The Dark-Hunters (227 page)

“What’s happening?” she asked the women who grabbed her. “What’s a
timoria?
”

“I’m so sorry, Bride,” Bryani said before she was pulled away. “Please forgive me.”

Forgive her for what?

“Excuse me?” Bride snapped hysterically as she tried to pry the women’s hands off her. It was useless. “Would you please tell me what the hell is going on here?”

The tallest of the women turned on her with a snarl. “For mating with a Katagari, there is only one punishment. You will be given to the unmated men of our clan.”

“Given to them how?”

The look on the woman’s face said it all. They intended to rape her.

Bride screamed and fought them with everything she had.

*   *   *

Vane took a minute to get his bearings as he arrived in ancient Britain. Time-travel always disoriented him. It took a lot of power to time-jump.

He also had to be careful now. If he sent out probes to locate Bride, they could be intercepted by his mother or her people. Not that he feared them. But he didn’t want to go to war without an army.

In this time period, his mother’s people ruled. His grandfather was the
regis
of one of the most powerful wolf clans and it was said that good old Gramps had killed more Katagaria than any other Sentinel in their history.

Vane took a deep breath as he scoped out the village on the other side of the hedge where he was crouched. They would be expecting him.

Sort of.

Vane heard something rustling in the forest behind him. Spinning around, he expected it to be a wild animal or one of his mother’s people.

It wasn’t.

It was Fury.

Vane couldn’t have been more stunned if he’d found his mother right in front of him. At least that would have made sense. Fury’s presence made none whatsoever.

The wolf flashed instantly to human form and gaped in all his naked horror at Vane, who quickly averted his gaze.

“What the hell are you doing here?” they asked each other simultaneously.

“Put some clothes on me,” Fury said, snarling the words as he cupped himself with his hands.

Rather than go blind, Vane quickly obliged and dressed the wolf in black jeans and a T-shirt. “Why are you here, Fury?”

He spoke between clenched teeth. “I’m doing what I told you I was doing. I’m leading the tessera away from you and Bride, only here you are while they are over there.” Fury pointed angrily at a hill not far away. “You’re supposed to be in New Orleans, you moron, not Britain.”

Suspicious of Fury, Vane frowned. “Why did you bring the tessera here?”

Fury gave him a sinister glare. “Because this was the easiest way I knew of to eliminate them all at once. I can’t do it alone and I thought Bryani would get her rocks off hacking one of Markus’s tesseras into pieces.”

Vane was even more confused and suspicious than before. “You know about Bryani?”

Fury rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I do. She gleefully ran me through and left me for dead several centuries back. Wanna see the scars?”

Vane caught the scent of Stefan coming closer to them.

Fury grabbed him by the arm and hauled him toward a copse of trees. “Look, we’re in serious danger here. The Arcadians hate us with a passion.”

“I know.”

“No you don’t,” Fury said, his tone gravely earnest. “You really don’t know how much they would pay to have both of us for breakfast. We have to get you out of here.”

Vane wrested his arm free. “Bride is in that village and I’m not going anywhere unless she’s with me.”

Fury cursed. “How long has she been there?”

“I don’t know, since I just arrived. Time doesn’t flow the same way in both time periods, you know that.”

“All right, we have to get her immediately and pray that she hasn’t been there long.”

“Why do you think I’m here?”

Fury didn’t seem to hear him. “Okay, think, think, think.” He looked up at Vane. “Do you have any ideas?”

“I’m going in there and get my mate.”

“Bryani will have a dampening spell to curtail your powers.”

Vane laughed. “Let her try.”

“God, you have balls,” he said respectfully under his breath. “What the hell? You can’t live forever. Just promise me that if something goes wrong, you’ll kill me rather than leave me to them.”

There was such growling sincerity in that request that it took Vane aback. What had they done to Fury?

“Swear to me, Vane.”

“I swear.”

Before Fury could say anything more, Stefan, Aloysius, and Petra broke through the woods in wolf form. Their heads down, the wolves circled them, snarling and snapping.

“Shit!” Fury growled as the wolves hunkered down, preparing to strike.

A scream rang out from the village.

Vane didn’t hesitate. Grabbing Fury, he flashed them out just as Stefan was about to reach them.

