Raven Mask (21 page)

Lenorre stood deathly still by the fireplace.

She had gotten her way. In the end, we were trying to make a plan, or at least lay the foundations of one. If it failed there had to be a plan B, which in my book always involved trying to stay alive and not get anyone else killed.

Currently, the most important thing was to get Timothy and Alyssa out of the Count of Count’s deceptive care.

Lenorre interrupted the silence, her voice as cold as dry ice. “The Count of Counts is mine,” she said at last. “If he believes he can overthrow me, then it is only fair I give him the opportunity to try. I am within my rights to challenge him.”

“I agree with you,” Eris said. “Yet he does not play by our rules. What then, Countess?”

Lenorre shook her head slowly. “I will be the hands of his undoing. I want you and Zaphara on guard. If the Count accepts my challenge you are to take out any of his henchmen that try to interfere with the duel. I have no doubts he will try and bend the rules, if not break them outright.”

“Lenorre,” I said. “I care about you, but I don’t care much for your plan.”

“Kassandra.” She knelt before me and touched the white streak in my hair, allowing it to slide through her fingers. “This is what it means for me to be Countess. I must protect my people.” Her expression was one of compassion and understanding. She knew I loved her. I hadn’t understood until then just how much she realized, or really how much I felt, but the idea of her challenging another vampire didn’t sit well. The idea of losing her sent a chill through my heart like a splinter of ice.

“This is as much my business as it is yours. I have people to protect, too.”

“And I know you will do your best,” she said, “as I will do mine.”

“The Count of Counts has defeated many formidable opponents,” Eris noted in a casual tone, as if we were all just friends gathered around to sip tea and enjoy the fire.

“Do you doubt her?” I asked, not because I was angry, but because I truly wanted to know.

“No. You are the one that doubts, not I.”

What Eris said was somewhat true. My worry made me uneasy, thinking Lenorre was putting her very existence at risk. She was one of the most powerful vampires in Oklahoma, but I couldn’t squash the little voice inside myself that told me there’s always someone out there bigger, stronger, and ready to kick your ass.

Was she more powerful than the Count? Could she defeat him all on her own? I wanted to believe she could, but reality wouldn’t let me. The risk was too great.

Overestimation of your abilities can get you killed. I don’t care if you’re human, vampire, or the freaking Easter Bunny.

“I take it Rupert and I are supposed to get the kids?” I asked, suddenly depressed. Where was my anger? I needed it. I knew how to work with anger, to wield it like a sword. It helped me to deal, damn it.

I looked at Rupert. He’d been quiet for most of the conversation, listening intently. It wasn’t obvious by a glance, but I knew he was armed. He always was.

“I’ll help,” Rosalin added.

Suddenly, I had an idea. Lenorre knelt by my legs, still watching me.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I can scout ahead. We don’t know how many vampires we’re dealing with. You said earlier we were going in blind without a plan. I’m fairly confident I’ve got enough control to shift to the raven.” I didn’t really doubt I’d be able to. Lady knew the actual shift itself was very different from the wolf. It wasn’t painful. If I fought my beast, especially on a night when the Moon Mother calls, it hurts like a bitch and a half. Yes, in fact, I did learn that the hard way.

The corner of her mouth twitched. “There is one fault in your idea.”

I blinked. “That would be?”

“What happens when you shift back?”

“The naked thing. Right. There is that.”

“Naked thing?” Rupert asked. “Do I want to know?”

“Not really,” I said.

Rosalin said, “Kassandra is naked after she shifts into a birdie.”

“Birdie?” Rupert asked. “What?” He looked so genuinely confused I knew I’d failed to mention the whole raven thing. How do you tell your best guy friend you’re a freak?

You let others do it for you.

“Kassandra has been Goddess blessed.” Lenorre glanced at him. “The Morrigan has granted her a gift.”

“Kass, I have no fucking idea what your girlfriend is saying.”

