by Caris Roane
Yes, but aren’t you the regis?
Only in that I support my prime female. You can do this, Lorelei. Just trust your instincts.
In the middle of what promised to turn into a shifter war, Lorelei had the oddest thought that she could get used to this, being this close to Seth, standing by his side, figuring out impossible situations.
Finally, she closed her eyes and let all four pack frequencies hit her. She would have fallen at the strength of their vibrations, but Seth caught and steadied her.
What do you need me to do?
His voice in her head gave her confidence. Turn with me. I want to feel each pack clearly. I have their frequencies separated but they’re so close to disintegrating.
You got it.
Opening her eyes, she moved in a slow circle, and met the gaze of each alpha male head-on: Ephyx, Cohoet, Valgus, Alophi. Four massive shifters, physically powerful, each almost as tall as Seth but not nearly so lean.
They were magnificent leaders, each different from the other. Fur sprouted on her wrists in layers to her fingers tips as well as a deepening of the ruff that encircled her throat.
The chaotic energy of the packs resonated within her and her body wanted to go wolf and wanted it now.
But without shifting, she opened up her pack frequency, that same vibration of energy that she’d experienced before at Seth’s home and more recently at the hot spring. All four pack vibrations pulsed heavily now, battering her.
Her first instinct was to shut it all down because the vibrations overwhelmed her. But she squeezed Seth’s hand hard and his voice entered her head. You’re doing fine. I can feel the vibrations as well because I’m connected to you. Just let them flow. I’ve got you.
He couldn’t have spoken wiser words right now. For most of her life, she’d had only herself to rely on and now Seth stood with her in what was proving a very painful process.
The vibrations became a growing fire in her body, burning her up from within. She also knew that if she didn’t do something soon, she would die from the onslaught, but what was she supposed to do?
Once more, Seth pierced her mind. I can feel that you’re close to what you need to do next. Just focus. You’re almost there and I’m with you.
She settled her breathing and closed her eyes, then the words began forming in her head and left her throat in a strong, vibrant voice, something she’d never done before, as she called out, “The community of shifters in Walvashorr is one, and I am with you, to serve you, for as long as the Goddess wills me to do so.” The fire began to flow out of her now and along each frequency. But what she was saying felt more fae than shifter, another sign that she wasn’t normal. “Let the territories and boundaries be restored.” The last few words came out as a fierce command and she could feel the four pack territories realigning.
But there was more that needed to be said.
“You are one in battle from this time forth, though four separate units, and you will continue to serve the Mastyr of Walvashorr. One day you will hear his commands within you and see his visions to aid you in battle. Come now and submit yourselves to him.”
The power streamed steadily and she could sense that each alpha had begun calming down, his troops with him. The experience was very realm and mysterious, something she knew the shifter community valued, as all realm-folk did. Not everything could be understood rationally.
She opened her eyes, the fur at her wrists moving in soft waves as the frequency faded.
The alphas came forward and each knelt in front of Seth, confirming once more their loyalty and service, pack hierarchy at work. The crisis was over. Somehow, she’d effectively returned the territorial boundaries back to their original demarcation points.
Lorelei still held onto Seth’s hand, knowing that the connection to him had played a part in altering the volatility of the situation. She held the frequencies open and as each mastyr rose, she knew his signature as surely as the moon rose and fell.
She glanced up at Seth. What do we do now?
I’ve got this.
He spoke aloud, his resonant voice echoing through the conference grounds. “This marks a new night in realm history that will set a precedent for all the Nine Realms, that our packs can come together and function as one. Yours is the first, the Shifter Brigade of Walvashorr, and will be known as the ancestor of this new beginning for all time.”
Almost as one, a cheer rose up from the four packs. The alphas acknowledged each other with stiff dips of chins, then each blurred through the transformation from man to wolf. The packs followed suit then ran into the forest in different directions heading back to their territories, to guard the Shauck Mountain realm families from the Invictus depredations.
Within less than a minute, Lorelei stood alone with Seth, in the middle of Big Timber, the snow trampled with hundreds of foot and paw prints, a cold wind blowing.
“This feels so strange, so much colder without the troops.”
He squeezed her hand. “One moment surrounded and now alone.”
She turned toward him. “I couldn’t have done that without you. There was a moment when the chaotic nature of the frequencies caused unbearable burning.”
“I know, I felt it. What did you do? How did you overcome what was happening?”
“With your support more than anything.”
He nodded. “You amaze me, Lorelei.”
She felt flustered. “Well, these are just abilities I have, they’re not something I’ve created.”
“I know, but you handle it all with tremendous grace.”
She stared up at him and felt her throat grow very tight. “Thank you for that, Mastyr Seth.”
His smile grew crooked. “I think with what we’ve been through, you should stick to calling me Seth. Anything else just feels wrong.”
“I suppose it does.” She searched his eyes. “So, we’re prime female and regis?”
“I guess we are.”
Lorelei straightened her shoulders and drew in a deep breath. She became aware on a basic level that she’d never truly accepted who she was in her world, especially since she was a product of genetic manipulation. She’d always felt like a freak and her current role as prime female had spoken to her deepest fears of being found out and treated exactly like what she believed herself to be.
