It didn’t matter that they’d spent centuries handling their own problems, and in the process inadvertently teaching her to do the same. The second they thought she was in trouble, they expected her to turn to them.
Given their overwhelming need to shelter her, it was surprising they’d confided the recent developments in Avalon. The growing whispers of an approaching Campaign—an immortal war to end all wars—weren’t to be taken lightly, and judging by the crowd tonight, many were completely oblivious to the fact that they might soon be forced to choose sides.
Dodging to the right to avoid a Fae and a human who stopped suddenly to make out, she slammed right into a familiar wall of warm muscle.
Briana did not look happy to see him, Lucan thought.
Even before she raised her head, her dark hair framing her face in untamed waves, tension turned her soft, warm curves hard and unyielding. He ordered himself to let go of her, to lower the hands gently gripping her waist, but it took another few seconds for his brain to get the message.
Only days ago he’d been determined to get far away from her, unable to take another moment of her innocent touching. He hadn’t needed her softness or compassion, didn’t deserve or want either, but standing this close he felt part of himself foolishly wishing for it.
Idiot.
A second before she stepped back, he could swear her body leaned into his just a fraction. More wishful thinking?
Disturbed by the direction his thoughts were rapidly taking, he took his own step back, only to be jostled toward her by the press of the crowd too absorbed in seeking their own pleasure to realize they should be keeping their distance.
Even among immortals there were rumors that simply touching a wraith was the kiss of death. Crossing paths with one was considered a bad omen for an immortal or their loved ones, as if a wraith was the equivalent to the humans’ grim reaper.
“Sorry.”
Briana tipped her head. “Are you apologizing for bumping into me, or ditching me in Vegas?”
“I needed to leave.”
“And that made it okay to vanish without a word?”
He frowned. She’d been safe at the time, or so he’d assumed. He’d witnessed how resourceful and ruthless she was when sparring with her brothers, all of whom made tough opponents.
Still, he found himself apologizing again. “I shouldn’t have left you there unprotected.”
Anger ignited her pretty blue eyes. “Forget it.”
She pushed past him, and he found himself stepping into her path. For the second time her reaction to what he’d done confused him.
“What?”
“I didn’t need your protection. I needed—” She blew out a frustrated breath. “Right now I’d just really like to know why everyone thinks I’m incapable of taking care of myself.” She looked at something above his shoulder. Probably the office.
Although he figured the statement was rhetorical, he responded anyway. “Your brothers?”
She nodded.
A burst of icy awareness snaked down his spine, and he spun around, scanning the area. Around him humans and immortals mingled and danced, no one raising anything more lethal than a glass or bottle.
A harder look revealed few Fae were in the vicinity and none of them bore the strange glyph on their foreheads. He hadn’t had any luck figuring out who had attacked him or been able to determine if they would try again. He’d been waiting for it, though, and hadn’t ruled out the possibility that Rhiannon had something to do with it.
Or was he just being paranoid?
“What’s wrong?” Her fingers touched his arm, and Lucan clenched his fist. Sensing the tension in him, Briana withdrew her hand.
“It’s nothing.”
“Like what happened in the underground parking lot?”
“That was more of a minor inconvenience.”
“Are you talking about the Fae warrior or the redhead?” She looked away the second the question left her mouth, but before he could decipher her meaning, she frowned. “I don’t suppose you and Tristan patched things up a little and no one told me?”
“Not exactly. I’m meeting Mac here.”
She sighed. “You might have stood a better chance of leaving in one piece had you gone with an alternate location.”
“Worried about me again?”
“No. I’m worried a fight will leave a mess that I’ll have to clean up when you’re all off licking your wounds.”
“You sound pretty certain they’d do some damage.”
She gestured to his side. “Knight or not, you’ve proven you can be hurt from time to time.”
His jaw clenched. “I’m no longer a knight.” Hadn’t been in a very, very long time. Whatever he’d done to deserve that honor centuries ago no longer applied.
