A Hunger Like No Other (27 page)

“If I asked you, would that make a difference? Will you stay with me?”

“No, I won't. But I'm not saying we would never see each
other again. I'll go home and we'll take things slowly, get to know one another.”

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were full of pain. Then his face hardened. “I canna allow that. You'll remain here until you can answer that question differently.”

“You would separate me from my family?”

He seized her arm, hard. “You have no idea how ruthless I will be to keep you, Emma. I'd do that and more. I will do whatever it takes.”

“You'll never hold me prisoner here.”

For some reason, that clearly angered him more than the rest. His body tensed and his eyes flickered blue. “No, I canna. You're free to go. But you doona get a car. You doona get to direct someone here to pick you up. We're a hundred miles from the nearest town, which is inhabited almost solely by the clan, so walking out of here is no' recommended.”

At the door, he turned back. “I canna keep you a prisoner here. But the sun can.”

“N
ïx!” Emma cried into the receiver when her aunt picked up the phone.

“Why, Emma, how are you? Enjoying Scotland?” she asked in a distracted voice.

“Just let me talk to Annika.”

“She's indisposed.”

Emma inhaled a deep breath, drumming her nails on the desk in the small office she'd found. “Nïx, this isn't a game. I don't know when I'll be able to make another call, and it's imperative that I speak with her.”

“Indisposed.”

“What do you mean?” Emma demanded. “She's either there or she's not.”

“She's negotiating with the wraiths right now.”

Stunned, Emma sank into a cool, leather chair. “Why would we need them?” The wraiths were a final measure when a coven was in grave danger. Their price to circle the manor, protecting it from outsiders with their ghostly power, was steep.

“We were attacked!” Nïx said delightedly. “Ivo the Cruel's vampires ambushed the manor and attacked us—not me, actually, because no one woke me for this, understand, and I'm quite put out. And they weren't all vampires exactly.
One was a demon vampire. I want to call it a dempire from now on, but just to be contrary, Regin insists on naming it a vemon. Oh, and then Lucia's arrow missed the dempire and I heard she dropped like a rock, screaming, which burst every light in the house. But in the dark this Lykae came to the rescue, prowling inside. Lucia's screams seemed to really put
him
out. Hmmm . . . . So he stalked in and he and Regin united and fought side by side to slay the vampires. Except Ivo and his dempire escaped. Anyhoo. Vampires, Valkyrie, and Lykae, oh my. Or as Regin calls it—the ‘fucking monster mash.' Hilarity ensued.”

Nïx had finally lost it. Dempires? Lucia missing her target? Regin fighting side by side with a “dog”? Emma gritted her teeth. “Tell Annika I'm on the phone.”

“Hold on, let me just finish up here.”

Emma heard typing sounds and asked slowly, “Why are you on the computer?”

“I'm blocking all e-mails from your accounts and any that have the extension ‘uk,' like from Scotland. Because I'm clever like that.”

“Nïx, why are you doing this to me?” she cried. “Why are you stranding me here?”

“You can't possibly want Annika to come get you now.”

“Yes! Yes, I can.”

“So, the leader of our coven is to come after you, when we're under siege, Myst and Daniela are missing, and Lucia is in pain and alarmed by her when-animals-attack admirer? If you can tell me you fear for your life, then maybe, but otherwise you'll just have to take a number.”

“You need me there! Nïx, you won't believe this, but I've got madskills going on. I can fight. I beat up a Lykae female!”

“That's wonderful, sweetling, but I can't talk much longer
or this GPS thingy Annika has attached to the phone might actually track your call.”

“Nïx, she needs to know where—”

“You are? Emma, I've known precisely where you are. I'm not insane for nothing.”

“Wait!” She gripped the phone with both hands. “Do you . . . do you ever dream others' memories?”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever dreamed things that have happened to someone else in the past—events that you couldn't have any knowledge of?”

“From the
past
? Of course not, sweetling. Now, that's just crazy.”

*  *  *

Lachlain returned to his study, pinching his forehead and favoring his good leg. His injury was killing him, and after the buildup with Emma and its bitterly disappointing ending, weariness washed over him.

Bowe had already returned to the scotch. “And how'd that go?”

“Poorly. Now she believes I'm a liar. Probably because I lied to her.” He sank into his chair, massaging his leg. “I should have told her the news
after.”

When Bowe raised his eyebrows, he explained, “I had to convince her earlier that she was no' my mate. Scoffed at the idea to convince her. She was sure to mimic that.”

“You look like hell.”

“I feel it.” Explaining the fire to Bowe earlier had been excruciating. Though Lachlain had said little, merely having to revisit the memories pained him. And that had been before he'd seen his mate get struck in the face and strangled by a fellow Lykae.

“Do you want to hear more bad news?”

“Why the hell no'?”

“My discussion with Cass went poorly as well. She dinna take the news as well as we might have hoped. The idea of no' having you is bad enough, but to be beaten out by a vampire appears to be intolerable for her.”

“I could care less about that—”

“She brings up issues that the elders will. She pointed out that vampire females are usually infertile . . . .”

“We canna have bairns. And I for one am glad of it. Anything else?” He
was
glad she couldn't have children. Shocking for a man who'd craved a family almost as much as his mate, but there it was.

After twelve hundred years of searching for her, he wasn't about to share her.

Bowe raised his eyebrows. “Aye. Do you see that red button on the phone there? Means someone's on the line. I just passed Harmann, and Cass would have a cell phone. Looks like your queen's phoning home.”

