Ferus : Book 6 of the Heku Series

by T. M. Nielsen

  “Come, someone wants to talk to you,” Quinn said, and headed up the stairs.

  “Joy,” she grumbled, and followed him up.

  “Where are your guards?”

  “Not a clue.”

  Quinn frowned and then walked around to the back of the council chambers, with Emily lagging behind. She hated when the Council wanted to talk to her. It usually meant she’d done something wrong. She walked in and sat down in Chevalier’s chair, and her eyes grew wide when she saw Camber standing in the trial area. The recently awaken former Elder kept to his own coven since he’d messed with Emily’s mind and made her think she was a heku.

  Camber smiled, “Good to see you, Dear.”

  Without blinking, the former Elder fell to ashes.

  “Emily!” Dustin growled.

  Kyle chuckled, “He deserved it.”

  Zohn smiled, “Revive him please.”

  “Good, I can burn him again,” Emily said, and sat back in the large chair.

  “Hear him out first,” Zohn suggested.

  She shrugged, “Ok.”

  Camber screamed as he reformed and then leaned over with his hands on his knees, while the burning pain subsided. The Council watched him quietly, and Kyle returned to his chair.

  “Ok, ok, I’m sure I deserved that,” Camber panted.

  “Yes, you did,” Quinn told him.

  “So much for protecting myself by not looking her in the eye.”

  “We told you she doesn’t need to do that,” Kyle told him, and grinned.

  Emily took some hot chocolate from a servant and then turned back to Camber. He finally stood up, “That stings… a lot.”

  “Does Chev know you’re here?” Emily asked.

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “You may wish you’d have stayed ash.”

  “I’m sure I will. However, I wanted to see you.”

  “Why?”

  “May we meet in private?” Camber asked her, and looked into her eyes.

  “No,” Zohn told him. “You may not.”

  “Stop it!” Emily screamed at him. “Do that again and I’ll scatter those ashes next time.”

  “What?” Kyle asked, standing up.

  “I’m sorry… it’s a habit to calm the situation,” Camber told her, and glanced nervously at Kyle.

  “Try to control her again and we’ll deal with you before she can,” Quinn growled.

  Kyle sat down, but glared at the former Elder.

  “Again, I’m sorry… I just want to talk though, and it would be easier in private.”

  “No,” Quinn said, letting him know that both Elders agreed.

  “Very well,” Camber said, and glanced nervously at the Council. “The questions were to finish a book I started about the Winchesters. There were lots of places left blank that I was trying to find answers to.”

  “Like what?” Emily asked, leaning forward slightly.

  “Like… well… do you find that mortals are also attracted to your scent?”

  “No”

  “Yes,” Kyle said, and grinned when Emily looked at him.

  Camber smiled, “I see… and… have you noticed that heku are physically attracted to you, in addition to your blood?”

  “No”

  “Yes,” Kyle chuckled.

  “Stop it,” Emily said, and frowned at him.

  “Do you believe that if you lost the Winchester scent, that Chevalier would leave you?” Camber asked.

  The council chambers fell quiet and they all turned to Emily. It was obvious she was having a hard time answering that question.

  “It’s just…” Camber started, but Emily held her hand up.

  “It’s crossed my mind,” she whispered.

  “That’s not true,” Kyle said to her.

  She shrugged.

  Camber smiled at her, “I’m sure it’s not true, Dear. I just know that there were Winchesters who had heku admirers, they lost some of their scent with age, and also lost their heku.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes”

  “Oh,” she said, and sat back in the chair.

  “Do you frequently have nightmares?”

  “Yes,” she said softly.

  “About how many heku have fed from you in uninvited attacks.”

  “I’ve never counted.”

  “Did any sexually assault you after?”

  Emily’s eyes grew wide and she gasped.

  “That’s out of line,” Quinn snapped at him.

  “It’s a simple question.”

  “One more like that and you will be removed.”

