“Don’t tell me you aren’t enjoying having those sweet, doe-eyed things warm your bed,” Ransom shot from behind us.
“I have no problem taking a lass to her bed. I’ll be damned if one sets toe in mine. You let a woman sleep in your bed, and you may as well unpack her suitcase into your closet,” Lachlan said as we reached the riveted steel door at the bottom of the staircase.
My senses stretched along the tunnels that ran in both directions and found them empty. Given the party, our soldiers weren’t training in the compound as usual, giving us a moment of relative quiet.
Benedict placed his palm on the biometric scanner, and a dozen steel bolts unlocked before the heavy door opened.
“It’s about fucking time,” Hawke snarled.
“There’s a party going on if you hadn’t noticed,” Benedict countered as we entered the chamber.
The space was cavernous, large enough to fit at least fifty warriors, but tailored only to the five of us. A black, onyx table rested in the center space, accompanied by five heavy chairs. A wall of monitors consumed the right-hand wall, with a few other notable computer stations spaced out along the back. To the left was a well-equipped kitchen, stocked with enough food and blood to last the five of us an unpleasant year in case of emergencies. A bathroom lay beyond that, and in the corner was a collection of couches and bookshelves with a television to keep us occupied if we ever needed that year.
My parents hadn’t made it to the safety of this room two hundred years ago.
“So the fuck what?” Hawk fired back at Benedict from where he sat sprawled at the table in one of the massive chairs, flipping one of his daggers end-over-end.
The door shut behind us, and we each took a seat at the table. It wasn’t round. I wasn’t King Arthur. Fuck that. I was in charge, and everyone in this room knew it.
“Has the wolf been dealt with?” I asked Hawke.
“Justice has been served,” he confirmed with a wicked grin and dead eyes. For the rest of us, dispensing the justice of the immortal world was a sworn, sacred duty. For Hawke…well, he got off on it.
“I’ll let Luka know.” The king of the Lycans had agreed with my judgment against his subject, which definitely took the awkwardness out of the impending call.
Death was the penalty for any crime against a female or a child. Period. There was no excuse for the abuse of the fairer sex, and children were far too precious—too rare to ever suffer.
“That leaves the demon issue for tonight if you want this month’s sentences carried out before Aviana gets home tomorrow, and you have a request from the Witch Queen for a private audience,” Benedict said, filling the monitors with the faces of the lower-level demons who had been sentenced to torture for slander against their king.
“Xavier can handle his own. We’re the assassins of the immortal world, not the bounty hunters. Lachlan, check in with him tonight and make sure he’s in control of the situation.” I leaned back in my chair. “What the fuck does Genevieve want with a private audience? Any business she has can be discussed at the monthly conclave, like always.”
“So that’s a no?” Benedict asked, raising his eyebrows.
“That’s a fuck no. Granting private audiences is what leads to everything going to shit. We’ve worked too hard to keep the covenant to let it crumble now.” Keeping all five species, humans, lycans, witches, demons, and vampires, living in relative peace took a delicate balance of secrecy and transparency within the conclave. It made human politics look like child’s play.
“Okay, then I think all we have is the security detail for Aviana’s arrival tomorrow,” Lachlan said, leaning forward to brace his forearms on the table at my right.
I slid my phone free of my back pocket with a smile and called my little sister. “I’ll just make sure she’s on track,” I said to the group while it rang.
It…rang.
It didn’t beep like it always had, signaling that my sweet, beautiful, kind, honest sister wasn’t overseas, tucked away with our aunt like she was supposed to be until tomorrow night.
“Alek?” She answered breathlessly.
“Where the hell are you?” I snapped.
“Oh, Alek, don’t be mad!” She gave me a little sigh, and I could almost see her soft, pleading little smile. “I just wanted to see what it was like here, you know? I mean, you talk about it all the time,