“Mum, we have returned,” I called out from the foyer, desperately trying to sound composed and nonchalant, but I was anything but.
Jay Dee let go of my hand and sniffed wildly, then followed an unfamiliar scent into the den, protectively walking in front of me.
That was never a good sign.
On one side of the room were her parents and on the other were Mum and Toran, and sitting on the love seat were a couple who I was positive I had never seen before but knew without a doubt that they were werewolves.
“Hey Mom, Dad, what’s up?” Jay Dee asked, her tone level and slightly cold, and headed towards them but kept her eyes on the smug looking man and the irritable woman next to him, neither of which would look her in the eye.
Sky forced a smile, her eyes sparkling like diamonds from the tears flooding them. “You look lovely, Dear.”
“What’s wrong…are we going to war?” Jay Dee demanded before gasping. “Oh my God, is it Jarvis?” she stammered.
“Jarvis is fine,” Reign assured her. “Sit,” he said, motioning towards one of the chairs but I pulled Jay Dee back and escorted her to the chaise farthest away from the unfamiliar werewolves.
Everyone was looking at Jay Dee; Mum looked exhausted, her parents saddened, Toran guilty, the unfamiliar man was eying her legs and chest, and the woman next to him was glaring at her with hatred in her eyes.
“Can I have your jacket please?” Jay Dee whispered but I had it over her shoulders before she’d finished asking.
If you do not turn your gaze from me Duckie, I will kill you. Friend of Toran’s or not, I will disembowel you and strangle that hateful gazed bitch next to you with your entrails.
Jay Dee glared. “If you don’t stop trying to look at my tits, I’m going to sic my vampire on you.”
I smirked; I loved that we were seemingly on the same page.
“Your vampire?” he man asked, slightly amuse, looking from Jay Dee’s legs to Toran. “You allowed our Queen’s wishes to be ignored, and let her daughter defile her body with a vampire?”
The smugness in his voice made me was to rip his heart out of his chest.
Toran’s eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”
Mum was on her feet in an instant. “You will mind your tongue and tone when speaking of my sister,” she warned.
“I would offer my apologies, yet I cannot,” he said. “Truly you must understand where my concern is coming from. Our Queen was, once again, was targeted by the very people you have been entrusted with keeping her safe from.”
I started to get up, to address the pompous werewolf’s attitude and tone, but Jay Dee pulled me back down.
“Who are you?” Jay Dee asked then licked her dry lips.
The man smiled, looking at her, his attention on her mouth. “I am Mikkel and this is my sister, Disa. Surely you must know of us.”
Jay Dee continued to look at him; her face an expressionless slate.
Mikkel was tall, broad, handsome if you were into pompous werewolves. Their white blond hair appeared overly processed—sadly that was something that Jay Dee wouldn’t have noticed but I would since I was no stranger to salons—and their blue eyes were unusual, a shade that I had never seen outside of a optometrist’s office. There was no mistaking they were Scandinavian, though I wouldn’t say Norwegian, regardless of what their Norse names hinted at. There was an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach, something that hinted that the world I had waited more than three centuries to experience was going to fall around me.
And I was right.
“I swear to God, if you do not stop looking at me Duckie like that, I will kill you,” I hissed, unable to take his lustful gaze on what belonged to me any longer.
Toran shook his head when Jay Dee had to, once again, pull me back down. “Tanis, Son, please go for a walk. These are werewolf matters.”
I jutted my chin out defiantly and took Jay Dee’s hand in mine. “Thus they are my matters now as well,” I venomously informed him and his eyes widened.
Jay Dee smiled and looked at me. “Spoken like a true mate,” she whispered.
Instantly, I was smiling in return. “Anything for you, surely you must know that.”
“I’m still trying to wrap my head around that,” she admitted, and her cheeks flushed that delicious shade of rose that caused a whimper to build in my chest. “Toran,” she whispered, looking to him, “why have you brought these people here? You are endangering what is left of my people by congregating us in one location, a location which has been compromised by the Aslak.”
Everyone looked at her with wide eyes.
I rolled her hand over and looked at her wrist and my heart sank: blemishing her light tan skin was a delicate faint white Val Knot—the Crown.
Bloody hell, she is invoking the crown.
“A war is on the horizon,” Jay Dee continued, “one that was written in the stars, however, another war we find on our doorstep. The packs converge on the region and they will not stop until they have atonement for the four wolves which are dead because of me. Even if it wasn’t my teeth or claws that took their lives, it was because of me and my directive that they are no more. For my entire life I have struggled to be the peacekeeper. I fought with my family, friends and pack in order to keep a low profile, to keep the bloodshed to a minimum…I suppose it was a self-preservation thing as well as a means to keep those I love and care about safe. But…” her words trailed off and she shook her head. “None of that matters now.”
