A Hunger Like No Other

sounded. 'I will guide her to be all that was good and honorable about the Valkyrie before time eroded us. She will never see the horrors we have. She will be protected.' They'd all quieted, reflecting. 'Emmaline of Troy.' She'd rubbed noses with Emma and asked the baby, 'Now, where's the best place to hide the most beautiful little vampire in the world?'

Nïx had laughed delightedly. 'Laissez les bon temps roulez…'

'Okay, here it is!' Regin said. 'Lachlain, king of the Lykae, disappeared for two centuries or so. I'm just going to update the database and say that apparently he's back at the desk.' She scrolled down. 'Brave and vicious on the battlefield, and he appears to be in every battle the Lykae ever engaged. What was he doing? Trying to earn merit badges? And, uh-oh, careful, ladies, this big boy fights dirty. He'd just as soon end a sword fight with his fists and claws, and hand-to-hand with his fangs.'

'What about his family?' Annika asked. 'What does he care for that we can use?'

'He doesn't have much of a family left. Damn. Demestriu killed them all.'

When she paused, continuing to read, Annika waved her on, until Regin exclaimed, 'Ooh, the chicks in the New Zealand coven are evil. They've noted here that though they haven't engaged him, they've seen him fight vampires, and barbs about his family will make him go mindless with rage, making him easier prey for a skilled killer.'

Kaderin laid one of her swords flat in her lap, her diamond hone file finally at rest. 'He's hurt her, then. If he thought she was one of the Horde.'

Regin said, 'He'd had no idea she was a Valkyrie. She must be trying to protect us. Boneheaded little leech.'

Lucia murmured, 'Can you imagine how utterly terrified she must be?'

Nïx sighed. 'The Saints aren't going to make it to the playoffs.'

Gentle, fearful Emma, in the hands of an animal…Annika clenched her fists and two of the lamps closest to her—just fixed along with the chimney by a Lore contractor today—burst, shattering glass twelve feet into the air. Valkyrie in the way casually sidestepped or lowered their faces, then shook out their hair and resumed whatever they'd been doing.

Not looking up from the screen, Regin said, 'It's the Accession putting all these pieces into play. It's got to be.'

Annika knew it was so. A protracted imprisonment had just ended for the Lykae king. Kristoff, the rebel vampire leader, had taken a Horde stronghold just five years ago and was dispatching soldiers to America. And the ghouls, led by a fierce and occasionally lucid leader, had begun making a power play by infecting as many people as possible to build their army.

Annika crossed to the window and looked out into the night. 'You said Lachlain didn't have much of a family. Then who?'

Regin put a pencil behind her ear. 'He's got one younger brother left. Garreth.'

'How do we find this Garreth?'

Nïx clapped her hands. 'I know this one! I know this one! Ask…Lucia!'

Lucia looked up sharply and hissed at Nïx, but there was no true venom behind it. She answered in a monotone, 'He's the Lykae who saved our lives two nights ago.'

Annika turned from the window. 'Then I'm sorry that we have to do what we're about to do.'

Lucia turned questioning eyes to Annika.

'We're going to trap him.'

'How? He's strong, and from what I can tell, he's clever.'

'Lucia, I need you to miss again.'

18

Throughout the day, Lachlain stayed by Emma's side, sunproofing any hint of a crack in the thick curtains and checking her wounds to make sure they were healing.

He took no chances, though, even lying beside her, cutting the side of his neck and coaxing her to drink from him.

The wee vampire had softly lapped at him, sighing in sleep. She must have bewitched him, because it had felt like the most natural thing in the world.

By afternoon, when he removed the bandages, he found the wounds still tender and raised, but fully closed.

The worst of his worry abated, he mused on what he'd learned.

Now that he knew the truth about everything, he looked at Emma differently, though he had to admit he didn't feel any differently. He'd already accepted her as his mate even when he'd thought she was part of the Horde. Now he knew that not only was she not part of the Horde, she wasn't even exactly a vampire.

Over the long years alone, he'd envisioned his mate in a thousand different lights. He'd prayed she would be intelligent and attractive, prayed that she would be caring. And now Emma, a half-vampire, half-Valkyrie, was shaming even his wildest fantasies.

But her family…He exhaled wearily. Lachlain had never fought against them, thinking them beneath him, and had only seen them from a distance. But he knew the Valkyrie were weird, fey little creatures, swift and strong with lightning firing all around them—firing somehow through them. Rumor had it that they derived nourishment from electricity. As he'd discovered in Emma, they were known to be extremely intelligent. Unlike Emma, they were almost as violent and warmongering as the vampires.

Though the Valkyrie had few known weaknesses, it was said they could be mesmerized by glittering objects—and that they were the only species in the Lore that could die of sorrow.

In a quick perusal of what the clan had compiled on them, he was able to find a tale of their origin. The Lore said that millennia ago, Wóden and Freya were awakened from a decade of sleep by a maiden warrior's scream as she died in battle. Freya had marveled at the maiden's courage and wanted to preserve it, so she and Wóden struck the human with their lightning. The maiden woke in their great hall, healed but untouched—still mortal—and pregnant with an immortal Valkyrie daughter.

In the years that came, their lightning would strike dying women warriors from all species of the Lore— Valkyrie like Furie were truly part Fury. Freya and Wóden gave the daughters Freya's fey beauty and his cunning. They combined these traits with the mother's valor and individual ancestry. This made the daughters all unique, but according to the Lore, one could recognize a Valkyrie if her eyes fired silver with strong emotion.

Emma's had turned when she'd drunk from him.

If this legend was true—and Lachlain believed it was—then that would mean Emma was the granddaughter of…gods.

And he'd thought her beneath him. A strong Lykae king saddled with a lacking mate.

He pinched his forehead, struggling with regret, but forced himself to read on. He found brief descriptions of the Valkyrie he knew were directly connected to her. Nïx was the oldest, and some said a soothsayer. Levelheaded Lucia was an expert archer, rumored to be cursed to feel indescribable pain whenever she missed a target.

Furie had been their queen, living under the same roof as gentle Emma when she'd been a child. Now, the Valkyrie suspected that Demestriu had trapped Furie at the bottom of the ocean for an eternity of torture. Based on Lachlain's experience, he could say without a doubt that she was choking saltwater into her lungs somewhere in the freezing dark right now.

But the entries on Regin and Annika troubled him the most. Regin's mother's entire race had been exterminated by the Horde. Annika, who was known as a brilliant strategist and a fearless fighter, had devoted her life to destroying vampires.

When Emma's family voiced their hatred of vampires, when they celebrated each kill, how could Emma not feel like an outsider? How could she not inwardly flinch? The Valkyrie were all centuries old to her mere decades, and she was what the Lore called 'other'—or outside one's species. Emma was other