A Hunger Like No Other

20

Emma immediately sensed things following her as she moved into the mist.

So he'd really sicced guards on her? Considering his intrusive nature, they were probably more like spies. She figured a proud, independent woman would resent the intrusion. Emma? She reasoned that if this place wasn't as safe as he'd told her and vampires did attack again, Emma wouldn't have to outrun them—she would merely have to outrun the spies hiding in the bushes.

Unable to muster the desired outrage at being spied on, she explored for a while before stumbling upon a folly. Clustered all around it were wildflowers, which had bloomed during the day and now looked wilted and dismal. Just missed 'em. Story of my life.

Still, it was nice here, she supposed, with the fog-covered lake in view—or loch—or whatever. It kind of reminded her of home.

She closed her eyes at the thought of the manor. What she wouldn't give to be back there. She'd missed Xbox night last night. Tonight she was supposed to be riding horses through the bayou.

She hopped atop the folly's railing, following it, pacing round and round as she thought of everything that had happened to her. Before her trip, she'd yearned for something more. Now, being forced away, she realized how good she had it. Yes, she'd been lonely, feeling the lack of a partner in her life. Yet now that she had to deal with a stubborn, overbearing male every day, was being held captive by one, she thought partners were spectacularly overrated.

And, yes, sometimes she felt like an outsider—like not knowing where to look or how to act when her aunts shrieked about vampires—but often she didn't. Sure, they taunted her unmercifully, but looking back, she realized they taunted everyone. Like her aunt Myst. Years ago, after the incident with the vampire general, the coven had dubbed her Mysty the Vampire Layer. How do you separate Myst from a vampire? With a crowbar.

Emma's lips parted in surprise. They might treat her differently, but they did not treat her like an outsider. Had her own insecurities colored how she saw them? She recalled her memory of the day her hand had been burned, and now she saw even that differently. At first the memory had hurt her and shocked her anew. Now she remembered two distinct things: Regin had dived for her and shuddered at the close call. And Furie had announced to them all that Emma was just like them.

Emma felt her lips curling. Furie had said that. Their queen.

Excitement began to build in her, and she grew impatient to return home to see it with new eyes. Now she ached to appreciate all the things she'd taken for granted—or had been blind to. She wanted to fall asleep awash in the comforting sounds of bayou insects and her family's shrieks. She wanted to lie in her own blankets piled under the princess bed in her room—not in Lachlain's massive bed. She'd gotten the feeling that those carved symbols told an ancient story and, Freya help her, she sensed that as long as she was in that bed, she was a part of it…

When she skimmed around a column, her palm caught a large splinter. In the past, she would've howled from the pain. Now she sighed. Everything's relative. Compared to having her chest ploughed like a vegetable patch, this was a mere annoyance.

She tilted her head and stared at the sliver, frowning as a memory flooded her. She must have dreamed of him again. Today.

When she'd slept, she'd seen their last…sexual encounter, from his point of view.

As she stared at the small trickle of blood around the white wood, she went awash in the dream, feeling splinters from the headboard digging into his palms as he crumbled it. But he didn't care about the pain. He had to keep his hands there. Had to.

His need to touch her warred with his desire to earn her trust. Emma felt how strongly he'd wanted to put his hands on her—felt the lust welling up in him, the urge to thrust against her—and admitted to herself that if the situation had been reversed, she'd have said, "Screw it," and pawed him.

Now she grew dizzy, overwhelmed by the sheer hunger he'd felt, confused that she saw the hotel's patterned ceiling as he threw his head back, struggling not to come.

But her hair brushed over him, and her hips bucked relentlessly against him, and her breasts pressed into his chest. He felt her sucking him greedily and knew it was over…

She swayed as she suddenly left the memory, then blinked.

He'd acted honorably. He'd kept his word even under that onslaught of need. Now she wanted to go back to that night and give him what he'd desperately needed. But she couldn't, because it was just a dream. Or a memory. She fell from the rail. Instinct landed her on her haunches, yet she sank to the ground just after.

Just like the dream of the necklace.

She was going mad. Like Nïx, who saw things that she shouldn't.

Lachlain, what have you done to me?

There she sat in the wet grass in a strange country with the stars above off-kilter as though the world had dropped a notch. With no one to confide her suspicion to.

Emma didn't return at dawn.

