Authors Note: I am waiting to post new chapters until I have gone back and tweaked some of the old. After this one I will lightly redo chapter 1 and 7. Thanks so much to those who stuck with the story. On to Chaper 6!

Velkan walked in silence as Kai and Mara pulled ahead, leaning together as they spoke in whatever odd way they did. He had no doubt now, seeing how they worked and ran together, that they had some way of communicating. He found himself wondering more about the mystery these two represented.

Her disregard for the individual lives of the village people worried him. The only other creatures who had shown such inclinations were Dracula and his minions. He tried to look at her dispassionately, without seeing the woman who rescued him but found himself no closer to answers or decisions than he was a few moments earlier.

"You told me you were from Ireland, Mara?" He tried to make his voice sound casual and conversational as he questioned her.

"Yes," She answered him tersely, her eyes never resting as she scanned the forest around her at all times alert for danger.

"Why come here then? It's a long way from your home." He watched her carefully, trying to analyze her reaction. He saw her stiffen slightly.

"I no longer have a home."

"Why is that?" Despite his efforts he could not keep the suspicion out of his voice.

"It was burnt to the ground," She spit the words out as if they were razors on her tongue, the growl in her own voice echoed by the more primal growl of her companion. Velkan felt a stab of pity for her. He knew what it was like to be deprived of everything you knew and loved.

"I...I'm sorry," he offered lamely.

"Don't be. You weren't the one who burned it."

Her words came out clipped and he saw her body tense as she answered him, between the two tells he could practically smell her discomfort. He stopped speaking and kept pace beside her, her body between his and the cats, and saw the tension drain out of her into the silence and the sound of the owls in the trees. He realized as they walked that he did not want to distrust her. In fact he to trust her and have her trust in return with a degree of intensity that startled him. But he had to find out if she was a threat and before he succomed to the wolf. He could not leave Anna with another potential enemy attacking her flank while Dracula continued his own assaults. He owed it to her as the last thing he could do to protect his sister and find out as much about this woman as he could, and if she was an enemy...

"Why are you here?" He pressed again. She whirled on him fire sparking in her green eyes as her temper finally banked and flared.

"What concern is it of yours?" She demanded, practically spitting the words at him like knives that would sink into his flesh. "My brother and I are passing through and we have done nothing but save your sorry life along the way, so what the hell does it matter to you?"

Velkan heard a low growl, thought for a moment that it was coming from the cat and was surprised when he realized in the next moment that it came from his own chest. "Until the curse takes me at the next full moon, the safety of my people is still my priority, and you are still a threat to them!"

"How?" She shot back. "I have done nothing wrong."

He drew himself up to his full height to look down on her which was not hard when the top of her head barely brushed his collar bone. "Your very mysteriousness is a threat. Other than that you travel with a giant cat, I know nothing of you or your origins. For all I know you could be a new kind of were-animal, cursed to change into a cat at the full moon instead of a wolf."

The girl looked up at him as if he were weak in the head.

"I'm not cursed, oh prince of wolves," she purred sarcastically and took a moment to bow mockingly at him before continuing on. "And you aren't either. If anyone was meant to be both wolf and man it is you. You fit the part as a hand does a well tailored glove." He glared down at her.

"Your saying I am meant to be a monster!" He accused. She looked at him, her lips widening in a knowing smile.

"I said you were meant to be a wolf." she corrected smugly. "There's a difference."

He glared at her balefully. "If there is then I can't see it."

"And that is what will be your downfall." He bristled, his original concerns forgotten in the heat of the argument. In a contest of wills he would make her back down.

"Explain yourself." He demanded. She turned away and rested her hand in the thick ruff of fur at her companion's neck.

"How can I make it clearer?" she asked him impatiently. "As a wolf is to the pack, so are you to your people. You stood between your sister and a giant, hungry man-wolf, for the gods sake! You think one of your typical villagers would have done that? And even now as you call yourself cursed you stand between your sister and me, not knowing what or who I am. Only a wolf protecting his pack would be that loyal, that brave," impatience turned to bitter scorn that set Velkan's teeth grinding as she continued. "That senselessly stupid."

"What?!" His disbelieving shout echoed perilously through the trees but he barely noticed. Kai lifted his head and sniffed the wind, his ears laid flat against his skull in a silent warning. Velkan was past caring. "Since when is protecting those you love an act of stupidity?"

