Eternity of Vengeance : Book 7 of the Heku Series (51 page)

“No, I want to see him,” she said, and
headed around him.

“No, Em. Let the guards
feed him before he gets near you.”

Emily glanced back at the
Council and then whispered to Chevalier, “Go back up to your Elder
seat, and leave my family alone.”

He frowned slightly and
took a step back, “Meaning?”

“Meaning… nothing,” Emily
said, and then turned and left the council chambers. She walked
down toward the garage, ignoring the guards that fell in behind her
and climbed into the old Chevy pick-up.

“Where are we going?” her guard asked
when he crawled into the passenger side.

“We… aren’t going
anywhere. Get out,” Emily told him, and turned the key.

“Elder’s…”

“I don’t really care what
the Elder’s orders are. Get out of my car.”

The guard looked over at the other
three heku and then back to Emily, “You’ll have to ash me to get me
out of this truck.”

“Fine,” she growled, and
then took off from the palace garage with a pile of ash next to her
on the seat.

As she drove, she smiled
slightly. She realized the Equites would consider this running, but
to her, she just had to get out of the tight control of the
Council. She needed time to clear her head and consider what was
happening with Chevalier.

She understood from the
moment he became Elder, that she and the kids would always take
second place to the Equites and his responsibilities as Elder. She
also knew about that when she married him, but at the time it was
only the coven and not the entire faction that she stood
against.

Her mind was far away when
she pulled past the iron gates of Exavior’s old house and stopped
at the front doors. The sight of a new building brought her out of
her deep thoughts and she got out of the old pickup and walked over
towards it. What used to be a large open field of grass, was now a
massive garage painted to match the dark exterior of the
house.

She shook her head and
opened the side door, somewhat surprised that it wasn’t locked.
When she flipped on the lights, she gasped. The garage was full of
cars, everything from an old Model-T to a sleek black convertible.
Parked toward the doors, was her dark blue Dodge Ram 3500 and the
green Rubicon. She walked over and ran her hand along the
pristinely clean Rubicon before opening the garage door.

After pulling the Chevy
pickup inside, she shut the doors and then laughed at the sight of
the dirty gray truck parked among the expensive sports cars. Spying
her Harley over in the corner, she walked over and swung her leg
over to sit down. Sitting on the comfortable seat, she looked over
the motorcycle and saw that it had been immaculately maintained and
was in perfect condition.

“Hey! Who’re you?” a heku yelled from
the door.

Emily jumped at the sudden
voice and scrambled off of the motorcycle, “What?”

“You have no right being
in here,” the heku said, and walked over towards her angrily. He
was scowling and she was glad to see he wasn’t a big heku, at least
by heku standards. His long blond hair was greasy and pulled back
into a long braid.

“I do too, this is my house,” she
said, and squared her shoulders towards him.

“I doubt that. Now get out
before I call the cops,” he told her, and stopped a few feet from
her.

“I suggest you call the
Council before you call the cops on me,” she said, and walked past
him.

She heard him gasp, “You’re… are you
Lady Emily?”

She ignored him and walked
out of the garage, slamming the door behind her. She heard the heku
follow her out and he was no longer bold and angry, now he seemed
unsure as he followed her to the house.

“I guess I should ask then, who the
hell are you?” she asked as she crossed her arms and turned to face
him.

“Green, Ma’am,” he replied
and bowed slightly. “It’s my duty to watch over the house and
property.”

“Was your duty. Now get
off of my property,” she hissed, and walked into the house. She was
surprised when he didn’t follow her inside, so she locked the door
and looked around. Not much had changed since she left, though she
did appreciate that the house was kept clean and in order. She
could smell fresh paint, and wondered how much they had changed
since she left.

Emily set her keys on the
small wooden table by the door and slipped off her shoes. The
wooden floor was cold and she immediately headed for the thermostat
to turn up the heat. After looking through the empty kitchen, she
headed down the hidden passageway to see if the ceremonial room had
been dealt with. The heavy stone door had been replaced with a much
lighter wooden one, and when she peeked inside, she was pleasantly
surprised to see solid white walls with shelves lining it. The
Equites had turned the old heku ceremonial room into a large
storage space.

The entryway was already
warming up when she got to the main landing and started for the
third-floor, where the bedrooms were. She slowly opened Exavior’s
bedroom door and was surprised to see that it hadn’t been touched.
The empty boxes she stacked in the room were still there, and dust
covered every surface.

Emily turned her phone off
when it rang, and then grabbed a box and sat down in front of
Exavior’s DVD collection. When she opened the doors, she realized
they were housed in an antique armoire. She ran her hands over the
ancient wood and marveled at the craftsmanship that went into the
intricately etched bears along the outer rim of the
door.

She was able to fit
Exavior’s porn collection into three boxes, and taped it up after
writing Kralen’s name on the top, then stacked them in the corner
and turned to the first set of drawers.

***

Derrick stepped aside and
let Green into the council chambers. All seats were full, and he
began to panic when 13 sets of eyes looked down at him. He quickly
removed his red baseball cap and wrung it in his hands.

“Is there a problem?” Dustin asked
him.

“No… well… maybe? I don’t know, could
be I guess,” Green stammered out.

Dustin sighed, “Is there or is there
not a problem?”

“Depends, I guess… well, not
really.”

Chevalier growled, “Is there a problem
with the house?”

“No, actually,” Green
mumbled. “But I got fired.”

Zohn gasped, “Emily went
to her house and fired you?”

“Yes, Elder.”

“And you felt that
important enough to tell the Council?” Quinn asked,
confused.

