Proditor : Book 5 of the Heku Series (123 page)

Silas and Kralen moved forward and pulled
her off of the strange heku. She got off one more kick to his ribs
before they pulled her away. They led her inside while the Elders
descended on the rogue Equites. Emily headed up the stairs followed
by Silas and Kralen. Kralen motioned to her tattoo, and Silas
smacked him on the arm and glared at him.

She disappeared into her room, slamming the
door behind her, then changed quickly into jeans and a t-shirt and
tied her hair back. She slipped leather bracers over her forearms
and grabbed a leather tab before heading out.

Silas glanced at Kralen, who shrugged, and
they both followed her down the stairs. She passed the Elders
without saying a word, still angry over the actions of the heku.
She could still feel his fingers on her skin, and the thought made
her even more furious. She went into the stables, slammed open the
storage room door, and went inside. The Elders came up behind Silas
and Kralen, while two more members of the Cavalry joined them.

“
What’s she doing?” Silas
asked Chevalier.

Chevalier shrugged, “Not sure.”

“
She has leather bracers
on,” Kralen said, amused.

“
Em?” Chevalier called
out.

Emily came back out with a Quest Primal
Compound Bow and a quiver of arrows over her shoulder, “What?”

“
You have the strangest
things in that room,” Silas said, glancing inside before Emily shut
the door.

“
Are you going hunting?”
Chevalier chuckled.

“
No, I’m going to take
Keith’s favorite bow out and pretend to shoot vampires, wanna
offer?” she asked angrily, and walked past them.

“
That bow is almost as tall
as she is,” Zohn whispered, too low for her to hear.

“
What if we don’t want to
be around her when she’s armed?” Silas asked, and then followed
Emily.

Kralen grinned, “If she kills herself, I’m
joining the Ferus.”

Chevalier chuckled and watched them all walk
over toward the palace’s cemetery.

“
It amazes me,” Quinn said.
“How her scent does more to heku than just makes them want to feed.
Historically, were the Winchesters also inundated by
admirers?”

“
I haven’t read anything
about it, but I’ve been wondering that too,” Chevalier said. “It
seems like they don’t just want to feed, some will risk banishment
just to touch her.”

They turned when Kyle joined them, “She and
I had a conversation once, where she mentioned that most of her
attackers, before meeting Chevalier, would feed from her and then
kiss her before leaving. I got the impression the kiss ticked her
off worse than the bite.”

“
We should run an
experiment,” Zohn said. “Just to see.”

“
What kind of experiment?”
Chevalier asked.

“
Well… we set up that
conference room with the one-way-glass. We should be able to use it
for something.”

“
I don’t know if I like
that idea.”

“
Let’s use the new Cavalry
recruits,” Kyle suggested. “They are from Powan, so they will be
disciplined. Let’s just sit them in that room and have Emily go in
for a minute or two and observe.”

Chevalier frowned, “I don’t know if I like
us running experiments on my wife.”

“
They aren’t dangerous
experiments though, and it may help us in the long run.”

“
Course, we’ll never know
if it’s her scent or her looks,” Zohn said, ignoring the glare from
Chevalier.

“
That’s true,” Quinn
agreed.

Kyle grinned, “What if we took out the looks
and did the experiment?”

Chevalier shook his head, “No.”

Quinn sighed, “Before we subject anyone to
an experiment, let’s decide what we can accomplish by this
knowledge.”

“
Nothing, so we aren’t
doing it,” Chevalier said.

“
It still might be
interesting to know,” Kyle said.

“
Why? So what if it’s her
scent? We can’t fix that. If it’s her looks, we can’t fix that
either.”

“
Why don’t we ask her?”
Zohn said. “She might be interested to know too.”

“
Except she’s not going to
believe it’s her looks,” Quinn said, and smiled slightly. “She
still believes herself to be unattractive.”

“
That’s true,” Kyle said,
nodding.

Zohn frowned, “Are you kidding?”

