They traversed even more hallways, and Vivienne was just beginning to think of the place as a structured maze, when the woman finally stopped and turned to her.
“Through there.” She pointed with a toned arm toward a door at the end of one of the hallways.
“Thanks,” Vivienne said. The woman didn’t reply. Lifting her brows in confusion, Vivienne ignored that slight and headed in the direction the woman pointed.
***
The sight she walked in on definitely made her pause, and gave pause to everyone in the kitchen. Vivienne immediately recognized Conall and Eli, who were standing before the huge, six-burner stove, but there were also two other men she’d never seen before. They were the ones staring at her in slack-jawed shock. Both were handsome, one dreamily so. He looked like something right out of a movie, wild blond hair that touched the tops of his shoulders, hazel-green eyes, beautiful mouth—lips like that on a man should be banned—and the tight muscle shirt he wore revealed the print of abs body-builders would kill for. The man was damned near perfect. The other wasn’t far behind, with his short-cropped military-styled black hair and gunmetal gray eyes, but his beauty was ruined—perhaps enhanced to some—by the harsh slash of his lips. Even now, they seemed to be curling downward as he stared at her.
Vivienne’s gaze snapped to Conall, who was staring at her with those intense blues in a way that shouldn’t make her want him, but she did. Even though the blond could easily win Mr. World or beat Brad Pitt, Matthew McConaughey, and God knows who else for the title of Sexiest Man Alive, she wanted Conall. Not only was he gorgeous, he exuded confidence and sex appeal, and was extremely good in bed. Not that she had anyone to compare him to, but it had been that good for her. His lips suddenly lifted in a catlike smile, and Vivienne blushed, tugging at the collar of her shirt.
Why didn’t they open a window? It was hot in the kitchen!
“Hi!” Eli came toward her, a kitchen towel flipped over one shoulder and a large, almost childlike smile on his face. Although uncomfortable, she smiled back. He reached forward and grabbed her arm. “Sit down.”
Eli released her just as suddenly and looked guiltily to Conall. She did the same. The man who made her blood heat was glaring at his nephew. Eli’s smile disappeared momentarily before he shrugged and pointed to a table on the other side of the kitchen. Vivienne was about to speak when the man with the buzz cut spoke. She didn’t know what was said, as he had not used English, but from his tone of voice, he didn’t sound pleased.
Conall responded, his voice matching that of the man. Eli’s eyes widened as he looked between the two of them. The blond was still staring at her.
Clearing her throat, Vivienne looked directly at Conall. “I’m calling a cab. I just need the address.”
Both men stopped their foreign argument and looked at her. Conall answered, “I’ll take you home, after you eat.”
Vivienne shook her head once. Right. She was not about to eat. It was too awkward and it was obvious that some people didn’t want her there. She looked pointedly at the one with the close-cropped hair. He crossed a hand over his chest and glared at her, as if he knew her thoughts and couldn’t care less.
“It’s okay. I’m not that hungry.” As if to spite her, her stomach protested rather loudly. The smell of eggs, bacon, something cheesy and no doubt delicious, all made her really hungry.
Eli laughed. “Sounds like you are.”
Vivienne gave him a little grin.
Conall suddenly turned his back to her. She recognized he was cooking eggs. Her brain zoned in on just how good he looked holding that spatula. He paused and then said, “Sloan, Raoul, meet Vivienne.” He turned the stove off and faced her. “Vivienne, Sloan….” He pointed the spatula in the direction of the angry one, “and Raoul.” He pointed to the beautiful one.
She didn’t know why he was introducing her to them. It wasn’t likely that she’d ever seen them, or him for that matter, again. She waved, mouthed a quick, “hi.” Raoul smiled, a slow lifting of perfect lips to reveal straight, white teeth, as he sauntered forward. A soft growl left Conall’s lips, shocking Vivienne, and Raoul stopped a good foot from her.
“Pleasure to meet you.” He actually bowed. Vivienne’s brows shot up. Was he serious? She laughed softly. He was both beautiful and charming, a deadly combination.
Raoul rose with a smile, and headed over to the table and pulled out her chair.
Oh, what the hell? Vivienne thought. She’d already slept with Conall. All he was asking her to do was eat breakfast before she left. This was one weird one-night stand.
She sat, and Raoul proceeded to sit directly in front of her.
“Raoul,” Conall’s voice was harsh. Blinking innocently, Raoul turned to him, and placed both hands under his chin. “Yes?”
“Move.”
Vivienne glared at his rude behavior.
“Why? I always sit here—”
Conall took a step forward and Raoul grinned and winked at her before jumping from the seat. “Whatever you say.”
He moved to one of the chairs at the head of the table instead. “So, Vivienne, how did you meet Conall?”
“Raoul!” That was Conall’s voice.
Vivienne blushed and was spared from answering when Eli placed a plate of steaming eggs, bacon, and two slices of buttered wheat toast before her. She thanked him and he smiled.
“What would you like to drink?” He paused and continued on when she didn’t immediately respond. “We have orange juice, apple juice, fruit punch, milk, coffee, green tea, black tea, jasmine tea—”
“I’m sure she’ll answer if you let her,” Conall called from his position at the stove. She noticed he was the one dishing out the food. Vivienne found it odd he didn’t have a cook, or someone else to do that for him. He had maids, so she’d assumed he’d have other help.
