Chapter 29

29

"S o I'm, uh, like a queen now."

"All hail Queen Emma!" N?x cheered. "Is your coronation the reason you couldn't call for five days?"

"Or perhaps it was being hung up on repeatedly the last time I tried?" Emma didn't mention that two days ago she had called and found N?x out of it. "Besides, I'm serious." She shook her nail polish bottle. The color was I'm Not Really a Waitress red.

"So am I. Who are your subjects? Hopefully not all the other vampire Valkyries, or you'll have no one to tax. Or are they the Lykae?"

"Yep, I'm queen of the Lykae." She hopped onto the bed, then stuffed cotton between her toes. "Aren't you going to congratulate me for fulfilling my destiny?"

"Hmmm. How do you feel about it?"

At the surprise fluttering of disappointment, Emma accidentally painted a stripe on her toe. She frowned, feeling as if she should have done something. As it was, her fate was no more than a quirk of the same. A quirk that had made her the queen of someone great. "I went from co-ed to queen. I'd have to be happy, right?"

"Uh-huh," N?x said in a noncommittal tone.

"So is Annika there? "

"Nope. Out working on, er, a pet project."

"How's she taking this?"

"Luckily, she's up to her ears with work. Otherwise she'd be more of a wreck since ‘a dog has her Emma.'?"

Emma winced. "Will you tell her that I'm here voluntarily?"

"Right. She'll believe that over the other options. A. You're delusional. B. He's terrified you into submission."

Emma exhaled, then said, "What's going on around the coven?" She hoped N?x could talk for a while.

Since Lachlain usually had king stuff to do—dealing with land disputes, punishments for bad behavior, and improvements for the region—Emma had time, even day time. Like Lachlain, she now needed only four or five hours of sleep in a twenty-four-hour span.

Though the nights were for them alone—each sunset they sent everyone away so they could have the run of Kinevane—the days could get boring. He'd been concerned about that and had asked her if she could content herself by "buying goods via the computer." She'd batted her eyelashes up at him and answered, "I'll endeavor for you."

This afternoon he was taking a break from meeting with the Lykae and Lore creatures that surrounded Kinevane's village in droves, but only to read numerous abstracts on the computer. He abhorred the computer, and his big hands, which were so skilled with her, were clumsy on the keyboard. He was on his third one.

"You're far too far behind, Em," N?x said. "You'll never catch up with this soap."

"Come on, gimme dish."

N?x sighed and shook her own polish. The Valkyries loved painting their nails, since it was the only way they could semipermanently change their appearance. Polish shaking meant N?x was settling down for a long talk.

"Very well. Dish as follows...." N?x said as though put out, but Emma knew she loved to gossip. "Myst and Daniela never returned from their vampire hunt. Myst could be out tomcatting, for all we know. Now, Daniela is more of a mystery. For her to go walkabout for a while? Odd.... Oh! Speaking of walkabout—Kaderin's gearing up for the Talisman's Hie."

The Talisman's Hie was the equivalent of an immortal Amazing Race, with the winner garnering power for their faction in the Lore. Kaderin the Coldhearted always won. "I guess it's silly to ask if she's excited," Emma said. Centuries ago, Kaderin had spared a young vampire's life and lost her two sisters because of it. She'd wished to be unfeeling, to never let emotion sway her judgment, and some power had unexpectedly granted her wish, thereby blessing—or cursing—her forever.

"No symptoms of excitement. But I did find her at the window, forehead and palm pressed against it, staring out into the night. As though she had feelings. As though she longed."

"I used to do that," Emma murmured. She'd yearned for more, ached for something unknown. Had it always been for Lachlain?

"But no longer."

"N?x, I think I like him." When he wasn't doing king stuff, they watched TV with him propped up at the headboard and her snuggled against his chest. He loved televised soccer matches. She watched the ball, everyone did, but he really, really watched the ball—much like he watched her legs whenever she crossed them .

He enjoyed adventure films, but he especially liked science fiction, because "Everything in those movies gets explained as if everyone knows as little as I do."

