'Go from Katie to Sinead? Well, I am sassy enough to pull it off—'
'Just do it!'
'Angry, Kaderin? How unlike you.'
'I'm livid, as you well know. Nïx, why would you do this to me? Why tell Bowen about this? You had to know he will fight to the death to bring back that mate.'
'Oh, yes, especially since she died fleeing him! It's been killing him slowly, making him crazed. He hardly eats or sleeps and hasn't glanced at another female since then.'
Kaderin put her forehead between her thumb and forefinger. 'He'll be unstoppable. They live for nothing else.'
'More unstoppable than a guilt-ridden two-thousand-year-old Valkyrie who, incidentally, keeps winning these things? I was thinking it'd be a wash.'
She exhaled, striving for calm. 'Since you gave him information, now help me. Why am I feeling now?'
'Because it's time for you to.'
'Oh, since you explained it that way.' Kaderin rolled her eyes. 'Will I win the Hie?'
'Lemme check.' She hummed, and Kaderin could almost see her peering at the ceiling in concentration—
The phone dropped.
A chill crept up Kaderin's spine just before Nïx's screams erupted.
'Nïx!' Kaderin snapped. 'Nïx, what's going on?'
A minute later, Regin had the phone. 'What the hell did you say to her?' In the background, thunder boomed in a deafening succession like cannon blasts. Nïx sobbed hysterically.
'I just asked her if I'll win the Hie! Why? What's happening?'
'I don't know—I've never seen her like this! She's white as a ghost and mumbling incoherently.' To Nïx, Regin said, 'Calm down, sweet. What's upset you?'
Kaderin heard Nïx's voice, heard her desperate ramblings, but couldn't make out the actual words. 'What is she saying?' Kaderin demanded.
'Oh, Kad,' Regin whispered, all her temper gone. 'She said... ' Regin swallowed audibly. 'She said that... in the competition, before the next full moon... you're going to... die.'
Die? Kaderin frowned in confusion, wringing her hands around the phone. How should one respond to that? I can't imagine. Her inane reply: 'Oh.'
Regin, fired up once more, said, 'Get out of the competition now!'
'You know that won't help,' Kaderin murmured. 'When your number's up, it's up.'
'Yeah, but you can still freaking duck.'
'Regin, how can you say something like that?' Kaderin demanded, even knowing she herself had once said much the same. The memory of Furie lashing out at her was as clear as if it happened yesterday. For her own heedless words, Kaderin had had her arm broken and her skull and sternum fractured.
'Where are you right now? We'll come get you, guard you in the coven.'
'Nïx could be mistaken,' Kaderin offered, surprised to find her eyes had watered in a rush. 'Or she read the premonition wrong.' But she said that only for Regin's benefit. Kaderin knew Nïx was never wrong. And she'd never seen the death of a Valkyrie before.
'Nïx is presently rolling on the floor. Something is happening.'
'Oh.' How brave Furie had been to go meet her destiny, how stoic.
Kaderin could aspire to that.
'Damn it, Kad, tell us where you are!'
'Regin, only cowards don't meet their fate. If I'm to die in this competition, then that's the hand I was dealt. I'll play it out.'
'You're talking crazy. You shouldn't be alone right now, not with this news.'
She tilted her head, staring out the window. 'I... won't be.' Because dusk was in a couple of hours. 'I'll be fine, Regin. I'll check in later,' she added, then hung up, turning off the ringer.
Kaderin knew that in the days leading up to the full moon, her coven would fight to find her, calling incessantly, trying to track her movements through her phone and credit-card use, as well as through the Accord's network. But Kaderin knew all the tricks, and if she didn't want to be found, then she wouldn't be.
She shook. The sun continued to set, and she had a vampire coming over.
24
'Did you dress for me?' Sebastian visibly swallowed when Kaderin stood at his arrival.
He'd been doing that tentative-step thing as he entered, but after his gaze raked her from head to toe, he strode forward as though pushed. There was no mistaking his appreciation of her tight black sweater, short skirt, and strappy heels.
She was glad when his avid gaze strayed again to her breasts, or he might have seen her dropped jaw.
The vampire was undeniably hot.
He was so tall that the highest point of the plane's seven-foot ceiling barely cleared his height. He wore dark jeans that highlighted his narrow hips and a dark shirt that molded to his muscles. Everything was tasteful and seriously expensive. His face was completely healed, and his longish black hair was damp at his collar from a recent shower.
Sexy. He has too much of a biological advantage. What female could be expected to turn him away when he wanted to be inside her?
When he met her eyes again, he had such a ravenous look that she grew flustered, feeling a blush creeping over her cheekbones. Blushing. Now the vampire has me blushing. 'This is how I usually dress.' After nervously trying on thirty combinations of clothing. 'That is, when I'm not fighting, running, or climbing.'
He reached forward to brush his hand at her nape. 'Or diving from cliffs to tackle unwitting sirens,' he said with a half grin.
So, he was going to be charming tonight? Little did he know that she was a-sure-thing. He didn't have to unleash an arsenal of devastating good looks and that quiet, unstudied charm.
She was his tonight.
Before he'd arrived, she had been miserable. She'd felt so alone and so, well, doomed. After much soul searching, Kaderin had made a decision.
In the young, immortal words of Regin: Fuck it. If she was going to die, Kaderin was going to have one night of passion before her dirt nap. And she couldn't think of anyone she wanted to be with more than him—for this one night.
She'd told him this was how she usually dressed, and that was true, but she didn't want him to suspect that she'd tried on everything in her bag twice. She'd stared in the mirror, considering her appearance for the first time in ages, wondering what he would find attractive about her—or was it merely the blooding that made him fancy her? She'd been so anxious about being intimate with a man after so long, she could scarcely close the tiny fastenings on her heels.
Sad but true, she was grateful to him for his company. If he weren't here, she would have done nothing but mull her death, but now he was with her, and there was something in his eyes, something a bit alarming that thrilled her.
She bit her bottom lip. Call her Betty Fucking Crocker, because the cake was so going to be worth the bake.
'You look beautiful.' Such simple words, but the way he said them, his eyes so compelling, gave her shivers.
She glanced down at herself and back up. 'Not too small?'
That gorgeous grin again. Gazing at his chiseled, masculine face changing expressions was a decadent pleasure. 'I love how you are made. Even as I'd worried about hurting you when I touched you.' Listening to the low timbre of his voice was just as blissful. She knew she shouldn't enjoy these things so much, and yet she
