“Why not?” I asked, drawing a circle on her shoulder with my thumb. “Tear his throat out if you want. I’d enjoy watching.”
She huffed out a laugh. “Hard to get his cooperation that way.”
Earlier, Anson wasted the evening explaining what we already knew. This was a war, and the packs needed to cooperate in the fight against Amal. While I’d been hunting creatures and hybrids, Anson had been negotiating with the Alpen. He’d finally broken the impasse.
This wasn’t the first time I’d heard about Anson talking to Lec Rus. We needed the Alpen, and not only for the fighting men. We needed access to their passages and their pack lands. Because the fight covered the entire Selkirk territory. Rebels from Cariboo were sending a representative. I’d mentioned that men from Sutter had organized and should be in attendance. Anson agreed. We would approach the nymphs, witches, and friendly vampires once the packs were a united front.
“I’m a red flag,” Noa said. “Seeing me will set the Alpen off. Besides, I’d rather be talking to Aine and Metis.”
I rolled onto my back. “I don’t like it.”
Our evening had been busier than planned because, as Anson left, Laura arrived. She’d brought Amal’s journal and explained what the computer had churned out about the scribbled drawings, additional material after she’d made another search. Definitely runic. Still no interpretation for meaning. With dozens of experts, the opinions were varied. I agreed with some, not all. To me, the drawings signaled an unhinged mind, while Noa said Julien agreed with the obsessive part. He’d also discovered a code—or claimed he had—where Amal had written the nymph queen knows.
I’d poured more cognac and said it proved nothing, which launched us into a contentious discussion on the merits of Julien’s code-breaking abilities, and the subsequent risk in asking the current nymph queens for details.
Since Noa was determined, I reminded her we were discussing a woman descended from an ocean god who also hated her sister—the other nymph queen involved—and getting the two of them together in the same space would be a disaster, given their sibling animosity.
Noa had not so kindly pointed out how I’d thrown a priceless blade into the sacred pool—a blade Aine had and Metis wanted—and with the right lure, they would talk to her. To which I’d countered with not her, but us. Those words triggered another contentious discussion that eventually drove Laura out the door with a comment about worse than being married.
We’d argued until well past midnight, and what followed had been bright and passionate and as hard to explain as it was to experience, other than it was more meaningful than anything I’d experienced in life.
“We’ll be a team,” she said, rolling over to study my face with her eyes narrowed. “You’ll go to your boring meetings and I’ll be finding out what the nymph queens know.”
I glared at the darkened ceiling. “Wasn’t Julien attacked because of what he learned?”
“What if the attack was a message for Set?” she argued. “She was Amal’s friend at one point. She could tell us more than anyone, and that makes her dangerous.”
I turned my head to stare at my mate. “You’d risk another vampire attack from Barend?”
“He can’t accidentally turn me, Grayson. I’d syphon him into oblivion.”
“He can accidentally kill you.”
She stroked a warm finger down my cold arm. “The nymphs hate the vampires as much as vampires hate the nymphs. Effa told me. Some old feud, and it’s not likely that Barend would find out about the meeting. Not unless he’s watching with an army of spies. Really, all you’re doing is throwing excuses against the wall to see which one sticks.”
“That’s what the males do on that show you’re so fond of watching.”
“It’s beneath you.”
“Agreeing to this plan is beneath me.”
“I can’t stomach sitting around, doing nothing,” she said, her hand clenching. “I can’t be a reluctant hero, crashing the party at the last minute with my bag of tricks. I can syphon. Burn things. Sometimes, I can hear Amal. I can touch her journal without cringing now, and I can ask, female-to-female, what Aine and Metis know about Amal.”
“They may be completely ignorant.”
“They’re ancient. Look at Fee. How long has he been around—a demigod?”
“A garden ornament, you said.”
“Did you see the armor he was wearing during that fight? Any museum in the world would pay millions for it. And stop. Please, I don’t want to keep arguing about this.”
My inhale was slow. Her palm pressed against my chest as if she was measuring how intensely I breathed.
I can’t ignore this, she murmured through the mate bond. I have to do something.
Can I talk you out of it?
Would you… if I discover something to help you?
