Equites : Book 4 of the Heku Series (63 page)

Chevalier jerked and stood
up quickly. Emily gasped and stumbled out of bed, trying to clear
her head.

“
What’s wrong?” she asked,
looking around the room.

“
It’s ok… I’m sorry, lay
down,” he said, and sat down, patting the bed.

Emily sat down and yawned, still
looking around the bedroom.

“
That was an… interesting
dream,” Chevalier whispered as he tucked her back into
bed.

“
I don’t remember it,”
Emily said, and curled up next to him.

He kissed her forehead,
“Good.”

“
What?” she asked, looking
up at him with tired eyes.

“
Good night.” He grinned
and laid back on the bed.

Chevalier kept his eyes
open and watched her sleep. He didn’t want to see into her dreams
any more that night. He’d had enough of her vision of the future.
He spent the time trying to decide what to do with Allen. He
understood why Emily hesitated to use her abilities on him, but as
a child predator, he had to be taught who was in charge. For the
safety of Emily and Alexis, Allen had to be taught his
place.

Chevalier was brought out of his
trance when Emily started to wake, he ordered breakfast silently
and got up to get Alexis when he heard her talking. He brought
Alexis in and laid her in bed between them. Emily smiled and
wrapped her arms around the toddler.

“
Good morning.” Chevalier
smiled and kissed Emily softly.

Emily pulled Alexis under the covers,
“We decided to stay in bed all day.”

“
Yeah” Alexis said,
grinning.

“
Lazy kids,” Chevalier
chuckled.

Emily hit him upside the head with a
pillow.

“
Call me a kid again and
I’ll start calling you Grandpa,” Emily said, and kissed Alexis on
the top of the head.

“
Yeah,” Alexis said
again.

“
Do you always agree with
Mommy?” Chevalier asked the toddler.

“
Yeah.” Alexis
giggled.

“
Do you want to go back to
the palace today?”

Alexis shook her head ‘no’
and then said “Yeah.”

Emily propped up on her elbow, “You’re
going back today?”

“
I was hoping to. Did you
want to stay here longer?” Chevalier asked.

“
Is that ok?”

Chevalier nodded, “You can stay here
as long as you like.”

“
Are you taking Allen with
you?”

“
I really think I
should.”

Emily nodded and let Alexis go when
she saw her breakfast arrive.

“
Take Mark and Silas too,
they should be with the Cavalry. I’m ok here,” Emily said, and sat
up, stretching her sore back.

“
I can’t leave you here
without guards, and the Cavalry are the only ones I trust,” he told
her.

“
You trust your guards
here. They are just afraid of me,” Emily said, and looked back at
him.

Chevalier chuckled, “That
too. You’re right though, Mark should get back. I’ll send a
replacement.”

Emily shrugged and crawled
out of bed, then grabbed a glass of orange juice and sat by
Alexis.

Chevalier kissed the top of Emily’s
head, “I’ll send Kyle back here too, ok?”

Emily nodded, “Yeah, sure.”

Emily sat up in bed and
looked toward the window when she heard the alarm sound. Soon, her
room was full of both Cavalry guards and guards from the
castle.

“
Come on, down to the cave
room,” Kyle said, pulling the covers off of Emily and
Alexis.

Emily handed Alexis up to Silas, “Keep
her safe.”

Silas nodded and ran the toddler down
to the cave room.

Emily grabbed some clothes and
disappeared into the bathroom.

“
Come on! We have to get
you down there,” Kyle said frantically.

Emily came out and was tying up her
hair, “Nope, not hiding.”

The guards from the castle
looked at her, surprised, and the Cavalry guards all looked to
Kyle.

“
Oh no, you’re not going to
fight,” Kyle said, taking her arm.

“
Yes I am. $10 says they
are here after me.” Emily put on her shoes and headed for the
door.

Kyle grabbed her wrist, “I’ll have you
restrained.”

“
I’ll ash you first, I’m
fighting… period,” Emily said, glaring at him.

Kyle grinned, “You can’t ash
me.”

They all turned when they
heard the front doors to the castle crash in, and the sounds of
fighting from down below them. Emily ran to the secret doors, so
the heku all headed down toward the sounds of battle. She shut the
secret door and ran for the stairs.

Emily took the stairs down
two at a time, looking for some of the attackers. She saw three
Valle on the second floor and walked up to them, “Good day for an
attack, eh?”

They turned quickly and
their eyes grew wide when they saw her. One of them grabbed her
while another tied something around her eyes.

“
Damn, we could get
promoted for getting her,” one of them said.

“
Not what we came for, but
pretty damn valuable,” another said, excited.

“
Stay calm, Sweetheart,
taking you to the General,” she heard someone say to
her.

Emily nodded. She thought
that was perfect. They were going to take her to whomever was
leading this attack. She was thrown over the shoulder of a large
heku and felt the wind fly past her as she was blurred out of the
castle. Just as the sounds of the ocean grew closer, she was set
down and her mouth was uncovered.

“
Damnit, Vick, you
shouldn’t carry her like that! It can hurt the baby,” a gruff voice
growled.

“
Sorry, Sir… I didn’t
realize that.” His voice sounded tense and panicked.

Emily sighed,
irritated.

“
Oh, he’ll be pleased we
found her though,” a voice said.

“
So glad to oblige,” Emily
said, grinning.

“
Did he hurt you,
Child?”

“
Nope.” Emily was trying to
hide the excitement from her voice.

She swayed slightly when
the ground moved out from under her as she felt the familiar
rocking of a boat. The engines started up and the sounds of the
waves breaking on the beach began to fade.

