Equites : Book 4 of the Heku Series (36 page)

He shut the door behind them, and
Emily turned and pressed against him, burying her face in his
chest. When he touched her soft skin, a flash appeared before his
eyes. His eyes squinted slightly as he tried to focus on what he
was seeing. He could hear Emily and Damon yelling, but couldn’t
tell what was being said.

Emily pulled away from him and looked
up into his eyes, “What?”

“
It’s… it’s like I could
see what you were thinking.”

Emily frowned, “How so?”

“
I’m not sure, exactly. It
was fuzzy and the voices were distorted, but you and Damon were
yelling.”

She moved to him and leaned her
forehead against his chest.

Chevalier wrapped his arms around her
and pulled them away quickly when she gasped as he touched her
back. He touched her hair softly and held her.

“
They wouldn’t let me call
you,” Emily said finally.

“
I know, it would have been
too risky,” he said, and led her to the bed.

Emily sat down and looked up at him.
One of her eyes was still swollen shut. He sat behind her and
pulled her shirt up in back. Emily heard him growl slightly and
then dropped her shirt back down.

“
Table?”

She nodded, “Table.”

“
How bad is the headache?”
Chevalier asked.

“
How did you
know?”

“
It’s dark in here and you
haven’t turned a light on.”

“
Oh,” Emily said, and
turned to face him. “It’s ok right now.”

Chevalier touched the purple bruises
on her neck softly, “Did you pass out when you couldn’t
breathe?”

“
No,” Emily whispered. “I’m
sure it looks worse than it was.”

“
Tell me the truth,”
Chevalier said as he put his hand under her chin and forced her to
look up at him.

“
Why are you assuming I’m
lying?” she asked, frowning.

“
If you wanted to leave,
you would have. You can knock a heku unconscious without a second
thought, and then you would have been able to stroll out of here,”
Chevalier said.

“
I’m standing by what I
said,” Emily told him.

Chevalier nodded and led her back out
into the living room. The Cavalry looked at her uncomfortably, with
the dark bruises and cuts visible.

“
Damon, find a doctor. I
want Emily checked over before we leave,” Chevalier
ordered.

“
No,” she said,
frowning.

“
Do it,” Chevalier
said.

“
I’ll try… we… did that
once… and…” Damon said, rubbing his hand across the back of his
neck.

“
We had to kill him,” Kyle
said, sighing.

Chevalier’s eyes narrowed,
“Why?”

“
It was when we first got
here. We were worried about Emily’s color and the lack of her
ability to ash someone, so we called in a favor and got a doctor,”
Damon explained. “He said she had a dangerously low blood volume,
and accused us of feeding off of her to the point of almost killing
her. He was a member of the V.E.S. and was going to report
us.”

“
Find another one then. I’m
not putting her on an airplane until I know she’s ok,” Chevalier
said, and then turned to Zohn. “So?”

“
I still don’t believe a
word of what she said,” Zohn said, and looked at Emily
apologetically.

“
What about what the heku
are saying?” Chevalier asked.

“
They won’t say anything
about it,” Zohn said, and looked over at Damon as he called around
to find a doctor.

Emily walked over and took Alexis from
Silas, “This is insane. You have just been through a civil war, and
now you’re trying to pick fights within the Council. Just drop it.
You aren’t going to find anything incriminating.”

“
I’m sure I can,” Zohn told
her.

She looked at him, “I don’t like
you.”

“
I apologize for
that.”

“
Leave Damon
alone.”

“
For now, if you
wish.”

They sat in awkward silence as the
Defenders tried to hide what they had seen and done, and the rest
tried to read the truth from them.

Emily spun toward the door when she
heard a knock. Just as Damon went to answer it, she climbed over
the back of a chair and ran for the back door. Kyle held his arm
out and kept her inside.

“
It’s just a doctor,” Kyle
said, glancing at Chevalier to make sure what he was doing was
ok.

“
Just let him look, Em,”
Chevalier said, amused.

Emily punched Kyle’s nose, and he let
go of her and cursed as his nose healed. She made it to the glass
door and opened it as Mark’s hands wrapped around her waist and he
lifted her back inside.

Chevalier nodded to Mark and he
carried her into the room with the doctor.

“
How did you get her to see
a doctor the first time?” Chevalier asked, chuckling.

Damon shook his head, “We… had to
control her.”

“
She was too tired to
resist,” Kyle said, not sure if Chevalier would be mad or
not.

Chevalier started to laugh, “You all
deserve overtime pay for this, don’t you?”

They all turned when they heard a
noise in the kitchen. Someone was singing in French and rustling
the pots and pans. Chevalier walked around the corner and
disappeared into the kitchen and the singing stopped.

“
Avez-vou faim?” a strange
voice said.

“
Non, merci,” Chevalier
said, and returned to the living room.

“
Je devrais appeler la
police!” the doctor yelled from Emily’s room as he stepped out,
glaring at Mark.

“
I got it,” Damon said, and
took the doctor’s face in his hands. Within a second, he had full
control and talked quickly to the doctor in French.

Damon turned after the doctor had been
controlled for a while, and walked back into the room.

“
Ayez un beau jour!” the
doctor said happily, and waved to them as he left.

Chevalier turned to Mark,
“So?”

“
Simple enough, concussion,
neck bruises and abrasions, cuts and bruises on her back, and he
pulled out a few splinters and then the black eye,” Mark said as he
avoided Zohn’s eyes.

“
Must have been some
fight,” Chevalier said to Damon.

Damon nodded.

“
So where is she?”
Chevalier asked, leaning back to look down the hallway.

“
He knocked her out when
she wouldn’t cooperate,” Mark said, and sat down on the
couch.

“
And why was he about to
call the police?”