Disa’s nostrils flared. “What did you do?” she demanded.
Jay Dee cocked an eyebrow, looking up at her through thick, black lashes and Disa instantly looked away from her. “You will mind your tongue or I will mind it for you,” she venomously warned.
I looked at her with wide eyes. Never had I heard her speak like that. It was regal and powerful, menacing and extremely arousing. A sense of completely unfounded pride consumed me and it made me smile that it was my hand she was holding and my skin her mark was on.
“You are remembering?” Sky whispered, the color draining from her dark bronze complexion.
“Yes, Mother, I am,” Jay Dee said in a cold, detached tone. “I wish I wasn’t,” she admitted and a tear rolled down her cheek. “It’s still sketchy. There are many blanks, but what I do know is that the people I care about and love are going to be hurt,” she looked to Mum and her face dropped as understanding hit, “more so than the unfathomable loss you’ve already experienced. It…wherever I go, people die because of me.”
“No they don’t,” nearly everyone started to argue at once.
Jay Dee squeezed my hand and it silenced me.
I nodded my understanding, though I was praying that I was understanding what she was trying to silently tell me, if not, I was in trouble.
“Why have you brought them here, Toran?” Jay Dee asked again.
Toran sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat.
“We are the last of our people,” Mikkel said when Toran opened his mouth. “We need to be together in order to strengthen our numbers. Our parents were commissioned with that task, with hiding the Queen’s contingency plan, even from He whom she trusted with the crown.”
Toran’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.
Disa smirked. “Twins of pure blood were hidden from the Aslak in order to strengthen our numbers and to create a pure blood predecessor for the crown. The crown cannot be passed to anyone other than a pure blooded Varulv.”
“No!” Reign barked, getting to his feet. “That was never…Toran, tell me this is a sick joke!”
Toran continued to sit there with his mouth hanging open.
“Apachu!” Sky snarled, the chaise flying out from under her when she stood.
“Mom!” Jay Dee said, getting to her feet.
Sky shook her head and tears streamed down her cheeks. “Sil n'zhoo,” she stammered.
“I love you, too, Mom,” Jay Dee said. “What’s going on?” she demanded.
Mum punched Toran in the arm, sending him flying across the room. “How could you do this!?” she demanded.
“I did not know,” he assured her.
Mikkel chuckled under his breath. “Kaia was only supposed to be with these inferior werewolves temporarily. It was not meant for vampire’s to know,” he amusingly informed Toran when he opened his mouth to argue. “The whole reason why our people were eradicated was because of vampires, did you honestly think that the Queen was going to allow her only child to be targeted when she could be safe with her own kind while helping to rebuild her kingdom and repopulate the world with the Varulv? Yes, it will take many centuries to get our numbers up, especially since reproductive maturity in Varulv is centurial milestone…it will give us much time to practice, thus we shall not be no more simply because of a disgusting vampire.”
I snarled and Jay Dee pulled me back down.
Disa smiled in perverse pleasure. “Varulv of each sex to make sure that the crown had a suitable mate.”
Bloody hell, I am going to be sick.
That, Jay Dee understood and she blindly sat back down.
“She loves Tanis!” Mum argued. “And he loves her, how can you sit there like a mute as your son and your daughter are subjected to the censure of the world for caprice and derision for disappointed hopes? You willing subject them to misery of the acutest kind, and for what? Even if the world was repopulated with Varulv, the Aslak will stop at nothing to kill them, all three of them! You know as well as I that this will not end simply because she marks a Varulv instead of one of our sons.”
Jay Dee raised her hand. “I think I’m confused,” she whispered.
Disa smiled. “Kaia, the Queen of the Varulv, is betrothed to Mikkel.”
“And that means what exactly?” she whispered, struggling to swallow the lump in her throat and I was fighting the urge to snap the mongrel’s neck.
Mikkel smiled wide. “That we are to be married, of course. To have lots of sex and babies of course.”
“You have got to be out of your bloody mind!” I snarled, getting to my feet. “Secure the species? Need I remind you that there are only two bloodlines? Who are your children supposed to procreate with, each other? I do not think that the Gods or Elders would look too highly on inbreeding. You are dogs, not Miss Jay Dee, but you two are disgusting dogs…ripping your throats out would be blessing to werewolf society.”
