Chloe is Irena, because this is from Marius' time frame and Chloe wasn't a name recognized in the area. So there.
The winter had been a long one, and for some, the last. With everything that she could, Irena pushed forward, her people slowly dying out as the months dragged on. The village they dwelled in was just south of the Carpathian pass, a dangerous area and one that the wolves had been patrolling heavily. It had seemed as though they were looking for something or another - and then the people began disappearing. At first it had only been men - men who had gone out at night. Some of their bodies were found in the mornings, blood staining the white snow, bits of them dragged through the center of town - but some were never found at all.
There had been rumours of creatures in the night for long since before Irena could remember. She was herself only a girl when she had come, taken in by a man that himself was not normal. She could not explain why or how, but he did not age - and so they had gone from place to place. This village, this particular spot, was the most recent of theirs. He would be gone for days at a time, leaving Irena to her devices, which consisted mostly of staying indoors and praying. She was a good girl, and she was swept in the madness that most in the area had been drowned in - demons were afoot. She did not mention that her own Papa did not age, because Irena believed that she was fortunate to have him. He had never shown her a cruel hand nor word, and she was grateful for this and more.
In truth, Irena was lucky by her own logic. She was damned; cursed. She had a gift, a wondrous gift that Papa had forbidden her to use. She could steal the pain from people, absorb it into her own body. She'd done it as a child, to animals mostly, but once to another human - and he had packed her up that night and stolen her in the darkness, away from the curious, questioning eyes that would await her when the child she'd aided told his parents what "the witch" had done. No, there would be none of that. He had forbidden her before she learned the true terrifying potential of her magic, something he'd known the moment he'd seen her laying helpless in that cradle as he'd finished feeding from her real parents - and he'd keep her from finding it, and keep everyone else from it, too.
It wasn't love - or he didn't think it was - Raphael was incapable of that emotion. He did, however, find a strong connection with Irena, his sweet, darling girl. He felt pride for her, felt worry for her, and felt... a strange bond with her, one he could not attain with other humans or even other vampires. It was the blood that she carried, the strong pull to pain that she had - and he was compelled to keep her safe, no matter the cost. He couldn't stand for anything to happen to her - that is, to her power.
This winter he had been gone so much, though, and Irena was scared more than ever - the rumours of men who turned to beasts by the light of the moon - it was too much for her to stand. She knew nothing of his exploits, and he moved them so much that she was never discovered by his victims or the parties that were sent after him, but it was such a long winter and the village was so vulnerable and he was gone so much..
It was a full moon when they came. They crept through town as silent as death, footfalls like powder against the hard-packed snow of several days come and gone. They were large and muscular and furred and hungry. Food had been scarce for human and animal alike, and some of the gypsies had broken from their packs and resorted to cannibalism - for it wasn't really cannibalism if you assumed the form of a beast while you devoured a man, was it? Since the attacks two weeks prior, the pack had broken apart and fallen into decay, the acting alpha left with half-mad animals at his hands and a dead mate by his side. They had none to rule them, and no rules to follow but that of their own snouts.
Irena had been visiting the widow at the opposite end of the village, and she'd brought her soup and supplies. She was honest in her visits and never took the money that the woman left for her by the table, instead sweeping it back into her jar before she blew the candle out and headed home. She tucked her long blonde hair under her shawl and stole away along the line of the buildings, tracing the shadows with her footsteps as she hurried home. She had only gotten to the fountain when she heard the snarling and the snapping.
She turned, facing down the salivating maw of two large black wolves. The hunger was evident in their eyes and features, drawing them further into madness and ruin, and she was afraid. Had her beloved Papa been near he could have tasted it on the air, for Irena's fear was something he knew like he knew his own mind, and it was something he had worked very hard never to develop a taste for. He had kept her safe and sound and secure and it was an accomplishment on his own part, but now she was seeping terror, pheromones of horror wafting into the still of the night and being carried on the breeze, drawing in more and more of the hungry deserters that had once been the Gry pack.
One wolf finally dove at her, and Irena shut her eyes tightly and screamed for her Papa, but it was not Papa who could protect her - it was a wolf that could have been the largest she'd ever seen, even larger than the two that had cornered her initially. He was black and silver, mixed of night and frost, and though his eyes looked upon her with worn sentiment, his form was true and aggressive. Here was the alpha male, and he did not like the shattered pieces of his pack lingering in the streets like trash. The rest of the animals scattered with unholy growls that came from his throat, and Irena cowered against the stoop of an abandoned shop, her hands over her face as though it could protect her from what was to come.