"When you throw yourself in front of certain death! How can you help your sister if you get eaten alive? How can you help the villagers? But instead of being torn apart -which you deserved," the last she shot at him with a substantial dose of spite and Velkan knew she had been hurt by is mistrust more than she would ever admit -even to herself. "Instead of being ripped apart, you are given a chance to actually be able to do some good instead of being a meat shield."

"What chance?" He sneered, trying to ignore the sting caused by her opinion of what he had done and been. "The chance to turn into a monster and eat the villagers?"

"The chance to become a creature powerful enough to stand toe to toe with your enemy, idiot!"

"Dracula. Controls. Werewolves!" He could hear himself biting off each word as it left his mouth. A small part of himself warned that he was becoming too emotional in this, loosing what little control of the conversation he had but the frustration built like a fire in him and would not let him back down. "I will become his servant!"

"Dracula. Controls. Men." She shot back in the same tone. "If he does not control you now than there is no reason he should be able to control you when you are wolf."

"Tell that to the ones he controlled over the centuries. Many of them good men and women who would never have gone to him of their own free will!"

"They let themselves be controlled!" Now she was shouting as well and neither of them paid any attention to Kai who's fur was standing on end as he hissed balefully into the dark shadows surrounding them. "They believed they had no power and so they had none!"

"DO NOT DARE," he screamed at her. "Do not dare to blame those people for what happened to them! They would never have let Dracula force them to attack their friends and families if there was any way to stop it! Belief had nothing to do with what Dracula did to them."

"Belief has everything to do with it you stupid man! Belief is the heart and soul of all magic!"

Velkan watched as Mara's mouth shut with and audible snap, almost as if she wished she could shut the words that had just escaped behind her teeth. Velkan's own mouth closed as her words sunk in and he realized the import of them.

"How do you know of magic, Mara?" He asked her, his voice lowered to a deadly calm. Mara said nothing.

"Are you a witch?" Still nothing and a faintly bitter-sweet smell was emanating from her. It wafted in through his nostrils and made him feel heady, like when he was ten years old and had drunk too much wine at his father's party. "Are you a sorceress?" Still there was no answer.

Suddenly furious Velkan checked himself before he lunged forward and shook her by the shoulders, or wrapped his hands around her stubborn neck. "I will not leave behind another threat to my sister!"

"I am not a threat!" She screamed back at him. Above them the branches suddenly shook, dislodging clumps of snow onto their heads. Velkan and Mara both looked up to see four ghostly shadows flying across the light of the moon. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mara draw a he dagger. In the pale light it glinted like a spill of ink.

Flint,he told himself absently as his eyes flew back up to the sky's to search for danger. No further trace of shadow marred the path of light shining down. Had not Mara and her companion reacted to the same thing he could have passed it off as a hallucination.

"We need to get out of here," he told her, his voice lowered to a hoarse whisper.

"We?" she said archly, her voice low but no less biting. "I thought I was a threat."

She pulled me out of the water, he reminded himself sharply. She kept me from running into Dracula's waiting arms and gave me time I can use to help Anna. Whatever else she may be she is not one of Dracula's servants. Annoying as hell, but not a minion of Dracula.

"Until I know for certain," he told her aloud. "I'm not leaving you to Dracula and his brides," something sweet and faintly woodsy replaced the earlier sent that had driven him nearly wild a few minutes ago and with a seeping chill down his spine he realized what it was.

"Mara you have to leave," he spoke quickly and urgently all color drained from his face as gripped her shoulders, trying to make the import of his words sink in through her skin if he could. "You must find a place until morning and then leave at first light."

The half smile she was wearing fell off her face as if it had been cut off. "What happened to you not leaving us to Dracula?" She asked him coldly.

"Mara, don't you understand? The curse is growing!" he told her, raising his voice as the wind picked up around them. "The ...the evil drives of the curse are influencing how I think, by God, I can even smell your emotions! You can not be around me when it takes over!"

He watched with despair as her whole body unwound from the tension of hostility and a look of rare compassion replaced it. She still did not understand.

"You won't hurt me, Velkan." She told him quietly. "I told you before that me and Kai were drawn to your lands by legends of the wolf men and we came prepared."

