Disclaimer: Bla bla bla, I own nothing, much to my dismay. ::Sniff::.

A/N: I have to apologize. For some weird reason this isn't letting me make the little arrows that signify Kai's speach, so you just have to keep an eye out for it. For some reason i also can't make things go bold either and Italics already represent thoughts. Also for some reason it won't let me indent. Bear with me and i'll reload it later. Thank you.

Chapter 11:

"Welcome back." Velkan said lightly, trying to hide his relief. Mara had been out for more than a day and a part of him worried she would not wake up at all. Now the woman stirred in his arms and moaned as even that small motion sent lances of pain through her skull.

"What happened?" She groaned, shifting slowly until her back was propped up against the wall.

"Dracula happened." He said flatly, snaking an arm around her shoulders, when he saw her squirming and helped her move into a more comfortable position. "You attacked him and he tossed you into the wall." His voice raised a little, the fear he had been trying to hide crept into his words. "How could you have done something so stupid?! You could have been killed!"

Mara turned her green eyes on him, staring at him intently. To his surprise he didn't find any trace of anger or resentment towards him for his words. Only curiosity.

"I remember now. I didn't attack him. I tackled you." Velkan looked down ashamed, remembering now how easily he had fallen under Dracula's sway. "Why did you go to him like that?"

"The Count has the ability to control men's minds. He is especially adept at controlling the minds of wolf-men." Mara blinked slowly, confused.

"I would have thought it the other way around. That wolves would give him more difficulty." There was a hacking sound behind them that drew their attention. Kai was laughing.

Wolves are easily swayed by the promise of a warm hearth and a steady meal. It was how they were so easily tamed into dogs in the first place. Velkan felt the hair on the back of his neck rise and his lips pull back in a snarl, but it was Mara who growled a challenge at the great cat.

"I happen to like dogs." She snapped at Kai. "And none of the ones who lived on our farm were anything less than full partners as we worked the land." Kai's ears pressed flat against his head and he lowered his nose to the ground, a gesture of submission.

Surely the dogs of your family were the exception. He conceded, laying his head down across his paws.

"You had a farm?" Velkan asked, his voice rising. He had assumed that she had been born and raised in the wild, the idea that she had once done something as civilized as farming shocked him deeply.

"You think I was born to The Cat's?" She asked him sharply, echoing his earlier thoughts. "I had a human family once, and we lived much as your soft villagers do now!" She answered hotly. As Velkan stared down at her, he thought he saw something other than anger flash through his eyes, an emotion he recognized only to well. It was grief.

At that moment they both became acutely conscious of his arm wrapped around her, and Mara fidgeted nervously. He smiled a little. It was the first time he had ever seen her less than poised when she wasn't sleeping or unconscious. He pulled her closer, enjoying this rare moment.

"You shouldn't move so much. You've had a nasty bump to the head." He told her, smiling mischievously.

"Then stop moving me." She snapped back acidly. From the shadows came Kai's low warning growl. Velkan chuckled and relaxed his grip on her, fixing a makeshift pillow out of her pack with his free hand before lowering her gently onto it. She did not fight him, which probably meant she was in more pain than she was letting on. The thought sobered him and he resolved to be more careful of her.

He moved to the mouth of the cave to start a small fire and cook the rabbits he had caught earlier that day while she was unconscious.

"Were you hurt?" He heard her asking Kai tenderly and Velkan felt a flash of jealousy that she did not ask that of him. He quickly pushed the errant emotion aside and continued cooking the rabbits.

No dearest. I will limp for a bit from the landing but other than that I am unharmed. I worry more for you. You were asleep for most of the day and when the young wolf looked at you, you had a large bump on the back of your skull.

Though still bent over the fire, Velkan knew that Mara was lifting her hand to feel the back of her head. A few moments later he heard the sharp intake of breath as she found the offending lump.

"Don't touch it." He told her gently as he gutted and skinned the rabbits. "You may make it worse."

"I don't think that's possible." She said hoarsely. He put aside his grisly task to turn and face her.

"I have seen stronger men die from such blows." He told her severely. "And I don't want to see you join them so please just lie still." He returned to cooking and missed the puzzled look she directed at his back.

"Tell me about your farm." He asked trying to strike up conversation.

"It is nothing to talk about." She told him tersely. "I used to live on a farm, now I don't." They lapsed back into silence. Finally Velkan spoke again.

"What happened to them?" He heard sudden movement behind him and then a slow but steady stream of Gaelic that he strongly suspected was mostly swear words. He spun around to see what had caused them and saw Mara, sitting upright and clutching her head. He guessed she had sat up to fast in reaction to his question. Kai moved over to nuzzle her gently.

Moving the meal out of the fire he moved back over to her and wrapped his arms around her, ignoring Kai's warning growl and dirty looks.

She pulled against him as he tightened his hold on her.

Stop that!" He ordered, exasperated. "I'm not going to bite, but if you don't stop moving so much you could make your injury worse."