The guards had watched her return to the house and protected the entrances afterward, but it had taken a frantic hour before Lachlain found her curled up, asleep under the stairs in a broom closet. Had she known that the ammonia and polishes stored there would cloak her scent from him?

Now he gnashed his teeth to find her shivering in the dust, his worry turning to ire in an instant. "Goddamn it, Emma," he snapped, scooping her up. What in the hell had she been thinking? He would lay down the rules, and, by God, she would—

Sun flooded the hallway, and he shoved them into a corner, covering her with his body. "Shut the fucking door!"

"My apologies," a familiar voice drawled from behind him as the door closed. "Dinna know there were going to be vampires about. You should have a sign."

Back in the low light, Lachlain turned to find Bowen, his oldest friend. His pleasure at seeing him dimmed when he noticed how much more weight Bowe had lost. Once Lachlain's size, he was now rangy and gaunt.

"And here I was surprised to see you alive, but looks like you've another surprise there." Bowe approached, rudely inspecting Emma as she lay in Lachlain's arms, picking up her hair and chucking her chin. "Wee beauty. Bit dirty."

"From sleeping under the stairs this morning." Lachlain shook his head, incapable of understanding her. "Meet Emmaline Troy. Your queen."

Bowe raised his eyebrows, demonstrating the most emotion Lachlain had seen from him since his mate had left him. "A vampire queen? Fate must hate you." More examination while Lachlain scowled. "Her ears are pointed?"

"She's half-Valkyrie," Lachlain explained. "Raised in a coven of them and kept from the Horde."

"Then things around here just got interesting," Bowe said, but he displayed little interest.

Emmaline shivered and buried her face in Lachlain's chest.

Bowe studied him. "Doona think I've ever seen you look so exhausted. Go bathe your freezing, wee…valkire and get some sleep." Though it was not yet eight in the morning, he added, "I'll help myself to whiskey."

Lachlain was out of his bloody mind, Bowe concluded by late that afternoon.

As he poured another scotch, thinking and drinking, Bowe admitted to himself that he should be the last one to doubt a mate being other, but this was too far-fetched. No two species were greater foes than the vampires and the Lykae, yet Lachlain thought to take one, or a halfling born of one, as his queen?

Wherever he'd been for the last one hundred and fifty years had clearly warped his brain…

Bowe raised his face, briefly distracted by the scents wafting from the busy kitchens. All who worked here were preparing for the rising of the full moon, cleaning, cooking in abundance, readying to vacate the castle. The smells from the ovens were just as he remembered from growing up here. In fact, the kitchens had been his favorite place. Now he frowned, trying to recall the last time he'd eaten. Perhaps he should commandeer the vampire's share of the food. She wouldn't miss it—

Lachlain greeted him with a censorious expression as he finally returned to the study. "Christ, man, you've been at it since morn?"

"Can I help it? Kinevane always kept the best liquor. Nothing's changed." Bowe poured a glass to the rim for Lachlain.

Lachlain accepted it, then sank down behind his desk, somehow appearing more exhausted than before, though his clothes were rumpled as if he'd just woken. And he had a nick on his neck. No. No way he'd allow that depravity. What the hell has gotten into him? Giving it a second thought, Bowe slid the decanter over the desktop to him as well.

When Lachlain raised his eyebrows, Bowe said, "Have a feeling you'll need it when you tell me where the bloody hell you've been that we could no' find you for decades." Bowe noticed he sounded angry. As if he blamed Lachlain for his disappearance.

"You never would have found me. No more than I was able to find Heath," Lachlain said, his voice deadened as usual when he spoke of his youngest brother.

Bowe shook his head, remembering Heath. Hot-tempered to a fault, he'd set off to avenge his father's death, not comprehending that those who set out to kill Demestriu didn't return. Lachlain had refused to believe he was dead. "You were in Helvita?"

"For a while."

"He was no' there?"

Lachlain's expression was bare—pure pain. "The Horde…dinna take him alive."

"I'm sorry, Lachlain." After a long moment, Bowe frowned and broke the silence. "You said, 'for a while.' "

"Then Demestriu decided on the catacombs."

"Catacombs?" There were rumors among the Lore that the Horde had an everlasting fire deep beneath Paris, kept solely for the purpose of torturing the immortals who could never quite die from it. Bowe's gut began to churn, the liquor roiling on his empty stomach.

When Lachlain said nothing, only drank, Bowe's face tightened. "The fire is real? How long?"