Yet even Batya and Quinlan had shown her great kindness and the deepest respect by helping her get to Ferrenden Peace, to a place where she could learn the skills to stay hidden forever from her mother.
Seth released her hand but held his arm out to her. “How about we get back to my house and see if we can’t figure out the next step.”
“Good idea.” She wrapped an arm around his neck at the same time that he slipped his around her waist and drew her close.
He didn’t take off right away, however. Instead, he stared into her eyes, then he kissed her, his moist, sensual lips plying hers until some of the tension left her and she parted for him.
He slid his tongue inside her mouth, thrusting in and out and making all sorts of promises. She shivered as he drew back.
“Cold?”
Shaking her head, she smiled. “Hungry for things I should probably ignore right now.”
“I beg to disagree.”
She caught his meaning and kissed him back. “I’m just worried.”
“You worry a lot.”
“I do, but probably no less than you.”
He nodded. “And that’s one more thing we share in common.”
“One more thing?”
“We both worry, we’ve both lived solitary lives, and we each know that to some degree the future of the Nine Realms rests on our shoulders, on doing what we’ve been required to do, or in your case, not getting trapped by Margetta again.”
“When you put it like that, now I really am worried.”
“Let me get you home. We both need a good meal.”
“Oh, you’re right. Neither of us have had first meal, have we? And I sh
ould probably tell you that my heart is feeling pretty laden about now, blood rose that I am.”
His turn to shiver as a hint of fang appeared.
And with that, he took them both into the night air, heading south to his home at Shauck Gorge.
Chapter Six
Seth felt knocked out of stride, but not necessarily in a bad way. He had never factored someone like Lorelei into the equation of his life. Now she was here, a warmth pressed to his side that had been cold for so long.
She seemed to have bumped up more than one aspect of his life at the same time since she’d altered, maybe forever, his chronic blood-starvation. He had a sexual need and a drive toward her he couldn’t explain, and if that wasn’t enough, her role as prime female had created a new type of unity among his realm’s four, extremely volatile shifter packs.
In short, he held a miracle in his arms.
So, he wasn’t exactly sure how to adjust to her.
He reached his home swiftly, landing on the sweeping front porch which overlooked the gorge.
She stepped off him and her hands caught his eye. “You’re still sporting a ruff.”
She lifted both hands. “This is weird. I mean, they usually disappear right away.” She touched the ruff at her neck. “I didn’t expect it to stay.”
He took one of her hands and as he’d done earlier to her neck, he now buried his nose in the soft white fur, flared his nostrils, and drank in her scent. With the fur, the apple blossoms carried an earthy layer that aroused him. Using his teeth, and without thinking, he nibbled at the layers.
He heard her gasp. When he lifted his head, she seemed startled. “What is it?”
“You have that feel about you right now, like you’re going to stop thinking any second and go all caveman on me.” She smiled, adding, “And as much as I’d like that, I think we should eat before things go any farther.”
“You’re right.” But his mind felt muddled.
When she turned away from him and opened the front door, he followed behind as if she held him by a leash. With her scent in his nose, he wanted more. He was almost behaving more shifter-like than vampire—another undecipherable in his current life.
He was pure vampire. That much he knew, but not necessarily around Lorelei. And maybe that’s what Davido had meant, that the few indiscernible markers he carried simply by being ‘realm’ had been awakened by Lorelei. The fact that he wanted to bite the back of her neck was proof enough that his thinking had made a jump in an unexpected direction.
She went straight to the kitchen and simply took charge, heating a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup that his housekeeper had left for him in a tureen in the fridge. She sliced off thick slabs of the homemade sourdough bread, buttering each thoroughly, popping them afterwards in the oven to broil.
Finally able to access his rational brain, he asked, “Wine?”
“Lovely.” She smiled at him over her shoulder, the fur still visible on her wrists.
His jaw trembled for things he didn’t understand. He needed to bond with her. That’s what shot through his head. He needed to mark her, mate with her, bond her to him and do it now. His whole body called out for it, demanded he pull rank and let her know she belonged to him, only to him.
Taking several deep breaths, he forced himself to leave the kitchen and went down the stairs into a deep cave where he kept hundreds of bottles of wine, all at appropriate temperatures. He pulled a bottle of sweet German white wine from a cooling fridge. He wasn’t sure why, but most realm-folk, and especially his mastyr vampire brethren, loved this wine.
He took it upstairs and found Lorelei had set the table and was already ladling the soup into bowls.
“Smells wonderful.” She’d added a platter of sharp cheddar cheese, grapes and figs, the fruit imported from Columbus, Ohio, his realm’s earth access point. “You work fast.”
She put a hand to her stomach. “That’s because I’m beyond starved.”
She fetched a couple of wine glasses as he opened the bottle, then brought the soup and bread to the table. She sat down to wait while he poured the wine.
He took a seat across from her, and here was another first, a woman in his breakfast nook, dining with him. His brain refused to compute this new information so he picked up his spoon and she joined him.
