A Hunger Like No Other (42 page)

Regin flew across the room. Lachlain shot up, head light, and threw Emma behind him. But instead of attacking as Lachlain expected, Regin wiggled her jaw and smiled brightly. “Sixty-five years I've been trying to teach you to move like that.”

All of them were insane but for Emma.

Regin spoke to another Valkyrie on the wardrobe who'd come from nowhere and sat blowing bubbles with chewing gum. “Check her out. She didn't telegraph her punch. Finally, I can relax a little.”

Annika clasped her hands. “Emma, please be reasonable.”

Emma tilted her head at Annika. “What's going on here? The house should've been ruptured by your lightning.”

Lachlain suspected Annika couldn't say a lot about this situation since she was now related by marriage to a full-blooded vampire. “Aye, Annika, why no' tell her why a Lykae does no' look so bad right now?”

When Emma frowned at him, he said, “She's agreed to recognize her sister's marriage to Wroth. I think she's figuring that anything is better than him.”

Annika gave him a look of pure spite.

“You know what?” Emma said to Annika. “I can see that
you're going to accept this—unbelievable, but I can see it. And I'm going to keep my head down and not ask too many questions—”

“Christ! Garreth!” Lachlain shot to his feet, weak and stumbling. Dragging Emma to his side, half carrying her, he lurched out of the room and down the stairs. Regin and Annika followed, demanding to know what was happening.

Inside the half-basement, they found Wroth alongside Garreth, grappling to hold up the ceiling.

The vampire's voice was incongruously calm when he asked, “What kind of idiot would find this a worthy plan?”

In an astounded tone, Lachlain said to Emma, “Your family's adding in-laws like
him?”

The vampire's gaze fell to Lachlain's hand clutching Emma's, and he raised an eyebrow. “Indeed.”

“M
ovie!!”
someone shrieked, and to Lachlain's great unease, he heard the Valkyrie begin to stir throughout the manor.

Lachlain was exhausted from his injuries and from having to help hold up the house while a suitable Lore contractor was found who could stabilize the damage. He'd barely been able to stumble back up to Emma's bedroom so they could rebandage each other. He'd sunk into her bed, pulling her down with him with the crook of his arm, just minutes before, and had almost fallen asleep with her resting her head on his chest.

Now he stared, arm tightening around her, wishing he had a weapon, as they filed into Emma's room from all corners of the house.

Some had gotten popcorn, none of them eating it. They curled up on the windowsills, on top of the wardrobe, and one even hopped to the foot of the bed after a casual hiss at Lachlain's legs had prompted him to move them.

Lachlain found it disturbing that they were all so insouciant about this. Here a Lykae lay with the youngest member of their household in his arms, in their home. In her bed.

He waited for them to realize this at any moment and attack.

He was as weak as he'd ever been, and they surrounded him like a swarm. Garreth and Lucia were conspicuously absent. She'd returned with the video, but apparently had been so shaken by something that had occurred within the clan that she left directly after. Garreth had followed. Unbelievably, Lachlain was almost relieved when Wroth arrived in the room with Myst, but didn't hesitate to return the bastard's scowl.

Just before the video played on Emma's TV, she plugged in her old “outdated” iPod so she couldn't hear, then buried her face against his chest because of the “scary parts.”

Unlike the others, Lachlain had no problem tearing himself away from the screen to think on all he'd learned, because he'd replayed this again and again. Lachlain had first viewed the video beginning with Demestriu's entrance, because Harmann had programmed it to start there. But Lachlain had actually been able to go back and see Demestriu in the hours and even days before Emma appeared. Lachlain had seen Demestriu staring out the window, dropping his forehead into his shaking hands, lashing out in madness—just as Lachlain had done.

Lachlain shook his head. He didn't know how to feel about everything—how to reconcile his past and his losses with what might have been a brief flare of pity. And Lachlain realized now, with Emma here, that he didn't have to know. Not yet. They'd figure it out together.

He turned from his thoughts and studied the Valkyrie's reactions as they watched. They laughed uproariously at the fact that Emma, a vampire, was spooked by the blood on the floor. During the fight, they tensed and leaned toward the TV, eyes wide when Emma shattered the window. “Ballsy,” Regin muttered, and others nodded in response
though none shifted their gazes from the screen. At one point, Nïx yawned and said, “I've already seen this part,” but no one bothered to ask how. And when Demestriu told Emma he was proud, some cried, making lightning split the sky.

Proof that Furie was alive was met with cheers, and Lachlain didn't douse their happiness by saying that at this very moment, Furie was praying to great Freya to die.

When it was over, Emma pulled her earbuds out and peeked up from his chest. The Valkyrie merely nodded at him and Emma the Unlikely and filed out, with Nïx predicting that
The Demise of Demestriu
would outsell
One Goblin's Night in Paris
among the Lore.

As Regin exited, she summed up what seemed to be the attitude of the rest of the coven: “If Emma wants the overgrown Lykae bad enough to go drop Demestriu, then she ought to be able to keep him.”

*  *  *

Annika alone remained.

“You don't have to decide right now, Emmaline. Just don't do something you're going to regret for the rest of your life.”

Emma shook her head, dismayed to see Annika hurting, but resolved in this. “I kept thinking it was about my choice, but it's not. It's yours. You can choose to accept me with him. Or I leave.” Lachlain drew her hand into his as though for support.