So she'd made him watch every Alien movie. Most of the goriest scenes were accompanied by his dialogue: "Ach, that's no'—that's just no' right.... Bloody hell, this canna be right."

Emma admitted to N?x, "He's a bit stubborn and aggressive, but I can wiggle around that. Though I'm not planning on bringing him home for dinner."

"Smart. There'd be all those attempts on his life. Plus, we don't eat."

Emma edged off the bed to hobble on her heels over to her polish remover. "Why hasn't Annika sent a retrieval party?"

"Don't feel slighted—I'm sure she will soon—but right now she's focused on finding Myst. She figures if Ivo is looking for a Valkyrie, it'd have to be Myst. Remember, she was in his dungeon only five years ago? And had that incident with the rebel general?"

Like Emma would ever forget. Myst had confided to Emma that she might as well have been caught freebasing with the ghost of Bundy.

"See," N?x said, "other Valkyries like the forbidden fruit as much as you do."

"Yes, but Myst stopped herself," Emma said. Unlike my own mother. "She got past it."

N?x chuckled. "Just because you slept with the Lykae doesn't mean you can never leave him."

Emma blushed and tried to say lightly, "Yeah, yeah, I gave it up."

"So. Do you wuv him? "

"Shut it."

"Would you run into his arms?" N?x asked. Her aunts believed that a Valkyrie would know her true love when he opened his arms to her and she realized she would forever run to get within them. Emma had thought it a quaint legend, but her aunts swore by it.

"We've only been together for two weeks." The one thing she knew for certain was that he made her happy. Because of Lachlain, she'd determined that her "likes" included showers big enough for two, stripping to his riveted gaze, drinking straight from the tap, and night-blooming flowers. Oh, and daily gifts of priceless jewels.

"Do you enjoy it there?"

"It's a sweet setup, despite that the maids still show up with jumbo crucifixes, jumpy movements, and eyes red from crying over the short straw that drew them vampire duty." Yesterday, she'd just stopped herself from chasing one of them around the room, groaning, "I vant to suck your blood."

"If that's your only complaint.... Or are your memory dreams a problem? I'm assuming the ones you spoke of were Lachlain's memories."

"Yeah, I can see things from his eyes, smell scents he smelled." Her mood turned serious. "In one dream, he was buying this gorgeous gold necklace. When he picked it up, I felt the metal warming in my hands. I know, I know, it's crazy."

"Are they all old memories? Or do you experience what he remembers about you?"

"They all seem connected to me somehow, and yes, I've heard some of his thoughts about me."

"Nice things, I hope? "

"Very nice things. He... he thinks I'm beautiful." Today she'd dreamed his memory of her padding to the shower one night. His eyes had been glued to the ribbon swaying down from the waist of her Strumpet & Pink thong. Swaying back and forth.

He liked her elaborate lingerie, liked that he alone knew what was beneath her clothing. Back and forth went the ribbon. He growled so low she didn't hear him.

She has an arse men should write sonnets to....

Her toes curled at his thoughts.

"How welcome that must be for someone so irrationally insecure as you."

It was. "There's only one drawback."

"Seeing him in the past with another woman?"

"Bingo. If I saw that, I'd lose it." To know his thoughts and his pleasure as he touched another?

"I never see what I truly don't want to."

"Like the death of a Valkyrie." N?x had never been able to. She could predict much about their futures and could often see a Valkyrie's upcoming injuries, but never to the point of death.

To Cara's great despair, N?x couldn't see Furie's fate.

"Yes," N?x said softly. "It's likely that you will never see these things because your mind knows you might not recover from it."

"Why do you think this is happening?"

"Why do you?"

"I, uh, well, the thing is that... I drank directly from him," she confessed. "I fear it's related to that."

"Emma, some vampires can take memories from the blood, but even fewer can interpret them. Looks like you found a new talent. "

"Great. Why couldn't I be good at underwater origami or something?"

"Have you told Lachlain?"

"Not yet. But I will," Emma added. "It's not like I could not tell him, right?"

"Right. Now, on to a much, much more important subject.... Did you get the gold necklace you saw him buy?"