  “Understood,” Camber said, and pulled a notebook from his bag and began to write. Suddenly, Emily was feeling uncomfortable and just wanted to leave.

  “Do you want us to stop this?” the Chief of Staff asked.

  “No, I’m ok,” she whispered, and watched her hands.

  Camber looked up and smiled, “Back on the Winchester appeal to both mortal and immortal… in the scenario where you lost your enticing scent, do you feel you would be ostracized from the Equites?”

  “That’s pushing it,” Zohn told him.

  “I apologize, I just wonder if she didn’t have her scent and if she were unable to produce more children… would the hold she has on the Council be nullified.”

  “No, it would not,” Quinn said. He turned when Emily spun in her chair and disappeared out the back door of the council chambers.

  “Define hold,” Zohn said, turning back to him after Emily was gone.

  “It’s obvious to me that the entire Council… maybe excluding the Powan, have unnatural attractions and affections for the girl.”

  “Unnatural?”

  “Yes, it’s not in our species to like mortals.”

  “She’s not exactly a mortal.”

  “That is true,” Camber said, and wrote something down.

  “It’s not her scent that attracts us to her,” Kyle said angrily.

  “Of course not. She’s quite beautiful.”

  Kyle’s eyes narrowed and he started to speak, but quieted when Chevalier came and sat down with the Council. He glared at Camber and then looked around the Council chairs.

  “Where is she?”

  “She left,” Zohn told him.

  “Upset?”

  Zohn sighed, “Yes.”

  “What did you do?” Chevalier asked Camber, his voice turning menacing.

  “I merely asked some harmless questions.”

  “They didn’t seem harmless to me,” Kyle told him.

  “That’s just because you are all too attached to her and care too much about her feelings.”

  “What!?” Chevalier growled.

  “No offense…”

  “Get out before I lose my temper.”

  Camber glanced along the Council, nodded, and blurred from the room.

  “What did you find in the stables?” Zohn asked, turning his chair toward Chevalier.

  “A wild one, believe it or not. He’s been living in the trees, but came in out of the storm.”

  “Into our stables!?” Quinn growled.

  “Mark’s furious,” Chevalier told them. “Emily’s guards are MIA and she went out to check on the horses… if Mark wasn’t in there to check on the horses too, she would have been alone.”

  “Just Mark?” Zohn asked.

  Chevalier grinned, “I told him not to kill them, and then I get a chance.”

  Zohn chuckled, “Figures.”

  “So what did Camber want?”

  “He wanted to speak to Emily in private, but we agreed to let him ask her questions with us present.”

  “Why did she leave?”

  “Because he’s an idiot,” Kyle said, obviously still angry.

  “Why do I get the feeling I need to go do some damage control?”

  “We stopped a few annoying questions… but one specifically bothered her,” Quinn said, and glanced at Zohn. “We let the question go, because we thought the answer would be
a solid no… however…”

  Chevalier sighed, “What question might that be?”

  “It was about if she thought you would leave her if her scent disappeared… which apparently it has in some of the Winchesters when they grew older,” Zohn told him.

  “She didn’t say no?” Chevalier asked, frowning.

  Zohn looked over at Kyle and then Kyle added, “There was also a question about if you left her, and she no longer had children, if the Equites would pretty much kick her out.”

  “Why is he asking that?” Chevalier asked, irritated.

  “I don’t know… I apologize for letting it go. We really thought she would just tell him no,” Quinn told him.

  “I’ll go talk to her,” Chevalier said, and walked out of the council chambers.

  “Sir?” Silas said, blurring up the stairs to him.

  Chevalier turned, “Yes?”

  “Just an update, her guards assumed she wouldn’t go outside in this weather, and started a poker game in the game room.”

  Chevalier’s eyes narrowed, “Where are they?”

  “Mark has them… if they live he’ll let you know,” Silas chuckled.

  “Cavalry?”

  “No, Sir… palace guards. The rest of the Cavalry was all out at Powan.”