*   *   *

Bride dug her heels into the ground and bit one of the women holding her. The woman growled and slapped her. Bride bit her again.

Be damned if she was going to let them tie her down! She might not be Tabitha, but she could bite and pull hair with the best of them.

One of the men came forward to wrap his hand around Bride’s neck.

“Let … her … go.” Vane’s steely voice echoed as he enunciated each word slowly.

Bride’s eyes filled with tears as she heard the most blessed sound on the planet. She looked to her right to see Vane in human form, standing there without a weapon, and with her white wolf by his side.

Why wasn’t he armed?

The men closest to Vane attacked en masse. Stunned, she watched as he twirled around and kicked and punched them to the ground. He moved so fast that she could barely see him.

Then Vane vanished, only to reappear by her side. The women turned on him. Vane sent one flying backward, into the crowd, while he ducked and tripped the second one. The third one, he flipped head over heels onto the ground.

Forget Hollywood, they had nothing on Vane’s speed and agility.

As Vane untied her hands, she could hear the wolf fighting and snarling.

Bride threw her arms around his shoulders the instant she was free and held him close while the women tried to reach them, only to recoil off what appeared to be an invisible wall of some sort.

“Fury,” Vane called.

The wolf came running to their side. The man chasing him also rebounded off the wall.

Fury materialized into a naked man and laughed evilly at their pursuers.

Bride was completely stunned by the appearance of Vane’s naked brother who, she had to admit, had a great body.

Oh, good grief, was no one what they appeared?

Vane snapped his fingers, and clothes appeared on Fury.

Dare cursed at them. “I thought you said you killed Fury, Mother.”

Fury raked Dare with a sneer of repugnance. “Oh, she tried her best, little brother. But animals are remarkable survivors.” He looked at Bryani. “Aren’t we, Mother?”

Dare started for Fury, only to find himself slung backward by nothing.

In fact, every man who tried to reach Bride, Fury, or Vane found himself thrown to the ground.

“What is this?” Dare snarled, striking the invisible wall with his sword.

Fury laughed again. “This is your worst nightmare,
adelfos.
Meet the eldest of our litter.” He gestured toward Vane. “Vane’s powers make a mockery of everyone’s here, even Grandfather’s.” He glanced at Bryani. “You were right, Mom. The blending of Arcadian and Katagaria blood did produce a sorcerer of unparalleled power. It just wasn’t me. Sorry.”

Vane’s heart pounded as he listened and understood. Fury really was his brother. But that wasn’t important to him at the moment, only Bride’s safety was.

One of the Arcadian men came at Vane’s back. He spun about and blasted him away from them. “You’re lucky I’m not the animal you think I am,” he growled at the Arcadians. “But if you ever come near my mate again, I will be.”

Dare laughed cruelly. “Fine, take your woman. The full moon isn’t for another three weeks and that gives us plenty of time to hunt you down and kill you. You have to sleep sometime. Then you’ll be ours.”

Fury shook his head. “You didn’t hear a word I said about Vane, did you? It’s such a pity I wasn’t the one born with his power. I’d have killed all of you if I were. But I guess he’s a better man than I am.”

Vane smiled coldly at his “human” brother. Dare looked much like Fang when Fang was human. It was a pity that their parents’ hatred of each other had come to this. That it had bred and poisoned a whole new generation.

But then, Vane had never thought to coexist with his Arcadian kin. They had thrown him out and written him off centuries ago.

Vane smiled evilly at Dare. “Unlike you, little brother, I don’t need no stinking moon to time-jump.”

And in one blink, Vane, Bride, and Fury were back in New Orleans, safely inside Kyrian’s house.

“I think I need a Tylenol … jug,” Bride said as she staggered away from Vane and sat down on the nearest couch. “And a lot of vodka to wash it down.”

Kyrian, Amanda, and Tabitha came running into the room.

“That was quick,” Tabitha said. “Damn, Vane, you don’t mess around, do you?”

Vane ignored Tabitha’s question as he knelt in front of Bride. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly as she stared at him in numbed hysteria. “My boyfriend is a dog, his mother’s psychotic, and I just nearly missed being the main attraction in some low-budget porn flick, complete with bad costuming and food. I mean, what is this? ‘Welcome to the family, you now get to sleep with all my brothers, and I do mean
all
my brothers, cousins, friends, hell, everyone’? You know, most in-laws just bring over a casserole, not a four-hundred-year-old vendetta.”

