Khent took pains to remind everyone of his old clan, the Sons of Osiris, at every turn. He apparently didn’t appreciate Rolf’s joke because he snapped something back. Kraft couldn’t understand Khent’s rejoinder, spoken in another language, but he clearly understood his waspish tone.
Rolf answered in kind and laughed long and hard.
Mormo cracked a grin before coughing to clear his throat. “Right, well, Kraft has found our escaped lycan and intends to work with one of his pack members to help us retrieve the artifact.”
Rolf looked from Mormo to Kraft. “Really? And we’re all okay with this?”
Mormo sighed. “Not really, but we need the rest of the Bloode Stones.”
Because just one Bloode Stone could command thousands of vampires. And no one wanted the stones in the wrong hands. They’d found three of the missing six, and apparently they were close to finding the fourth in the lycans’ artifact.
“Just letting you know, the lycans consider the artifact theirs.” Kraft let that settle.
Rolf snorted. “They can think what they want. It’ll be up to us whether or not weletthem have it.”
“You mean, whether or not Hecate, our mistress, lets them have it,” Mormo said.
“Tomato, tomahto. I say give it to the puppies then take it back by force.” Merriment danced in Rolf’s eyes, the draugr always bordering on a joke of some kind. “Just think, Mormo, a vampire/lycan war. With that kind of chaos, we’ll invite the Big Bad to come back where we can destroy her.”
Hecate’s reasoning for gathering them all into this weird bloode clan was to combat the Darkness that would come to destroy worlds. Personally, Kraft thought she was overstating things, as gods often did. They loved nothing more than great catastrophes with huge amounts of death and destruction—solved, of course, by prayers to the divine.
Yet Hecate and Mormo stood firm on needing them all to fight what was coming. All Kraft heard was blah, blah, blahbattle.The magic word. He was in.
Mormo was frowning at Rolf. “‘Destroyher?’ You mean it. The Darkness that comes has no gender.”
“Right.” Rolf snorted. “Females are nothing but trouble, but because they’re the ‘weaker sex’ we don’t give them any credit for possibly destroying everything in existence.”
They all paused as Orion and his mate could be heard arguing down the hall. Then the water witch sweetly said something about drowning her mate in the bloode of his ancestors, which had Orion sputtering into laughter.
And Kaia had been such a sweet, quiet sea nymph before mating Orion.
Females, the weaker sex?
Kraft thought about Riley.Right.“You know, Rolf has a point. Let’s start a vampire/lycan war. Make it a real free-for-all, attract the Darkness to descend, then take it out on our terms.” Kraft gave the blond an approving grin, which Rolf took as an invitation to throw an arm around his shoulders.
“Brother,” Rolf said. “Finally, you speak sense.”
Mormo shook his head, his gaze disapproving. “I’m surrounded by morons.” He walked away, saying nothing more.
Rolf watched him leave and squeezed Kraft’s shoulder. “Well, I thought it was a fabulous idea.” He winked at Kraft, who finally pulled away. “So, when’s breakfast arriving?”
“Who?”
“My lycan.” Rolf licked his lips and laughed.
“You and Khent can fight over seconds. She’s mine until I say otherwise.”
“Of course, fledgling, of course.”
Kraft forced himself not to react and left Rolf grinning after him. The draugr just wanted to get a rise out of him. He knew that. Yet he still let the others make him feel like a child in their midst. Only Orion truly treated him with the respect he was due.
He glowered past Orion and Kaia and stomped his way to the basement, just in time to see an elf sneering at him.
Great, more trouble I’m not in the mood for.The dusk elf, now in his dark elf form, with pitch-black skin and long, snow-white hair, braided back to showcase his pointed ears, glowered. Onvyr had been doing better lately, not trying to kill the vampires in residence. Suffering the aftereffects from years of torture by a master vampire, Onvyr wasn’t so sane anymore. And the guy hadn’t seemed all that normal to begin with. A rare dusk elf, stronger than any fae warrior Kraft had ever met, Onvyr had an uncanny ability to communicate with animals.
Kraft gave a subtle look around and, not seeing Onvyr’s buddy, a black and white striped battle cat the size of a Siberian tiger, let himself relax. “You need something?” he growled at the elf.
Onvyr blinked. “Oh, er, sorry. I was having an argument with... Not important. So, what can I do for you, Kraft?”