“Tea’s fine,” Vivienne told Eli, who nodded and went about heating the water.
A few minutes passed, with Sloan taking a seat opposite Raoul, his mountain of food before him. Eli asked her questions about her tea. What kind? Milk? Sugar? She found herself smiling at him. He was a sweet boy—erm…sweet…teen? She had to keep reminding herself that despite his sweetness, this boy before her was practically a man, a darn good-looking one, too. He was the type to have teenage girls chasing after him, though she got the feeling he might not quite know what to do with them.
By the time everyone was seated, Vivienne was a great deal more relaxed. Conall sat opposite and Eli next to him. Raoul kept his comments light and frivolous, asking her where she worked, went to school, while Sloan said nothing. He seemed only interested in glaring at her.
They ate. Well, she ate heartily, and Conall seemed to enjoy watching her do so. When she was finished, she patted her now swollen belly and spoke honestly. “This was really good. Thank you.”
“I always strive to please beautiful wom—” Raoul grunted before he could get anything else out, and then coughed to cover it. She turned to Conall to find him glaring at Raoul. She looked between the two men. They didn’t look like brothers, but perhaps they were?
Eli’s voice interrupted the standoff. “Did you like the tea?”
She smiled and nodded. “Best tea I’ve had in years.”
He beamed. Conall relaxed. He stood, and all of the men around the table did the same. They began clearing away the dishes. Sloan approached Conall, and spoke in a low voice. Whatever he said made Conall tense. Passing her a long glance, Sloan nodded once and walked from the kitchen. Raoul was the next to leave. He was gallant as ever. This time he took her hand, bowed over it and placed a circumspect air kiss to the back. He beat a hasty retreat after that, and she looked up to find Conall standing directly before her. He’d moved so quickly she’d barely heard him.
Conall reached out a hand, and she took it. His eyes entranced her. When he leaned in, she stepped forward, meeting him for the kiss. His hands clutched at the dip in her back; her hands pushed into his hair. He backe
d her against the table.
A sound jarred her lips from his as she turned to see what it was. Eli stared at them, his eyes large and curious, but as soon as she turned he looked away. Conall continued to trail quick kisses by her ear, unaffected by his nephew standing mere feet from them.
Jesus, did she have no decency? Gathering her scattered wits about her, she pushed Conall back, and tried to close her legs. Thank God she wasn’t wearing a skirt. He wasn’t deterred. It was like moving a large, solid, brick house. His tongue circled her ear, and she moaned, clutching at his back briefly before scrambling around him.
“I-I should g-go now.” She cleared her throat, and took two steps back when Conall turned and looked at her with those predator-like eyes of his. She could see he wanted to chase her, knew it would excite him almost as much as it would her.
Drawing in a deep breath, he nodded and said, “I’ll take you home.”
Chapter Six
“Where is the girl?”
The quiet but deadly voice resonated around the wooden walls of the room. The witch to whom it was directed, a tracker by the name of Timothy, felt the urge to cower as he faced the powerful Grand Wizard, but resisted.
Maximilian Cronin, a tall and looming presence despite his age, had pushed himself up from the leather chair to fully glare at him. Like many of their Elders, his hair had long since grown white, and he wore it in an impeccable cut that pulled back from his forehead and barely touched the tops of his shoulders.
“We couldn’t find her—” Timothy began, hoping the tremor he’d heard in his voice was a figment of his imagination.
“You couldn’t find her?” Maximilian continued, his voice rising an octave. His thin nostrils flared as he stepped around his desk and slowly walked over to the witch. In a gray turtleneck sweater and loose pants, he wasn’t dressed to intimidate, but he did. Timothy swallowed nervously as the Grand Wizard’s eyes seemed to darken.
“No, my lord,” Timothy replied, bowing his head in submission. “We only felt her for a span of minutes and traced her. We—we couldn’t find her…after.”
Maximilian let out a grunt of impatience and waved a pale, thin hand. “Where are the others? Five were dispatched. Where are the rest? Where’s Malachi?” Malachi, as one of his captains, should be giving this debriefing, not Timothy.
Timothy tensed. “Dead—”
Maximilian’s eyes narrowed to thin slits. “Dead? How is it that two of my trackers are dead?”
“Your son….”
“I didn’t ask you about my son.”
Timothy nodded, and shifted uncomfortably. “My lord….” He swallowed, unsure of how to communicate what he’d seen. “Max killed them.”
The Grand Wizard’s head snapped back, and Timothy could read the surprise in his eyes before his face was rendered expressionless.
“Is that so, tracker?” he finally asked. He reached a hand up to his chin, thoughtful, as if he were contemplating that possibility.
“Yes.” Timothy cleared away the lump in his throat and looked to the space just to the left of the Grand Wizard. “After we followed her to the hotel, Ophelia found a bag with the woman’s address book. We used it to get to her apartment. Malachi and Jared left first. I followed after but I was too late. Jared was dead and Malachi was slowly being killed by Max.” Timothy paused as the scene replayed in his head.