"The dungeon for a decade. The fire for the rest."

At that, Bowe had to drain his glass and snatched back the decanter. "How the fuck have you stayed sane?"

"You never did mince words." Lachlain leaned forward, brows drawn as if he was struggling to voice his thoughts. "I was no' when I escaped. I went from one rage to the next, destroying anything unfamiliar, experiencing few lucid thoughts. I still was battling these rages when I found Emma," he admitted.

"How did you get free?"

Lachlain hesitated, then hiked up his pants leg.

Bowe leaned forward to see, then whistled out a breath. "You lost it?"

Lachlain brushed the fabric down. "There was no time. The fires had abated and I scented her on the surface." He swooped up his glass and drew deeply. "I feared losing her after so long."

"You…took your leg?"

"Aye."

Seeing Lachlain about to crush his glass, Bowe changed the subject. "How are you with her?" After what they did to you.

"At first I terrified her. Lost control again and again. But I believe it would have been even worse if she had no' been there. I think I would no' have recovered at all. She calms me, and my thoughts are so focused on her, I've little time to think of the past."

The beauty calms the beast? "And where did you find your Emmaline Troy that you had no' been able to for so long? Where was your wee queen hiding?"

"She was no' born before seventy years ago."

He raised his eyebrows. "So young? Is she everything you'd hoped?"

"Much more than I'd hoped." Lachlain ran his fingers through his hair. "I could never even conceive of a mate like her. Emma's clever, with a mind so tricky and complicated, I know I'll never figure her out. And she's far too beautiful and frustratingly secretive and no' like any other woman I've ever met." He took a swig from his glass, this time savoring it. "The more I understand her phrasings, the more I realize my mate is a witty, droll lass." His lips curled absently, no doubt as he remembered some amusement. When he finally faced Bowe again, he said, "I had no' expected her humor, but welcome it gladly."

Bowe knew something extraordinary was at work for Lachlain even to approach a smile so soon after his torture. If Bowe had been convinced that Lachlain was confused and mistaken about his mate, he was no longer. Lachlain was lost for this Emmaline. Obviously, she was his. "So how do you plan to keep her? Seems her care and feeding would be verra involved."

"She drinks from me. Has never taken from another living being."

Though he'd seen the nick, Bowe was still surprised. "So she does no' kill?"

"Never," Lachlain said in a proud tone. "I'd wondered about that as well, but she's gentle—would never hurt a fly. I had to force her to take from me."

"That's why your leg is no' healing as it should," Bowe observed.

"A verra small price to pay."

"And what's that like, when she drinks?" As Lachlain formulated an answer, Bowe said, "The expression you're trying to hide says much." Christ, Lachlain liked it.

He ran his hand over his mouth. "The act is intensely…pleasurable. But besides that, I believe it bonds us. Connects us. As least, it has me." In a lower voice, he admitted, "I've come to crave it more than she does, I believe."

Lost for her. Vampire or not, Bowe envied him the feeling. "And how is such a young immortal handling the epic destiny of being your queen?"

"She does no' know it."

At Bowe's look, he said, "She would no' be pleased. As I said, I was…I have no' treated her as I should. I have no' shown her respect and dinna bother hiding my feelings about a vampire's nature. She only wants to return to her home, and I doona blame her."

"I'd wondered why you had no' marked her. This is a vulnerable time."

"I ken that. Believe me. I've spent centuries imagining how I would spoil and protect my mate, and yet I've made Emma's life into a living hell."

"Then why were you angry with her this morning, Lachlain?" He narrowed his eyes. "I canna tell you how ill-advised that is."

"I was worried and became angry. I'm no' now."

"You've no' claimed her—you could lose her."

"Is that what happened to Mariah?"

Lachlain knew better than to speak of her around Bowe. Mariah had been Bowe's fey mate who'd died fleeing him.

When Bowe cast him a savage look, Lachlain said, "I ken you never talk about it, but in this case, do I need to know something?"

"Aye. Your Emma's other and will always be so. Doona be stubborn and stupid. And doona try to force her to our ways." Bowe added in a low voice, "Else end up a cautionary tale like me."

Lachlain began to say something, then hesitated.

"What? Ask me what you will."

"How do you do it? Continuing on for so long? Now that I fully understand what you have lost, I doona know that I could."