“
Good, good. I’m very
pleased,” someone said from behind Emily. His voice was soft, yet
confident, and it sent a shiver up her spine.

“
You might as well take the
blindfold off,” Emily said calmly.

“
And allow you to turn us
to ash? I think not.”

Emily chuckled, “Like a blindfold’s
ever kept me from it.”

The boat suddenly grew
silent and Emily just stood quietly, waiting for the heku to say
something. She could hear whispers, but wasn’t able to tell what
they were saying.

“
All the same, we leave the
blindfold on,” she heard from a different voice beside
her.

Emily shrugged, “Have it your
way.”

“
Have a seat, Child,” she
heard, and someone took her arm and led her to a soft chair. As she
sat down, she felt a handcuff tighten onto each wrist and
discovered she’d been restrained to the chair.

“
Are you comfortable?”
someone asked her.

“
Handcuffs aren’t really my
thing, but sure,” she said, smiling.

“
Do you require
sustenance?”

“
You mean am I hungry? No,
I’m fine.”

“
Good, we weren’t planning
on having a mortal on board, not sure what we could scrounge
up.”

There were whispers again,
and the one Emily thought might be the leader finally spoke, “How
far along are you?”

“
You need to stop listening
to Damon,” Emily told him.

“
Why is that? Though, it’s
hard to listen to him when he’s been banished.”

“
Who are you?” Emily asked
him.

“
You don’t know me. I’m
Chris, the Valle’s Chief Interrogator.”

“
So you replaced
Exavior?”

“
Yes,” Chris said, and
Emily heard him move a chair up to her.

“
Well, Chief Interrogator…
I’m not pregnant.”

“
Until you cooperate, you
can stay down in the hold,” he said, and the room grew
quiet.

Emily sighed and tried to
slip out of the restraints. She couldn’t ash the boat if she wasn’t
able to get loose. Without being able to see, they felt like
regular handcuffs, but they were tight enough she couldn’t even
begin to slip her hand out.

Emily sat back and waited for someone
to come down again. It seemed like hours passed before she heard
someone sit in the chair in front of her.

“
Are you ready to talk?”
Chris asked.

“
I am. I have a question
first though.”

“
What might that
be?”

“
Aren’t Chief Interrogators
supposed to be able to detect when someone’s lying to them, or is
it just Zohn that can do that?”

“
We all can, it comes with
experience.”

“
Ahh, I see, and you’re
new, so I guess you are just learning, maybe not very good at it
yet,” Emily told him. She heard a hiss and the chair slammed back
against a wall.

“
How far along are you?”
Chris asked angrily.

“
I’m not pregnant. You
should be able to smell that,” Emily said again, accentuating each
word.

“
You will tell me,” Chris
yelled, and stormed out of the room.

Emily shrugged and then
listened carefully when the engines to the boat turned off. She
couldn’t hear the lapping of waves, and wondered if they were
anchored out in the ocean.

“
Hey geniuses… why don’t
you walk your little selves into a grocery store and buy a
pregnancy test? I pee on it, and you’ll see that you were all lied
to,” Emily called out.

“
You’d like that wouldn’t
you? Have us pull in to shore so your little Equites could come and
rescue you?” Chris said from behind her.

“
Yes because I have contact
with them as we speak, and my implanted GPS system has given them
our exact location.” Emily was going to say more, but stopped when
Chris slapped her.

Chris hissed, “Respect,
Child.”

“
You hit like my
grandmother.”

When Chris’s fist connected
with her face, it threw the chair back and she landed hard against
the floor.

“
Respect,” he said again.
Chris righted her chair and then left, slamming the door behind
him.

Emily sighed, “Ok, so that
one hurt,” she said to no one, and flexed her jaw.

“
Are you ready to talk?”
Chris asked when he came back.

“
Yes,” Emily
nodded.

“
How far along are
you?”

“
Three months,” Emily said
softly. She knew how to play this game.

“
See, how hard was
that?”

Emily jumped when she felt
an ice pack pressed against the side of her face, “I don’t need
that, thanks.”

“
Very well,” Chris said,
and she heard him sit down in the chair. “Is the Elder the
father?”

“
No,” Emily said. She
figured why bother telling the truth at all now.

“
Your essence ring is still
on, do not lie to me.” He was getting angry.

“
It wasn’t infidelity. It
was Chevalier’s idea to let Damon have a go.”

“
Damon is the father?”
Chris asked.

“
Yes”

“
Interesting,” Chris said,
obviously thinking it through.

“
He wasn’t interesting at
all, he had a little dick,” Emily said, and grinned
some.

“
Do you always speak what’s
on your mind?”

“
Yes, pretty
much.”

“
Do you find that often
gets you into trouble?”

“
Yes”

Chris sighed, “Slow learner
then aren’t you?”

“
Me? Haven’t the Valle
learned anything from trying to take me in the past?”

“
Such as?”

“
Such as… it never works,
and when I retaliate, heku tend to turn to ash,” she
explained.

“
Yes, we are aware of that
and have taken precautions.”

“
Your little handcuffs are
hurting me,” Emily said truthfully.

“
I bet they are, but we
can’t risk taking them off.”

“
Loosen them at least
before I lose a hand.”

Chris chuckled, “No…
however, I will move you to the bed for the night.”

Emily tensed. The last time
she’d been restrained to a bed by the Valle, the pain had been
excruciating. She felt her hands come loose from the chair, and
Chris helped her to her feet and led her to a bed. She laid down
and her hands were both fastened above her to the headboard. She
relaxed some when she realized the position wouldn’t cause the
muscle spasms.