I sighed. “I don’t know how to explain it, Rupert. I’m not just a werewolf anymore.”

“You are truly so ignorant of the blood in your veins.” Zaphara’s voice held an edge of surprise and disbelief.

“What are you talking about?”

Zaphara looked at Lenorre. “You have not told her all of the truth, have you?”

“I do not know if she is ready to hear it.”

“Oh no,” I said, “someone better fucking tell me something.”

Zaphara seemed to wait for a signal from Lenorre. When Lenorre nodded, Zaphara looked at me.

“Kassandra, you were never purely human.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The room seemed to be spinning, even though it wasn’t. I was never human? She had to be toying with me again. My entire family was “normal,” that I knew of. How could I be any different? Besides, witches and clairsentients weren’t inhuman. In fact, most of the psychics and witches I know are purely human.

“Why do you think I allowed Zaphara to kiss you?” Lenorre asked.

“I have no idea.” My words had an irritated edge. My wolf was unsettled, pacing, testing the walls of my shield. I was ready to hunt, and now I was pissed off because of yet another fucking surprise. A surprise my own lover had known but not bothered to tell me.

“Kassandra, I tasted your power when I kissed you. There is fey blood in your veins.”

I bit my bottom lip, then laughed, full-throated. “You’re insane. I’m not a faerie.”

“She didn’t say you were a faerie,” Eris commented. “She said you have fey blood in your veins.”

“What is your ancestry?” Zaphara asked, watching me as if gauging my every reaction.

“Irish, English. Hell, I don’t know for sure. I’m a mutt.”

“How much do you know of your Irish descent?”

“Very damn little.”

“Zaphara,” Lenorre addressed her, “tell Kassandra what you know. If you openly place your cards on the table she will be more receptive to hearing your words. If she is to call on the raven tonight, she needs to know sooner rather than later.”

I gave Lenorre a look that said she should tread lightly, but, of course, it didn’t faze her. She was made of stronger stuff. Then again, as a Countess, she has to be.

Zaphara nodded, pushing the aubergine-tinted tresses out of her face. “Your Goddess calls to you through your blood. Your blood is genetically receptive to her magic. This does not make you a pure-bred.” The words sounded a little condemning and I did my best to ignore her arrogance. “An ancestor,” she said, “and a pure-bred faerie would produce a human and fey being such as you are.”

“So you’re saying one of my long-lost ancestors fucked a full-blooded faerie? If that were true, wouldn’t the blood run throughout my entire family? I’ve heard stories of faeries running off with humans before.” I tried to remember everything I’d read, but it’d been a long time. “I was under the impression that when a fey chooses a human consort the human never steps foot out of Tir na nÓg, the otherworld, or whatever.”

“Human and fey blood mingle unpredictably,” she said, answering my first question. “The gene may be passed unnoticed, diluted in one body and undiluted in another. It is unpredictable,” she repeated. “No, it would not be obvious in others in your family. Also, practicing witchcraft and being more sensitive than the rest of your family may have awakened the ability, triggered the gene, so to speak.” She gave me a serious look. “There is some truth to every myth. Some fey, however, choose to spend only one night with a human outside of the fey realm. Thus, your ancestor may not have been captured. In fact,” I gave her my full attention, “you may well descend directly from a fey, and not the human side. Have you ever heard of a changeling?”

“A changeling is a faerie child swapped with a human child.”

“Or a mixed-blood child left outside of a human household to be adopted and to live among the humans.”

“What about being a werewolf?” Rupert asked. “I thought only one virus could exist in a host?”

That was a very good question.

“You speak of a virus,” Eris said, “not of genetics.”

“Lycanthropy is not generally genetic. Only a few branches are,” Zaphara said. “Neither is vampirism genetic. The fey are an entirely different species, with a DNA structure similar to humans’. This is why we have been able to breed with them much like the elves.”