Briana didn’t seem so convinced. “Some parts of us can never be changed, no matter what a goddess does.”
He used to think so, but knew better. “You can’t really be that naïve.”
She flinched at the sharp tone. “If by naïve you mean that I’m not afraid of being honest with myself, then I guess so.”
“Don’t make the mistake of confusing me with something noble and honorable. I’m not that man any longer.” Rhiannon had made damn sure of that.
“So you keep trying to remind me. Why is that?” Her gaze was far too perceptive.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
She straightened, her brilliant blue eyes suddenly probing. “In Vegas. Was your little show with the redhead supposed to remind me of what Rhiannon did to you? Of what you think you are now?”
Glancing around for Mac gave him an excuse to look anywhere in the room but at her. “Putting on a show implies that I cared what you thought, when actually you were the farthest thing from my mind at the time.” The lie nearly caught in his throat.
Her expression betrayed nothing. Why did that seem worse than her telling him to screw off?
“I’ll see if I can get my brothers to back off for a bit.”
“No. I don’t want to be the reason there’s tension between all of you.”
She muttered something that sounded a lot like, “Too late,” under her breath. “I’ve been handling my brothers longer than you. I think I’ve got it covered.”
His fingers closed around her arm. “I don’t need you to protect me.” Even as he said it, he found himself wondering what it would be like to have someone he could trust to always have his back, to have a fierce female like Briana next to him.
“Who said it’s you I’m protecting?” For some reason the flippant tone didn’t match the stubborn gleam in her eyes. That said, she pushed through a break in the crunch of bodies and slipped away.
He tracked her through the crowd, fighting the urge to apologize—again—for being such a dick.
Better this way, he decided, turning his attention to business. He wouldn’t have been invited here of all places if there wasn’t something important to discuss. There was a reason Mac had chosen Pendragon’s and not the Wolf’s Den, and now that Lucan had run into Briana, it had better be a fucking good one.
Mood all shot to hell, he found Mac tucked in an alcove near the rear of the bar, closest to the exit. The wolf appeared relaxed, leaning back against the wall, two fingers hooked around the neck of the bottle in his hand.
Eyes locked on something above Lucan’s head, Mac cocked his head. “Do you think it will hurt?”
Used to the wolf’s vague comments, Lucan waited for his friend to get to the point.
“When her three brothers, one of whom is still extremely pissed at you, come to kick your ass?” Mac clarified. “Because I can guarantee that if you keep looking at Briana like that, one of them is going to take a chunk out of your shadowy hide.”
Knowing he’d only fuel Mac’s speculation by denying that he looked at Briana with anything but casual indifference, he surveyed the club. He deliberately avoided glancing up at the three men on the balcony leading to Cale’s office.<
br />
“Tell me why you insisted on meeting here of all places? Vegas not good enough?”
Mac shrugged. “It’s fun watching you squirm.”
“I’m not squirming.” He was deliberately not moving any more than necessary actually. He wasn’t interested in provoking any of the Callaghan brothers. He still considered them allies, if not friends, and couldn’t blame them for hating him.
Mac lowered his voice. “That wasn’t squirming with Briana a second ago?”
He shrugged. “She was trying to play peacemaker.”
“Is that all it was?” Mac didn’t wait for him to answer. “Strange that she’s been friendlier than even Cian.”
The youngest Callaghan brother had been part of the Gargoyle Guard and fought alongside Mac and Lucan. Arthur hadn’t been in favor of a unit of gargoyle protectors in the beginning, but as the fight to free Camelot and unite all of Avalon heated up, he’d relented, taking it upon himself to help train every cat, wolf and dragon that enlisted. No one had expected The Guard would become as vital to Arthur’s success as his own knights.
And then Arthur had fallen in battle and everything changed.
Cutting off that train of thought, Lucan started to press Mac again for an explanation, only to be interrupted by a burst of feminine laughter.
