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He and the twins had agreed that no one could know about Lucia until she was bearing Garreth&039;s bite nize the claim as Garreth&039;s, would know she was forever under his protection
Then the three of them had combed the streets of New Orleans, a city they hadn&039;t visited often, and all the while, Garreth impatiently counted down the hours till this day
Finding infor Easy Loreans were suspicious of the Lykae newco Garreth had come up empty in his search, but the twins had charmed a voodoo shopkeeper who&039;d told them much
Now as Garreth waited in the swaht back over all they&039;d learned about Lucia
"She&039;s legendary for her archery skills," Munro had said "Nothing else unique about her"
That was all she was known for? "There must be more What does she like to do? What are her interests?"
"No one knows," Uillea more needed to be said about her It was how she was identified
Munro had added, "But it&039;s ruet"
Luckily, Garreth couldn&039;t see that happening too often with her skill But then his chest had grown heavy
Was that how she&039;d gotten to be so good?
Above all, they&039;d learned the Valkyrie were peculiar creatures Their origin alone fascinated him Each Valkyrie had three parents Whenever a ods Freya and W��den struck her with lightning, rescuing her to Valhalla The nant with a Valkyrie daughter
The birth mothers hailed from all Lorekind - furies, witches, shifters, even hu and characteristics of the mother, but they all inherited Freya&039;s fey features and her notorious acquisitiveness - in fact, they could bejewels, diamonds especially
The Valkyrie were ru shrieks, preternatural speed, and no need to eat or drink Instead they consu when they experienced sharp eend about Valkyrie he&039;d never quite believed until he&039;d been in the throes with one Lightning had speared the night, and not only from the storm
Garreth had learned about various individual Valkyrie as well Nïx was their soothsayer, ruin was the last of the Radiant Ones and had skin that glowed Annika was the dauntless leader of the New Orleans coven, a ist who lived to ith vampires
No one kneho Lucia&039;s birth mother was - or what she&039;d been - but the shopkeeper had said this Accession would be Lucia&039;s third Which e
In the end, Garreth had more questions about her than answers
She&039;s no&039; co Damn it, why? He&039;d shown her passion - and patience But she&039;d been skittish toward the end Wild-eyed and spooked Perhaps she feared the intensity of her own reaction? Or of his?
He recalled what Bowen had once told him "We doona understand our own ferocity" His cousin&039;s deadened eyes had been filled with loss "What&039;s normal to us is no&039; to others" Bowen&039;s own mate had loved him, until she&039;d seen him turned Then she&039;d fled
Lucia too had fled - yet she hadn&039;t even seen a glimpse of the beast
The Lykae called their transforrow taller, hisThe brutal andshadow of his beast would flicker over him
No, Lucia dinna seemoon But she soon will
She would run far, if he wasn&039;t careful Another glance at the ht "Ah, Lousha,around it"
For now, she wasn&039;t coo to her He stood and turned for the Valkyrie&039;s home of Val Hall Since he&039;dbo constantly above the antebellu rods jutted up Sled from burned oaks From within, Valkyrie shrieks sounded
None of that mattered but for the fact that Lucia would be within He strides took him closer and closer to her
Chapter 7
"Lykae in our backyards Horde va out Valkyries all over the world Happy Accession!" Regin cried fro room table, which now stood covered withface
The lowed Yet that wasn&039;t the only reason she was called the Radiant One
LuciaShe&039;d thought she&039;d spotted so outside the manor She was curled up in aseat, bow in her lap, peering out at the night The gaslights flickered outside Val Hall, like tentative steps into the blackness
On this day, she was supposed to haveshe couldn&039;t meet him, yet teined the addictive taste of his lips She wanted to discover why she hadn&039;t been able to shoot hiainst the idea?
And why had he taken her underwear?
That had confused her as ht Unlike her sisters, ere all obsessed with lingerie, Lucia wore athletic underwear - seaent Provocateur, instead favoring brands like Under Armour - the kind sold in a pack She&039;d never expected anyone to see thehed Surely MacRieve would leave her alone now that he&039;d been stood up Even as she thought this, she half expected to see hieous face creased in a scowl
But nothing was out there now She relaxed a touch
Ultimately, the choice of whether to meet MacRieve or not had been taken out of Lucia&039;s hands Her day planner had gotten filled to the gills when their coven had learned that Horde vah they didn&039;t knoho
Vampires were the Valkyrie&039;s most hated enemies They could trace - or teleport - fro at will, hty queen Furie had gone to face the Horde leader Demestriu, she&039;d never returned
Worse, Ivo the Cruel, second in co here Ru even more nefarious than usual - and that he&039;d teamed up with the vampire Lothaire, the Enemy of Old, an ancient foe of theirs as well
"If I had to guess," Regin said, "I&039;d bet the leeches are looking for low and I&039;m wicked smart They probably want to breed with"Doubtless"
"And what the hell is Lothaire doing here? He was always creepy It boggles the mind that so blond locks bouncing over her glowing shoulders
Another secret froin Lucia was one of those women She&039;d always found the powerful va, attractive in an is-he-going-to-kill-me-or-kiss-me type of way And Lucia was far fro to find any leeches in NOLA?" Regin asked
"Dunno" In the wake of this news, Annika, their fierce coven leader, and other Valkyrie had set out to find them in the city "They&039;ve always stayed away from the States before" Which hy the Valkyrie coven had moved here Lucia had heard that was the reason many Lykae had come here from Scotland as well
"I hope they&039;re in town I want to face thein stood and brandished one of the tords that she usually wore in sheaths crisscrossed over her back - in addition to the dagger sheath she customarily wore on her forearin&039;s new threat: to lunch on enee, when you threaten males with that, I don&039;t think it has the result you intend They think less Lunchables, "
"Huh? Whatever!"