“You’re fey,” I accused her. “That’s how you know so much about this, isn’t it?”

Zaphara smiled widely. “It took you that long to figure it out, little witch? If you had known yourself, you would’ve recognized what I am.”

“Well, excuse me for having never met a faerie before.”

“And now you can say you have had such a pleasure.”

“You’re awfully tall.” My words sounded casual, but the look I gave her was not. I knew the truth, but I was partially trying to be irritating. Zaphara probably wouldn’t like being reminded that most people thought faeries were small and cute. No, if one actually studied, the first fey to set foot on Irish soil were a tall and very advanced race known as the Tuatha Dé Danann.

“Many different species of faerie exist,” she said. “I thought you studied mythology?”

“I did, but forgive me for being a little rusty, oh great faerie poo-bah.”

Faeries and elves, like werewolves and vampires, had been accepted into our culture, but we didn’t see much of them. They kept to themselves, preferring isolation from their human cousins. Some fey were far stranger than human, but the sidhe and the elves resembled humans enough to be able to procreate with them.

“Kassandra, do not seek to play games with me or I too will play games with you,” she warned.

“Fine. You’re Tuatha Dé Danann. You’re sidhe?”

“That is what the mortals began calling us.”

“Hell,” I said, “it’s written in every mythology text I’ve found—Daoine Sidhe, Tuatha Dé Danann… What’s the other one?”

“Aes Sidhe,” she pronounced smoothly. “There’s also the Leanann Sidhe. They began calling us
sidhe
based upon the mounds we sought sanctuary in once the humans began to overpopulate the land of Eire. If you must know, we prefer being called the Daoine Maithe.”

“The Good Folk?”

I was rewarded with a slight nod for my translation.

“You’re making my head spin,” I told her. “This is way too much to take in right now.”

“You chose a path that awakened your blood, not I.”

“True enough, but I am so not in the mood for a history lesson right now. There are so many damn accounts it’s difficult to discern the truth from fiction.”

“I am glad you are able to perceive that much, witch.”

I narrowed my eyes at her and said bluntly, “You’re a cold bitch, Zaphara.”

“The coldness that runs through my veins runs through yours.”

“I am not cold.”

“I’d argue that,” Rupert said. “You can be cold.”

“I’m pragmatic, not a cold-hearted bitch.”

“And you think the fey are not pragmatic?” Zaphara shook her head.

“She’s right,” Rosalin said, meeting my gaze. “Some would misinterpret your pragmatism.”

“As what?”

“As being cold.”

“Whatever.” I directed my gaze back to Zaphara. “Where were you going with the little history lesson?”

“You have powers available to you that you have yet to uncover and learn to harness. I can teach you how to use the magic that your blood, and your Goddess, grants you.”

“And what do you gain in return?” I let my suspicion cloud my tone.

“Something to occupy my time.”

I didn’t really believe her. I was sure she could find other things to do, but whatever. She was willing to teach me a few things. Where was the harm in that?

She interrupted my thoughts. “There is much for you to learn. I can teach you how to come out of a shift fully dressed.” It was like a carrot dangling in front of my nose. How spiffy would it be to avoid future embarrassments and setbacks based upon nudity? Public indecency is so overrated.

“Fine,” I said, looking to Lenorre. Somewhere in our conversation, she had moved back near the fireplace.

Zaphara looked at her too. “Kassandra learns quickly, so I don’t think it’ll take long to teach her how to manifest a few articles of clothing. An hour or two, perhaps. If we can accomplish that, it would indeed be a good idea to send her as the raven to scout.”

Lenorre asked me, “Is this what you want?”

“It’s not a matter of what I want or don’t want.” I tucked a stray hair behind my ear. “I really don’t like being nude after a shift. I already get that with the lycanthropy. If I can avoid it… Then yes, this is what I want, but it’s also what I need to do in order to save Timothy and Alyssa. If it doesn’t work I could always fly back to the club and change there.”