What did come, after long pauses in eternity and silence, was two warm hands placed on her own. They were bigger, stronger and rough - she looked up as they pulled her own down, the warmth so reminiscent of her father that she leaped up to wrap her arms around him, crying out "Papa!" as she did so, her girlish voice breaking the quiet and stillness around them -
But it was not her Papa who stood before her. It was a stranger, a man she'd never seen before. In the silver moonlight she knew he was a gypsy before he could speak, because everything about his wardrobe gave it away, and she recoiled quickly. Gypsies were a strange and godless people, and they kept within their camps demons to summon and spells to weave. She was without words, and the man seemed reluctant to touch her again given the way she'd reacted. He had frightened her, and she was rightfully afraid - but something else, something... familiar... he could smell it.
"You must leave her now," she said, her voice shaking. "The wolves - they will return. It is not safe," she said. She felt the chill cutting through her flesh to her bones, and hugged her shawl tightly to her. "Please, sir, go back to your camp. The wolves, they will not bother you. There is much for them to be found here, rubbish in the alleys to dig through - "
But her words trailed into nothing as she realized he was staring at her, staring through her, as though he saw something she could not. She shrank away and moved past him, only for him to catch her arm. She made a sound that stuck in her throat - fear, shock and anger - and pulled away from him, but his grip was strong. He pulled her back into his personal space, looking down upon her and fixing his cold, iron-coloured eyes onto her own bright blue ones.
She felt a familiarity within his eyes, but it made no logic to her mind. She was scared, and so she did not fight him. Had the same eyes belonged to the animal that had saved her life? No, it was impossible - and yet... But that weary, tired soul had been washed away, or at least buried, and there was some ethereal fire within them now, replacing the sense of gravity with a fire that made her nearly nauseous to behold. It was the look of a man who had just seen something that would change the course of events as he knew it -
"You smell... so much like... " and Irena was horrified as he leaned forward, sniffing lightly at her hair, so close to her neck. To an onlooker the grasp he had and the gesture he made could have been mistaken for passion or affection, but in the inner-circle where Irena was, held by an steel grip, this was no passion save steps from madness.
"Please, sir, my Papa will be coming to look for me, and I don't think - "
His eyes lit suddenly, and he smiled a sort of broad smile. "Ah," he said. "Look for you, indeed. Gypsies, though, are a nomadic sort of people though, with terrible magics at our disposal." He whispered something in a language she did not understand, and with it came the strongest of sleeps that had ever taken her. Marius scooped up the girl, sure now that she was the daughter, foster or otherwise (it didn't matter which) of the vampire that had just slaughtered his people and left him the alpha of a broken group of animals. What had once been nearly hundreds by population had been diminished into the teens, hunted down by that fear mongering vampire Raphael - and now, in Marius' arms, was his ticket to revenge.
He was nothing if not generous, and he was certainly willing to repay the man for all he had done. "You'll see your Papa soon, I promise you that," he assured the sleeping girl. Fortunate indeed that he'd come across the wanderers when he had, or they may have killed his last chance at vengeance.
After Raphael had come, for Marius had learned his name, the Gry pack was torn apart. Hundreds of wolves were dead or had run for their lives - or worse. The twenty or thirty that remained stayed loyal to him, and they had possession of their sanity, but there were dozens more who had lost their minds in fear and had run into the night - those were the feral creatures Irena had seen that night.
He was struggling as a leader, but he was the last son in the direct alpha line, and because of it, he either had to do the damn thing or name another who could - but Raphael had killed off most of them. Some of the pack had stolen into the city at night, looking for strong men to "recruit"; it had mostly been the women who would slip into the taverns under the guise of a mortal woman, only to turn their desired mate in order to procreate. It wasn't honorable, but it was survival. He could not condemn their practice when his own mate had been murdered, along with the Keres pack and all of its cousins that ran across the mountain ranges and forests. They were all dead.
Marius and the others had survived because they had always been wanderers, always nomadic and never dependent on any other than the land. They were seen as gypsies and they went with it, like some sort of carnival that traversed and lingered only for but a few days time. Now, they were stationary, but it too was fleeting - he would encourage the rest of them to move on without him. He had not pursued Raphael when he had killed his mate, and he had not known that the Keres pack had been destroyed until only weeks prior. He had been attempting to act as a good alpha and stay in control of his emotions, but the discovery of Irena, the madness that swarmed his camps - it was too much.
By the firelight, he spoke in his own strange language to two other men, Akos and Tibor, while the girl remained inside his tent, asleep. They were two of his top fighters, and he needed to know what they could do for him when it came to tracking the vampire. He was also trying to do it without alerting their attention to the girl, but it was a wishful ideal.