Bowe arched an eyebrow. "And I doona think I could have my flesh burned from me every day for decades and stay sane." He shrugged. "We all have our petty torments." But the two were not equal and they both knew it. Bowe would gladly go to hell to get Mariah back.

"Do you believe Mariah might…?" Lachlain trailed off, brows drawing together. "You saw her die, did you no'?"

Bowe turned away, but not before he felt his face leached of color. In a voice barely discernible, he said, "I…buried her." He had, and he knew she was gone. But he also knew the Lore couldn't be predicted and the rules were often fluid. He now spent his life looking for the key to bring her back.

What else did he have?

Analytical Lachlain was putting him under scrutiny. "You canna get her back."

Bowe faced him again. "No one escapes the vampires. Lykae canna have a mate who's part vampire. There's no such thing as a vampire/Valkyrie creature. Who are you to tell me what's possible?"

Lachlain said nothing, no doubt viewing this as a delusion, a weakness. Bowe wondered if Lachlain would just let him have it.

"You're right," he finally agreed, surprising Bowe. "Things happen that we doona understand. If you had told me two weeks ago that my mate was a vampire, I would have called you sick."

"Aye, so doona concern yourself with me. You've enough on your plate. Harmann told me you were ambushed by three vampires the night before last."

He nodded. "Recently the vampires have stalked Valkyrie all over the world. But they might have been after Emma."

"Could be. She's the first vampire female I've heard of in centuries."

"Then I have even more incentive to destroy the Horde. I will no' let her be taken by them."

"What do you plan to do?"

"I can find the catacombs once more, and we will wait until the guards return. Force them to tell us where Helvita is."

"We've tortured vampires before and were never able to extract that information from them."

A deadly expression hardened Lachlain's face and his eyes turned sharply. "They've taught me much about torture."

Lachlain might be healing on the outside, but inside he was still being tormented. He was right—if he hadn't found his mate when he did…So what would happen to Lachlain if he left her to seek this revenge?

"Are you up for a war?"

Bowe gave him a bored expression. "When have I no' been? Curious, though, what the hurry is. Are you so anxious to leave your new mate just now?"

"I've told you I've little time to think of the past, but after I claim her and convince her to stay with me, then I will have to seek out this revenge."

"I understand."

"I doona know that you do. I canna ignore the vows for revenge that I made to myself every day in hell." The glass of scotch shattered. Lachlain stared down at the glinting shards and rasped, "That was all I had."

"Lachlain, you ken I'll fight by your side. Garreth and others will gladly. But I doona believe we can win. As long as they can trace, it does no' matter if we are stronger or have more numbers. We will always lose."

"Do we have more numbers?"

"Oh, aye. Hundreds of thousands now."

At Lachlain's disbelieving expression, Bowe said, "A continent away from the vampires is very comfortable for the clan. They've gone back to the old ways, having seven, eight, even ten bairns in a family. The only problem with America is that that's where two Valkyrie covens reside." He smirked. "You know how territorial your in-laws can be."

Lachlain scowled. "Doona remind me."

"By the way, if I, with my limited social engagements, heard rumors of activity up at the castle, I'm sure others did as well. You doona have a lot of time. Can you no' charm her?"

His expression stark, he admitted, "Just two nights ago, I…I almost strangled her to death while I slept."

Bowe winced, as much from the deed as from Lachlain's palpable shame.

"The same night she saw me turn against the vampires."

"Christ, Lachlain. And how'd she react to the change?"

"Found it terrifying, of course. She's even more wary of me now." He ran a hand over the back of his neck.

"Why do you no' tell her what happened to you—"

"Never. I have to believe she'll come to care for me. And if she does, that knowledge would pain her. I feel she'll come around, but I need more time. If I could just speed up the process."

Bowe drained his glass, then contemplated the bottom of it. "Get her drunk. Human males do it all the time. One night of lowering her inhibitions…"

Lachlain almost grinned, then saw Bowe was serious. "You think if I was, then she would become so?"

"Why no'?"

Lachlain shook his head. "No. No' while I've still got a chance."

When Bowe saw Lachlain repeatedly glance to the window, no doubt noting that sunset neared, he said, "Go. Be there when she wakes."

Lachlain nodded and rose. "I actually want to be there before she rises. My lass prefers to bed on the floor, but I've fought her on it. I will no longer—"

"You bloody bitch!" a woman screamed from the gallery downstairs.