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Chapter One
“Thinking about kissing that wolf of yours?”
Stone pulled his focus away from the large central monitor in his Communication Center. From his command station, he turned in a slow pivot to stare down his personal assistant, Delia.
“You’ve officially lost the last card in your deck. And she’s not ‘my’ wolf. Aralynn and I run missions together. That’s all.” He tried to sound both innocent and slightly offended, despite the fact he’d been thinking about the exact shape of the woman’s lips for the past half hour. Aralynn would be checking in soon.
But had he been thinking about kissing her? Hell yeah, about every other minute for the past seven weeks.
Delia’s right brow rose as she lifted her head from her laptop and stared back. She wasn’t intimidated by him, something he loved about her. “Hah,” she whispered. “The minute she appears at the door, you light up like you’ve just discovered air.”
Busted.
Despite the accuracy of her observation, he lifted his chin. “You don’t know anything about it.”
Delia ignored this comment. “She’s pretty, I’ll give her that. Hey, I’ve got an idea. You should take her as your date to the gala. I’d like to see the two of you do one of those levitating waltzes you mastyrs are famous for.”
“Not gonna happen.”
He’d thought about it, though. But taking a date to a formal event would give rise to all kinds of gossip. The gala was Delia’s idea and would be held in celebration of the Federation of the Nine Realms, a new organization to which all the ruling mastyrs now belonged.
It was an amazing time in his world. No one thought that a federation of the realms was possible, the mastyrs being supremely independent types. But the Ancient Fae had made it clear she wouldn’t quit trying to take over their world until the last realm-person was buried six feet under.
Stone had pushed for the Federation as well as the Combined Forces of the Vampire Guards, and Shifter and Troll Brigades of all the realms. Over the past several months, since Ian and Regan had almost captured Margetta in the mountains of Camberlaune, Stone had worked hard to build a buttress against Margetta. He and Ian together had organized hundreds of training sessions for the Combined Forces, running drills and shaping a real army to battle against Margetta when the time came.
As for the gala, all the movers and shakers of each realm would be there, hundreds of elected officials. The ruling mastyrs would also attend, each with his bonded blood rose. If Stone took Aralynn as his date, the question would be raised: Was she his blood rose?
Like hell he was ready for that kind of question. The blood rose phenomenon had swept through the Nine Realms, assaulting one mastyr vampire after another. He’d escaped so far, but there’d been no indication Aralynn had blood rose ability. He didn’t exactly crave her. Okay, maybe he did, but he’d been without a girlfriend for a while. It was time he hooked up with someone for a few months. He just wasn’t sure how wise it was to get involved with his battle partner.
Delia, who seemed to be full of all kinds of ideas about Aralynn, pressed on. “And all these unattached Guardsmen, they try not to look at her, but they do. You might want to put a wolf-mark on her. Just sayin’.” Because she was a wolf, sex and a good bite at the back of the neck would help keep unwanted suitors away, if temporarily.
Yup, he’d thought about biting her as well, and in more than one way. He had to take a couple of deep breaths, because the thought of his fangs tapping into the woman—
Still, he had no intention of talking this over with his executive assistant. “How about you keep your troll nose out of my affairs.”
He wished especially that she hadn’t spoken of the other men in his Communication Center. This place was alive with some of the most eligible bachelors in all the Nine Realms. A couple of the Guardsmen were even approaching mastyr status and all the warriors were built as hell.
Worse, he’d seen Aralynn checking them out.
/> He leaned close to Delia and growled. “And if you know what’s good for you, I suggest you don’t bring up these men again.”
“Jealous?”
“No,” he snapped. Like hell he would admit to anything so absurd, especially when what he really felt went way beyond jealousy. To put it simply, he was ready to kill if anyone so much as touched Aralynn, even if by accident.
Her lips quirked. “Ease-down, Mastyr. You’ve got your battle power ramped up and it’s throwing off the monitors.”
He shifted his gaze to the battery of flat screens that encompassed the main north wall of his center. Half the monitors were flickering and several of his men had turned to stare at him.
He took a deep breath and calmed himself down. The Nine Realms was a world of frequencies not unlike the way electricity and light moved. Lately, this had been happening a lot, that his emotions would charge his battle energy and afflict the screens.
He took a couple more deep breaths until the flickers and sparks began to subside.
Once he had his battle energy under control, the monitors resumed their placid response to the usual input. He saw the main streets of a number of his villages, rolling surveillance that watched for any sign of the Invictus enemy throughout Tannisford Realm.
Delia leaned close. “Apologies, Mastyr. I only meant to tease you, not destroy the electronics.” She chuckled.
Delia was like a sister to him. He’d been raised by adoptive troll parents, so he understood troll-ness really well. They loved to gossip, that much was true, so he forgave Delia most of her indiscreet comments and questions.
She was a troll of some power with flowing blond hair and beautifully shaped hands. Her species was short and she ranged on the short side of squat. But she sat on a really tall stool in front of her workstation, in order to meet him eye-to-eye, which she reached through levitation.
“Yeah, well, no harm, no foul.” He was way too on edge about Aralynn. He wished he could get the wolf out of his mind, but he’d been running missions with her from the night she showed up ready to serve almost seven weeks ago. For a powerful wolf, she also carried an unusual secondary fae ability of prescience.
She’d come out of nowhere, which at first had made her suspect. But when she’d told him that Davido had sent her, he’d contacted a man he considered to be the wisest realm-person in their world. Davido had vouched for Aralynn and had informed him that she had special abilities that would help to predict Invictus intrusions in Tannisford.
