Wrath of the Goddess

by Lauren Dane

  Truth was, though he felt a responsibility to handle Lyr because he’d broken their most sacred laws, Clive’s need to eradicate the other Vampire was a result of the damage that’d been done to Rowan.

  That soft part of her, the Vessel who attended the acolytes and those who sought peace and justice, the Hunter who had pockets of made family all over the planet and yet always thought no one noticed. The wife who had cravats custom made for him and gave him tickets to Beethoven because she knew him so very well.

  His wife had a need to avenge those she loved and he had a need to avenge his wife.

  As a bonus, he would claim this house for the Vampire Nation. He’d claim everything Lyr had accumulated over the centuries of his life and convert it to his own service.

  Lyr’s death would serve as an example to those in North America of what happened to lawbreakers. And remind them all why he was Scion. Fear was useful and instructive, especially for Vampires.

  Tearing down Lyr’s kingdom would be most pleasing.

  * * *

  Genevieve hadn’t faced an opponent as powerful as Lyr in at least two centuries. She’d need to replenish her system with rest and more food than the super protein bar she’d eaten as they’d moved through the house, checking for spelltraps.

  They abounded, as it turned out, and her dreams of having steak and eggs before sleeping for eight hours faded away when the true scope of just how much work it was going to take to clear the house became clear.

  After an hour, she turned back to Clive, who’d just checked in with her as she was clearing one of the guest rooms.

  “It must have taken him months if not over a year to complete these spells. It’s going to take some time and more than one witch.”

  “How much time and how many witches?” he asked.

  “A day, maybe two. And at least three. I can be one of them and pick two others I trust completely.”

  He frowned.

  Impatient for information, she knew. He wanted to get in and learn Lyr’s secrets.

  “You’re nearly immortal. A few more days isn’t really a big deal.” Genevieve spoke softer, not wanting to be overheard. “She’s driving herself into the ground. Having a day where she can’t do anything but rest and regroup will be in her best interest anyway.”

  Rowan, who’d poured love and light into that poor young human the Vampire had been keeping, could sleep easier for the first time in months or so Genevieve hoped.

  “Okay. Coordinate with Patience about what parts of the house have been cleared so she and Pru can start. And perhaps the yard can be gone over so if we need to park vehicles no one is threatened.”

  “I did clear the drive and the immediate front of the house but the back can be gone over as well. Is the girl all right?”

  Clive’s face darkened. “She’s in shock. One of the local Hunters is married to a doctor who checked her in to a private hospital where she can get some treatment. Rowan thinks there were others before her and I tend to agree. She’d been here for three months but that room is older.”

  Genevieve agreed. A cruelty like the one Lyr had carried out wouldn’t have just cropped up overnight.

  “If she’s blessed, she’ll have this whole incident wiped from her mind.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Rowan finished up her phone conference with Susan and tossed her phone to the side with a sigh.

  Clara had gone to the hospital and was under sedation. Her iron had been very low but otherwise, Lyr had kept her fed, warm and dry. Her physical wounds would heal soon enough.

  Rowan thought of the scars on her back.

  But the emotional scars would last a long time. Rowan would keep an eye on her, make sure she got whatever treatment she needed. Whatever help.

  She’d seen a lot of herself in Clara and one day, she’d share that. One day when Clara had an ocean between this moment in her life and her successful future.

  Clara was a survivor. She’d make it.

  Pru and her Hunters had done an excellent job at terror mansion. With the training they had planned, the chapterhouse in Los Angeles would be excellent.

  The Goddess wanted Rowan to rest. Wanted her to pause and be grateful and healed for just a little while and Rowan wasn’t sure that was possible. Rest seemed so far away. Mental and emotional rest seemed impossible.

  There was still a Carey shaped hole in her life. How could she ever get over that? How could she let go of her own part in his murder?

  Thena must have been terrified when they took her. When they tortured her did she scream for Rowan to come save her?

