“Win what?” I tried not to act too surprised, but I wasn’t sure it worked.
“The war, of course.”
“What war? I just told you I didn’t want to start a war with your Sect.” My voice grated as my neck started morphing. I was too emotional to stop it. My wolf was right along with me, yipping and growling in frustration.
“It is not a war with the vampires I am referring to. The Sects have grown restless these last hundred years. As proof, my own Queen has accepted a pledge from your rogue wolves. The Sorcerers are on edge and the witches have been stirring. Demon Lords are coming to the surface. All of this points to a major uprising. There will be much fighting in our future until all can be settled again. I believe you will be the one to settle it.”
“What?” I gasped. “How do I settle a war between Sects? That’s impossible! I’m strong, but I’m not that strong.”
“Non,” Naomi said with confidence. “Your presence here is to keep it fair, to make sure all sides are forced to play by the same rules. It would be happening anyway, with or without you, because the supernatural races grow too large and there is too much power. We cannot be contained and live among the humans much longer without a major catastrophe. We will fight. The Coalition will wake. And a new order will be formed. It is time.”
A new order?
“How do you know all this?” I asked. “You can’t anticipate that much, even if you had some of the information ahead of time.”
“I know, because I have read the Prophecy for myself.”
I sat down on a large boulder with a thump.
Everyone shifted uneasily, but stayed quiet. Ray had picked his way down sometime during this revelation and was perched quietly on the end of the ledge. Fur lined my arms and my canines had extended. Emotion roiled inside me. I didn’t have to ask her what Prophecy she was referring to. “It exists in written form then?” I said quietly.
“Oui,” Naomi said. “It seemed to be very old when I saw it, which was merely by accident. Selene had sent me to capture one of the Three Hags. She desired knowledge of her fate and she thought this job would be as easy as plucking an apple from a tree.”
“I take it that was not the case.”
“I almost lost my life. But before the Hag set me free, she showed me the Prophecy, giving me a potion to drink so I could decipher the ancient language it was written in. Then she told me there would come a pivotal time in my life when I would finally be set free. From this freedom I would be given a choice. I could either take the life for myself or I could pledge it to another. If I gave my pledge, I would live to see the wrongs of the world righted. If I did not, I would spend my days looking for something I might never find. I believed, up until this very day”—she bowed her head—“that my freedom came from my escape from Selene and the pledge I gave freely was to my Vampire Queen. I see now that I had made a grave mistake. I know now that you are that pledge. I am certain, body and soul, and I give it to you freely, without reservation.”
The world had just thrown me a gigantic curveball.
I took a deep breath and forced some calm back into my system with tremendous effort. The Prophecy was true. And I couldn’t change my fate, no matter how much I wanted to. My features shifted back, almost reluctantly, as I shed some of the emotion gnawing at me. There was nothing I could do, except move forward the best way I knew how. There was no time to bemoan my life. I had a mate to free and a goddess to kill.
I stood and brushed dust off my legs. “Naomi,” I said, meeting her gaze fully, “I accept your pledge, but I honestly have no idea what to do with it. I will offer you my protection, as freely as you’ve given me your loyalty. When your Queen finds out you’ve defected willingly, and eventually she will, it’s going to be like dropping an atomic bomb on your court. We will need to put our heads together and play this as smart as we can. Once we get back, I’m hopeful we can come up with something plausible—something that doesn’t include any mention of my blood. I owe your Queen a debt, which I am required to pay in a very short period of time, and if she finds out while I’m at court my blood is even more powerful than she realizes, she’ll do everything in her power to kill me—or siphon me dry. Either scenario is unacceptable.”
A slow smile spread across Naomi’s lips. “The Queen will not win.” Her features shifted down ever so slowly.