“Yes.” Kraft kissed her and left her breathless. “Oh, come on, guys. No one else wants to beat up on a pathetic lycan stronghold?”
That had several others settling in to virtually slap at her pack.
Riley grabbed her own controller and pointed to a settlement in the far corner. “Great. Now we hit those guys hard. The barbarian savages of Winterwind won’t know what hit them. Plus, they’re big crybabies.”
Her cousin Flint didnotlike to lose. And lose he did.
But Riley, she just kept on winning, she thought as she joined her new pack—no,kin—as everyone laughed and played and tried to avoid a giant battle cat dodging Orion’s new fur buddy, a tiny feral kitten they’d named Paz, to remember their old friend.
* * *
Khent enjoyedtheir new member more than he’d thought he would. He still had a tough time imagining a lycan bringing so much fun to their tightknit clan. Despite not wanting to join the Night Bloode in the first place, he couldn’t deny he felt like he belonged here.
So many creatures, lesser beings who felt almost on par with his kind. Fascinating.
A scholar as much as a death-bringer, Khent enjoyed puzzles.
He still didn’t know what it meant that Pazuzu’s body hadn’t taken his magic with him. But he had his suspicions.
Poor Orion had suffered terribly. And though Khent thought him silly for feeling anything for a demon in theshapeof a feline, he did understand attachments. He was very close to his pets. Not dead things, as Rolf called them, those Khent revived all carried a bit of himself in them. They remembered their lives and shared with him experiences that he, as a reaper, would never feel.
With a sigh, he turned and paused.
Something wasn’t right.
He glanced at the back table and saw his favorite wand missing. And there, a door where he kept several of the dead in their cold compartments. It was open.
He pulled out the slab, knowing what he wouldn’t find.
The body of Sebastian Castle.
At the end of the slab, where the feet should have been, he saw a lumpy towel.
Khent tugged the towel away and looked at the severed head of Julian Wildridge.
Next to the head lay a card, the message written in clear, flowing script.
He read aloud, “This lycan was intolerable. But I’m keeping the sorcerer’s body and the wand. I have use for them. Tell the vryko and nachzehrer I won’t miss themmuch. See you on the flip side. Ha! P.” Then a P.S. written in smaller letters underneath, “The P is for Paz, you blood-sucking dolt.”
Khent leaned his head back and laughed.
EPILOGUE
In a private airplanealready in the air, a pretty woman with dark glasses and a cellphone held to her ear smiled at the steward carrying a bottle of Prosecco—she did have a sweet tooth—and thanked him for pouring her a glass.
Once he moved on, leaving her alone, she said into the phone, “You sure you don’t mind if I bring one back? I have a feeling we’ll need it to finish with things. Nothing has been finalized.”
“Nah, I’m good. You got this. Besides, I have some cleanup to do back here. Once I fix things with the lycans, I’m moving on the bazaar. We need to make this work or everything we did to get here goes up in smoke.” Talon sighed. “I have a bad feeling they’re not going to get over this so easily.”
“Ya think?” Talon might have been one hell of a lay and a funny guy, but he didn’t always see the big picture. Hence his stepping all over his own dick when it came to dealing with allies he’d turned into enemies. Hadn’t she told him to ask the berserker for help? But did he listen?
“Yes, yes, you were right, I was wrong,” he said as if reading her mind. “You happy now, Val?”
“I will be once I find what I came for.” She smiled, thoughts of her soon-to-be-acquired pet giving her chills. “Once we have it, we’ll be unstoppable.”
“Yeah. Partners?”
“You stab me, I stab you?”