Before Annika had left, she&039;d ordered Regin and Lucia to contact traveling coven et them home at once But above all else, they were to hter, returned to Val Hall frootten in touch with Emma at last, the normally meek half vampire/half Valkyrie had declined to return There was talk of ato go berserk Regin secretly called their coven leader Annika the Aneurisood reason
"Dude, you&039;ve been antsy all day," Regin said, sheathing her sword "What&039;s wrong with you?"
I stood up a Lykae with delicious lips and intense golden eyes who, for a ti in the entire world
"Is it because of the new neighbors you saw?" Regin asked
Lucia had reported back to the coven that Lykae were encroaching on Valkyrie territory
"Ah-oooooo, olves in NOLA" Regin gave a snort "If they&039;re going to be sneaking out of the kennel, then I guess &039;out of sight, out of in had nicknaht on
"Sneaking?" Lucia said "They acted as if they owned this place"
"Well, maybe we need to Cesar Millan their asses and show them who&039;s boss Tsst, tsst!"
"I&039;in&039;s attention fell back to her papers Sometimes her sister could be a handful even for Lucia, especially if Regin wasn&039;t engaging in regular, fatiguing battles -
Lucia tensed, again thinking she&039;d spied movement in the bushes outside Was it MacRieve?
Since the night they&039;d met, she&039;d learned much about him When his older brother Lachlain had disappeared, Garreth MacRieve had becoht he&039;d be their leader Before assu the throne, he&039;d been wild, a ladies&039; man and a brawler, so bad he&039;d been nicknamed the Dark Prince
He was the best kisser she&039;d ever iined
And ould Lucia say if MacRieve showed? It seems you want to have an affair with h I want to in the worst way Duty, chastity Lucia was sick of theood man Her shot at a norets bywhat had moved A nefarious tomcat As she exhaled a pent-up breath, she realized she&039;d been clutching her bow hard This , she&039;d checked her abilities, and her skills remained intact They must truly be penetration-based
Still, all day she&039;d held on to her bow, absently running her fingers over the raised inscriptions Skathi had hesitated to let Lucia leave Thrymheim with that bow, because of her "darkness"
To other Valkyrie, Lucia and Regin were relatively young, but Lucia had lived a long tis Never had she encountered a ht out her darkness like MacRieve
He ht be her worst weakness If so, he couldn&039;t have colanced over at their coin would do as they did every five hundred years and prevent Cruach fro Skathi&039;s golden arroeaken him until the next Accession, Lucia wanted to discover a way to kill hiood
One probleod of human sacrifices and cannibalis that could obliterate hiod killer Extreue of immortals froods, who in turn sentenced all the Bane their power in taliss - all over the world and adjoining planes
Any vessel of the poas considered a dieus of an arrow
Lucia and Regin had hundreds of leads, everything from riddles to ancient journals toup for their ide search, and Regin liked to spread out their calculations, tips, Post-its, and atlases for clarity when they knew no one was ho Futs Nïx was the only one upstairs, but she didn&039;t count - since she truly was mad She could see the future so clearly that the present and past gave her fits If Nïx did stroll by the coet or would look at thecards Must be Decein had repeatedly requested her help in their quest The first time they&039;d asked, she&039;d answered, "What&039;s a dieumort?" Once they&039;d explained, she told them that she&039;d look into it When they&039;d followed up, Nïx had said, "Nohat&039;s a dieumort?"
No one in their coven knew that Lucia and Regin spent a good deal of tiod killer, because they&039;d never told another soul what had happened with Cruach Their sisters knew that Lucia felt pain when she missed a shot, but they didn&039;t knohy Nor did they know Lucia was a Skathian There simply was no reason to tell anyone Lucia had cleaned up her ain -
Her ears twitched just as Regin said, "So!"
"Hey, let&039;s don&039;t," Regin said "I&039;uilty like we stole Freya&039;s car and wrecked the align a lantern on this Get everyone involved this tirew nauseated "You swore, Regin!"
"For once, I&039;d like the coven to know I&039;in added, "No Really Do you kno bad their heads would explode if they knee are ain!"
Lucia hast as she felt, because sheabout As per our usual But if we cap a god, I&039; everyone I knoords: Press Conference"
As they hastily hid their materials, Lucia said, "It&039;s probably Annika" Who would not welcoin would have to deliver Your foster daughter met a man and told us she&039;d be home basically whenever her happy ass felt like it
Finished stowing their papers, she and Regin sped to the couch By the tireat roo a TiVoed episode of Survivor
With no hint that the tere conspiring - to exter for breath, Annika asked the on the thick door, peering out into the darkness "Have they returned?"
Regin said, "We thought they ith you"
"N&iu in her room"
"Nïx!" Annika yelled over her shoulder "Get down here!"
Lucia wanted to tell her, Good luck with corralling Nïx The soothsayer worked only on Nïx Standard Time
Annika slammed shut the front door and bolted it "Is Emma on her way back yet?" She put her hands to her knees, still catching her breath
Lucia and Regin shared a guilty look "She&039;s, uh, she&039;s not coht now"
"What?" Annika shrieked Aneurisin offered, "She met some hottie over there - "
Annika held up her hand "Got to get out of here"
Where was the cataclysmic freakout over Eot to&039; Sounds like you want us to leave?" Or even to flee? Valkyrie si Monsters flee from us Just as it&039;d always been
You ran from that Lykae
Shut up
"There&039;s a plane about to crash, isn&039;t there?" Regin sighed "That is so gonna hurt"
Lucia agreed "Iplane - "
"Go so," Annika said "Now"
"We&039;re safest here," Regin said, wriggling her toes and turning her attention back to her painting "The inscription will keep anyone out"