  They died because of Rowan. To shake her and mess with her head. Maybe it was a ghoulish sort of wishful thinking for there to be a bigger reason than simply just to mess with her. Conspiracy theories abounded in their world and some of them were true.

  She thought there’d be more peace when Lyr was killed. Hoped there’d be closure but it didn’t feel that way. Rowan wasn’t sure what to do with this uncertainty and deep well of sadness.

  Regardless, there was always more to do. Focusing on that was how she’d survived and she’d just go with what she knew or drown in the unknown.

  “I’m going to have to come down here every few weeks for a while,” she told Clive as he came into the room.

  “I suspect I will too. How are you feeling?” he asked as he got into one of the beds in the room and patted the mattress next to him.

  She snuggled in next to him and would move once he went into daytime rest. This was her peace. This bond and connection and the way this man gave her his everything because he thought she was worthy of it.

  “I’m bruised and sore and it hurts all over. But I’m alive and you’re alive and the person responsible for killing my friends is dead. By the way, once I stop feeling like I creak when I move, I’m totally going to blow you because you’re sexy as hell when you get all vengeful.”

  His laugh—tired but genuine—made her feel better.

  “There’s still more to do. This isn’t over.”

  “I’m afraid to say I think that might always be true,” he told her before kissing the top of her head.

  “Yes, that’s true.” She yawned. “I’m also going to have to go back to the Keep to check on Theo. Update him face-to-face. You’ll want to come so he can ooh and aaah over how you saved the world by erasing this terrible threat. I know how much you love that shit. I’ll even get all gussied up and play wife to the boss for the night.”

  “You do spoil me, darling.”

  “Goddess, I love you. Thank you. For tonight.” She knew he’d done it not just for himself and for the Vampires he was responsible for. But for her. And for those she loved.

  “You can do something special when you blow me,” he said sleepily.

  “Like with sparklers and a marching band?”

  “There’s simply no one else in the universe like you, Rowan. What a pleasure it is that you are mine.”

  And he meant it.

  Her heart eased and a tiny bit of peace that only he seemed to provide washed through her. It was more than enough.

  * * *

  To read more from Lauren Dane,

  please visit www.laurendane.com.

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  In Diablo Lake, Tennessee, a town populated by werewolves, witches and more, magic woven deep into the earth protects the town’s secrets from outsiders.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from

  Diablo Lake: Moonstruck, by New York Times bestselling author Lauren Dane.

  The rising sun and a huge to-do list drove Kit from the bed in the guest room of her best friend Aimee’s house. M
uch better than the last two weeks on the couch at her parents’ place. Or the hotel near the hospital, several hours’ drive away, where her father was recovering from a stroke several hours’ drive away from Diablo Lake.

  Diablo Lake, the place she’d run from several years before. And still, no matter what, she’d always be from the funky little town full of witches and shifters in the middle of the mountains that had always remained her home.

  Her absence from town was officially over. Starting today, she would take over running the Counter, the family run soda fountain. That way her dad could do his job, which was getting better, and her mother didn’t have to shoulder the stress of trying to help him and run a business at the same time.

  And while she was at it, Kit needed to get the shop back on track so her parents had an economic future and, she supposed, she needed to accept that her future would look vastly different than she’d imagined it just two weeks before when she got the call that her father had been taken to Vanderbilt by helicopter.

  Kit’s groan as her feet hit the floor made her roll her eyes at herself as she stood, swaying slightly, trying to wake up.

  Coffee. Yes, that was a good first step.

  She shuffled into the kitchen and spied the huge pan of cobbler she’d totally forgotten about. Well, surely it would be far easier to get moving that first morning back than it would have been without cobbler. It was science after all. Probably. She really didn’t have time to look it up, but it sounded just right.

  She rustled through some drawers and cabinets and failed to find coffee to go in the coffeemaker or a bowl so after a shrug, she simply spooned some ice cream directly onto the cobbler. Her people were pioneers after all; she could manage this fine breakfast without all the fancy stuff.