Annika clearly strove for a calm demeanor and her face was like marble, but lightning fired behind her, belying her efforts. She was torn about this.

“Annika, I'll always run to his arms.” There was no defense against that, no argument to refute it—and they both knew it.

Finally, Annika, with her chin up and shoulders back, faced Lachlain. “We don't recognize
matehood”
—she spat the word—“or whatever you Lykae call it, as a bonding union. You will have to exchange vows. Mainly I'm concerned about the one where the Lykae vows he won't use this union to harm the covens in any way.”

Lachlain grated, “The Lykae has a
name.
And if you'd like Emma to share it, nothing will please me better. I'll make that vow.”

She faced Emmaline with one last pleading expression. When Emma shook her head slowly, Annika ordered, “Do not trace him here any more than is absolutely necessary.”

As she strode from the room, she mumbled, “Coven's gone to hell on my watch.”

Emma said, “Tracing! That's right. Now we can visit whenever we want. Coo-ell. Can we spend some weekends here? And Mardi Gras? And the Jazz Fest? Ooh, I want to watch you eat crawfish!”

With a pained expression, he said, “I suppose on occasion we could run through the bayou as easily as a forest.”

Then her face fell. “But I don't know if I want you around all my gorgeous aunts.”

He chuckled at her ridiculous statement, then winced when his wounds wouldn't cooperate. “Emma, you shame them. No, doona argue. I have eyes, I can see.” He stroked his thumb over her cheek. “And I know none of them can howl at the moon half as good as my wee halfling.”

“Cheeky werewolf!” she chided, leaning in to kiss his lips, but she was interrupted by a scream downstairs.

As they frowned at each other, Annika shrieked at someone unseen,
“What do you mean, we have a six-figure credit card bill?”

Emma the Unlikely

Emma the King Killer

Emma of the Three

H
er own page in the Book of Warriors!

Regin, Nïx, and Annika had taken her—and she'd insisted on taking Lachlain—into the war room, to the ornate, ancient pedestal with the light shining down upon it. They drew it out from under its Plexiglas case and opened it to
her
page.

Her likeness was painted there and below it, written in the old language, were her aliases and
One of Wóden's Cherished Warriors.
Warrior. War-ee-yur. This was so cool as to not be believed. With trembling fingers, Emma brushed the raised writing on the soft parchment.

Slayer of Demestriu, king of the vampire Horde, eldest and strongest of vampires. When she chose to battle him alone.

Emma raised her eyebrows at the implicit rebuke, and Annika lifted her chin.

Queen to Lachlain, king of the Lykae. Beloved daughter of Helen and all Valkyrie.

“Look at my resume!” Tears spilled over. “I look good on paper!”

Regin groaned. “Not the crying. That's so gross.”

“And you left room for more!” She sniffled. Nïx handed her tissues she'd had the foresight to bring, and Emma brushed her face with them.

“Well, of course,” Nïx said. “Even if you spend a lazy eternity doing nothing more than wallowing about with your wolf, we left room for your heroic, hell-raising kids.”

Emma's face flushed, and she felt Lachlain draping a protective arm over her, squeezing her to his side. Chin up, he said, “We've decided no' to have bairns.”

Nïx frowned. “Well, I'm not usually wrong about these things when I do see them, but if you both are so set on it, then never let her eat human food, especially not for back-to-back weeks on end, or she'll get knocked up faster than a rabbit after a Druid fertility ceremony!”

Emma said softly, “But I can't . . . I'm a vampire, and we can't have children.”

Nïx and Annika both frowned. “Of course you can,” Nïx said. “You just have to take different nourishment.”

When Lachlain still looked unconvinced, Annika said, “Think about it—what do all humans do that not all in the Lore do? They eat of the earth and they spawn. The two are not unrelated.”

Her heart thudding, Emma remembered Demestriu talking about Helen sharing meals with him just before she got pregnant. “And a Lykae with a . . .
valkire?”

“Can you have little ankle-biters?” Nïx giggled. “Absolutely, and in the most literal sense. You know, you aren't the first time the different factions have had offspring together.” She glanced around as if looking for someone in the manor, then waved it away. “Vampires who can walk in the sun, Lykae who can take sustenance from lightning. Valkyrie
who run the forests at night with perfect joy.” Nïx got an awed expression on her face. “And they're
strong.
Just look at you.”

Emma glanced from Nïx to Annika. “Why didn't you tell me?”

Annika raised her palms, shaking her head. “I never imagined you thought about this at all, much less that you were under this misimpression.”

To Lachlain, Nïx said, “When Emma yearns in her heart for children, it begins. She'll have to eat regular food for at least nine months.”

Emma smacked her lips and grimaced, not relishing the thought of masticating.

“Doona hold your breath. I'm no' keen to share her.”

“Very well. Until then”—Nïx paused to give him a lascivious grin—“honeymoon!”

Emma and Lachlain sat stunned.

Nïx waved an impatient hand. “All this would have come out during the three hour pre-joining counseling that you two are required to do.”

*  *  *

That weekend after Emma and Lachlain's small, straightforward ceremony, and the raucous, bizarre party afterward, the members of the coven lounged in the TV room, sprawled over furniture, eyes glued to the television.