Khent glared at her. “My pet, I have business with your bird friend.”
“No, you have business with me.”
“Oh, game on.” Rolf rubbed his hands together with glee. “My money is on the human.”
Kraft studied her, looked back at Khent, then nodded. “I say Khent kills the bird but leaves the human alive for a while. He’ll kill her later.”
“No way,” Rolf argued. “He’s going to kill them both, revive Val, then do naughty things to her.” Everyone looked at him. “Oh please. That’s what I’d do. It makes sense.” No one spoke, and he added in a huff, “Am I wrong?”
Val swallowed her fear. She hadn’t come this far in her life to succumb to nerves. Even if she was surrounded by enemies who could kill her in a heartbeat. She put out a silent call to Grizz, leaving Aisha to monitor the house. She also passed along orders to alert the shifters to readiness.
All she had to do now was kill time until Grizz arrived.
“I can’t believe you’re this petty,” she said.
Khent blinked. “Petty?”
“He was worried about me. The same way you’d be worried about Rolf or Kraft.”
Rolf laughed, and even Kraft chuckled.
“Worried? Vampires don’t worry,” Khent said, and it didn’t sound like a boast. “Besides. If you could kill them, weak as you are, I’d commend you. And it would say terrible things about their past patriarchs, to have raised such vulnerable, sickly vampires.”
Now Kraft and Rolf looked ready to tear into Khent. Perfect.
“Weak? I’ll give you weak.” Kraft launched himself at Khent while Rolf cheered him on.
After a few minutes, Riley joined Val and Talon, who, to Val’s concerned eye, looked totally washed out. Something was wrong with him, well, more than usual.
“They do this a lot,” Riley explained. “Hecate’s magic is only good for keeping them from killing each other. A miracle in itself. But they still like fighting each other.” She studied Talon and Val. “You still owe me, Talon.”
“Sue me,” he growled. “I did the best I could under the situation.AndI gave you an antidote.”
“You fucking poisoned us!”
“Well, kind of.”
Even Val frowned at him for that. “I told you toblackmailthem. Notpoisonthem.”
He waved away her bazillionth I-told-you-so. “Poor judgement, I admit. Look, I didn’t want you guys to die. I wanted you to kill the hell beast. Which you did.”
Riley glowered, and her eyes lit up.
“How was I to know Val only had the antidote for one of you?”
Great. Now Riley was looking ather.
Val held up her hands in surrender. “Hey. The plan wasn’t to poison you. It was to poison the beast. And you were amazing, so I hear. With the hell beast gone and Sebastian Castle dead, that leaves only a troublesome necromancer to kill.”
“Yeah, about that.” Riley stared at her. “Rumor has it you’re a necromancer too. You know, if MEC finds out, they’ll take you in. Probably cap you.”
“What?”
Riley nodded. “Not that I owe you anything, but I don’t agree with killing people just because you don’t like their magic.”
Talon frowned. “Wait. That law is still in effect?”
“But no one really knows what I am,” Val said. “Just Talon, the shifters who are loyal to us, and you guys.”
