an old cast iron skillet on the stove. Her mind wondered back to the other occupant of the house.

He'd cut his hair off, again, something she was glad to see, she hated it when he looked scruffy, it meant the animal was mostly in control. It reminded her of the years after her mother died and they'd nearly lost him to it. He still reached for the mark on his neck, and Kat wondered why the scar was still there. She knew she'd have to discuss it with her uncle someday, but right now he was out of pocket, and would be until he could get his memories back.

She wondered how she was going to tell him she'd taken a job in Brazil. He needed her, but so did the kids at the school. It was a private school in the highlands, bordering on the rainforest. A big ranch that provided a private school for the employee's children. It was a excellent opportunity, and Mrs. de la Cruz seemed to think she'd be an excellent fit as their math teacher.

She was thinking about the job and almost burned the steaks. She quickly flipped them and let her mind wander again.

"Damn it, Cub, I like mine rare." He grabbed the skillet from her hand.

"Sorry, Dad. Just thinking about work." He dumped the steaks on two plates and handed her the smaller one. He dropped onto one of the steel stools at the island and dug in to his meal.

"D'ja find anything?" He said around a mouth full of meat. The fork and knife looked small in his hands.

"Actually, I got a call from the agency. It's not easy to find a teaching job as a mutant these days, but they had a really good job they thought I'd be perfect for."

"Okay, so what's the bad news?" He glared across the island, stuffing another nearly raw piece of meat into his mouth. She cut a piece off her steak and licked her lips before taking the bite, savoring the heat of the blood as it filled her mouth with each bite into the flesh. She never, ever, let herself actually taste it, not from something living...this was as close as she was ever going to get to satisfying the blood lust that rose in her sometimes.

"Its in Brazil." she said finally, swallowing the meat and cutting another piece.

"No!" He growled.

"Dad, I'm thirty five years old, you don't have a say on the jobs I take. I'm an adult now." She started.

"It's too far away. I haven't had any contacts down there in years. It would take me six months to a year to set up a good exit plan if you get into trouble." He started.

"Dad, its teaching math at a 'rancho'. The owners provide a school for their employees kids, there's not been any trouble there in - well God knows when because I sure haven't been able to find anything."

"What's the 'rancho'?" She knew what he was asking, who owned it.

"Some family named de la Cruz, they've lived there almost three hundred years or more. There's some rumors that they were there before the Spanish came, but those are rumors I'm sure. Maybe they married into a tribe there or something, but the place has been in the same family all this time. Very established, and very exclusive. Some of the best beef in Brazil comes off this ranch."

He growled, but gave her a grudging nod. She'd done her homework, and he approved, at least of that much.

"Mort's gonna fly you down-and stay. I don't want you down there without an escape plan."

"Dad, Mort's got Jenny and Pam to worry about, he doesn't need to look after your grown daughter when he's got a three year old running around. I was gonna ask if he could fly me down, but really - I'll be fine."

"Famous last words." He growled. She shrugged.

"You're determined to do this?"

"Yes, Dad."

"Fine...regular deal then. I won't work where you do."

"I'd appreciate that...I don't want my Dad's dead bodies to cause me problems."

He actually grinned at that. "So, are you already packed?"

"I was planning on leaving tomorrow."

"I just got home." This time he actually whined. She knew something was wrong. He never showed any signs of pain, it was just to frail.

"Dad, come on, I mean really..."

"I've missed ya, Cub."

"I'll come home on breaks...you've been so busy the last few years I figured you didn't need me taking care of you anymore."

"I need it...but you don't. It's time you found a mate of your own, Cub."

"Dad...like any guy is going to meet your standards. Shit I've got Toad for a Godfather, Sabretooth for a father, and Wolverine for an Uncle...NO man I find is going to fit into this family."

He just grinned and chuckled again. "At least let me send some cash with you...?"

She hated taking any of his money, not that she cared how he earned it, but it just didn't feel right. She wanted to make it on her own, not have Daddy swoop in to the rescue if she fell flat on her face. However, this was Brazil..."Make it American Dollars and Krugerrands."

He nodded. This was the longest conversation they'd had since he'd been home, and probably one of the last they'd have for a while, but it felt right, like home. She smiled and gathered his empty plate up and dropped it in the sink.

"You've got dishes." He growled from the back of the house and she grinned.

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He stood watching the herd, the gaucho's moving them from one summer pasture to another. Nicolas stood at his side, watching the movement with emotionless eyes.

"Zacharius, the herds are growing well this year." He said. Zacharias simply nodded. He wasn't pleased, he wasn't anything, empty, cold, without emotion as he had been for almost eighteen hundred years. "We should begin culling for the ones we want to send to market."

"I will leave that in your hands." They both watched as the thunder clouds grew in the west, the driving rain an omen to the gauchos and their families of something dangerous in the winds.

"Something is coming." They said in unison, without even a start of surprise, an emotion neither one of them could feel until the light to their darkness was exposed. Zacharias felt the burden of keeping them going, the weight on his shoulders. He would wait, only Nicolas and Manilito remained, once they found their lifemates he would go into the dawn. He knew there could be no light for the darkness in his soul, it was only his duty to his family that kept him standing, kept him strong for them.

"Manilito has found his lifemate, but has not claimed her." Nicolas said.

"I received the same message. I trust his judgment in this, he will bring her into our world at the right time."

"It is just you and me, left to fight the darkness." Nicolas said.

"Until you find your light, and then I will go to the dawn."

"No, if Manilito can find one, you can." Nicolas said, but there was no warmth in his words, no hope, only empty platitudes.

"Perhaps."

Zacharias dissolved into mist, patrolling the lands they'd controlled for countless centuries. He was obligated to his people to keep them safe, obligated to his brothers to keep them from turning Vampire, to help them hold out until they could feel and see color once more. He looked back at Nicolas on the balcony of the house, and could see how close the darkness encroached on his brother's soul. Nicolas must find his light soon, or he would turn, and it would be Zacharias' duty to destroy what once he loved.

He couldn't even wish to feel that emotion again, he barely remembered feeling it at all, but to once more feel the love for his family was something he couldn't even dream of.

He had things to do. Colby had arranged for a new math teacher for the school, some of the women were preparing her a hacienda near the school building and he wanted to ensure nothing was left to chance. The family was famous for its hospitality to those that were in its employ and he would not let anything tarnish his families reputation.

Tomorrow evening, Nicolas would take the jeep into town, to the small air-strip, a helicopter from Sao Paulo would land, leaving the new teacher waiting for a ride to the Rancho de la Cruz. Perhaps, she would be Nicolas' light. He had hopes. The ad Colby had fashioned, before going to the Celebration was designed to bring only a woman who had the chance of being a lifemate to one of the de la Cruz brothers. Now that Manilito had found his, there was only one left, and Zacharias could lay down his burdens knowing none of his brothers would ever turn undead.