Proditor : Book 5 of the Heku Series

by T. M. Nielsen

  Emily came back out and mounted her stallion to wait for the recruits to finish. She glanced around at the thirteen members of the Cavalry around her, all mounted and on high alert. She suspected Exavior left the area long ago, but the Elders insisted she keep the Cavalry around. She smiled at Silas when he winked at her, and then turned back to the recruits.

  ***

  “Sir,” Derrick said, walking into the council chambers. “There’s a wandering heku to see the Council.”

  Quinn frowned, “A factionless heku came into the city?”

  “Yes, Sir, the guards escorted him in,” Derrick explained.

  “Very well, let him in,” Zohn told him.

  The heku came in and Chevalier and Kyle both gasped, eyes wide. He walked into the trial area and stood before them.

  “Alec?” Chevalier asked, not quite sure it was him.

  Alec nodded, “Yes.”

  “Damnit,” Kyle growled.

  “What?” Quinn asked him.

  “This is Emily’s uncle,” Chevalier sighed. “Another break in the ultimatum.”

  “It was by my request,” Alec said, smiling. Alec looked almost 30 years younger than his age, and was taller, with broad, muscular shoulders and hulking arms.

  “Before we break the news to Emily,” Chevalier said, glaring at him. “Why did you come?”

  “I came with a message from Lord Exavior,” Alec said, not seeming intimidated or fearful of the enemy Council.

  “Of course you did… what is it?”

  “Now that I have joined Exavior, we feel it is time for Emily to return to her family,” Alec told them.

  “We are her family,” Kyle growled.

  “No, I am her family… her true family, and Exavior is her husband. She should return to us, and we both feel that you are keeping her from leaving,” Alec explained.

  “He is not her husband,” Chevalier growled. “That marriage will be annulled as soon as Emily feels comfortable enough to leave the city.”

  Quinn quickly dialed a number on the speakerphone.

  “Valle Council,” a man’s voice said.

  “Sotomar?” Quinn asked.

  “I’m here,” Sotomar said.

  “We have a situation, how fast can you get to Council City?”

  “I can be there in an hour. What’s the problem?”

  “There’s a new Valle here we need to deal with, and it will affect Emily.”

  “Very well, one hour,” Sotomar said, and hung up.

  “I see no reason to bring the Valle into this,” Alec said.

  “You’re Valle and, once again, a Valle has broken the terms of Emily’s peace treaty,” Zohn told him.

  “I am not a Valle. I consider myself factionless.”

  “You were made by a Valle, and are still very young, therefore, you are Valle,” Zohn told him.

  “I refuse to be an enemy to my niece. Emi means a lot to me, and I promised her father that I would watch over her,” Alec explained.

  “Is that why you did it, then? So you can watch over her?” Chevalier asked.

  “No, it’s not. Jess is gone, Pat has moved away… Exavior’s offer seemed logical,” Alec said.

  “Even though Emily expressly prohibited him from doing it?”

  “It wasn’t her decision to make. It’s my life.”

  “Where is he?” Kyle asked.

  Alec turned to him, “Lord Exavior has forbid me from telling you his location.”

  “I can get it out of him,” the Chief Interrogator said.

  “If it was anyone but Emily’s uncle,” Quinn told him. “Let’s just figure this out before we risk driving a wedge further between the heku and Emily.”

  “She and I need to speak alone,” Alec said. “She’s still my niece and I love her. I want what’s best for her, but she has to understand that this was my decision to make, not hers.”

  “We understand that,” Zohn said. “However, she may not see it that way.”

  “While we wait for Sotomar, may I speak to her?”

  “Derrick?” Zohn called and looked over at him when he walked in. “Please call Lady Emily into the council chambers.”

  Derrick nodded and went out to the stables. He walked up to Emily’s stallion, “Lady Emily?”

  “Let me guess…” Emily looked down at him. “What did I do now?”

  Derrick grinned, “Why do you always assume you are in trouble?”

