Dark Blood by Christine Feehan

lifted his shirt to show the tattoo of two wolves staring back at Zev. “We’re learning to hunt vampire with them. It’s a lot more fun than listening to big brother give lectures.”
    “Nice,” Zev said. “I agree. I’d rather be doing anything than getting a lecture from Fen.”
    “Keep it up you two clowns. Those wolves of yours can’t protect you from me, Dimitri, and you’re going to be healed sooner or later, Zev,” Fen threatened.
    “It’s going to be sooner,” Zev said. “I’ll let Mikhail take his shot at this and see what he can do. I can’t very well leave diplomacy to you.” He counted his heartbeats. Five of them. “The ancients called me Dark Blood.” He frowned. “It didn’t make sense to me. They said I was of mixed blood now, but I was Dark Blood. I tried to find out what they meant, but they seemed to believe I would know.”
    Fen and Dimitri exchanged a long look. “I don’t understand. Dark Blood is a bloodline. Like Dragonseeker. Like Dubrinsky. Names change but the bloodline remains the same. Dark Blood is the oldest lineage we have, and there are no more. Our last lifemated couple was lost to us centuries ago. They had a baby with them, and when the prince heard of their death, he sent out warriors to try to find the baby, a little girl, but they came to the conclusion she was killed by the vampire who slaughtered her parents,” Fen explained.
    “What else did they tell you?” Dimitri asked.
    “That my grandmother became mixed blood and when her pack found out, they killed her. She had a daughter, a baby, at the time. My grandfather took the baby and disappeared, went to another pack, and that child, my mother, was raised Lycan. I know that she died in childbirth.”
    “The only way your grandmother could have been mixed blood would be if she was Carpathian and she mated with a Lycan. There would be no chance of her becoming
Sange rau
. Women don’t become vampires,” Fen said.
    “So his grandmother could have been the child of the last of the Dark Bloods, thought to have been killed when her parents were,” Dimitri said. “I remember that time. It was long ago, and we mourned the loss of that couple. They were—extraordinary.”
    “He was a warrior beyond what any of us had known,” Fen added. “Everyone looked up to him. She was just as strong. They were often referred to as ‘strong heart’ or ‘heart of a warrior.’ When we studied battle techniques, it was always their techniques, their strategies.”
    “They became legend,” Dimitri said. “No one could figure out how a vampire could have killed them.”
    “It must have been during the time the Lycans were being decimated by the
Sange rau
,” Zev ventured. “It would have to be for the Lycans to murder my grandmother. How else would they have even known about mixed blood?”
    “So if a Lycan family found a baby during that time . . .”
    “Or
any
time,” Zev clarified. “Lycans are good people. If they found a baby all alone, especially if they could see evidence that the parents were killed by the
Sange rau
they would have raised the child as their own. They could have even believed she was Lycan. She wouldn’t know about lifemates, and if a Lycan claimed her and she fell in love with him . . .” He stopped. “Could that happen?”
    Dimitri nodded. “Of course.” He looked to his brother for confirmation. Fen nodded, and Dimitri continued. “It isn’t the same, the all-consuming focus and love we have for our lifemates, but some women have found happiness with a man outside of our society.”
    “If Lycans had stumbled across this child, took her in and raised her as Lycan,” Fen said, his voice gathering excitement, “then she wouldn’t have ever known why she was different. She might not even notice the difference. When she wanted to be wolf, she could shift, and she might think that’s what her family did.”
    Zev nodded. “It was centuries ago and they didn’t discuss the