“They’ll let anyone in here it seems.” Mac straightened as two huntresses managed to clear a path through the surrounding immortals.
Nessa, the tallest of the two, stopped. Clearly having overhead Mac, she smiled sweetly—and flipped him off.
The other huntress with her laughed before elbowing past a Fae. “This place is packed tighter than Merlin’s ass.”
A hush fell around them, every conversation grinding to a halt at the mention of the exiled sorcerer’s name. Not even the whispered mentions of Excalibur could silence a group of immortals so effectively, and there wasn’t anyone in the room who wouldn’t shed blood to possess the lost sword.
After Arthur’s defeat, the sword had vanished, along with Arthur’s heir, Constantine. The missing knight had supposedly forged the six mystical daggers that, when reunited, would point the way to Excalibur, and fulfill the prophesy of Arthur’s resurrection.
While Lucan couldn’t deny the existence of the daggers—the Callaghans had already found two—he wasn’t any more convinced that they would actually lead to Arthur’s sword than he was of finding Santa Claus living at the North Pole.
“Is nothing sacred to those mercenaries?” Mac paused. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Although mercenary was a far more fitting label for a wraith. While a huntress represented Rhiannon’s sense of preservation and justice, a wraith represented her sense of destruction and chaos.
As long as those who petitioned Rhiannon for a wraith’s service didn’t seek to strike out at the goddess, she didn’t care what the former knights were tasked to do—the more horrendous the job the better as far as she was concerned.
Lucan angled his body toward Mac. “You sure you’re just not jealous that they’ve got bigger balls than you do?”
Mac snorted. “I’d feel free to banter about he who shall not be named, too, if I had a goddess in my corner. And stop trying to change the subject.”
“I changed the subject? You’re the one shooting your mouth off when Nessa wouldn’t need a reason to stuff your tail down your throat.”
As if she heard them, Nessa grinned and blew them a kiss, the curve of her lips bordering on rabid.
“We were talking about Briana.”
“No, before you got fixated on your huntress we were talking about what we’re really doing here.”
“My huntress?” Mac sputtered. “I’d sooner have my fur ripped off with hot wax and hand-stitched back in with a rusty needle than spend two minutes alone with her.” He took a swig of his beer. “That female is not fighting with a full armory, my friend.”
Lucan waited, knowing Mac would eventually get to the point of their meeting, and hopefully without any more questions about Briana.
“What do you know about possession?” he finally asked.
“It’s nine-tenths of the law?”
Mac snorted. “I’m talking complete possession of an immortal, and I don’t mean someone being temporarily compelled by magic. I mean full on, get into their skin and drive the boat for a while.”
“I’ve never seen even Rhiannon manage something like that.” Few gods took an interest in immortals beyond Rhiannon’s huntresses. Most of them slept now, which was fine with Lucan. Sleeping gods didn’t grow bored and war with each other out of spite, or look to the immortal races, that they otherwise ignored, to fill their ranks. If Rhiannon wasn’t waiting for Arthur’s return, she too might have lost interest in immortal power struggles.
Mac sighed. “That’s what I thought, but something, or someone, was definitely behind the wheel. The guy had no memory of what happened, just the sensation that he wasn’t alone in his own body or some crazy shit, and then the next thing he knows, he’s breaking stone at sunset on Camelot’s walls.”
“Unfortunate.” Especially since Lucan doubted the unlucky gargoyle had an alliance with Morgana.
Arthur’s sorceress half-sister, Morgana, had laid siege to Camelot with what was left of her army after Arthur’s defeat at the battle of Camlann. She hadn’t even spared time to mourn the loss of her own son before laying claim to the only real home Lucan had ever known.