  Aimee’s place had been remodeled, she thought as she looked around more closely. Nothing staggering, just a new coat of paint and the stuff had been moved. Aimee had a cute house. It fit her personality and lifestyle with the open floorplan. Once every three years she redid a room to keep things fresh, but overall, the style was warm and sexy with deep earth tones and overstuffed furniture.

  Katie Faith wandered through the kitchen and dining room, spooning her cobbler and ice cream into her mouth as she hugged the pan to her body.

  And that’s how Aimee found her, with a wooden spoon and an entire pan of berry cobbler. Half a pan of berry cobbler.

  One of Aimee’s eyebrows rose as she took the scene in. “Step away from the cobbler, Katie Faith.”

  Kit hugged the pan to her body a little tighter. “Shut up. I’m a growing girl and I need a good breakfast before I go to work. I also need coffee. You’ve remodeled in here and I can’t find it. How can I eat cobbler and ice cream without coffee? I know who raised you to be a good Southern woman. Your momma would be so disappointed in you. Just sayin’.”

  Aimee snorted as she breezed into the kitchen, Kit in her wake. “Just because you know I peed my pants in kindergarten doesn’t mean you get to be grumpy and eat all my cobbler without sharing.” Aimee went to the cabinet to the left of the sink and opened it up, pulling out a red canister. “I have coffee. And I told you I was going to redo the kitchen last month.”

  “I won’t tell anyone about the peed pants if you make me some. Coffee not peed pants. I’ll be your best friend,” Kit said in a singsong voice and tried to look thirsty and pitiful all at once.

  “You’re full of it, Katie Faith. Just you know that I know it.” Aimee did that thing with her finger pointing from her eyes to Kit.

  “As long as you know it while you’re making me some coffee.” Kit winked and held the spoon, full of cobbler, her friend’s way. “This is Sandy’s cobbler, isn’t it? I’m going to gain five pounds just being in the same room with it. I can’t believe I missed the bake sale yesterday.”

  “There’s always another bake sale. It’s Diablo Lake.” Aimee turned on the coffeemaker, handed a clean spoon to Kit and dug in, settling in next to her on the small kitchen bench. “You’ll be moving back here permanently anyway.”

  Kit froze. “We don’t know that for sure. Could just be six months or so.”

  “Doesn’t change what’s true anyway. Your crazy vacation in Chattanooga is over and done and you can come on home. Accept reality, Katie Faith. Your parents are getting older. You need to come back here for them if for no other reason. What’s past is past. No one gives a fart in a high wind about Darrell Pembry.”

  It did seem rather silly now, three years later, leaving her home because of a stupid-assed man like Darrell. The humiliation was nearly gone. Nearly.

  “You’re such a delicate flower,” Kit managed around her cobbler.

  Aimee handed her a cup of coffee with milk and lots of sugar. “Thank goodness you’re back because no one else is as cracked as you. Can’t make the same kind of jokes with anyone. Sit at the table so I can get at that cobbler too. In a bit we can get dressed and you’ll tell me what I can do to help today.”

  “You’re going to make me cry.” Kit moved herself to the breakfast nook.

  Aimee’s snort sounded a lot like her mother’s. “Go on then. If a body being nice to you makes you want to cry, Katie Faith, you’ve been gone from home too long.”

  “We don’t know for sure I’ll have to move back.” She brooded over her coffee in between huge spoonfuls of cobbler.

  “Don’t sulk. Imagine if your face froze like that.” Aimee rolled her eyes. “Pull up your big girl panties! You don’t belong in Chattanooga anyway. Every time I visited you there you were like a tourist. You’re from Diablo Lake. You belong here. Look at you calling yourself Kit. Spending hundreds of dollars to ride exercise bikes and get yelled at by the instructor.” Aimee paused her rant long enough to give Kit a sigh heavy with exasperation. “Your people are here. We want you back home, Katie Faith.”