She ate slowly and quietly, her gaze moving as it often did to the view of Defiance Falls to the north. In the distance, the Shauck River fell from tall, three hundred foot cliffs in a dozen different places. Fir trees and shrubs grew up around the same area, and for some reason he started telling her about the Shauck Mountains and more about the bridges he’d built, and all the help he’d had, especially from the troll community who were excellent at executing the wood suspension configurations.
She asked simple but pointed questions that kept the topic moving from bridges to gorges, to the farms that he had the most difficulty protecting, to his Vampire Guard that had spent two weeks in Ferrenden Peace.
She smiled. “I often went into town during that time, when your Guard was there, especially the pubs. Quinlan and Batya had already left, but I was free to roam at will, never having to worry about Margetta. Your men, as well as Quinlan’s troll brigade, had a superb time, having been given permission to spread their seed at will to help expand the city’s genetic base. I had to keep my shifter-senses shut down a little because the scent of sex in the air was everywhere and you were on my mind.”
He leaned forward and took her hand, holding her gaze. “Wish I could have been there to take care of you. I would have, in a heartbeat.”
She spoke softly. “Seth.” And her light apple blossom scent rushed over him.
He let her hand go and leaned back in his chair. She needed to eat especially since she’d be feeding him soon, but he longed to pick her up and carry her to his bed.
He picked up his spoon instead, and focused on eating. He kept the conversation from that point focused on the history of his realm.
When he was done with his meal, he rose from his chair. “Please take your time and eat all you want. Right now I have to call my second-in-command to see how things are shaping up tonight in the south.”
“Of course.”
He moved into the living room and pulled his cell from the pocket of his battle leathers. “Hey, Aaron. What’s the climate out there?”
“The Invictus are quiet, maybe too quiet for my taste.” He detailed how he’d apportioned the Vampire Guard throughout the lower half of the realm, standard procedure, an arrangement Seth had built through reviewing battle logs over the past century. His Guard had one of the highest kill-rates in the Nine Realms because of his attention to enemy attack patterns, and his analytical mind.
Aaron added that Mastyr Jude had called about half an hour ago. “He said one of his most powerful fae had had a vision that he’s to come to Walvashorr to help out with some kind of event, but he couldn’t say what. I think he wants a call back. Do you have something planned I don’t know about?”
“Things are changing,” he murmured, his gaze falling once more to the fur still enhancing Lorelei’s hands. “If Jude’s fae thinks there’s something here and that he needs to be present, then he should come. But don’t worry, I’ll take care of this. I’m at Shauck Gorge and Lorelei’s with me.”
“Your bodyguard.”
He drew a deep breath, one of many in recent hours. “Yes. And there’s something else you should know.” He trusted Aaron implicitly not to spread the word around, but he felt his second-in-command should have full knowledge of what was going on. “She’s a blood rose.”
Long pause, then, “Holy fuck. You’re kidding. So, she’s your woman.”
He made the statement so succinctly, that Seth spoke before he could even process what he ought to say. “Absolutely, she’s my woman.”
And there it was again, that powerful need to lay claim to her. And yet, he knew how he’d responded to Batya as a blood rose the moment he’d seen her two months ago
in the queen’s receiving room. He’d lost complete sense of where he was, took her in his arms, and would have pierced her neck with his fangs if Quinlan hadn’t knocked him flat.
Which meant that if Jude was coming anywhere near Lorelei, he needed a plan in place and to make sure one of the biggest mastyrs in the Nine Realms knew that Lorelei was taken. Returning to the kitchen doorway, he glanced her direction.
She now stood by the far window near the table and stared out at the falls, her glass of wine in hand. He called to her quietly, “One more phone call, and I’m all yours.”
His choice of words surprised him, but they were damn accurate. The fact that she turned toward him and smiled, a blush rising on her cheeks, gave him confidence that they were on the same page.
He headed back to the living room and called Jude.
A moment later, the mastyr’s voice came on the line. “Seth, you dumbfuck, how’s it hanging?”
Seth smiled. Jude was a lot like Ethan, just really out there. He might even have been Seth’s opposite, built as Jude was like a tank. He had more muscle than Quinlan but probably ranged at six-six. And no doubt when he flew, he bruised the air that rushed toward him.
“I got a message from Aaron that you’ve had some kind of fae revelation.”
“Yeah. Looks like you’ve got an attack coming, something big. Remember when we last spoke, after you met Queen Rosamunde and you shared what you knew about Margetta?”
“Of course.”
“Well, it’s Margetta again. According to my fae source, Margetta needs to shut something down in your realm and if she can do this successfully, she’ll gain a huge advantage in her bid to dominate all the realms.”
Seth thumbed his forehead. “And what is it she needs to shut down?”
“The fae couldn’t say exactly, but she kept having a recurring image of long slender female hands, fae hands, trimmed with white fur. Which made no sense to me. Does it to you?”
And there it was, another indication that he and Lorelei were caught in a powerful realm experience. “Perfect sense.” But he didn’t like that Lorelei, despite her intricate enthrallment shield, was still in danger.
