Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
H aven slouched in her chair in the Section 8 war room, surrounded by every authority figure who worked there, all of them eyeing her with various degrees of disappointment.
Roan figured this was all fairly new to her. She often had her opinions overlooked in staff meetings because she was the boss’s daughter and one of the youngest full-fledged hunters on staff. He’d seen it happen firsthand. After the accident, he imagined she got used to having everyone look at her like she was fragile and needed to be protected like a priceless piece of blown glass.
What she probably had very little experience with, however, was being wrong . Screwing up. Having everyone strategizing about how to clean up a mess she’d made, which was not a good feeling.
I should know .
The rectangular, solid maple conference room table was comically large and could comfortably seat twenty people. Harper always sat at the head of the table. Her husband, Riddick, always sat directly to her right.
In fact, now that Roan was thinking about, he couldn’t remember a time when he’d seen Harper and not seen Riddick by her side. He’d always just thought of them like a set. Like a salt and pepper shaker or something.
Next to Riddick was his sister Seven, who was sitting on her husband Lucas’s lap, even though there were plenty of chairs for them to sit separately. They were a set, too. Roan had always assumed it was because Lucas was a wolf shifter and couldn’t bear to be in a room with his mate and not touch her.
He supposed he could relate. Sitting here and not touching Haven made him want to crawl out of his skin, too.
As for Seven, she didn’t seem too concerned. Roan imagined after all their years together, she was used to Lucas never letting her ass touch a chair.
Across from Seven and Lucas was Benny, the wererat/vampire hybrid. He was a squirrelly little guy who didn’t look like much, but Roan had seen him in a fight, and he could be downright deadly with a switchblade. He was not to be underestimated.
Nikolai and Quinn, dhampyres who looked enough like Riddick that Roan had mistaken them for brothers when he first met them, sat next to Benny.
Hunter, the oldest vampire in existence, a guy who could tell stories about Christopher Columbus that’d make anyone question how Europeans ever made it to America, sat at the opposite end of the table, drumming his fingers impatiently on the surface. If Roan hadn’t missed his guess, he’d say Hunter was impatiently counting the minutes until he could go home to his wife, Mischa.
Roan repressed a shudder. Mischa was absolutely terrifying in a fight. He’d never seen anyone fight bloodier and harder than her. Not even Seven, and he’d been tortured by Seven before.
His brother sat at Hunter’s left. Which left him and Haven in between Gabriel and Seven and Lucas.
So…yeah…he imagined Haven was feeling outgunned and outnumbered, which couldn’t possibly be easy for her.
And to complete her embarrassment, Levi was there, too. He’d declined a seat at the table, and was instead holding up the doorframe. No one questioned him about it. As a predator, it had to be uncomfortable to be in a room full of bigger, more ruthless predators.
As it turned out, they had Levi to thank for their rescue this evening. He’d called Section 8 as soon as the rift opened. Few people knew that their response time to real emergencies was half of what 911 could pull off. And when the Section Princess was involved? Five minutes, two seconds, apparently.
Haven had already addressed the initial volley of questions. Why was Roan involved, who was the werewolf, why wasn’t she the one who’d called for backup, why didn’t Roan teleport her out of there, how had she discovered her new power, had she discussed it with the Section doctors, was she having any other symptoms or side effects…it had to be exhausting for her. For now, though, everyone was as caught up on the situation as Haven and Roan were.
Except for the whole she’s-my-wife-thing .
He still couldn’t believe he’d blurted that out. He was not looking forward to the conversation he was sure they were going to have about that later.
Harper rubbed her temples. “Hunter, did the image of the demon Haven psychically transmitted to you pop up in the archives?”
Haven perked up, and Roan immediately knew why. The Vampire Council had the most extensive library he’d ever seen. When she was a kid, Haven had always asked if her family could rent it out for birthday parties. Hunter had always shot her down. Priceless artifacts, history of all living things, oldest written accounts of the supernatural on earth, too precious to end up smeared with birthday cake…blah, blah, blah. The list went on and on. But if there was anyone that’d have the info on Haven’s new demon admirer, it’d be Hunter.
Hunter nodded. “Very briefly. Not much is known because they’ve never been spotted in this dimension before, but it would appear that Haven’s new friend is from the Kurg dimension. They’re known as Kurgans.”
Lucas sat up straighter. “Like The Kurgan from Highlander ?”
Hunter blinked at him. “What in our history together makes you think I’d know what you’re talking about?”
Harper let out an impatient groan. “It was a movie. 1986. Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, and Clancy Brown. Clancy played the villain—a guy called The Kurgan. Awesome film. Shouldn’t ever be rebooted. Can we move on now?”
Benny frowned. “Clancy Brown. Where do I know that name?”
“ SpongeBob, ” Lucas said. “The voice of Mr. Krabs.”
“No fucking way,” Benny grumbled. “Ain’t no way The Kurgan and Mr. Krabs are the same guy.” He pulled out his phone. “I’m checking IMDB.”
Hunter, ever the adult in the room, sighed and said, “ Anyway , Kurgans are fireproof, as you already learned. They can travel through dimensions and have some limited teleportation abilities. As far as I can tell, they are a type of succubus.”
“What’s it feed on?” Gabriel asked. “Sex or energy?”
“We don’t know for sure,” Hunter said. “But there are some reports that suggest it’s looking for power. That it travels through dimensions, searching for it. So, maybe that’s how it feeds. And apparently, in its travels through this dimension, it hadn’t found any power of interest. Until now.”