“
Because he thought we beat
her up,” Mark said with a nervous glance to Damon.

“
Great. I vote we leave
first thing in the morning,” Chevalier said.

Kyle looked at Damon and he nodded,
“Ok.”

“
Le dîner est prêt,” the
chef called out to the living room.

“
Laissez-le et allez,”
Chevalier called back and turned to the heku. “Is she awake enough
to eat?

Mark shrugged, “I didn’t try to wake
her up.”

Chevalier thought for a moment, “Has
she said anything about the runes bothering her?”

“
Nothing at all,” Kyle
said.

Chevalier went to the kitchen and
fixed a plate, then took it into Emily’s room. When he stepped into
the room, he heard the slow rhythmic breathing as she slept. He set
the plate down, slipped off his shoes, and curled up next to her.
An hour later, he heard the doorbell ring, but ignored it as she
pulled closer to him and tucked her head close to his
chest.

He heard the front door open and Damon
spoke, “Est-ce que je peux vous aider?”

“
You are American, no?” a
man’s voice said.

“
Yes, I am,” Damon
said.

“
We are missing a doctor.
He came last week to this address and did not return,” the man
said.

“
Haven’t seen him,” Damon
told him.

“
If you see him, here is my
card. He needs to contact the V.E.S. immediately.”

“
Ok,” Damon said, now
sounding irritated.

There was a silence, “Might we come
in?”

“
No”

“
Why not? We just want to
look for ourselves.” The man’s voice changed, it now had an air of
alarm.

“
Just the three of you?”
Damon asked, and Chevalier sighed. He could already see what was in
the works.

“
Yes, no harm if we look,”
the Frenchman said.

“
Sure, come on in,” Damon
told them.

There were a few minutes of idle
chatter, nothing important, but Chevalier listened closely. From
the sounds of it, the three V.E.S. were looking around the outer
rooms while the eight heku watched them from the living room. All
of them could hear the whispering of the V.E.S. as they suspected
them as possible vampires. As the V.E.S. whispered among
themselves, Damon translated for those that didn’t speak French.
His whispers weren’t heard by the mortals.

“
They suspect that only
seven of us are vampires, because there’s a dinner made,” Damon
whispered, too low for them to hear.

“
Now they are wondering how
long it will take to get enough reinforcements to kill off the
seven of us.”

“
They’ve decided it will
only take thirty minutes. Get Chevalier,” Damon said, and there was
a series of sounds from the living area as the heku readied to
leave.

“
Time to go, Em,” Chevalier
said as he slipped on his shoes and picked her up, still wrapped in
blankets. Mark appeared and grabbed the bags from the room, then
blurred out.

Chevalier met one of the V.E.S. in the
hallway. The Frenchman looked at Emily’s face and pulled out a
wooden stake, “You cannot take the woman, the child, or the
infant.”

Chevalier raised an eyebrow, “Yes, I
can… Kyle.”

Kyle appeared and crouched low in
front of the Elder, facing the member of the V.E.S. Before the
Frenchman could respond, Kyle ripped the wooden stake from his hand
and tossed it against the wall, impaling it halfway through the
drywall.

“
Obtenez le bebe!” one of
the men yelled, and as they turned, they came face-to-face with
Damon, who was holding Alexis in one hand and had the neck of their
leader with the other.

“
Go ahead and try to take
this baby from me,” he challenged.

Chevalier passed them in the hallway
and crawled into the limousine after Allen. He cradled Emily in his
arms and watched as Damon threw the leader against the wall,
knocking him out cold, and then blurred into the limousine. The
last of the heku got into the car, and Damon ordered the chauffer
to drive to the airport. Damon picked up his cell phone to make
arrangements with the pilot.

“
I’m glad the V.E.S. isn’t
as strong in the U.S. as it is in Europe,” Mark said, watching as
the terrain flew by.

“
You do realize, the V.E.S.
was started by one of the Winchester’s original sons?” Chevalier
chuckled.

Mark grinned, “No, guess I
didn’t.”

“
There’s one… minor… change
we should probably mention,” Zohn said, looking at
Chevalier.

“
Damn, I was going to tell
her before we left,” Chevalier said, and looked down at
Allen.

“
What changes?” Kyle asked,
frowning.

“
Now that the entire
faction knows about Emily, Allen, and Alexis, they have sort of
turned into… well… almost a royalty,” Chevalier said, trying not to
laugh.

“
Like how?”

“
Well… like… there are
gifts sent to them and prayers said in their honor. I’m pretty sure
they will be treated differently, and I’m just not sure how Emily
is going to take it. She’s convinced the kids will grow up
responsible and well-grounded,” Chevalier explained.

“
Oh that’s going to be
fun.” Kyle laughed.

“
I don’t understand, how am
I considered royalty?” Allen asked.

“
You know you’re the first
ever heku child right?” Chevalier asked.

“
Yes”

“
Well, that’s special, and
the people all want to see you and watch you grow.”

“
But I am only part heku. I
don’t have all of the traits.”

“
It doesn’t matter, you
have enough,” Chevalier explained.

“
And I have a sister that
can kill me, how special is that?” Allen asked, looking at the baby
in Mark’s arms.

“
Let’s hope we don’t have
to worry about that for a while,” Chevalier said, and he turned his
head so Allen wouldn’t see him laugh.

“
We thought she was hard to
get along with before, let’s throw a tiara on her,” Damon said,
chuckling.

As the heku transferred from the
limousine to the jet, they kept a close eye out for any sign of the
V.E.S. The plane was loaded and took off peacefully and soon, Emily
was asleep in the back room with Alexis. Allen kicked back with a
book while the heku displayed the patience that thousands of years
granted them, and sat perfectly still and quiet during the long
trip.