by Scott, Helen
I gaped at him. “She’s immortal?”
He shook his head. “You’re not listening, Darius.”
“I am. I just don’t know what the hell you’re trying to tell me.”
“She is a Mother. One of the Sires now. No longer just one in the making, but the head of a new line.” As he drummed his fingers harder against the sofa’s armrest, he muttered, “And as much as I wish it weren’t the case, there is no killing a Sire. I forged their power too carefully to allow something as simple as death to overtake them. Just as is the way with me, we can imprison them but not kill.”
Blinking, I asked, “You mean to tell me that there’s no way to kill your descendants?”
Merlin grumbled, “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Which, dear boy, means you’re as impossible to kill as your mate is considering your life is tied to hers.”
Because this wasn’t making any sense, I scrubbed a hand over my head and mumbled, “How is she even your child?”
Merlin grinned. “She isn’t my child. She’s a daughter of my line, a line that somehow melded with a child of Nimue’s. Arthur, Elayne, Morgause and Morgana were the first born. After that, I was less invested in imbuing my spawn with powers. They inherited some, granted, but not all. Merging Nimue’s and my powers down the line, as well as a delicious dose of fate which neither the Lady nor I can control… well, it made Marcella.” He beamed at me. “Now, aren’t you grateful that it did?”
Even as I gaped at him, I had to admit that yeah, I was fucking grateful. Even if all of this was a migraine that wouldn’t quit.
❖
Keiran
When I woke the next morning, it was almost as though I’d had a restful night’s sleep. Almost. My dreams had been filled with what felt like runoff from everyone else’s subconscious. Not only were my dreams my own, but there were dreams mixed in that had nothing to do with me.
I knew they weren’t mine because I had very different tastes than some of my brothers. Most of the dreams involved Marcella, except for Barclay, who was just dreaming about running as his wolf. Marcella, if she’d dreamed, had kept her thoughts to herself, which was a surprise because I’d begun sharing whatever it was she was dreaming about, since my subconscious was looking after her even while I slept.
The dreams, or maybe just thoughts, that were the weirdest, though, had to come from Merlin. The grove that he’d been trapped in seemed to follow his mind around as though he’d never left it. Part of it was just the way his mental walls were created, but the other part... If I didn’t know better, I’d say the Lady put another set of walls around his mind just in case he ever did get out of the prison she’d trapped him in.
Rav? I called, mentally knocking on my brother’s mind.
What’s up? my brother asked, sounding as though I’d just woke him up.
Have you tried to poke at our new friend’s mental walls yet?
Not a chance. You think I want to piss off the Maker? he scoffed, and I smirked up at the ceiling.
Wuss, I taunted him with no heat, and received a telepathic ‘bird’ for my pains. I was dreaming last night and it felt like my dreams were being filled with everyone else’s, if that makes sense.
I knew he was nodding somehow and that he was yawning. Maker, we all needed more rest, which we weren’t going to get until we had this shit with the Lady figured out. How exactly we were going to do that, I had no idea, but at least we had the Maker on our side now.
Marcella doesn’t have any mental walls anymore, Rav said, startling me out of the confusing direction my thoughts had taken.
What? How can she not? When did this happen? The questions spilled out of me as I tried to make sense of what Raven was telling me.
After she was possessed by the Lady.
Even though Cade took us back in time?
Yep. Her thoughts have been spilling into me whenever I open myself up enough to try and get a read on anyone. I haven’t talked to her about it yet, there hasn’t exactly been a decent opportunity. We need to spend some alone time with her ASAP. I assume Merlin isn’t going to hang out with us all the time, so once he goes, Marcella needs some of our undivided attention.
I was quiet for a minute while I processed what he had said. Even though we had reversed the effects of the Lady taking over Marcella’s body, whatever she’d done for the brief moment she was in it was enough to wreck her mentally. Add that to the fact that she hadn’t talked to us about it, and I could understand why Raven was feeling wary of the situation which felt like it was going to headbutt us any time soon.
Have you been out to see what the damage is yet this morning?
Raven mentally shook his head. Hard to feel like venturing out of this bedroom when it seems like the world is just a mess, you know?
I feel that. I’m getting up though. Would appreciate any backup you want to give me against the fucking Maker. I mentally shook my head at the idea of the Maker being in the same hotel suite as us, like he was just a regular guy. WTF.
Raven mentally and physically snorted. Not only did I sense it in my mind, but I heard it through the thin wall separating my room from his as well.
I pulled on some clothes and went to figure out what the hell our next steps were. My hand hesitated on the door handle leading to the rest of the suite. Part of me wished that we could rewind to when we thought the council was our biggest issue, but the rest of me knew that the only way forward was to put the Lady on her ass.
When I finally stepped out into the living area, I found most of the guys already up, but there was no sign of Darius or Merlin. Marcella was lounging in one of the chairs eating a donut. The puffy pastry was coated in sugar and had red jam squishing out from the middle as she took a bite. Desire roared through me as I watched her delicately lick her lips and catch some of the syrup from the preserves with her tongue before it fell from the edge of the sweet treat.