All eyes turned to Haven.
She sat up straighter in her chair. “Why would it want my power? I have the most passive power in this room.” She gestured to Hunter. “You have more power than anyone here.”
“You had a passive power,” Hunter reminded her. “That changed when you encountered this demon for whatever reason. And I’m dead, so it might not even sense my power. It might need living, breathing power. The dhampyres are genetically close enough to demons that maybe the Kurgan doesn’t want anything to do with them, either.”
“Well,” she sputtered. “What about Lane? She’s super powerful. Why wouldn’t it want her?”
“I’m guessing there aren’t many demons who’d want anything to do with angelic powers,” Gabriel muttered.
“Good guess,” Hunter deadpanned.
Riddick gave her a gentle look. “Honey, I don’t think it matters why the demon didn’t choose someone else. He chose you . Now we have to deal with that, yeah?”
She looked so lost for a moment that it broke Roan’s heart. He couldn’t stop himself. He reached out under the table and laid his hand on her thigh, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Her entire body tensed for a second, then she relaxed and gave him an almost imperceptible nod. Comfort offered, comfort accepted. After being separated from her for so long, it felt good.
It felt right .
He just wished they weren’t coming together under these circumstances.
Circumstances he’d caused.
“You’re right,” she said to her father. “I get it.”
“Can we summon it?” Seven asked. “Like we did the angels?”
Hunter shrugged. “If we can, I haven’t figured out how. And I already asked Lucien. The angels don’t know anything about this particular demon, either. I’ll keep researching, though.”
Nikolai crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, we know what it wants. We probably don’t need to summon it. But knowing how to trap it would probably be a good.”
“I know you’re not suggesting we use my daughter as bait,” Riddick said, giving Nikolai a look that would’ve made a lesser man cry.
Nikolai merely shrugged.
Quinn piped in with, “It’s not like we wouldn’t all be there to protect her.”
“Well, that’s the tricky part, isn’t it?” Roan grumbled. “It’s not like I didn’t try. This thing is fireproof and can melt anything it touches. So, hand-to-hand fighting is out. Knives, crossbows, and swords are out. It may be susceptible to Lane and Lucien’s angelic firepower, but there’s no guarantee. The only thing I’ve seen so far that can at least slow it down is Haven’s new power.”
Haven grimaced. “The new power I don’t know how to access or control.”
“That’s the one,” Roan agreed quietly.
Harper, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the whole meeting, held her hand up. “I’ve heard enough. This is a giant clusterfuck, and the only way we’re going to be able to choke it all down is by taking tiny bites. So, here’s what we’re going to do. Hunter, could you please reach out to all your contacts and see if any of them know more about this Kurgan, especially if he has any vulnerabilities we should know about.”
He nodded. “I can do that.”
“Great. Thank you. Seven, question the demons in the prison wing and see if any of them know anything that could be helpful.”
She cracked her knuckles, which made Roan shift uncomfortably in his chair. As someone who had been on the other end of Seven’s interrogation methods, he almost felt sorry for the imprisoned demons. “I’m on it,” she said.
“I’ll go with you,” Riddick told her. “I’ll play good cop.”
Everyone had a good chuckle at that. The idea of Noah Riddick being the “good cop” in any scenario was unfathomable. That particular brother-sister duo was more like bad cop, terrifying cop—and it was pretty much always a toss-up over who got to be terrifying at any given time.
“Nikolai and Quinn,” Harper went on, “talk to the vampires and werewolves at Midvale. See what they know.”
Roan sincerely doubted any of the creatures in the supernatural psychiatric facility knew anything that would be helpful, but he appreciated Harper’s thoroughness.
“Levi.”
The werewolf stood up straighter and met Harper’s eyes warily. “Would you and your friends be willing to regularly patrol the woods around Section 8 and let me know if you see any signs of demon activity outside the gates?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Roan rolled his eyes. The punk had been nothing but a disrespectful shithead since they’d met, but here he was, ma’am-ing Harper Hall, which proved he did have manners. He just refused to use them with, well, anyone else, it would seem.
“Haven,” Harper said, leveling her daughter with a hard look. “We’ll talk about how you willfully disobeyed my direct orders—something no one else in the entire organization has ever done, by the way, so congrats on that —and your future here when all this is over.”
Haven’s chin hit her chest. “Yeah. I’m sorry, but?—”
She held up her hand again. “I don’t really want to hear it. Like I said, we’ll talk later. My only goal right now is keeping you safe. So, I’m going to contact Mischa. You’re going to work with her to harness and control this new power of yours.” Her expression turned grim as she added, “Seems like we might need it.”
And Harper clearly hated that idea as much as Roan did. He’d pray that some other solution would present itself…except he was a demon with no one to pray to.
“Roan,” Harper snapped.
His eyes shifted to hers.
“You’re on guard duty. Can I trust you to never leave her side until this demon has been either killed or contained?”
“Of course.”
He hadn’t given the answer any thought. It had just slipped out. But it was 100% true. Unless Haven didn’t want him around. He turned and gave her a questioning look. Her eyes were wary, but she nodded. That was good.
He hadn’t done a damn thing to earn her trust. But he still wanted it.
And when all this was over, if what she wanted from him was his absence, he’d give her that, too.
Even if it killed him.