Helena narrowed her gaze his way. “What are you up to?”
He took her shoulders. “Twice. Twice in one day these humans have tried to kill what is mine to protect. This cannot go unanswered.”
Part of her thrilled at the possessive note in his tone and the other part, the one not near any erogenous zones, tightened up. “Yours?”
“Hush. You know it’s true and things are too dire to deny it any longer. I’m not playing silly games. You are mine to protect. I can accept that you need time to fully embrace what is between us. But I won’t accept that you don’t understand what is there. And what my nature is. I’m not a human male. I have more patience on most everything, but not this.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
His severity washed away on a smile. He kissed her quickly. “A first.”
“Ha. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going home for a bit. Simon is meeting me there. I’ll let you know the outcome when I see you when you get off this plane. You’ll be safe while you’re in the air.”
Safe as she could be anyway. Nowhere was totally safe. Not anymore.
“I’m absolutely sure this is going to mean trouble for me.”
His grin was back. A brief flash of teeth. “I’ll see you soon.”
She got on the plane and he got into a car and sped away.
He met Simon in the wide field just on the other side of the Veil. They clasped forearms and headed to the main house.
“What did you tell Lark?”
“I told her I was coming here. She’s . . .” Simon’s mouth flattened in a hard line. “She’s shaken in a way I haven’t seen. This was her home. The one place she felt safe, and now she doesn’t have that. She’s damned lucky I don’t just toss her ass through the Veil and move us both here permanently.”
Faine blew out a breath.
“I told her I had had enough and I was speaking to my father. I didn’t say what about exactly. I got the feeling she just assumed it was to inform Father of the bombing, and given the amount of things she has to manage today, I didn’t give her any more detail. Helena?”
“I told her twice in one day what was mine to protect was threatened and it couldn’t be borne any longer, and that I was coming here. I’m guessing her assumptions were the same as Lark’s.”
Pere’s soldiers came out to greet them as they moved to the house where their oldest brother and their father awaited them.
Cross Leviathan gave both his sons a raised brow as they entered his office and went to one knee. He touched the backs of their heads. “Get up and tell me what brings you here. Not that I’m unhappy to see you. I’m pleased, but I can see this isn’t a social call.”
Simon got straight to it. “My home was bombed yesterday. Set ablaze. A near total loss.”
Cross’s eyes widened as he turned his attention to Faine.
“Yesterday, before that, a car Helena and I would have been riding in was bombed. She repelled the force of the explosion with her magick and passed out, bleeding from the nose and mouth from the exertion. We were also with Simon and his
“Helena, hmm? This is our little pixie’s sister? You’ve been a busy male, Faine.”
“She is mine.”
The simple words were enough for Cross. And for Pere, who smiled from his place at their father’s right.
“The violence by the humans against Others continues to escalate. We have tried diplomacy. Molly Ryan has delivered an articulate message about our limits being reached.” Simon shrugged.
Lark was shot twice when they’d sent the Magister from the human realm. But Simon had killed the shooter. It had been enough to hold back on a declaration of war by Lycia. But this was different.
“When you were here with Lark before, we called a council of war. You have all the beasts of Lycia at your beck and call.” Pere spoke this time. Cross was the elder, but it was Pere who really ran things. “Simon, you are my voice on that side of the Veil. Faine, we wish to meet your Helena when you are able to bring her.”
“What is she to you? Will you take her in marriage?” His father asked this with hooded eyes.
“She is . . . she is everything. My key.”
He nodded. “As you know, I had love before I bonded with Tila. I cared for Simon’s mother with everything I am. But the difference now? What I have with my
“I’m working on it.”
“Your mother says you’ve never failed to convince a female to give you what you wanted. I doubt you will this time either.”
Simon snorted. “The Jaansen sisters are a world apart. But Helena is worthy.”
Faine was proud to have the words from his brother.
They thanked their father and brother and headed back, both males loath to leave their protected alone for too long in a world full of people who wished for nothing less than their annihilation.
TOSH felt it was his turn to face some danger. He looked to his left at Delilah, who was his escort to this Council of Others meeting.
He hadn’t been surprised that Helena had recommended the Others cease their PR travel. After all, how much could they be expected to endure? How many more of their people had to die just to be heard?
But he knew it was more than a simple cease of travel. The bomb at the capitol building, the
Spiraling out of control and heading to war. Which is why he needed to address the Council to try his best to alleviate the mounting tensions that he worried would explode into a war neither side would really win. And it would definitely end with far too much damage to recover from.
Encroaching on a werewolf’s land the way those who’d bombed Simon Leviathan’s house had done had broken so many rules Toshio knew it would be an uphill battle to get the Others to ease back. More than that, Simon’s woman and Helena—Faine’s woman, Tosh suspected—had been there. The mate of a shifter being endangered would push both males into hyper-protective mode.
He knew Simon and Faine were more than normal werewolves. Werewolves were large, but the Leviathan brothers were beyond large, they were massive. The werewolves treated them with respect and a bit of awe, but it was clear they were apart somehow.
“Simon and Faine aren’t werewolves, so what are they?” Tosh asked Delilah, who accompanied him on the trip.
“It’s not safe for anyone to know more than they already do. Not for any of us. And this is a public place.”
Her words were severe and she must have noted that because she relaxed and took his hand, squeezing it and then, as if she were surprised by her action, letting go quickly.
“After this, will you have a drink with me?” He blurted it before he changed his mind.
Clearly surprised—again—Delilah started, and then she smiled. “A
He got caught up in the shape of her mouth as she smiled. “Huh?”
She rolled her eyes. “Are you asking because you’re interested in me romantically or is this just a drink like you’d have with anyone else who served in the senate?”
