“Um… yes. Absolutely,” I answered, following her lead. “Eamon, you can’t desert us now. Your Queen wouldn’t want a war on her hands. As a rule, wolves must pay up immediately if they can. Nobody wants a life debt hanging over their heads. If you don’t pay it now as needed, I could demand something bigger from your Queen once we return. Then where would you be? There’s not a doghouse big enough, especially with what I’m going to ask for.”
Naomi smiled, covering it up delicately with the back of her hand as she replied, “And once we arrive at Selene’s door, we will stay and help you defeat her. If we make it out alive, my life debt to you will be paid in full.” She inclined her head. “Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I said quickly.
Eamon gasped. “We will do no such thing! The venom has gone to your brain and made you rash. It’s too dangerous. I will not willingly return to that place and suffer at her hands agai—”
“We will do it,” Naomi snapped. “You are my blood-kin first; my debts are yours to fulfill by honor. The Goddess will not harm us this time. We are smarter and stronger; we are not the children we once were.”
Eamon raged, his hands balled into tight fists. It looked like steam could possibly pour from his ears.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” I interrupted, trying to diffuse the situation. “How long did you… serve Selene? And why?”
Naomi turned to me, her eyes stark for a moment before she answered. “One hundred and fifty years,” she replied softly. “We did not understand the gravity of our decision at the time. We were fledglings recently turned by a low-level master. Once it was known our special gifts in tracking and sensing were”—she cleared her throat—“rare, we became a bartering tool to make our master wealthy. He offered us to the highest bidder, which was the Lunar Goddess, but the Vampire Queen stepped in and gave us a choice—we could choose her or Selene. We were foolish. We thought being in the company of a powerful goddess would give us great power and ultimate status, that she could protect us better than our own Queen,” she scoffed. “But we were chained and treated like slaves for over a century. Unleashed only when she required us to do her bidding.”
“How did you finally escape?” I asked. I was both curious and appalled.
“She became lazy and began to leave us unattended for small periods. Then I happened across this.” She patted her pocket. “The cross can do more than just heal an immortal. It is a powerful weapon. While it was buried in Danny’s body, burning the poison of the Underworld, he was temporarily void of all his power.”
“Pardon?” Danny interrupted. “I hadn’t any power? That’s funny, because I didn’t feel any different. Though I was unconscious through most of it.” He was still on the ground, sitting upright now, but not ready to stand. We were all following the conversation closely. Ray had taken a seat on a nearby log, and Tyler stood stoically with his arms crossed, patient for now to hear her out.
“If it is used against Selene,” Naomi continued, “it will absorb her powers the same way, rendering her useless for the time it remains in her body. It will not kill her outright, but it will incapacitate her. Once she found out that the cross could work against her, she sought to destroy it… but it was already lost.”
“And once she misplaced it—it was your property to find,” I finished.
“Oui.” Naomi smiled like a shrew. “It was not my fault my jailer became careless and trusting in my company, that she mistook my placation for devotion and faithful servitude.”
Keeping Naomi on my side was an absolute must from now on. She was proving to be a very smart, very powerful supernatural. Behind those petite shoulders and tiny waist was a cold-blooded killer.
“If that cross can cure a supernatural, how come your brother didn’t use it on you? Why use my sister to get blood?” Tyler growled as he joined the conversation. He had calmed down, but not by much.
Naomi turned to Tyler and addressed him directly. “There is a caveat to having ownership of the cross. Once it is yours, it will not work against you, nor will it aid you. The spell is dead to me, though the silver still leaves a mark on my flesh. Selene paid a great deal for its creation, to use against powerful enemies, and had the insurance policy built in that the cross would never be able to harm her. But the crafters of this trinket were very powerful in their own rights, and they played a little game. If the trinket was lost, whoever found it became its rightful owner. Once out of her hands and claimed by another, it could work against her. So in essence she had crafted the only means in the world to render her own powers useless.”
“I’m sure whoever crafted it didn’t advertise their prank and risk her wrath, so how did you find out?” I asked. “Whoever did this played a dangerous game with a very powerful goddess.”
Naomi shrugged. “I didn’t know until I pierced it into her flesh. It worked. Of course, I had a feeling, as I often do with such things, but nothing more.”