A Hunger Like No Other

This Annika said, 'It's night there—'

From the background again: 'Reason with him. Who could be monster enough to hurt little Emma?'

He had been.

'If you hate us, then bring the fight here, but that creature has never hurt any living thing. Send her home to her coven.'

Coven? 'Why is she afraid of vampires—?'

'Did you let them get near her?' she shrieked, forcing him to hold the phone away from his ear. She sounded more furious that the vampires had gotten near Emma than she was about him having her.

The one with the reasonable voice said, 'Ask him if he means her harm.'

'Do you?'

'No. Never.' He could now say this with confidence. 'But you said, 'let them get near her'? You are them.'

'What are you saying?'

'Are you split from the Horde? There was rumor of a faction—'

'You think I'm a vampire?'

With that shriek, he removed the phone from his ear more quickly. 'If no', then what are you?'

'Valkyrie, you ignorant dog.'

'Valkyrie,' he repeated dumbly as his breath left him. His weak leg gave way and he sank onto the bed. His hand found Emma's hip and squeezed.

Now it made perfect sense. Her fey appearance, her glass-shattering screams. 'Emma is part…that's why her ears…' Christ, she was part shield maiden?

He heard the phone being passed. The reasonable one said, 'I am Lucia, her aunt—'

'Her father's a vampire?' he asked, cutting her off. 'Who is he?'

'We don't know anything about him. Her mother never told us before she died. They attacked?'

'Aye.'

'How many?'

'Three.'

'They will report back. Unless you killed them all?' she asked with a hopeful note in her voice.

'O' course I did,' he snapped.

He heard her exhale as though relieved. 'Was she…hurt?'

He hesitated. 'She was'—immediate and numerous shrieks in the background—'but she's healing.'

The phone was passed yet again. Someone said, 'Don't let Regin have it!'

'This is Regin, and you must be the 'man' she was with. She told me you promised to protect her. Way to go there, Ace—'

He heard something like a scuffle, then slaps, then Lucia had the phone. 'We are the only family she knows and this is the first time she's traveled away from the protection of her coven. She's very gentle in nature, wary, and she will be frightened away from us. We beseech you to treat her with kindness.'

'I will,' he said, and he meant it. He knew he would never hurt her again. The memory of her eye bursting red just before him, and of her running to him for his protection, were forever seared into his mind. 'Why would the vampires attack like that? Do you think her father seeks her?'

'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