  “Go make sure he doesn’t kill them,” Chevalier told the Captain, and went up to the bedroom. He peeked in and saw no one, so he tried the kitchen, the game room, and even the stables again. After almost an hour, he finally found her up in her helicopter. He stepped in and shut the door behind him.

  Emily looked up from her book. She was kicked back on the couch reading.

  “Heard about Camber,” Chevalier said, and sat on the plush rug by the couch.

  “He’s an idiot,” she said, and sat down her book.

  “I’m just going to come out and say this. I’m not just attracted to your scent.”

  She smiled slightly, “I know that, and I’m not upset about the questions.”

  “So you know if anything happens to me, that the Equites won’t kick you out.”

  “Well… no I don’t know that, but I have enough in my account to buy a small country, so I’d just move out.”

  “Everyone but Dustin would need to disappear for that to happen.”

  “If he’s all that’s left of the Council, I think I’d go join the Encala.”

  Chevalier chuckled, “Not the Valle?”

  “No, they’re too serious.”

  “The Encala are reckless though, prone to moody attacks on innocents.”

  “And you don’t think I’d fit in?”

  “Come in,” Chevalier said when someone knocked on the door.

  Quinn and Zohn crawled into the helicopter, and after shutting the door, sat down against the wall, “What’s up?”

  “We’re trying to decide if I’d fit in better with the Encala or the Valle,” Emily explained.

  “Encala,” both of them said, and chuckled.

  “See,” Emily told Chevalier, and hit his arm lightly.

  “When is the change of faction happening then?” Quinn asked, amused.

  “As soon as Dustin is the only member of the Council left.”

  “I see.”

  “Because of the weather, we’ve put off the interviews for Staff Supervisor,” Quinn told Chevalier.

  Emily smiled, “Let me give it a try.”

  “You?” Zohn asked, surprised.

  “Yes, me… It’d give me something to do.”

  “We’ve never had anyone but a heku as a supervisor in the palace.”

  “You’ve never had a mortal live here either.”

  Zohn chuckled, “That’s true.”

  Chevalier shrugged, “Let’s let her take it until we have more time to find someone else.”

  “I’m ok with that,” Quinn said.

  “You’d need to allow heku into your office,” Zohn said to her.

  “Or we give her a supervisor office with the others, and let her keep the private one.”

  “That’s true, it’s not like we’re strapped for office space.”

  “So?” Emily asked.

  Chevalier glanced at Quinn and Zohn and then smiled, “Sure.”

  “Nice!” Emily yelled, and wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you.”

  Chevalier sighed, “However, if the Elders ever feel it’s too much, or too stressful, we will pull the position. It’s also only temporary, until a heku can be found.”

  Emily nodded and sat back on the couch, “Ok.”

  Quinn nodded and stood up, “I’ll go have uniforms made.”

  “Wait… what uniform?”

  “The maid uniform.”

  Chevalier grimaced, “Let’s let her use the Cavalry uniform.”

  Quinn grinned, “Ok.”

  “When can I start?” Emily asked, excited.

  Chapter 22 - Supervisor

  “Enter,” Emily said when there was a knock on her office door. She shut the ledger and looked up when one of the floor leaders came in. “Have a seat.”

  The heku bowed slightly and sat in a chair by Emily’s desk.

  “What’s up?” Emily asked.

  “Floor five again, Ma’am,” he said, and frowned slightly.

  “The same thing?”

  “Yes”

  “Ok, I’ll go talk to them,” Emily said, and stood up. She pulled down her shirt, still trying to make it an inch or so longer to cover the band of skin on her abdomen.

  Emily followed the floor leader up to the fifth-floor. She ran up the last flight when she heard them screaming at each other and saw a chair fly across the hallway and slam into the wall. As she rounded the corner, she was hit in the hip with another flying chair and she fell back against the wall as the heku gasped and immediately fell quiet.