“Fuck, Chella. Do you even know what you’re doing to us right now?” Cade sighed and adjusted himself.
“Sorry!” she replied with a grin, which made me think she wasn’t sorry at all.
“Morning, beautiful,” I greeted as I walked over and kissed her, licking the sugar off her lips before I was done, and sweeping my tongue into her mouth to discover that it was raspberry jam filling the donut. Yum. My favorite.
“Morning,” she panted, when I was done.
“Where’s everyone else?” Raven called out as I pulled away from our mate. Cutting him a look, I saw he hadn’t even bothered to brush his hair after tumbling out of bed.
“Darius was taking Merlin on a tour of the city. Not that Penzance is much of a city. It’s the first place Merlin’s had a chance to really see though, and he wanted to learn more about modern life firsthand, not just from the birds and the trees,” Barclay explained as he slathered a piece of toast with butter.
“He did leave behind an interesting bit of information though,” Marcella commented, as she licked the sugar from her fingertips after taking another bite of the sweet treat.
“Oh?” I prompted, as I slumped into a chair opposite her, more than content to watch her finish her food before I tried to find any for myself. Maker, I could watch this woman do just about anything and I’d probably find it sexy.
“Merlin told him who the other two parts of the triad are,” Marcella said, skewering me with her eyes, which were mostly the silver of her pursang. “He told me before they left.”
I raised my eyebrows to her in question, just as Raven called out behind me, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
“What?” Cade demanded.
“It’s Elizabeth and Lily,” Marcella answered darkly.
“No. No way,” Barclay argued, sounding horrified by the idea—couldn’t blame him considering who the women were mated to.
“Yes way. Which means we need to get back to the States and start figuring out how we are going to persuade them to help us,” Marcella replied with a tired sigh.
“I’
ve barely gotten over the jet lag from coming here,” Gideon grumbled, before shoving a forkful of pancakes into his mouth.
“Certainly seems like your appetite is over it,” Marcella joked.
“What can I say, I appreciate good food,” Gideon retorted once he’d swallowed his bite of pancake, but his grin showed he wasn’t repentant.
“So, back to the topic at hand before we get too distracted—” I knew where those grins would lead us. “—how are we going to convince two women who hate us that they need to work with us?” I questioned.
A cloud passed over Marcella’s face, and I hated being the one to drag us back to the business aspect of everything, but I didn’t want us to hop on a plane only to get there with no plan. Sometimes, I wished I wasn’t so practical, that I’d learned to keep my mouth shut, or that I had all the answers so we didn’t even have to worry about it, but none of those things were true.
“Maybe Merlin can talk to them? I mean, if the Maker came and asked me to do something, I’d fuckin’ do it,” Cade suggested.
“Doubtful, he’s got to keep the Lady distracted. Plus, I feel like if he goes to talk to Lily then it will just paint a big ass target on her back. If she dies, who’s to say that we can complete the triangle with someone else? Then there’s the fact that Elizabeth is the Cavalry’s mate, and they’re never going to agree to her helping Merlin. If he goes to her, then our chance at taking on the Lady might go with it. I don’t know if I’m willing to risk that,” I reasoned, trying to make sure that the conversation stayed logical and practical. Merlin was not our ace in the hole in this instance. He was more a red herring that we needed to throw out there to get everyone else off our backs for a moment.
“Darius?” Raven proposed. “Definitely not me, at least not with Elizabeth. I think she’d rather destroy the world than do anything that would help me.” The regret in his tone made me feel for the guy. There wasn’t a lot we could do to change the past, and at the time manipulating—read, torturing—Elizabeth and her friends to get the information we needed was necessary. It didn’t mean he enjoyed it though.
“I think it needs to be our Sixth,” Gideon recommended.
I’d been thinking the same thing, but I was sure Marcella would shoot the idea down immediately, which was why I didn’t suggest it. Turned out she didn’t.
“Why me?” she inquired.
“Because if you’re the middle ground, like Merlin said, then they should both be drawn to you, or at the very least see parts of themselves reflected in you. You wield the power of shadow and light, and you’re apparently going to create a whole new line of pursangs with the same powers—ya know, nothing major,” he broke off to tease. When she rolled her eyes, he smirked and carried on, “I bet if you talk to them, show them what’s changed, then they’ll listen to you.”
“You are far more hopeful about them not holding a grudge than I am,” Marcella muttered with a sigh.
“I think you’re underestimating the power and influence you have,” I countered.
She frowned at the thought.
“You’ll have to get used to it, love. You’re the most powerful Vampire in existence right now, and once you become a Mother, you’ll be birthing a whole new power,” I insisted.
“I never asked to be this Mother shit. Never asked to be a Sire. But, fuck, it means I got you so I guess I can’t grumble too hard,” she grumbled, “I’ll talk to Elizabeth and Lily, but you’ll see, they won’t listen to me any more now than they did then. Not unless I terrify them into it.”
In line with her discontent at our conversation, the shadows from the room suddenly coalesced and formed her hellcat, which started prowling around the room.
“Chella, we don’t want to destroy the hotel,” Barclay teased, his lips twitching at the shadow beast.