The girl glared at him but stopped struggling as he propped her back up. "Now, why such a reaction to an honest question?" Mara stared at him saying nothing. He sighed and went back to cooking the rabbits.

"My family has lived here for over four hundred years." He told her conversationally after a long interlude of silence. "We've been here since before the time of Dracula."

"Really?" Mara asked, genuine interest in her voice. "Then do you know how he came to be like he is." Velkan nodded soberly.

"He was killed, four centuries ago, and made a pact with the Devil for another life."

Mara tilted her head to one side. "He made a deal with the evil one?" She repeated. "To cheat death."

"Yes." Velkan said, after taking a moment to figure out odd wording. "He made a pact with the devil to live again, forever."

Mara, sensing a good story, relaxed against the wall and stared at him with rapt attention. "Then what happened?"

Velkan smiled. She seemed more like a young girl waiting to hear a bedtime story and not at all like the wild woman and warrior he had seen over the last few days. "I've told you this story before." He told her lightly.

"Not like this, where everything happens in order. So far I've gotten bits and pieces that make little sense. I know he is a bloodsucker but I don't know why or how he became that or how you fit into this fight against him."

Velkan laughed softly. "That last one is easy to answer. Dracula was one of the sons of Valerious the Elder. When he found his son had turned into something so evil, he went to Rome and prayed to God for absolution for fathering such an evil man. While he was there he was told that absolution would be granted to him and the rest of his family if they killed Dracula." He skewered one of the rabbits in the fire and turned to hand it to Mara. She took and bit into it hungrily, ignoring the heat. "We can not enter the gates of heaven until we accomplish this." He finished, sorrow weighing in his voice.

Mara looked up, a bit of cooked rabbit clinging to her lower lip. She wiped it off absently. "I think I would like to hear the whole story, from the beginning."

Velkan sat back and began the tale.

Mara lay against the wall, the remains of the cooked rabbit laying beside her. Velkan had finished his tale, swept the remains of the fire out of the cave and gone to bathe in the stream, leaving Mara to think about all that she had just been told.

Interesting. Kai rumbled from the corner.

"What is?" She asked.

His story. Do you realize that this means the bloodsucker is related to him? Kai asked.

"Only distantly." Mara defended. "And they are so far apart that they only share the barest amount of blood."

Still, Kai mumbled, distracted by some thought. It makes me wonder….

"Wonder what, dear heart?" She asked him curiously. Kai laid his head back down on his paws and said nothing more. Mara sighed and closed her eyes in her own contemplations knowing that nothing would get information out of a determinedly silent cat.

A moment later she heard footfalls inside the cave and opened her eyes. Velkan had returned. His wet hair clinging to the sides of his face and his dark eyes piercing the darkness as he stood with his back to the setting sun, framed in a halo of red-gold light that made it seem as if he were outlined in fire. She watched him attentively as he moved deeper into the shadows of the cave and sat across from her, not three feet away.

"Enjoy your dinner?" He asked, smiling a little. Mara nodded.

"Yes, and the story." The smile left Velkan's face and Mara found herself wishing she could bring it back.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it, but it's not just a story. It's my life, and my families." Mara nodded.

"I know. And as I said earlier, we want to help."

"Why?" He asked, suspicion back in his voice that made Mara bristle. They had fought together, she had saved his life! And still he distrusted her.

"Because I choose to." She answered sharply. "And because I was bored staying in the Fairy lands."

"'The fairy lands'" He echoed. "That's the second time you have mentioned them. You know all about me and my family now and we…I know nothing of yours. I think it's your turn to tell a story." She glared at him and he glared back.

"I've told you about me." She said, reaching her hand out to stroke Kai's ears as he growled softly.

"Not the whole story." Velkan countered, then his voice softened a little as if remembering that they had fought together and been friends, if briefly. Mara realized that most of his suspicion must be habit. She looked down at Kai and opened that part of her mind that let him speak to her and her alone.

I think we should trust him, little sister.

You do? Mara asked, shock vibrating through her mental voice. You are always the one advising caution.

I know, but this time…I think we must trust him if we are to survive here. There are too many dangers of which we know nothing and we can not even speak the language.

She considered Kai's words, then nodded slowly. Turning to Velkan she asked. "What do you want to know, that I have not already told you?"

"What happened to your family." He asked her instantly. Mara swallowed a rising lump in her throat. This would be difficult, but she would answer him honestly as he had answered her.

"As you might have guessed already," She began. "I did not always live in the wild. I used to live on a farm with my father and mother."

She paused remembering the times when she had jumped through the stacks of hey in the barn, trying to catch the beams of light shining through the window as her mother milked the families placid cow. Or the time her father had taken her through the fields they farmed all the way to where they stretched to the cliffs edge, and shown her the sun rising from the water at dawn. She felt them with her even now and her throat choked with emotion. Something large and heavy sat beside her and she felt the weight of Velkan's arm go around her shoulders, holding her gently. She forced the lump back down and continued. Only a slight hitch in her voice.

"When I was eight, we were invaded. Men came across the sea wearing helmets bearing horns." She heard a sound come from next to her and fell silent, waiting for Velkan to finish speaking but he said nothing, only waited for her to go on. She continued.