  “Damnit,” she yelled, and grabbed her throbbing hip. “What the hell is going on?”

  The three heku all began yelling an explanation at the same time, and Emily wasn’t able to pick out any of what was being said.

  “Stop it!” she yelled, and they all quieted down. “Get to my office.”

  The heku blurred away and she sighed and looked at the floor leader.

  “Are you ok?” he asked nervously. No one wanted to have to be the one to tell the Elder his wife was injured.

  “I’m ok, get another crew up here for now,” she said, and limped down the stairs to her office. She opened the door, “Get in.”

  “Winder threw it!” one of them yelled, and pointed at another.

  “I did not!” was the heku’s reply.

  “Sit,” Emily said sternly, and then sat down. “I’ve about had it with you three… I’m splitting you up.”

  “Please don’t, we’ve been a team for over four hundred years!”

  “I don’t care. You can’t seem to stop fighting, so I’m splitting you between floors and on different shifts.”

  “We won’t do it. We’ll quit first.”

  “Fine, then I’ll just replace you,” Emily said, and grabbed a stack of applications.

  The heku’s eyes narrowed, “We’ll go to the Council.”

  “If you feel that’s necessary… as of right now you are all on suspension until I can re-work the schedule,” Emily told him, then watched as they blurred angrily from her office. She looked up when she saw someone appear in her door.

  “Guess what?” Derrick asked, grinning.

  Emily sighed, “I’m coming.”

  She stood up and stretched her sore hip and then followed Derrick toward the council chambers.

  “Ma’am?” someone said from behind her.

  Emily turned toward the Head Chef.

  “Can you approve this?” he asked, and handed her a clip board.

  Derrick waited while Emily looked over the schedule and signed at the bottom, “Looks good.”

  “Thanks,” the Head Chef said, and disappeared.

  When they finally reached the council chambers, Derrick opened the door and E
mily walked in and moved up to the trial area beside the three servants from the fifth-floor.

  She looked at them, “I thought I took care of you.”

  Quinn grinned, “They wanted to tattle tale, but ended up mentioning that one of them threw a chair at you.”

  Emily sighed and looked at them, “That was smart, now wasn’t it?”

  They all looked at the ground.

  “Are you injured?” Zohn asked.

  “No,” Emily told him, glad that Chevalier and Kyle were away for a week.

  “So instead of suspension by you, they get to be punished by us for assault,” Quinn told them angrily.

  “What can I say? You’re fired,” Emily told them, and started for the door.

  “Em?” Zohn called out.

  Emily stopped and turned around, “Yes?”

  “You’re limping slightly.”

  “It’s purely a figment of your imagination,” she said, and left the room.

  Quinn chuckled and then turned to the three on trial, “Who threw the chair?”

  None of the three answered.

  “Fine then, we’ll just charge you all with assault.”

  They nodded.

  “Are we charging them with assaulting a supervisor or a member of the Council?” the Court Reporter asked.

  Zohn grinned, “Assaulting a member of the Council.”

  “Yes, Elder.”

  “Report to General Mark immediately,” Quinn said, and watched as Derrick escorted them out.

  “With the reports we’ve had about Emily, I’m surprised this is the first she’s been assaulted,” Dustin said.

  “It was an accident, but an assault nonetheless. I don’t think any of them would dare touch her,” Zohn told him.

  Quinn grinned, “Besides, the reports we are getting that she’s too strict aren’t all that bad, in my opinion.”

  “Agreed,” Zohn said, turning to the Council. “Too strict is just what they need.”

  “As long as it’s not abuse,” Dustin said.

  “It’s not… we just didn’t realize that the previous supervisor let a lot of little things slide, and Emily’s not like that.”

  “I like it,” the Chief of Defense said. “There’s no such thing as too strict.”

  “Still, she’s taking it a bit far, don’t you think?” Dustin asked. “The staff is scared to death of her, and I’ve seen them do the same job three times just to make sure she wouldn’t find fault with it.”