  Emily slipped off the stallion, “Because I usually am.”

  Silas took the reins on the stallion and Emily followed Derrick into the palace, and he opened the door to the trial area for her. She stepped inside and saw the Council talking to a heku. They all turned to look at her as the heku turned slowly to face her.

  Emily smiled at the strange heku and then she froze and her eyes studied his face. The blood drained from her face and she couldn’t find the strength to move.

  “Alec…” she whispered.

  “Hello, Emi,” Alec said, smiling.

  Emily just stared at him, her eyes wide, “Alec…”

  Alec walked over and wrapped his arms around her, “I’ve missed you.”

  Emily took a step away from him and frowned, “I’m going to kill him.”

  “Emi, this was my choice,” Alec told her.

  “I’m going to kill him!” Emily yelled. She turned and ran out of the council chambers. Alec blurred after her, and the Council appeared out in the hallway beside them.

  “Listen to me, Emi, I was dying… Jess is gone, Pat is grown. I had no one,” Alec said. He’d taken her hand and stopped her from running down the stairs.

  “Where is he?” Emily asked, gritting her teeth.

  “I need to talk to you. I need to make you understand,” Alec said.

  “Listen to him, Em. You can’t just go off to find Exavior,” Chevalier said. “Just listen to him.”

  Emily violently pulled her hand out of Alec’s grip and glared at him, “How could you do this?”

  “Talk to me, alone,” Alec said, glancing back at the Equites Council.

  “Go to the Council’s conference room,” Quinn suggested.

  “I’m tempted to ash you just for being stupid,” Emily growled.

  Alec smiled, “Except you love me too, Emi.”

  Emily stormed off to the Council’s conference room, followed by Alec.

  “Should one of us go?” Kyle asked.

  “No, leave them alone,” Chevalier said. “Maybe stay outside of the door though, in case she decides to run.”

  Kyle nodded and followed Emily and Alec.

  “And… Kyle?”

  Kyle turned to Chevalier.

  He sighed, “Listen in.”

  Emily sat down with her eyes full of tears, “How could you do this?”

  Alec shut the door and sat down, “I’ve been planning on this since you were a little girl. Now I can watch over Pat forever.

  “You let Exavior talk you into this… do you know what he’s really like? Do you know what he’s capable of?”

  “Yes, and he’s my maker now, I owe him everything,” Alec told her.

  Emily just shook her head and looked at the picture hanging on the wall.

  “I decided to be completely honest with you, and start over from the beginning. When you were two, Allen brought you out to the ranch for the first time. Exavior saw you in a store and immediately knew from your scent who you were. He spent the next year getting to know Jess and I,” Alec said.

  “He’s known about me since I was two?” Emily frowned.

  “Yes… it was only about a year later that I found out what Exavior was, and he explained how special you and your Mom were. Every time you came to visit us, we allowed Exavior to come, but I always suspected that he kept an eye on the Montana ranch too,” Alec explained.

  “You ran into him once, when you were five, and he immediately got attached to you. I brought him into the house when your Dad went out, and you colored with him and told him you’d marry
him someday.”

  “That’s sick,” Emily growled.

  “It wasn’t an attraction for him, he looked at you like a daughter,” Alec said. “He came to me once. He wanted to kill Keith, and I talked him out of it. He told us how Keith treated you, but we already knew. Then your Dad had his stroke and all of the pressure fell to you. Exavior tried to intervene again, but Ulrich wouldn’t let him.”

  “Ulrich was in on this?”

  “Ulrich knew Exavior was aware of you and your Mom, but Ulrich made Exavior… and Exavior didn’t dare cross him. He searched frantically for you when you disappeared, and came to tell me that another of his kind was on the ranch. He waited and watched, and the day you came back from Colorado and left again with Chevalier, he was devastated.”

  Emily leaned her head down into her hands and listened.

  “I know what he did a couple of months ago. He feels really bad about it and wants to apologize, it’s killing him…”

  “So he decided to make it up to me by turning you?” Emily asked softly.

