Chapter 22
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
The Mundane world, near Seattle
Under a full moon deep in the woods, several people spread out, searching for signs of a foreign presence that didn’t belong. So much for kicking back and doing her nails tonight. Valentine Darkmore sighed.
Khent, her sexy reaper, frowned. As always, the expression only made him more handsome.
He’d been paired with her tonight. Val wouldn’t have minded working alongside Riley, whom she’d come to like.
But the vampires of the Night Bloode insisted on working alongside their own mates to better protect them.
As if she needed protection from anyone after what she’d gone through.
Val waited for Khent to get whatever bothered him off his chest. Was this about her mini war with Macy, the clan’s Bloode Witch? Well, too bad. That chick wanted Val to go to MEC jail just because she happened to be a necromancer.
Val couldn’t help that she’d been born with power over the deceased.
Technically, of everyone in the Night Bloode clan, Val was the weakest. A human but without witch power, like Macy had.
And Macy wasn’t just any witch, but the clan’s Bloode Witch, something that supposedly granted her enormous magic.
Val could only manipulate the dead.
It wasn’t fair, and Val refused to make MEC feel better about themselves just because she chose to continue breathing. They feared her power. Oh well. If they knew what she could really do, they’d shit themselves.
Since mating Khent a month and a half ago, she’d come fully into her magic. And then some. Only her mate, and maybe Rolf and that valkyrie who’d fought with him, had any idea Val housed a chaotic entity inside her, a being that could swallow the world if she so chose.
“Valentine, meryt, just…try,” Khent said, his deep voice plagued with irritation, though he still called her “meryt,” which meant “beloved.”
She sighed, trying not to make things more complicated for him. The big guy would give his life and soul for her. She felt how much he loved her with every glance and smile on his usually taciturn face. Ilu, the entity inside her, was obsessed with him too.
Khent grabbed her hand, stroking her palm. “I know the witch annoys you. She annoys me too. But to keep the peace, at least until after our great battle, cooperation would be the smarter move.”
“Fine. I won’t kill and reanimate her. But if she tries to trick me into hanging around her father one more time, I’m going to get mad.
” Macy’s dad was some bigwig at MEC, a grand mage—the strongest of the strong—with the power to fry her brain.
For all that Macy claimed he was a nice guy, Val didn’t trust him.
“You’re so sweet.” Khent leaned down to kiss her.
She felt a puff of hot breath from the dragon that stared out at her from his dark eyes. Ever since accepting the form of his ancient self, he had a tough time tucking it away. She found him incredibly alluring.
He gave her a wicked smile.
“Hey, quit macking and find this evil thing so we can go home,” Riley snapped as she joined them. “I’m missing From.”
“That’s not grammatically correct,” Khent said. He turned to Val. “Is the lycan speaking in togues of which I’m unaware?”
“I’m right here, Khent,” Riley said.
“From? The TV show?” Val asked.
“Yes!”
Val frowned. “Is season four out yet?”
“No. But I’m rewatching from season one.”
“I’m confused.” Khent frowned at Riley, who didn’t flinch. The lycan berserker was a powerful addition to the clan and didn’t fear much.
Riley gushed, “It’s an awesome show. See, people traveling find a tree in the road, and they get diverted to this town they can’t leave. There are evil things and mysteries they need to figure out.”
“But we have that here. Why watch a mortal television show about it?”
Riley glared. “Don’t even pretend to disdain TV. Kraft told me you’re hooked on Stargate, and that show is old.”
Khent muttered, “Kraft has a big mouth. Besides, that show deals with ancient Egyptian mythology in a creative and smart way.”
“Yeah, right.”
A large black wolf, easily twice the size of a normal wolf, walked out of the woods and started barking.
Riley flinched. “Okay, okay. Sorry. I was trying to figure out why it seemed like you and I were the only ones out here” —she shot Val and Khent an accusatory look— “searching for this weirdness.”
Riley’s mate in wolf form barked some more.
“Fine, fine. Keep your panties on.” She shimmered until she took on the form of a wolf just slightly smaller than Kraft. Lycans with real power, berserkers were the strongest of their kind.
Val thought Riley and Kraft fit well together. She watched them stalk back into the forest, scouting for danger.
“Do you sense anything?” Khent asked.
“No. You?”
“No.” He frowned. “That bothers me. Because that means whatever is out here is hiding its magic, and it’s powerful enough to do so.”
“We’re sure it’s here?” she asked again. “Duncan said they found it east of the city two days ago. Why are we here?” At the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.
“Hecate told us to look here. And…” He paused. “That. I feel something.”
“Hmm. I do too. Something dead.” After convincing the chaotic entity inside her to settle down and just watch, Val felt with her senses. A horde of dead…demons? Fae? Something not human approached. “Khent, they’re coming, and they’re not human.”