Lachlain shrugged. “She canna give them directions to this place. She was unconscious until we got to the gate.”

“They keep her on the phone long enough and she will no' have to. Lachlain, they can track where this phone call is coming from. Satellites above us and such.”

Lachlain exhaled and mentally added “satellite” to his list of things he didn't bloody understand and would look up later. He'd thought satellites were for tele
vision
, not for tele
phones
.

Bowe continued, “Depends on how high-tech they are, but they might need as little as three minutes—” The light went off. “Good, then, she hung up—” The light resumed. “She's calling again. You truly might want to stop her.” The
light went on once more, then off, repeating several more times while Lachlain and Bowe watched in silence.

“Does no' matter,” Lachlain finally said. “I will no' forbid her to speak with her family.”

“They'll descend on this castle like the plague.”

“If they can find it, and get past our protections, then I'll think of something to pacify them. Are they no' obsessed with shiny things? A bauble or two should suffice.”

Bowe raised his eyebrows. “Let me know how that works out for you.”

Lachlain scowled, then limped to the window, gazing out. He saw her a moment later, gliding out across the greens.

“Ah, I see you've spotted her.”

“How do you know?” he asked without turning.

“You tensed and leaned forward. Doona worry. Soon you will be out there with her on nights like these.”

As if she felt his gaze, she turned to the window. She was eerily beautiful with the fog swirling about her, her face as pale and captivating as the moon above her. But her normally expressive eyes now revealed nothing to him.

He wanted her so badly, but knew the harder he tightened his grasp, the more she would slip from it like quicksilver. The only thing about her that responded to him was her body—tonight her need had been strong—and he could use that.

She turned from him and stole into the night. She was born to haunt this place. To haunt him. He continued to stare long after she disappeared.

“Maybe you should just tell her why there's an element of time,” Bowe offered.

He exhaled. “She's no' been with a man.” Lachlain had debated telling her the truth again and again, but the truth
involved admitting he was desperate to have her so he wouldn't
hurt
her. “So should I say, ‘If you cooperate, then I will no' hurt you as badly'?”

“Christ, I dinna know she was innocent. No' many of those left in the Lore. Of course you canna tell her, else you'll terrify her and make her dread the night—”

“Bloody hell,” Lachlain bit out when Cassandra followed in Emma's direction.

Bowe moved to another window facing out. “I've got this one. Why do you no' relax for a while.”

“No, I'll go.” He lurched for the door.

Bowe put his hand on Lachlain's shoulder. “Cass would no' dare hurt her after you made your wishes clear. I'll get rid of Cass and then talk to Emma. It canna hurt.”

“No, Bowe, you might . . . frighten her.”

“Oh, aye.” Bowe raised his eyebrows, mocking expression in place. “After tonight, I see you've a verra delicate sparrow on your hands. I'll be sure to loosen up my jaw for her in case she wants to backhand me.”

*  *  *

Emma leapt up to the roof of the folly to pace along the edges. She wanted her iPod so badly she would almost sleep with the liar for it.

She supposed it didn't matter that it had been trashed by the vampires, since even her “Angry Female Rock” tracks would sound insipid compared to her own ranting.

How dare he do this to her? She'd just gotten past the vampire attack, and then his change, and
then
the Cass attack, and now he had to go and throw this . . . this lie at her.

Every time she settled in with him, became even somewhat comfortable, he threw her a new curveball. The changes around her—for someone who rarely left home and
didn't consider herself an adapter—and the changes
within
her frightened her. If she could just find one constant in this bombardment of variables. Just one thing to trust—

“I can get you away.”

With a hiss, Emma leapt backward, clearing the weather vane to land perched on a gable top. Seeing Cassandra on the roof of the folly, she hunched down, ready to spring for her. Whenever she thought about this gorgeous, brick-house-built Lykae being in love with Lachlain for centuries, Emma wanted to scratch her eyes out.

“I can get you a car,” Cassandra continued. A small breeze blew, just enough to stir the fog and brush her pretty sun-streaked hair back from her normal ear.

She had the lightest freckles on her nose, and Emma begrudged her every one. “And why would you do that?” Emma asked, though she knew why.
The skank wants Lachlain.

“He seeks to keep you a prisoner. Bowe told me you are part Valkyrie, and I know your Valkyrie blood boils at the thought of being held here.”

Emma felt a surge of embarrassment.
That is correct, sage foe, for my Valkyrie blood demands my absolute freedom,
had not been on the tip of her tongue. That hadn't even been her main concern. She was just ticked that Lachlain had lied. And ticked that Nïx had thrown her under the bus, hanging up on her
ten times.
“What's in it for you?” she asked.

“I want to save Lachlain from making a huge mistake, from alienating a clan that will
never
accept you. If he was no' coming off nearly two hundred years of torture, he would be able to see that you are no' his mate.”

Emma assumed a thoughtful expression and tapped her
finger against her chin. “He wasn't just coming off torture”—wait for it—“when he saw that
you
are not his mate.”

Cassandra almost stifled her wince.

Emma sighed at her own behavior. This wasn't her. She wasn't usually so bitchy. She got along with all the Lore creatures that were constantly tromping or floating in and out of the manor. The witches, the demons, the fey—all of them. She chalked this up as yet another example of changes within her that she didn't understand.

What was it about this female that grated so much? Why did she have a nearly undeniable urge to fight her? Like she should be on
Jerry Springer,
screaming, “That's
my
man!”