“
It’s taken me 15 years to
get her to where she is, but her ex-husband still has a hold on
some things,” Chevalier sighed. “That one, I’ve never gotten her to
forget.”

“
She is extremely
confusing,” Zohn said. “Back to the experiment… I say we ask her
and do it.”

“
To accomplish
what?”

“
To calm our curiosity… I
just wish we could run it on mortals too.”

“
Why is Pem coming back
limping?” Kyle asked, looking over at the member of the Cavalry
coming toward them.

The heku blurred to him.

“
Were you attacked?” Quinn
asked hurriedly.

Pem sighed, “Remind me not to suggest a
smaller bow when the Lady is shooting.”

Chevalier chuckled, “You should know better
than that by now.”

“
Yeah, well… big bow or
not, she has really good aim,” he said, and limped past
them.

“
Elders,” Dustin said,
coming up behind them. “Four members of our guard ran into the
Winchester again last night.”

Zohn nodded, “Bring them in, we’ll talk to
them.”

The Elders and Kyle went back into the
council chambers and sat down. Four of the city guards were already
standing in the trial area.

“
Tell us what you saw,”
Zohn told them.

The closest heku spoke, “It was late, almost
midnight when we saw her. It’s just as we’ve heard, she’s about
5’6, maybe 5’7, short dark hair, though we couldn’t see her eyes.
She was dressed in black and was just walking. We got close enough
to catch her scent. It’s very similar to Lady Emily’s, but not
exactly the same.”

“
Did you try to contact
her?”

“
No, Sir. We weren’t sure
if she would turn us to ash.”

Zohn sighed, “Mark?”

Mark appeared in the doorway.

“
Mark, put out orders that
anyone seeing the new Winchester is to contact her, ashing or
no.”

“
Yes, Sir,” Mark said, and
disappeared.

“
Anything else to add?”
Quinn asked the guard.

“
No, Sir.”

“
Return to your
post.”

The guards bowed and walked out.

“
It’s not going to do us
any good if we can’t talk to her,” Dustin said,
irritated.

“
All we know is that she
walks at night. She can be seen anywhere in the city. She’s
5’6-ish, short dark hair, blue eyes, wears black most of the time,
and smells similar to Emily,” Chevalier said, looking down at the
paper. “That doesn’t give us a lot to go on.”

Kyle blurred away and came back with a book,
“There has to be an answer in this book Emily got from the
Valle.”

“
Which book is that?”
Dustin asked.

“
It’s a Winchester family
line book. I think the Valle tried harder than the other factions
to find the Winchester line, because by blood, they were
Valle.”

“
Which made what Exavior
did all the worse,” Quinn said, smiling slightly.

Kyle frowned, “Chevalier? Check out that
entry on Emily.”

Chevalier took the book and glanced at it,
then frowned, “What the hell?”

“
What’s wrong?” Zohn
asked.

“
It has her children listed
with me as the father… except the entry marked Baby3, and that has
Damon listed.”

Quinn gasped, “Why would the Valle put that
down? When she stole this book, she wasn’t even pregnant with
Dain.”

“
Derrick, ask her in,”
Quinn said when they heard Emily walk up the steps.

Emily came in with Dain, who was sucking on
the edge of her collar, “I’m sorry I shot your guard.”

Quinn smiled, “That’s not why we’ve called
you here.”

“
Why then?” she asked, her
eyes narrowing.

“
Care to explain this?”
Chevalier asked, and handed the book down.

Emily took the book and grinned, “I forgot
about that.”

“
So… what’s the story?”
Kyle asked, amused.

Emily handed the book back to Chevalier, “I
think I’ll keep that to myself. I like to keep the Council on their
toes.”

“
Wait, don’t leave,” Zohn
said when Emily turned for the door.

Emily turned to face him, “What now?”

“
We’d really like to know…
it’s disturbing.”

Emily glared at him, “Are you all accusing
me of sleeping with Damon?”