After trying and failing to find the girl’s essence, he’d flashed himself to the apartment, where Jared and Malachi had gone. The other two had remained in the hotel, searching for any other clues. As soon as his body materialized, he’d heard the sounds of fighting. Silently, he’d crept toward the noise, and looked on in confusion as Max and Malachi attacked each other. He’d watched in mounting horror as Malachi killed Max, and then in absolute terror as Max came back from the dead, turned into something he’d never seen before, and returned the favor. He hadn’t waited around. Instead, he’d sent word to the others that they were to return to the covenant.
“So you fled?” the Grand Wizard interrupted. Timothy focused once more on the powerful leader of his covenant, noticing that his eyes had shifted to a witch’s black. He briefly wondered if Maximilian had been in his head, watching as his mind replayed that horrifying scene. He hadn’t felt him but he doubted anyone could feel the Elder’s presence in their mind.
Shaking his head, he answered, “Well, no. Max turned into—”
“I will deal with my son later.” His eyes shifted back to their normal hazel hue and he looked to Timothy. “You fled, isn’t that so?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Since you failed to bring the girl to me, did any of you find anything useful?”
Timothy nodded. “A picture, my lord. I found it in the girl’s room.”
***
It was a black and white portrait of two identical sisters. Both were seated on stools, smiling at the photographer. As Maximilian continued to stare at the portrait, a sinister smile touched his lips.
Twins. Of course. They were twins. He thought back to that day of their birth, when every witch had felt the surge of power usually associated with the birth or death of a powerful witch or druid. Only Grand Wizards and Elders had understood the true extent of the power, and even then, they hadn’t recognized it was two druids, not one. He grimaced, feeling a twinge of anger snake up his spine at being so tricked.
That witch had hidden well the fact she’d birthed twins. His lip curled in a snarl as he thought of her.
Evelyn, Annabel’s only child.
Like a few of their kind in the eighteenth century, Annabel, a beautiful female, had been the daughter of a druid and a witch. Many had vied for her attentions, including him, but she was not interested, and with her druid mother constantly hovering, no witch had openly challenged that stance. But then, she’d betrayed them.
At that time, there had been no Council to keep the peace between the creatures and every immortal defended his own. Trackers were sent out to get justice for their races. His covenant had been tracking a werewolf responsible for the death of two witches in Paris. Annabel had been with them. They’d tracked him to a small village and split into groups to find him faster. Annabel had disappeared. Even her essence could not be found, and their covenant announced her dead. Her mother blamed them, and as an important member in the druid circle, she’d created hostility between the druids and witches. Years later, they found the wolf, Henri Dumont, in Paris. It had been a bloody fight, but against three ancient witches, he was brought to heel and defeated.
Maximilian found out later why the animal had fought so viciously, refusing to die even when it was obvious he had no choice. It was desperation. He’d been protecting his mate and child.
Annabel had mated a wolf.
He’d barely glimpsed her angry, tear-stained face and extended belly before she vanished. It had taken many more years before he found her again, and when he did, it was without the child. By that time, the druids were no more, and the curse cast upon all witches and their descendants had devastated their community. Maximilian had sacrificed Annabel, along with the half-druid witches like her he’d found over the years, hoping to resurrect the druids and plead their clemency. When that failed, he’d searched for Annabel’s daughter, but she’d grown into her powers, had learned to shield herself from him, from even the most powerful of them.
Years had passed without him feeling or sensing her and then, Maximilian remembered the day clearly. He had felt the shift in dimensions, a stifling calm, as everything stood still for long seconds, as a new druid was born. The covenants had been in uproar, wondering who had birthed a druid with them all banished, and their hybrid descendants dead, but instinctively he’d known it was her.
Evelyn.
Maximilian had tracked them for years, from country to country, state to state, and finally after years with nothing to show for it, he’d sent his son after the child. He’d supervised Max’s training himself, as his son was unique, and had dispatched h
im knowing her mother would be unable to identify him as a witch. That was one of the few benefits of Max’s maternal side. And now, he was being told Max had betrayed him. He ground his teeth together. He’d warned him, his son who wanted so badly to prove he was a Cronin, despite the mixture in his genes.
He refocused on the portrait. The girls looked like darker versions of Annabel, but were no less beautiful than she’d been. Anything less than perfection would make a mockery of what they were. Druids. Not one, but two. Twins usually signified a balance. Which balance?
When the witches had banished the druids for the evil they’d wreaked upon mankind and immortal alike, the druids had cursed them to a life of mortality before disappearing into the realms. It was only through powerful spells that he, and other ancients, continued to live, but those would one day wear off. Even now, he could feel the fragility of life, the brittle bones, aching joints, wrinkled skin, in his own hands. To be brought low by druids, the bastard sons and daughters of Gods….
Maximilian wanted his immortality back, craved it, and was willing to do anything, even resurrect his mortal enemies, to do it.
“What did you see my son do, Timothy?”
Timothy didn’t answer for a few seconds but then he stuttered and began repeating his earlier story. “He killed Malachi, my lord. He changed into some…creature and killed Malachi.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Did anyone else see this transformation?”
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