Mikkel smirked. “It is a good thing, Parasite, that it is not your society that it effects. Now isn’t it?”
And I lost the battle.
I was across the room in a blur and slammed Mikkel against the wall, pulling him off of his feet, and pressed my thumb into his larynx.
“You are testing my patience and wearing out your welcome,” I snarled.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Disa come to her brother’s aid but the irate hobbit of a werewolf never got the chance.
She went flying through the air when a gray mist slammed into her, lifting her off of her feet. I was about to thank Mum for the assistance when the mist solidified; it wasn’t Mum, it was Jay Dee standing beside me, her long, slender hand wrapped around Disa’s throat.
Now that is arousing to say the least.
“You have out stayed your welcome,” Jay Dee snarled. “It is taking all of my conscious effort to keep from ripping your throat out, just as it is taking all of the conscious, and unconscious, effort of the vampire next to me to keep from doing the same. I have waited my entire life to feel loved and safe, eighteen very long years I have waited for He who was written in the stars, but he patiently waited more than three hundred years for me,” she informed them, and with her free hand, she ripped the collar of my dress shirt, exposing my neck. “My mark is permanent, and it is only He who I will give my body to.”
Disa and Mikkel’s eyes widened as they looked at the faint white scar on the nap of my neck.
“You will leave at once, the way you came, and go back to the lives you had,” Jay Dee continued. “War is on the horizon, and I am more than confident that neither of you want caught in the middle of it.”
“You will regret this,” Disa snarled.
Jay Dee’s head tilted to the side as she regarded her. “Yes, I am well of that,” she said, then with the flick of her wrist, she sent the irritating werewolf flying across the room and through one of the windows.
I smirked and followed suit, sending the snarling werewolf struggling to phase in my grasp, through the other window. “Bloody wanker,” I snarled and started to follow, so I could finish the job, but Jay Dee pulled me back. “What is it, Duckie?” I whispered, noting the tears staining her cheeks.
She opened her mouth more than once, but nothing came out.
Sky and Reign hurried over to her and took her from me. They casted Toran a sidelong glance, one that was filled with murderous rage, before disappearing out the front door with their daughter.
I started to follow but Mum appeared in front of me and shook her head.
“Father,” I said, “I am only going to ask this once, start from the beginning,” I said, and he didn’t miss my contemptuous tone.
Toran looked up at me from the floor where he still sat thanks to Mum’s nasty left hook. “I suppose that would be prudent,” he mumbled. “Actually…I cannot. I obviously do not know anything anymore. Kaia marked you?” he asked as more of an afterthought.
I snarled. “Jay Dee, not Kaia.”
“I thought for sure that it’d be the other one,” he mumbled, looking at his hands.
I growled. “Bloody hell, why does everyone keep saying that? Even Rayland said that!”
Toran absently nodded, a look of unfathomable despair washing over him. “So you know,” he surmised and I reluctantly nodded. “I am so sorry,” he whispered over and over, shaking his head. “This was not supposed to happen. Not like this.”
Mum sighed. “How was it supposed to happen, Husband?”
The vampires eavesdropping from the second level didn’t miss her condescension.
“I was supposed to protect them, all three,” he whispered. “Aesa said that she was arranging a means to protect the crown, so that her people wouldn’t be completely lost…never did I imagine that it was a something like this. I swear to you,” he said, his eyes snapping to Mum’s, “never did I image that she meant something like this. For centuries she was hell bent on the foretelling being fulfilled. Never did she have doubts or hint that she wished for something other than the uniting the mythical world.”
Mum looked to me.
“They were dodgy,” I admitted. “Perhaps lying?”
She sighed. “Toran is the king of secrets, but Aesa was the goddess of them. This is not going to end well for any of our children.”
Toran nodded but she was speaking to me.
“Your destiny awaits, my precious one,” she mouthed.
I swallowed hard and nodded.
“What destiny?” d’Artagnan asked, appearing stretched out on the chaise and the others soon joined us in the den. “And I must say, I absolutely love what you’ve done with the place,” he said, motioning towards the windows.
I glared at him and he smirked.
“Miss Jay Dee is the Queen of the Varulv,” I informed him and his he cocked an eyebrow.
“And that means what to those not shagging a werewolf?” he asked condescendingly, getting a warning look from Mum.
d’Artagnan disappeared from the room before she could assault him next.
“The Varulv, the Norwegian werewolves, had been ruled by a royal family since the beginning of their time. They lived in a hidden city-” Toran absently said.