With casualties in the hundreds, countless wounded and Arthur dying, it had taken too long to rally those who could still fight. By the time they could make a strategic move to stop the sorceress, Morgana had already claimed the throne, killing Arthur’s wife, Guinevere, soon after. Whatever Arthur’s remaining forces—lost without his guidance and leadership—might have been able to accomplish, ceased to matter the second Rhiannon sought retribution for her son’s death.
“You’re late.”
Lucan glanced at three men who joined them. The accusing comment, which had come from Briana’s middle brother, Tristan, was laced with a tolerance he didn’t even pretend to mirror with his expression.
It didn’t matter that Tristan’s mate had survived the assassination attempt Lucan had been bound to carry out. He’d fought the murderous instinct to kill for as long as he could.
The fact that Tristan knew he’d chosen the agony and madness of failing to complete his assignment was likely the only reason the cat hadn’t tried to take him out after their confrontation months ago.
“Let’s take this conversation upstairs.” The suggestion came from Cale, who motioned to the office above.
Lucan followed the others, his gaze lingering only briefly on the bathroom door as they passed it.
“Ass kicking,” Mac hissed under his breath, strategically putting himself between Lucan and the bathroom he was pretty sure Briana had disappeared into.
“How bad is the situation?” Cale closed the office door, sealing the five men inside the rooms overlooking the bar.
Still feeling like something was off, Lucan chose to stay close to the window where he could keep an eye on things.
As if suspecting he knew exactly what Lucan wanted to keep an eye on, Mac joined him by the window. “Too early to tell yet. What have you heard?”
Cale leaned against his desk, his two brothers flanking him. “Same as you, a few very isolated incidents of immortal bodies being commandeered. Sorcha’s waiting to hear back from a few of the huntresses to see what they know.”
Mac surprised Lucan by not even wincing at the mention of the h-word. “Not sure what help they’ll be. So far this only seems to be a gargoyle issue.”
“For now,” Cale agreed. “Or it could be that other races don’t want to appear weak or vulnerable and are keeping their mouths shut.”
Whispers of another Campaign had every immortal on edge. The last Campaign, the bloodiest war between the gods to date, had nearly destroyed Avalon and took centuries for the immortal population to recover. Already
some factions seemed to be aligning for any advantage that could spare them from being a casualty of a power struggle that made the one between Arthur and Morgana look like toddlers fighting over a tricycle.
“Until we know for sure I think we should play our cards close to the vest.”
Cian grinned. “Sure you’re not being a little touchy about huntress involvement after that picture—”
Lucan cut him off before Mac’s growl became more than a good-natured fuck you. “I think Mac has trouble trusting anyone who blindly follows a goddess who screwed us all over.”
“I think some people call it loyalty. You should try looking it up.” Tristan crossed his arms, his eyes more animal than human. Everyone in the room knew his comment had nothing to do with loyalty to a goddess, and everything to do with the fact that he hadn’t forgiven Lucan for betraying a centuries-old friendship and attacking someone Tristan loved.
Patch things up with Tristan? Briana had asked. The crew of the Titanic had stood a better chance of repairing the ship before it sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
“That’s unnecessary,” Cian put in.
Tristan glared at his brother. “Tell that to my mate.”
“We’re getting off track.” Cale threw both his brothers a pointed look before Lucan’s presence made things even worse between the Callaghans. “We need to keep each other informed of any new developments. If this is some kind of precursor to another Campaign…”
The tension in the room jumped the second Cale voiced the same concern every one of them was feeling.
Something unfamiliar washed across Lucan’s skin, and he shivered like someone had blown an icy breath across the back of his neck.
Tristan smirked. “Scared, wraith?”
Lucan frowned. Something wasn’t right.
“Oh, that can’t be good.” Mac stared at the dance floor. “I think you guys have got a bit of a problem.”
Following Mac’s gaze, Lucan expected to see a huntress at the center of the trouble brewing below. But when the bodies packed together in the middle of the dance floor dispersed to reveal two guys staggering back to their feet, his mouth fell open at the sight of the female standing above them.
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