“
No,” Chevalier said.
“We’re just curious why they thought it.”

“
Fine… it’s because I told
him the baby was Damon’s.”

“
What baby?”

“
The one they accused me of
being pregnant with.”

“
Couldn’t they tell?” Quinn
asked.

“
No, they were too stupid
to tell for themselves, and I got tired of getting smacked around
for denying it, so I finally agreed.”

Chevalier growled slightly.

“
Ok, so you agreed to being
pregnant to appease them… why Damon?” Quinn asked.

Emily shrugged, “Why not? I was already
lying.”

“
They had to have noticed
the essence ring though.”

“
Yeah, he did, so I told
him it wasn’t cheating because it was Chevalier’s idea.”

Chevalier’s eyes grew wide, “You told them
that?”

“
Yes,” Emily said angrily,
and headed for the door. Just as she walked out, she turned and
added, “Just in case you’re wondering, I also told the Valle that
Damon had a little dick.”

“
I’m going to pay for
that,” Chevalier said when the door slammed behind her.

“
Yeah,” Kyle said. “Now
that I think about it, that did sound like we were accusing her of
sleeping with Damon.”

“
Well what were we supposed
to think?” Zohn asked.

“
That it was a joke… that
Emily lied to them…” Kyle started.

“
Now she’ll run,” Zohn
said. “Then she’ll get into trouble, and then we’ll have to go save
her.”

The sound of Dain screaming filled the
palace and the Council all cringed.

“
I say we adjourn,” Zohn
said, irritated, and the Council left the chambers, leaving only
the Elders. Most of them headed outside of the palace, leaving for
their individual covens.

“
Dad?” Allen said, bringing
in the screaming baby.

Chevalier held his hands out, “He won’t be
quiet for me either.”

“
Where’s your Mother?”
Quinn asked.

“
Taking a bath,” Allen told
them, and then grinned and left the council chambers.

“
Let me try,” Zohn said,
reaching out for the infant.

Chevalier handed him over and watched as
Zohn brought the baby up to look directly into his face.

“
Stop crying,” Zohn said
harshly.

Chevalier rolled his eyes, “That doesn’t
work.”

Dain stopped crying for a few seconds, and
then began to scream, kicking his legs angrily.

“
Nice, you made it worse,”
Quinn said, and took the baby. “I’ve seen Emily do
this.”

Quinn started to gently rock, but Dain kept
screaming.

“
That cannot be because of
her scent. Something’s wrong with that child,” Zohn
said.

Chevalier took Dain from Quinn and blurred
into the bathroom. Emily looked up when he came in.

“
What did you do to him?”
she asked, frowning.

“
We didn’t do anything,”
Chevalier said. Dain was watching his Mom and started to cry
louder.

“
Strip him,” Emily said,
and leaned back in the water. Chevalier quickly stripped the baby
and handed him to her. She laid him against her chest and he
immediately quit crying. Emily shut her eyes and leaned her head
back on the tub.

Chevalier watched them and focused in on
Dain. He hadn’t noticed before, but the baby wiggled until his nose
rested against Emily’s neck and then he shut his eyes and soon fell
asleep. Chevalier wondered if her scent could become a problem when
the baby got bigger. He decided to watch, and see if it was a
coincidence or if the baby always sought out her neck when he
needed to calm down.

***

“
Where did you see her?”
Quinn asked the guards.

“
Over by the old cemetery,”
the guard said. “Just as we’ve heard. I went up, and when I went to
talk to her, she held her hand up and told me to stop.”

“
She spoke?” Kyle asked,
shocked.

“
Sort of, more of a
whisper.”

“
Ok, and did you
stop?”

“
Yes, Sir. So she told us
to tell our Council to leave her alone or you’ll pay,” the guard
told them.

“
She threatened us?” Zohn
asked.

“
Yes, Sir.”

“
How would she even know
about the Council?” Chevalier asked, frowning.