“The Holy City,” I interrupted, attempting to fill in the blanks from the vision-like memories that Jay Dee had told me of.
“Yes,” he said with a sigh. “For more than eleven centuries they existed in peace. That is, until a vampire Seer saw something that would put the Varulv, a usually peaceful people, at war against their own kind. A very powerful and ancient sect of purist called the Aslak marched into the city, killing everyone, including the King and Queen.”
Mum hissed, her hands balling into fists while she struggled to keep from beating him senseless.
Georgiana raised her hand. “How in bloody hell do you know all of this… Better question, how do you know any of this?” she asked, turning to me.
I flipped her off.
“I am not a werewolf,” Toran said, “but my allegiance has always been with the werewolves. It was a werewolf who saved me when I was turned. My sire had not meant to turn me and ran off, however, that is not the point,” he said in a clipped tone. “King Olaf and Queen Aesa were our friends, for many centuries, and were like family to us. When it was brought before the vampiric council that the Aslak were marching on the Holy City, I begged the council to send reinforcements, but they refused my request and dismissed me from my position. They stated that I was unfit to command the Finnish Legion of Vampires any longer, and I was stripped of rank and title. I was thankful for that, because what I next did would have sentenced me to die.”
Mum gasped and appeared at his side. “Tell me you did not…” her words trailed off.
He absently nodded. “I broke the rules of engagement and joined the battle in the Holy City, but I wasn’t fast enough. They Aslak forces had already taken more than half of the city, killed Olaf…all I found was the bloody remains of his guard, and nearly all of the three thousand residents inside the city walls were slaughtered. I helped Aesa escape; however, we only made it four kilometers outside of the city before she went into labor. In a cave, while being pursued by the Aslak, Aesa gave birth to a daughter: Kaia. With her last breath, and after blessing Kaia and bestowing her with the crown, she begged me to keep her safe. And I vowed that I would.”
“Oh, Toran,” Mum sighed and wrapped her arms around him.
“The Gods shone upon the young child that night, as a storm swept through the region, effectively masking our trail from the Aslak, and offered us a veil of protection. Once we were able to get clear of the region, I moved the child from estate to estate, usually remaining two steps ahead of the Aslak. When in Clochán an Aifir, they caught up to us and killed nearly all of the guards and almost succeeded in killing the child. That was when I knew that it would be too difficult to keep a werewolf in the protection of vampires. The only place she’d be safe was with her own kind.”
Buggers.
“That is why Declan was there,” I mumbled, suddenly feeling guilty for the disdain and jealousy I was most recently feeling towards the mouthy pikey.
Toran gave me a look. “Yes…how did you?”
I dismissively waved for him to continue.
“I called on our old friends, Sky and Reign Lightfoot, and explained the situation. They were already well aware of Aesa and Olfa’s demise, and what awaited their child, so they guardedly agreed to temporarily house the child until permanent arrangements could be made. In keeping with the rules of engagement, we set out to sea by ship. We were attacked…as if they knew exactly where we were going to be, which should not have been possible with Kaia’s necklace.”
Abigail wiped away the tears building in the corners of her eyes and Steffen tenderly kissed the side of her head.
“By the mercy of the Gods,” Toran continued, his voice merely a whisper, “Kaia washed up on shore as if it was where she was destined to be. I washed up in Canada,” he growled the latter.
“Father,” I whispered and he looked up at me, “I love her.”
“I know,” he admitted to my surprise. “And that is why you have to stay away from her,” he said, and in a blur of movement, Mum and I fell backwards at the same time, and it was followed by the sound of Steffen, Abigail, and Georgiana hitting the floor.
Toran was suddenly standing over me, his eyes going between me and the stake sticking out of my chest; nothing rivals the speed of a fifteen-hundred year old vampire, nothing. “I love you too much to simply allow you to throw your life away because of… Kaia is like a daughter to me, but you are a son to me,” he explained. “I really wish it would have been the other one because he would have seen this coming,” he said with a disappointed look on his face. “If you cannot even stop your father from staking you in your own home, how in the hell do you expect to prevent a sect of werewolves hell bent on killing all of you in order to prevent a well overdue blending of the species?”
You are dead to me, you bastard!
“It is better this way,” Toran said again before pulling Mum into his arms, minding the stake sticking out of her chest and carried her from the room.
The sound of his near silent footsteps going up the stairs were accompanied by his sniveling and mumbling, until he was in their bedroom.
d’Artagnan’s face suddenly eclipsed my view of the ceiling. “Now that I did not see coming,” he whispered with an amused chuckle.