“I feel them. Wait here.” He left her with that vampire speed that always took her aback then shortly returned, his expression thoughtful. “We have a dozen imps with warlocks and a few sorcerers, all dead. The imps too. Can you grab them?”
She tried, but the hold on the dead already puppeting them wasn’t natural. “No. Whatever we were sent to find has them in its grasp. I don’t understand why I can sense them but can’t touch them. Weird.” Fascinating. Like Khent, Val loved studying what she didn’t understand.
“We’ll make sure to take one alive back to the lab with us.” Khent read her too easily.
“I love you.”
“And I love you.”
“If you two kiss again, I might actually gag,” Kraft said, coming out of the trees behind them. The nachzehrer in human form had dark, shaggy hair, his casual clothing always unkempt, as if he’d just rolled out of bed. By his side, Riley stood panting, her tongue lolling in a wolf grin.
“Woof.”
“She agrees.” Kraft faced the opposite direction from the one Khent and Val were facing. “What’s coming?”
“They’re circling us,” Khent said.
“Duh. I have ears.”
Khent glared at him. “After we defeat these dead, corrupted beings, I will show you how to properly respect your elders, fledgling.”
“Suck it, dragon breath.” Kraft smirked.
Val knew they all gave each other grief as only snarky family could, but she wasn’t always sure Khent appreciated the “brotherly” affection.
A monster raced out of the trees toward her, a male sorcerer with broken arms flopping at his sides. But the spell he flung at Khent knocked her mate on his ass.
“Oh, that had to hurt,” Kraft said with snicker before launching himself at the sorcerer.
Riley stepped between another dead magic user and Val, protecting Val from a bolt of fire that hit Riley’s hide but didn’t burn, squelched by the lycan’s ability to withstand spells.
Riley rushed after the warlock who’d sent it, ripping through his throat and knocking the corpse’s head away.
Val reanimated the headless body and borrowed his magic, which hadn’t yet dissipated, to hold off the others coming toward them.
Khent reappeared, carrying two bodies, both dead-dead.
“Apologies. I was distracted.” He glared at Kraft, who shot him the finger.
Kraft laughed as he waded next to his mate, pummeling imps and a few devils, she noticed in awe.
Not used to demonkind, Val appreciated the fight for exposing her to the creatures from a realm she had no interest in visiting.
Her one trip to Irkalla had given her more than she wanted of the underworld.
“What’s their purpose here, Khent?” she asked and raised a few more undead to surround her, protecting herself so Khent and the others could take down the enemy.
He killed—or re-killed, since they were all already dead in the first place—a few more with ease before returning to her side. “My guess? To check our power. This isn’t a dangerous threat, merely an annoyance.”
He studied the pair of imps fighting Riley.
Half the size of an average human, imps were smaller demons with the magical ability of a normally powered mage.
Most imps had control over fire and earth, with a few dabbling in blood magic.
But they typically served as familiars for more powerful demons and magir.
The crew attacking them on the mountain seemed like a diversion. Val met Khent’s gaze and knew he understood the situation.
“Go,” she told him. “I’ll be fine here with Riley and Kraft.”
Kraft left the nearby grouping of trees, covered in blood, and looked to Khent. “What’s up?”
“Val’s staying. It’s a diversion.”
“Ah. Got it. Riley and I’ll watch over her. Though I don’t think she needs our help.”
Val used her growing dead army to rip apart a few more imps, then reanimated them and launched a few spells, readying to clear the mountainside of the stench of decay.
Khent nodded, crossed to Val to kiss her, then transformed into an eagle-owl and flew away. She figured he hadn’t chosen his dragon form as he wanted to remain inconspicuous.
“Where do you think the real attack is happening?” Kraft asked her.
“I wish I knew.”
A tall blond woman walked out of the forest. She was dressed like an ancient Viking warrior, with an overlarge tunic, a bloodied sword resting on one shoulder, and long blond braids on either side of her face.
Her bright blue eyes blazed with power, and runes appeared on her cheeks in that same neon blue.
She spoke in a language Val didn’t understand, but Kraft replied.
The woman nodded, smirked at them, then left.
Inside her mind, Val swore she heard Ilu reply to something the woman said privately.
The rest of the undead, not under Val’s control, vanished, leaving Riley, Kraft, and Val alone with Val’s dead army.
Val concentrated. “Ilu? What did she say?”
“She was quite polite. She sent greetings and said that if I wanted to join her, she’d be happy to have me along.”
“Who was she?”
“I don’t know. But she said Erland sends his thanks.”
“Thanks for what? Who’s Erland?”
An imp she’d reanimated grabbed her hand and bit her.
“Ow.” What the heck?
The imp smiled.
Val blacked out and saw nothing more.