"I don't know. They've been hunting Valkyrie everywhere. We've kept Emma hidden from them. She'd never even seen one. Or a Lykae, for that matter." She added almost to herself, "Em must be terrified of you..."
Terrified of him. Of course she was.
"If they have some agenda that includes Emma, they won't stop searching for her. She must return home where she can be safe."
"I can keep her safe."
Annika had the phone again. "You failed to do so."
"She's alive and they're dead."
"What's your agenda? You say you won't harm her, yet you're rushing into war with us?"
"I want no war with you."
"Then what do you want with her?"
"She's my mate." He heard her retch in response, and his hackles rose.
"So help me Freya" - she retched again - "if you have lain one of your filthy animal hands on her - "
"How do I care for her?" he asked, struggling to control his anger.
"You send her back to where she belongs so we can help her heal from you."
"I said no. Now, do you want me to protect her in your absence?"
He heard murmuring in the background, then Lucia spoke, "She has to be protected from the sun. She's only seventy and is incredibly vulnerable to it."
Seventy? Another squeeze of her hip. Christ almighty. The way he'd treated her...
"Like I said, she's never seen a Lykae and will be frightened of you. Be gentle with her, if you have any conscience. She must drink every day, but never straight from a living source - "
"Why?" he interrupted.
Quiet. Then Annika asked, "You've already made her do it, haven't you?"
He said nothing.
Her voice was deadly. "What else have you forced her to do? She was innocent before you took her. Is she now?"
Innocent.
The things he'd said to her...the things he'd done to her...He ran a shaking hand over his face.
And made her do to him.
How could he have been so wrong about her? Because I'd been burning for more than a century. And she's paid for it. "I told you before - she's mine."
She shrieked in fury. "Let - her - go!"
"Never," he bellowed back.
"You may not want a war, but you've got one." Calmer, she said, "I believe my sisters and I will go hunting for Celts' pelts."
The line went dead.
17
"Your brother's in Louisiana, my liege."
Lachlain's fingers paused on the last button of his shirt. "Louisiana?" After a quick shower to wash away evidence of the fight, Lachlain had called Harmann back to his room and asked where Garreth was. Of all the places in the world. "What in the hell is he doing there?"
"Louisiana is packed with the Lore, and many Lykae live there now. I'd say half your number reside in Canada and the United States. Most in Nova Scotia, but with a number farther south."
This news bitterly disappointed Lachlain. "Why did they leave their homes?" he asked, taking a seat near the balcony. A breeze blew in, smelling of the forest and of the sea that abutted his land miles and miles away. He was actually in the Highlands, looking out over the grounds of Kinevane. With his mate in their bed.
Harmann pulled up a chair as well, shifting into his normal shape, that of a behorned, large-eared Ostrander demon, so named for his extended Ostrander family. "When the clan thought the vampires had killed you, many refused to stay so close to their kingdom in Russia. Your brother assisted them with the journey, then stayed on in New Orleans to help them rebuild what they could."
"New Orleans?" This just got better and better. "Can you no' contact him? It so happens that I've got a coven of Valkyrie, in New Orleans, intent on peeling my family." And Garreth was the last member of his immediate family still living. Demestriu had seen to that - Lachlain's father dead in the last Accession, his mother dying of grief, and his youngest brother, Heath, setting out to avenge them all...
"Valkyrie?" Harmann frowned. "Dare I ask?" When Lachlain shook his head, Harmann said, "Garreth made me vow to contact him the minute I learned anything of you. He was...well, he didn't take the news of your presumed death as we'd hoped, especially after losing so many of his...of your..." He trailed off, then said, "So, of course, I tried to reach him as soon as I closed the gate behind you. But I was told he's gone off by himself for a few days."
Lachlain had a flash of worry for Garreth, being alone and unwarned. Hunting for Celts' pelts. No. No way could they catch him. Garreth was as wily as he was fierce.
"It's imperative that I find him. Keep trying." His brother was the only one he would trust to protect Emma while Lachlain went to mete out his revenge. "I want all the information you've accumulated on the Horde since I've been gone, and anything we might have on the Valkyrie. I want any media that will help me acclimate to this time. And keep my return secret from the elders for now. Only my brother knows."
"Aye, of course, but may I ask what you mean by acclimating to this time? Where have you been?"
Lachlain hesitated, then admitted, "In the fire." There was no need to describe the catacombs. He could never convey how horrific it was.
Harmann's ears flattened, and as often happened when he was distressed, the last shape he'd shifted into wavered over him. For a moment he looked like the young human male he'd presented to Emma before he returned to his wiry, demon frame. "B-but that's just a rumor they spread."
Chapter 12
"It's true, and I'll tell you of it another time. Right now, I canna think of it. I've got only four days, four nights, to convince Emma to stay with me."