It was so good to be able to rant, but a part of her was still terrified. Nothing felt secure to her now. Nothing. “Am I safe, Vane? Or is someone else going to poof into the living room and grab me and take me who knows where? I don’t want to see Barney the real dinosaur with the naked cavemen chasing him! I don’t want to see anything except my normal life here in New Orleans.”

Vane cupped her face in his hands. On some level, his touch comforted her. “You’re safe, Bride. I’m not going to let anyone else grab you. I swear it.”

“And I can believe that, why?”

“Because I give you my word.”

“Well, that just settles it all, huh?” Bride shook her head. “After this, I can’t wait to meet your father. I’ll bet he’s just a barrel full of laughs.” She stared at Vane as the horror of the last few hours washed through her. “Any other freaky family traditions I need to know about? Bones hidden in the backyard? Crazy aunts? Fleas?”

She looked over at Fury. “I don’t have to sleep with him now, do I?”

Tabitha arched both her brows at that. “What kind of place did she go to? Sounds like it could be fun.”

“Wanna go?” Fury asked. “I can take you there.”

“Fury,” Vane snapped. “You have enough to answer for already. Don’t mess with the humans.”

“Or Tabitha, either,” Kyrian said.

Amanda elbowed him in the stomach.

“What?” Kyrian asked innocently.

Vane sat back on his heels and looked at Kyrian and Amanda over his shoulder. “I’ve got a shield on the house that should keep them out. Notice I said
should.
I have no idea what else the demon is capable of, especially if Amanda invites him into the house again.”

“Nothing.”

Bride looked up at the sound of a new deeply masculine voice. Now this was without a doubt the last person she expected to see here.

Though why she was surprised, she couldn’t imagine. At the rate things were happening, for all she knew the woman who rang up her groceries at the supermarket might very well be a were-snake or zombie.

Why not?

“Ash?” Bride asked, recognizing the extremely tall, and incredibly sexy, addition to the room.

At six feet eight, decked out in black leather and possessing an aura that could only be defined as pure sexual attraction, Ash Parthenopaeus was a hard man to miss.

“You know Acheron?” Vane asked her.

“Yeah, he comes into the shop every few months with a cute, albeit odd girlfriend who practically buys the whole place out.” Bride looked back at Ash. “You’re one of these weirdos, too, huh?”

“Guilty,” Ash said, offering her a charming smile.

“Great,” Bride breathed. “Anyone else I need to know about?”

The room’s occupants looked around sheepishly.

Vane stood up and faced Ash. “What do you know about Alastor?”

“That he’s leashed. Your mother bargained with him to kidnap the mates of you, Fury, and Fang. It’s a one-way ticket. He took Bride to your mother and there’s nothing she can do to negotiate with him anymore.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Ash folded his arms over his chest. “I can put my personal guarantee on it.”

“Then he’ll be back whenever Fang mates?” Fury asked.

“Yes,” Ash said. “And to answer your next question, yes again. He’ll come for your mate, too.”

Fury cursed.

“Sorry,” Ash said. “But look on the bright side; your mother puts the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional.”

“You’re not amusing, Ash,” Vane said. “I thought you were going to protect Bride for me.”

“I had intended to, but didn’t have time. Even I can’t be in two places at once.”

“Pity,” Vane said. “If you knew about Alastor, couldn’t you have told me about it before this?”

“You haven’t exactly been talking to me these last few months, Vane. Besides, it’s not wise to interfere with the order of fate.”

“I hate it when you start that fate crap. This is me, Acheron, not one of your friggin’ Dark-Hunters. I know what you are and I know what you can do. Damn you for playing with us.”

Fire snapped in Acheron’s eyes. “I’m not playing with you, wolf, and you better pray I never do.”

By the look on Vane’s face, Bride could tell he wanted to strike out at Ash, but knew better than to try.

“What else do you know that you’re not telling me?” Vane asked him.

“Tons of stuff. The ultimate fate of the world. The next president. If the Saints will win this weekend. Hell, I even know the lottery numbers for tonight.”