Usually Kyan wouldn’t even make a comment, but he was trying to keep Logan’s attention on him, and not on where Remi and her mother were slipping out the back. The added benefit was how riling up Logan seemed to feed, or exorcise, that gnarled ball of worry and tension that had been calcifying in his gut for months. It had only worsened knowing Nicole was in the same city as one of the Wake’s headquarters.
‘I’m on a hunt,’ Logan said.
‘Doesn’t look like it.’
Looks like you came in for a fight.
‘Maybe I wanted a nice cold drink before I went to finish off what the Romans started.’
Ash coated Kyan’s mouth.
Don’t react, he ordered himself, despite the fact Logan could eviscerate the unexpected hope thatsomeonewas left of his long-lost people. Not only a link to his mother, but a way to keep the Druids alive.
He took another sip, forcing himself to relish the cool, peaty flavour; the creamy foam at his lip.
Kyan prayed for patience. For calm. There was more to the hunt than the kill. You had to stalk, to learn. To watch and wait. He knew patience. Sometimes felt like all he was was teeth and patience.
Then Nicole had shown him there could be more.
Since then, his patience for this bullshit had reduced to zero.
‘I’m sorry you lost a friend,’ Kyan said. It wasn’t just a last attempt at defusion; he meant it. He was ashamed of that kill and of having been such a blind follower.
Logan’s sarcastic expression flittered with real surprise, before his eyes narrowed to near slits, jaw working.
The apology was a test. An offering to end this cycle before it properly began.
But any chance of that was torn to shreds with Logan’s next words.
‘Friend? Alexander was aguide. He betrayed the Wake by refusing their oath and was killed for it. I know how to rise in these ranks, and you’re the only one left that poses a real problem. Callum doesn’t threaten me; he doesn’t care enough about involving himself in anything.’ He shook his head, satisfaction gleaming in the back of his eyes. ‘I’llbe their best hunter. They’ve chosen me, and all I need to do is prove I can get them what they want. I think it’s time someone else had the Wake’s acclaim, don’t you?
‘Or maybe,’ Logan continued, ‘I won’t just take in the Druid. Maybe I’ll jump onto your mission, too. You seemrealinterested in this “daughter” the Wake want found. Why is that?’ He threw a handful of nuts into his mouth, cracked down on them, hard. ‘Could be fun to find her first. Introduce myself.’ His slow grin sparked in Kyan’s periphery like the cape of a bullfighter.
And Kyan’s millennia of killing expertise reared its head slowly.
Not only had the Wake kept him from Nicole, but if he hadn’t been bound by them, and they hadn’t put him in this impossible situation, he could be with her right now. He could be learning allthe things he wanted to know: if she had a middle name, and where she wanted to live. How she liked her coffee; if she preferred to sleep on her back or side or stomach.
What she wanted most deeply, beyond protecting her family and the answers to this artistic hunt. If he was allowed to be with her while they figured that out.
Then this?
Add athreat to his mate?
For a moment, he nearly laughed, because it triggered something so primal inside that he felt something snap.
Logan didn’t get a chance to move as Kyan’s body twisted. His head snapped forward into Logan’s so hard the other Empyreal’s neck jerked backwards as his nose crunched. He staggered several paces, blood rushing down his face.
Maybe, if Kyan beat some sense into him, he’d back the fuck off.
But it was like blood in the water.
So he let out a little of the mated hunter.
Kyan threw his drink at the Empyreal to his left, who’d been standing behind Logan as back-up. The dark ale arced into their eyes, blocking their view momentarily so Kyan could throw the glass at the third Empyreal behind him.
It shattered across their face as Kyan’s fist found its mark against the first lackey’s Guinness-smeared expression. He went for bone; used the heavy power of his weight.
One clean hit and the Empyreal’s jaw was dislocated, and the fire of a fight burned with the alcohol in Kyan’s stomach like the pagan bonfires of his youth.