  “That was my decision,” Alec said. “I asked him to turn me.”

  “How did you even find him?” Emily asked.

  “He came to me. He’s been staying at the ranch for a few weeks… moping around the ranch, more like. I wish you could see how agonizing it is for him, the memory of what he did to you.”

  “He’s a monster, Alec, please… stay here, join the Equites,” Emily asked him suddenly.

  Alec smiled, “Exavior is and will always be my maker and my friend. I wish you would just talk to him.”

  “I can’t believe you’re so devoted to him. He tortured me for hours. I’m still in pain from what he did to me, and you’ve completely forgiven him.”

  “No, I haven’t, but I know how sorry he is and he wouldn’t do it again.”

  “Yes, he would,” Emily told him.

  “I want you to come back to your family,” Alec said.

  “My family is here.”

  “No, I’m your family, your Uncle, and he’s your husband. You belong with us.”

  Emily shook her head, “No, he’s done too much and I’m not going to forgive him for that.”

  Alec sighed, “Think about it, about returning to your true family.”

  “Mark,” Emily called out.

  A few seconds later, both Mark and Kyle came into the conference room.

  Emily was shaking with rage and tears poured out of her eyes, “Put him in prison until I decide what to do.”

  “Emily, no,” Alec said softly.

  “Yes, I’m not going to have you going back to Exavior,” Emily said as Mark put his hands on Alec’s shoulders.

  Emily ran out of the conference room.

  “Em,” Kyle called after her, and blurred into the garage as she got to her Jeep. He watched as she threw the doors and the top off to the side and crawled in.

  “Get back,” Emily said when Kyle appeared beside the Jeep.

  “Let me go with you, Exavior could be out there.”

  Emily answered him by flooring the pedal and spinning out of the garage. She made it to the Durango just as a silver helicopter flew low over the trees. She crawled into the passenger’s seat and shut the door, locking it.

  Sotomar was escorted into the council chambers and stood by the heku that was standing before them.

  “What did a Valle do now?” he asked, irritated.

  “Exavior turned Emily’s uncle,” Chevalier growled.

  Sotomar frowned, “He swore he wouldn’t.”

  “He did,” Alec said, looking over at the Valle Elder. “Don’t worry. I don’t consider myself a Valle.”

  “You’re Emily’s uncle?” Sotomar asked him.

  “Yes”

  “Was it voluntary?”

  “Yes”

  Sotomar sighed and turned back to the Equites, “Is she gone, then?”

  Kyle shrugged, “She’s not here. I don’t know if she’s coming back or not.”

  “She asked that we put him in prison,” Zohn said. “She wanted to make sure he doesn’t return to Exavior.”

  “He’s Valle. I’ll take him,” Sotomar told them.

  “I’m not Valle,” Alec said. “You have no right to keep me.”

  “Shut up,” Sotomar demanded. “You were made by one of my Council, and that makes you a Valle.”

  “As I have no say in it, then so be it,” Alec said.

  Chevalier was struck again by how much Alec looked like Allen.

  “Exavior has known about Emily since she was two,” Kyle said to both his Council and to Sotomar.

  Sotomar frowned, “Are you certain?”

  “Yes,” Alec told him. “He ran into her at my house when she was two and immediately knew who she and her Mom were.”

  “We have searched for the Winchester line for hundreds of years, and he knew where they were?” Sotomar growled.

  “Yes, I would call him when Allen was bringing Emily to the ranch, and he would come to town,” Alec explained.

  “We knew Ulrich knew, but he was too powerful for us to do anything about it, but Exavior was on my Council.”

  Alec nodded, “Yes.”

  “Where is Emily, now?”

  “I don’t know. She always runs when she needs to think.”

  Sotomar nodded, “Where is Exavior?”

  “I won’t betray him,” Alec told the Elder.

  “Is he mine?” Sotomar asked the Council.

  Chevalier nodded, “Yes, as long as you don’t let him go.”