“Yes, Elder.”

“Why?”

“Well… she was pretty
upset.”

Chevalier nodded, “So you came to us
for punishment?”

“Yes, Elder.”

“Go back to your own
house. There is no punishment needed.”

Green looked briefly at Chevalier and
then instantly disappeared.

“He should be punished just for that
display of hesitation,” Dustin sighed.

“I’m sure Emily just scared him,” Kyle
chuckled.

“Just because she’s angry
at the Elder, doesn’t give her the right to take it out on poor
unsuspecting heku. He was doing his job, and more than likely was
verbally assaulted for nothing,” Dustin said.

“Wait… why do you assume
she’s angry at me?” Chevalier asked, and turned toward the Coven
Liaison Officer.

“She was.”

“How so?”

“By my guess… it’s because
when you came to give her the news on Dain, you did so from your
Elder’s chair.”

Chevalier frowned slightly as he
thought about that.

“Elder… did you?” Kyle asked, and then
sat back in his chair when Chevalier didn’t answer.

“It’s going to take time
for all of us to get used to having her back,” Quinn explained.
“While that may have been a poor lapse in judgment, I’m sure there
was no harm intended.”

“Damnit,” Chevalier
whispered. “I didn’t even think about it. No wonder she’s
mad.”

“She can’t expect you to suddenly fall
back into the husband roll after a year,” Dustin said, and thumbed
through a coven listing book.

“Everyone’s a little on
edge with her return,” the Chief of Defense said. “Things were
hectic for a year while we searched for her, and once she returned,
and the aftermath of the Encala was learned, it’s been worse. I
suspect that Chevalier was simply in Elder mode, not something
easily turned off.”

“I’m sure she’s still
feeling uncomfortable around us also,” Zohn said. “She was alone
for a year, and we’ve again thrown her under our
protection.”

“It’s obvious to us all that things
are not as they were before she left,” the Chief Interrogator
mentioned.

“So what do I do?” Chevalier asked,
and looked down the row of heku.

“Time will fix things,”
Quinn told him. “I am guessing eventually, things will get back to
normal and she’ll feel comfortable here.”

“She must feel like an
outsider,” Dustin said, and then quickly became quiet with Kyle
glared at him.

“Maybe you should court her again,”
the Chief of Finance suggested.

Chevalier smiled slightly, “That
wasn’t exactly easy the first time.”

“Mortals date, did you do
that?”

“No, actually, I didn’t.”

Kyle grinned, “You could always knock
her out and drag her to Colorado against her will
again.”

Chevalier chuckled
slightly, “Don’t tempt me… it worked once.”

“It’s just going to take
time. We need to be patient with her and be understanding of her
needs,” Quinn said. “It’s not really in our nature to try to
understand feelings, but in her case, they mean a great deal to
this faction.”

“She has such close
dealings with this Council, maybe it’s not just the Elder that
needs to court her,” the Faction Liaison Officer said.

“Do what?” Quinn asked.

“Not in the literal sense… but instead
of treating her like we did before she left, maybe we need to put
on kid gloves and be more in a stage of trying to help her accept
us.”

“How, exactly?” Zohn asked,
intrigued.

“Well I’m not sure. One
thing is, not to force guards on her, or not to enforce any
rules.”

The Chief of Defense
nodded, “So we work her back into the faction slowly. Until she’s
comfortable with us, we treat her like a guest?”

“We just need to remember
that she didn’t marry the Council,” Kyle reminded them. “When she
married the Elder, he was a Chief Enforcer and Coven Lord. He lived
with his coven, so she was with him a lot and wasn’t fighting for
alone time.”

“She doesn’t have to fight for time
alone with me,” Chevalier said, slightly irritated.

“She doesn’t?” Kyle asked, and looked
over at him.

“Has she ever asked you to stay away
from trials and you denied it?” Zohn asked.

Chevalier sighed and nodded slightly,
“Quite often, actually.”

“On the Island, that
wasn’t as much of a problem,” Kyle said.

***

Emily finished loading the
back of the Chevy truck full of things from Exavior’s room that she
wanted to throw out. A few items were going back to Council City,
but the rest needed to go to the dump. She locked up the new garage
and the house and drove back to Council City in the
dark.

She stopped the truck in
front of Cavalry housing and turned off the lights, then looked at
the dark building and wondered if anyone was inside. She knew that
Kralen and Silas were housed inside of the palace, but spent most
of their free time in the Cavalry’s barracks.

Emily got out and grabbed
the three boxes for Kralen, along with a box full of miscellaneous
items that she thought the Cavalry could use. Unable to see past
the boxes, she walked carefully to the door and used her foot to
knock on it, and then waited only a few seconds before the door
opened.

“Erm… can I help you?” a
strange heku asked.

Emily grinned, though they
couldn’t tell from behind the stack of boxes. She lowered her voice
to answer him, “Delivery for Kralen Jones.”

“Captain?” the heku said
hesitantly.

“What is all of that?” Kralen asked,
and tried to peek around the boxes at the carrier.

“Porn,” Emily said, and started to
laugh.

“Gah, Em,” he growled, and
took the boxes from her. “You aren’t supposed to be
lifting.”

She stretched out her arms
and walked inside. The barracks were too dark to see much, but she
could tell by the sounds that they were full.

“What’s in the boxes?” Kralen asked,
and set them down.

“I told you, porn.”

He grinned, “You brought me four boxes
of porn?”

“No, of course not,” she
said, and lifted the top box. “Only 3 of those are
porn.”