  “You’re one to talk about full names.”

  Aimee’s eyes narrowed. “Hush your mouth. Don’t even try it. Katie Faith is not a bad name. You’re not named after someone everyone in your family hates because your grandmother hijacked the forms and changed your name from Aimee to something else. You are totally Katie Faith. You’re not Kit. Kit is a car who talks to David Hasselhoff. God I miss that show. Anyway, don’t avoid the subject.”

  “You miss that show? You’re dumb.”

  Aimee snickered as Kit giggled. It was an old joke, Aimee’s given name and how her mother had cried for days when she found out what old Mrs. Benton had done. Later, Aimee’s parents had gone and legally changed Larnamae Alvonia Benton to Aimee Marie as they’d planned to name her to begin with. But everyone knew Aimee started as Larnamae Alvonia.

  “If I came back here, everyone would know my business again.”

  Aimee waved her spoon around after taking a bite of the cobbler. “Girl, everyone knows your business anyway.”

  True enough. Aimee’s mother, Trula Faye—everyone called her TeeFay—was best friends with Nadine, Katie Faith’s mom. They were the queens of gossip in Diablo Lake. If anything was worth knowing, they knew it and doled it out as they felt necessary and appropriate.

  It had been a fine testament to friendship when, after the whole mess at the church three years ago, no one had said a single thing about it in public. She wasn’t quite sure what all her mom and TeeFay had done, but they’d protected her the best they could under the circumstances and that had meant everything to Katie Faith.

  Too bad everyone had looked at her like she was dying for the next six months until she finally just moved away to lick her wounds without all the pity. And—she could admit to herself—to see who she was apart from Diablo Lake. She needed to understand if she could survive without all that. And the truth was, she had a three-quarter life in Chattanooga. The heart of her life was right there in Diablo Lake.

  Home meant the way the earth seemed to welcome her and fill her with magic every time she
drove into town. It meant the roses bloomed in winter and fruit still hung on trees. Home meant safety and people you loved.

  “I hate moving. And I’ll have you know, Larnamae, spinning class is really hard! Keeps my ass from falling to my ankles.”

  Aimee grinned after tossing a balled-up paper napkin at Kit’s head. “We need to find you a house lickety-split. If not, you’ll be living over the garage back at home and you’ll never get laid. You could live here, you know.”

  Diablo Lake didn’t have a lot of extra housing, but she was pretty sure she could find something relatively soon. Location was important though. No way was she living on the Pembry side of town.

  “I love you but we’d kill one another if we lived together too long. As for sex? Getting laid is at the bottom of my to-do list just now.” She was going to complain about how it was dumb for women to tell each other they needed sex. But Katie Faith loved sex and it did make her less cranky overall. And, she thought it made Aimee’s life better too.

  “That’s your problem. Orgasms on the regular keep you mentally well adjusted.”

  Katie Faith sipped her coffee. “Listen, I don’t need anyone else to have one of those. Anyway, when’s the last time you got any action?”

  “I’ve been broken up with Bob for eight months now. I don’t miss him. But I can’t deny he knew his way around my lady bits. Diablo Lake’s stock is limited. What can I say?”

  “You’re a floozy and have weak character.” Katie Faith shook her head sadly and then cracked up.

  After a quick flip of her middle finger, Aimee went back to her breakfast. “That’s me all over. Hey, so are you heading to the hospital today? We got sidetracked discussing sex and other dirty things.”

  Kit, oh hell, Katie Faith, stood, draining her coffee. “I’m going to stop over at the Counter first. Then I’ll call my mom and see what’s going on. I’ve got Curtis helping out while I’m back and forth to the hospital. And Miz Rose is going to help. She knows the place backward and forward anyway.” Curtis was Aimee’s cousin and Rose Collins had worked odd shifts at the Counter for nearly thirty years. She was eighty now, but spry and smart and she could run the place with her eyes closed. And the leader of the Consort of Witches in Diablo Lake.