  “Oh, I won’t,” Sotomar said, and called for the Valle guards by the door. They came and ushered Alec to the helicopter, “Has she gone then?”

  “We don’t know,” Quinn told him. “Alec is correct, when she needs to think, she takes off.”

  “She hasn’t since her time with Exavior though, she’s been too afraid to be alone,” Zohn said.

  “Anger won out over fear,” Chevalier said. “If I had to guess, she’s at the Durango thinking.”

  “The Durango?” Sotomar asked. “She still has that old broken down vehicle?”

  “It’s her safe place,” Chevalier said, grinning slightly. “We’ve left it because she needs somewhere to go.”

  “Let me know if I can help,” Sotomar said, and left the Equites palace.

  “Do we go to the Durango then?” Kyle asked.

  Chevalier thought for a moment, “No, leave her be.”

  Kyle spent the next half hour telling the Council everything he heard in the conference room. Chevalier felt himself becoming angrier and Zohn decided to change the subject.

  “While we wait, should we deal with the Michaels Coven?” Zohn asked.

  “Go for it,” Quinn said, and leaned back in his chair.

  “Reports came that the Michael’s guards have staged a mutiny and have overthrown the Lord…” Zohn looked through the paperwork, “Lord Taylor. He’s being confined in the castle prison.”

  “What was their reasoning?” Quinn asked.

  “Lord Taylor is a large supporter of this Council, and apparently his guard leaders felt that the Council needs replaced. When Lord Taylor tried to re-shape his military to bring discipline back to the ranks, they put him in prison and the General, General Bowman, is now in charge and has even talked about petitioning to the Valle,” Zohn told them.

  “How large are they?” Chevalier asked.

  Zohn thumbed through a few more pages, “There’re a total of 398 of them, including Lord Taylor.”

  “Sounds like a clear-cut solution… send in Kyle to put Lord Taylor back in power,” Dustin suggested.

  “I think we should let Emily take care of it,” Kyle said, and the Council looked at him to see if he was joking.

  “Why would we do that?” Chevalier asked.

  Kyle smiled, “Think about it… she and I go to the coven and set them straight… she did wonders for Island Coven.”

  Chevalier grinned slightly, “He has a point.”

  “
We wouldn’t hesitate if she were a heku commander in our guards,” Kyle said.

  Zohn sighed, “She’s too emotional to do this job.”

  “So she takes her anger out on a discipline problem or she stays and takes it out on us,” Quinn said, deep in thought. “I think I like this idea.”

  “We have four mortals waiting to be turned,” the Chief Interrogator said.

  “So we send Emily with our Cavalry and let them take care of the guards,” Zohn said. “Gets her mind off of Alec and Exavior, and we get to turn our mortals.”

  “Wait until Quinn, Kyle, and I get back… we’ll talk to her together about it,” Chevalier suggested.

  “If she comes back,” Kyle reminded them.

  Chevalier sighed, “She will, she’s starting to panic and I think being alone just hit her. Kyle… go.”

  Kyle nodded and called for Mark, then blurred from the room.

  Emily was curled into a ball on the floor of the Durango. As she considered what to do about Exavior and Alec, the woods began to get dark and suddenly, it felt like hundreds of eyes were watching her. She knew she needed to leave, to get back to the safety of the palace, but opening the door to the Durango meant being out in the open, with the trees and anyone hiding within them.

  She heard the wind blowing through the trees and it sounded like someone calling her name. She couldn’t move. The freezing Durango was her only protection against the eyes in the woods. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as she felt someone watching her. The sound of a cracking branch made her body stiffen. He was out there, and he was coming.

  Emily screamed when the door was ripped off of the Durango. She braced herself for the pain of someone hitting her, someone dragging her from the car, but it didn’t come.

  “Em… Emily, it’s us,” Kyle said, and softly put his hand on her arm.

  Emily looked up and then jumped into his arms.

  “It’s ok,” Kyle whispered, and wrapped his arms around her.