"They slaughtered my parents and our animals and burnt our home and fields to the ground." Her mind flashed back to the bloody form of her mother, laying on the bed that she had shared with Mara's father. Mara had never found her father's corpse. Kai had told her later that he had seen the Vikings converge on him.

"My mother, when she saw the invasion was coming, pushed me into the cellar and pushed a clothing chest across the door, hoping I would be overlooked. I was, and I got out before the cottage burned. I ran across the fields toward the sea, I knew of some caves their where I could hide, it never occurred to me that the Vikings would know of them too." She felt Velkan tense beside her.

"Fortunately," She continued and felt him relax slightly. "I never made it to the seaside. Kai tackled me from behind and led me to the woods. That's how I got this." She ran a finger lightly down the pink scar across her eye. "While we were running, one of the men came up behind me and grabbed me. Kai leapt at him and killed him. As he died, he hit me with his sword."

A darkly tanned hand came into her field of vision and traced the edge of her scar. She shuddered. It was an unusual and unsettling to have him touch her like that, but at the same time, she didn't dislike it. Confused, she twisted her head away and the hand pulled back quickly, as if unaware of what it had been doing. She continued her narrative.

"Kai took me into the forest behind the farm, away from the fighting, and into the mists that led to the fairy lands. It was there I came across the beast people, the people who were there before the Sidhe. They had formed alliances with the great ones, the greatest of the beasts and they took me into their care. I was raised with them as Kai's partner." She wiped her eyes and pulled out of Velkan's arms, uncomfortable with her weakness. "And so here I am now. Any other questions?"

She watched as Velkan turned his piercing stare on her, or maybe it had been there all along and she was only just noticing it. She felt heat rising inside her and filling her, despite the cold air, and wondered at this strange new magic.

"I'm sorry." He said finally. The strange emotions rising in her were replaced with one far more familiar.

"Don't be." She said angrily. "I survived, and the ones who killed my family paid dearly for it. I saw to that as soon as I knew how to ride and wield a dagger."

Somewhat to her disappointment, Velkan did not grow angry at her words, but continued looking at her with eyes filled with compassion and not a trace of pity.

"I have one other question for you." He said finally as Mara shifted restlessly against the stone wall of the cave. "Your dagger, how did you come by it?"

She blinked, puzzled. "It was given to me by the holy ones, the Druids who live near us and work with us in times of trouble. Why?"

"When you were unconscious, I took it from you." He held up his hand as she opened her mouth to protest. "Hear me out please, I gave it back but I had nothing else to fight him with. Everything but the clothes on my back were washed away in river. I took your dagger and stabbed him with it, fully expecting to die, because as you know, nothing we have tried can kill him. But this was different. When it pierced his unholy skin, he burned, as if I had thrown holy water on him. Why is that."

Mara shrugged. "Maybe, because it is a holy weapon."

"Is that what the runes on it mean?" He asked her curiously. Mara started fidgeting again, very uncomfortable. This is going to be embarrassing. She thought.

"I don't know." She told him. "I can't read."

Velkan stared at her disbelievingly. "Your joking."

Mara growled at him and shook her head. "No. I never was able to sit still during the lessons when the druid priests taught us so I never learned. I can't read."

Velkan laughed then stopped sharply as he saw her glaring at him, ready to bite of his head, literally. "I could teach you to read English." He offered tentatively. "And speak Transylvanian if you would like."

Mara nodded wordlessly, genuinely shocked by his offer. "I would like that."

"Good." He said, and smiled at her causing her insides to jump. "We can start tomorrow. I'll take first watch."

"I have another idea." She told him tentatively. Not sure how he would react. "I may not know how to read runes, but I know what some of them can do. Specific ones, and one of the ones I did make sure to learn was the rune of protection. If you are willing to draw it in front of the cave, then I can tell you how to make it."

Her words were met with silence and for a moment she thought he would refuse, that he would not trust her pagan religion, but finally he said, "What do I have to do?"

Swallowing a sigh of relief, she handed him her precious dagger. "Take this and draw a line, pointing outwards, that branches off into three different paths, like so." She showed him with her hand, holding her first three fingers, spread evenly apart and running her other fingers down the back of the middle one to represent the strait line. "Have it point out into the forest and then draw a circle around it."

"That's all?" Velkan asked, surprise evident in his voice.

"Yep." Mara answered, humor dancing in her eyes. "No babies to sacrifice this time." She laughed as he growled at her and took a playful swipe at her with his hand, which she ducked, and went out to do as she asked.

"Are you sure that will do it?" He asked, when he came back in. She nodded.

"That dagger has been blessed by the eldest of the wise ones. It will keep us safe." She grabbed her dagger as he tossed it lightly to her and tucked it back in her hip sheath. "Good night, Mo Cridhe." She said sleepily as she lay down, her head pillowed by Kai's flank. She closed her eyes. "Tomorrow you teach me to read."

She heard him say something, but then sleep overtook her and she knew no more.