“That was three days ago,” Callum shot back. “Now there’s a possibility one of The Three can be murdered in their beds without the enemy even penetrating the outer wall. So my advice has changed.”
“And how do we start doing that?” Abel asked.
“We begin to gather intel, doing it aggressively by giving them a target,” Callum answered.
Abel’s entire frame went wired. “Delilah’s in enough danger. I won’t have her in more.”
“The women stay here. We’ll be the targets,” Callum told him. “Whoever comes after us, we take them down but not out. If we have a prisoner, he or she can be interrogated.”
Finally. A plan. Not a great one, but it was something.
“I’m in,” Abel stated immediately, and Callum grinned.
“Wolf,” he whispered.
“Whatever we do must be meticulously planned,” Lucien added.
“And vampire,” Callum said on a smile.
Lucien settled in, crossing his arms on his chest, but he didn’t contradict the king of the werewolves.
“I’ll go extract Hook from his vampire,” Abel said.
“I’ll find Stephanie,” Lucien stated.
“I’ll get Ryon and my brothers,” Callum put in.
“We wait until Xun and Wei are done with our mates to fill those men in,” Lucien declared. “Our decision will not be popular with the females. My sense is that it would be far easier to deal with all three after the fact, not before.”
“Agreed,” Callum replied.
“Got a problem with that,” Abel muttered, and Lucien looked to him.
“I know Lilah has issues with you leaving without her knowing where you’re going. Of course, I hesitate to advise you to lie to your mate. Destiny has chosen certain types of women for all of us, and when we return from this, not one of them will make it easy. But prior to going, if you share with Lilah you’re training on the grounds but away from the house, perhaps that will eradicate any pain she might feel because she’ll think she knows where you are.”
Abel didn’t like it, but he also didn’t like hanging around waiting for shit to happen. He knew himself and he was quickly getting to know his mate. Wild and free. They both wanted it. Wanted it in a way that their current situation couldn’t last long before something had to give.
And maybe Lucien was right. If she thought she knew where he was, she’d have peace of mind and the men could get out and do something.
Therefore, he said, “It’s worth a shot.”
Lucien nodded and murmured, “Then let’s go.”
Without hesitating a moment, that was what they did.
* * * * *
Yuri
Of course, she had to be beautiful.
Yuri disliked using his skills on females who were beautiful.
Even so, he held her by her throat, suspended several feet up from the floor against the wall. He put enough pressure on for her to fear the oxygen depletion so she couldn’t focus on magic.
And she felt the fear. He smelled it. It permeated the air all around them. And staring in her blue eyes, with her dark hair framing her heart-shaped face, he wanted to rip into her throat and taste it.
When those eyes clouded over and her nails clawing at his hand fell away, he dropped her. She slumped to her side at his feet, drawing in weak, ragged breaths.
“You try me further, I’ll drain you and find another witch,” he warned, tipping his chin only slightly to stare down his nose at her.
Feebly, she lifted her hand to her throat but moved no further, outside of sliding her eyes up to catch his gaze.
Her voice was rasping when she whispered, “You are as they say you are. Ruthless.”
“I am as I need to be to save my sister, my people, your people,” he retorted.
“Right, your sister,” she spat weakly. “Another vampire who no doubt stood by, smiling, during The Burning Times.”
“My sister is a wolf,” he informed her coolly.
She blinked.
“If memory serves, The Burning Times ended when the werewolf king, McDonagh, intervened with The Dominion on behalf of your sisters,” Yuri went on. “And my sister is married to McDonagh’s son and was born a mere thirty-seven years ago. She doesn’t even know what The Burning Times are.”
She pushed up to a hand, her voice stronger and completely disbelieving when she noted, “It’s impossible your sister is a wolf.”
“Much has happened in the last several hundred years,” he returned. “But factually, you’re correct. My sister cannot be wolf. Essentially, she was adopted, which might not make her blood, but she’s still my sister.”
It was then that Yuri had to admit to a mild sense of admiration when, even in her current situation, she didn’t let it go and snapped, “You nearly annihilated my species.”
“I did nothing of the sort,” he returned. “At the beginning, I was busy feeding and fucking. At the end, I was listening to my father petition The Dominion on the witches’ behalf in support of McDonagh’s intervention. I’ve never touched a witch in my life until tonight, and further, I’ve never had an issue with a single one of your kind.”
“Even so, we endured four hundred years of persecution and genocide at the hands of your kind,” she hissed.
“And the members of The Dominion who championed that were removed and executed,” Yuri shot back. When she opened her mouth to again speak, he continued, “Now, as enjoyable as it is debating history with you, as I shared with you earlier, matters are quite urgent.”