Of course, that was the moment Darius returned to the hotel suite. When the door opened and he stepped in, the hellcat loped over and began sniffing him. Fortunately, at this point the beast was familiar enough with all of us that it didn’t immediately attack. I held my breath, waiting for Merlin to appear and the inevitable confusion that would follow, but it never came.
“Where’s the wizard?” Cade asked.
“Gone off exploring,” Darius replied, frowning at Cade. “I wouldn’t call him that to his face unless you want to insult him, which considering we already have an enemy in the Lady, probably best not to make one in the Maker himself as well.”
“When is he coming back?” Marcella queried, and there was a roughness to her voice that made me hope he wasn’t coming back for a long time. “I don’t know. He never said where he was going,” Darius answered. “Why? Was there something you had in mind, Mate?”
❖
Marcella
I grinned at Darius, then shot each of the men a look that had them all responding in myriad ways, making my pursang croon in delight.
From Darius’s scowl to Gideon’s clenched jaw, then there was Keiran’s swallow that had his Adam’s apple bobbing, Raven’s smirk, and Cade’s narrowed eyes…
Ugh. What they could do to me with such a simple response should be illegal. But, saying that, I was certain what we got down to in the bedroom was probably illegal somewhere in the States.
Shit, maybe even in England.
They were all prudes over here, right?
With a power that was purely sexual throbbing through my veins, I taunted, “I’m not sure all of you could handle me. In fact, I know you couldn’t.”
I was definitely teasing them, but the sudden surge of pheromones in the room was so cloying, it was almost enough to choke on.
The strange thing was, however, that the scent I’d known for weeks now had morphed, changed.
It was the same, and yet it was completely different.
Either that was because of me or because of them, and considering I was the one who’d been taken over by the Lady, I figured it was me.
I reached up and rubbed my forehead, and the second I did, the tension in the air changed once more. Shifting from need and lust to concern. Worry.
“What is it?” Barclay demanded, scraping back his chair to come over and squat down in front of me.
His proximity made something deep inside me feel good. I wasn’t sure why. I always loved being close to him, always wanted him near, but it was as though…
I tilted my head to the side as I leaned toward him. He didn’t rear back in surprise, as usual, since they were pretty passive when they thought I was about to feed from them, but this time, I didn’t strike for his throat. I thought that surprised him, and probably disappointed him, but though the ache for his blood was there, I didn’t let it overtake my purpose.
What was different about their scents?
I inhaled, loving the earthy freshness that Barclay exuded. There was a strength to him that seemed to seep from his pores, but he was lighter, more buoyant and playful than the others, which was something I knew was sourced from the wolf.
Even as I thought of the beast, it clicked inside me.
The burning ache deep in my core wasn’t sexual, and it had nothing to do with lust or arousal. If anything, it was spiritual.
It was an ache that usually appeared when I was afraid or scared. One that answered the call I released when I’d been bullied at Westbrook by Lily and her cronies.
Like a flower, the ache unfurled, and as I pressed my face into Barclay’s throat, loving that his arms instantly slid around my waist, I felt them, my creatures, forge into being.
But this time?
It wasn’t only the shadows I was calling on, but the light too.
As I drew from both, calling them into me so I could shape them into what I needed, I felt the different animals come to life.
They were as much a pack as my brotherhood, and now they had a new addition… the dragon.
I felt the brimstone in the air, rubbing alongside the gases as though it was settling uneasily into place, overtaking the CO2 and oxygen, making th
em its bitch.
My lips curved as I heard my mates’ startled yelps at the invaders of our private suite. Sucking down a sharp breath then pressing a quick kiss to where I’d be biting later , I pulled away from Barclay and looked at what I’d forged.
As I stared at the creatures, I glanced over the newer one. I was accustomed to the hellcat, the black bear, and the eagle, but the dragon was definitely new to me.
Its feralness was as heavy a presence in the room as the brimstone in the air, and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on edge. But, and it was a huge but, for the first time since the Lady had overtaken me, I felt at peace.
“What the hell?”
I blinked, surprised at Raven’s words. “What is it?” I asked, instinctively knowing he wasn’t surprised about the animals suddenly popping up out of nowhere in the dining room of our penthouse.
“Your shields are back.”
They were back?
I frowned. “When did they come down?” Then, I grimaced. “Sorry. Stupid question.”
Barclay’s hand settled on my knee and he squeezed gently. “Nothing you do or say could be stupid.”
My heart melted and I shot him a sappy smile as the guys around us made disgusted noises, which told me what they thought about his declaration.
“Thank you, babe,” I murmured, ignoring them to press a kiss to the end of his nose.
He beamed a smile at me that had my heart skipping a beat, his happiness was contagious enough to fill me with its warmth before I had to focus on what Raven had said.
Bracing myself, I inquired, “You’ve been able to read my mind?”
He winced. “Not intentionally.”
I wafted a hand. “My thoughts are yours anyway.”
“How very liberal of you,” he teased.
“I’m a liberal kind of gal,” I retorted with a smirk. “If you wanted to know how often I think about your asses and dicks, well, now you know.”
That had my guys snickering, but Raven quickly rejoined, “Not as often as I’d like then.”