"But you have found something very precious to him, yes?" Tibor asked, tilting his head at Marius. The man had seasoned more winters than Marius and was larger, and perhaps once he had wanted that title of alpha from Marius' father, but Emilian had taken his eye as a reminder that the alpha's word was law - and it was all that had become of it. Tibor narrowed his eyes as Marius scrutinized the man's face, one chartreuse eye, the colour of poison, focusing down at the shorter wolf.
"What have you found, Marius?" he asked, looking beyond him to the tent that he was so determined to stand in front of.
"I have found someone who may know how to get to him, mentally that is. Physically, a human couldn't track its way out of a wet sack," he admitted, careful as to his choice of pronouns.
Akos, a wolf near Marius age and build, unfolded his arms and fixed his bright blue eyes onto Tibor. "Nevermind what he found, friend. What he wants to know is can we find the vampire. Your answer, alpha, is that I without a doubt can, and with Tibor at my side, we may even be able to fetch him and bring him back to you," the wolf said, a smile crossing his face that did not reach his eyes. Akos was smart, and he knew much that was hidden from him.
Marius did not trust Akos - he had been allowed in as a pup, abandoned by his own pack as they fell like lambs to the slaughter against an ancient vampire who assumed the guise of a goddess. Akos had never been one of them, not in the way that even other outsiders had. He was a white wolf, an anomaly alone, with bright, wintry blue eyes and a voice that glided like honey and caustic acid. He was, though, the best tracker the pack had. Nobody could challenge his talent, and what he lacked in brute strength Tibor made up for. The two of them were an unstoppable force - and it made Marius nervous to ask for their help, but he needed it.
"Do not be so bold as to assume that this vampire is so easily caught, friend," Marius warned the white wolf, a hand to his shoulder in caution. "He bleeds madness and fear like the oceans have salt. I would trust you to devise a plan before you leave," he advised. He withdrew his hand and folded his own arms, shifting his weight. He was tired and needed to wash before he attempted to sleep, but he did not trust these two with the girl so close by. He should have planned this out better, but he had been so preoccupied with revenge that it hadn't occurred to him that he physically couldn't just hide her. He made a note to move her in the morning, somewhere safe - for the both of them.
"Of course, alpha. Wouldn't dream of it. Come, Tibor - let us work some scheme up to bell this fearsome cat and leave Marius in peace. Whatever he's found, he seems anxious to get back to it," he said, warning edging on his voice. You didn't get the achievement of the single best wolf tracker in the region like Akos had for nothing - he could smell the human, and he could smell that she was female. He said nothing to Tibor, though, because the man was brutish and clumsy. No, he would keep this detail to himself.
"I'm eager to rest my head, Akos, as the both of you should be as well. We've got scavengers in the town tonight, so be alert if you think you might like to burn off some of that energy. They are all damned. Kill as you wish," he said, weariness ebbing his voice. He hated to condemn his former friends and packmates - and family - in such a way, but there was no other choice. He had seen how it had started, the madness. He could still hear Drina screaming as she was towed into the storm of it, so caught by fear that she managed to break her own neck. She had died a merciful death, he realized later. A much more peaceful assembly than what they had lived through, for certain.
With Akos and Tibor gone, Marius took his leave from the tent with a swiftness. He washed his face in the cold water, ignoring the sting of it against his skin. His body language was tense and hurried, but most of the pack was either asleep or keeping watch, and they took little notice of their worn alpha on his nightly routine. He shifted and quickly checked the perimeter they had set up, and then returned to his own sleeping quarters. He was as silent as death as he entered the tent, disturbed by how chill the air was within.
The girl, he observed, was swaddled in as many blankets as he had, which didn't consist of many when he considered it. As a wolf, he did not get cold traditionally, not like a human girl would. He reached out to touch her arm and was horrified at how icy her skin felt. He hadn't thought this through well at all, that was more than apparent to him. He attempted to rearrange the blankets as she had them, but it was of no use. The magic wouldn't wear off for a few more hours, but her body temperature was reaching a dangerous level, and he couldn't risk bringing her to the fire for fear of exposing her, though he knew that Akos and Tibor were planning something by sheer predictability of their treacherous natures.
With a sigh, he laid next to the girl, reaching out to pull her blanketed form closer to him. He was radiant with heat - all of them were, as were most vampires and other beings. Humans were among the coldest creatures he'd come to know, physically and figuratively, but he couldn't get beyond how innocently this girl had spoken of Raphael. And her Papa? What was that nonsense even about? He could not bring himself to harm her, not yet. He'd not gotten a full glimpse of her personality though, and Marius knew that looks could be deceiving. He'd have to wait and see. For now, he couldn't let her out of his sight. Doing so would seal her own fate, and despite all that Raphael had done, if this was his daughter, he didn't know that he could just end her life.
He went to sleep on the memory of Drina's screaming, and dreamed of nothing.