"Not for this..." he began before she cut him off.

"Maybe so, maybe no," she told him with familiar evasiveness. "Either way you said yourself that we have until the full moon until you become dangerous and that isn't for another two weeks."

Velkan shook his head and turned to strike out into the woods on his own when Mara's voice piped up behind him again. "Or would you rather loose two weeks of planning and preparation for the worst to leave your sister to the wolves?"

He froze, front foot six inches from the snow as her words sunk in. Slowly he put it down and turned to stare at her, on her face was a look of maddening innocence as if she were merely asking a dinner preference. Her lips curled up in a small smile.

"Forgive the pun."

He stared at her, she stared back and around them the snow fell in soft flurries. Kai had stopped growling but his eyes remained skyward and his ears swiveled about on his head as he strained to catch even the dimmest sound. Velkan blinked, then slowly he began to chuckle. The chuckle grew to a full throated laugh that shook his body and forced him to lean against a tree to keep from falling over while the woman and cat looked on as if he had gone mad. And it's not as if it was a particularly good pun, either.

Mara watched as the young prince bent double with, and it's not even as if it was a particularly good pun, either, she thought bemusedly

It isn't the joke, Kai informed her. He's been running around for the full length of two suns and two moons, worrying about his sister and trying to keep on top of what he believes is a curse.

And? She asked as Velkan pulled himself upright and wipe the tears from his eyes. Kai looked at her, scorn radiating from him like heat from the sun.

If you can not figure that out, little sister, he told her scathingly, then far be it from me to tell you.

Irritation flashed through her like lightning, brilliant and gone as quickly as it had come. There was no sense in getting angry with her friend for being true to his nature and the Cat Clans were notoriously cryptic.

Well, he's right about one thing, she told him, switching topics.

And what is that?

We do need to get out of here. Mara had only had a brush with that dark presence in the village but it was more than she ever wanted to deal with again. Already the shadows seemed darker, more concealing. It would not be long before the shadows they had seen over head decided to come investigate the small group under the trees.

With or without the young wolf? Kai's question broke through her dark musings, there was something in his tone that Mara couldn't quite identify.

With him, Kai, She answered back crossly. His 'curse' is the key to our quest here.

A feeling of smugness from her friend was all she got back in reply before he closed off his connection to her, resulting in a mild headache as Mara ground her teeth together too hard. Between him and the angstacular wolf-prince, Mara was about ready to toss both of them off the Transylvanian cliffs.

"What are you talking to each other about?"

Speak of the devil, Mara told herself as her attention was brought back to the present and to Velkan, who had pulled himself up straight and was frowning at her and Kai.

"What do you mean?" Cats were not the only ones who could be maddeningly elusive.

"Just now, you had this unfocused look in your eyes. You get that from time to time, but only when your around the cat."

"The cat's name is Kai," she told him evenly.

"Kai, then," He answered back as if he had all the time in the world. Clearly he was changing tactics. "But that still doesn't answer my question."

"What question?"

She waited for him to respond, to exhale sharply or narrow his eyes or even yell at her in exasperation before repeating his question. She was ready for it now, was looking forward to it. It had been a long time since she had played these games with anyone other than her furry brother but to her surprise he only shrugged his shoulders tiredly and let the subject drop. Clearly changing tactics. She repeated the thought to herself as she tried to figure out what his next move would be.

Now is not the time, little sister, Kai whispered urgently in her head. The bloodsuckers are circling around, if we are leaving we must leave now!

"Me and Kai have been staying in a cave about twenty minutes walk from here, if you like you can come stay with us."

She watched him stiffen in surprise that melted quickly to a tentative relief and made her glad she had extended the offer.

"I...," he started hesitantly. "I should not. I will be a danger, possibly worse than Dracula."

Mara shook her head, "You have another two weeks before the 'curse' takes effect. Will you just give yourself to the bloodsucker before you have too?" She watched with an inner smile as the young man stiffened. "I did not think so."

Little sister, Kai hissed warningly. If we're going to leave we need to go now.

Without waiting Mara turned and padded off into the snow laden trees, Kai dashing ahead of her to scout the path as she guarded the rear. After a moment she heard the heavy yet deliberate footfalls of the wolf-prince falling into step behind her.