11. Nathan

Elliott and I arrived back at the fortress in New Orleans just as the sun started to rise. Exhaustion gripped me and not just from the sun. The last forty-eight hours sucked. Finding Lorna alive should have been a relief. Finding her dhampir awakened stole every bit of hope I'd squirreled away. She'd become the monster every vampire feared and desired.

A dhampir.

Until that moment, I'd convinced myself she could be part of my life. Now I wasn't so sure. Seeing the devastation she'd wrought on Conrad and his kiss only solidified my need to stay away. The craving in her eyes when I walked into the lobby made it clear she wanted more blood. Not wanted. She coveted the life running through my veins. And I would have let her have it without a second thought. It only took a few seconds for her magic to wrap around me and take away my free will.

I was never more grateful for my team, whose willpower exceeded my own. Or maybe she just hadn't targeted them. Either way, I was able to make a quick retreat before I lost my head or my life. Running like a coward made me see red, though. I'd never feared anything the way I feared Lorna at that moment.

And the way she transitioned from a rabid creature to a rational person … Could her dhampir really have independent thoughts? Sure seemed like it. Was her dhampir sincere about being a positive part of Lorna's life? Lorna believed it was.

Was that just a manipulation on the dhampir's part to earn Lorna's trust? If the creature was smart enough to see the dangers to its own life, it was certainly smart enough to manipulate us all.

How long would it take for the dhampir to earn the trust of my team? When it did, would it try to control me and take over my clan? My mouth dropped open with a sudden realization. Had the fae planted Lorna in my path as we suspected all along? Did they embed a spell in Lorna's dhampir that only they could trigger?

I needed to talk to Kenrid about my suspicions. Surely, he would know if it were even possible. Hopefully, I'd be wrong, and this line of thinking was purely a product of my paranoia.

To make matters worse, I still wanted her. Even after everything I'd witnessed and experienced, I needed her to give me the adoring gaze she gave to Kenrid. I needed to see the compassion she so easily bestowed on Damon. Even Elliott managed to secure her trust when he talked her off the ledge.

Was I jealous? Absolutely! But it was more than just jealousy. She was supposed to be my gift. My power source. My everything. And she wasn't.

On top of the pain of rejection, I had regret. I'd completely ignored everything she'd endured at Conrad's hands. I was jealous of the compassion she showed Damon, yet I'd given her none. I'd lashed out at her in the airport parking lot. It'd been obvious how deep my words had cut her when she refused to look at me. Mere inches separated us, but she may as well have been on the other side of the world.

I'd accused her of being a threat to my men—which was true—and also destroyed any chance of getting close to her. I drew my line in the sand, and she respected it.

Shaking my head, I pushed open the secure door leading from the parking garage straight to my wing of the fortress. The dull metal felt like a reflection of my current mood. I needed to get out of my own head before nightfall. My clan had never seen me as anything more than their flawless leader. I certainly wasn't changing that today.

"Is there anything you need from me before you call it a day?" Elliott asked, following close behind.

"Search those boxes," I said. "See if you can find a way into the laptop to retrieve the video we need."

"You got it," he said, but I heard the hesitation in his voice. He had something else on his mind. Reticence wasn't Elliott's thing, but I didn't push him.

The smell of polished wood and earthy stone welcomed me as we entered my small foyer. I drew in a deep breath. My boots thumped against the stone floors, but the deep mahogany panels on the walls absorbed the sound in the narrow space. I walked directly to the elevator and pressed the button. It had one destination, my penthouse.

The sharp prick on my thumb barely registered as the security device evaluated my blood. It was a combination of technology and magic. Kenrid came up with it a few years ago. The only blood it recognized was mine, Damon's, Elliott's, and Kenrid's. No one else was allowed in my private space.

The elevator door slid open a few seconds later, and we stepped inside. I half expected Elliott to say something sarcastic about not having elevator music. More times than not, he'd suggest different songs, bands, or radio stations. Not today. His silence worried me. He hadn't been his normal, immature, practical joker self since Lorna dropped into our lives.

I glanced over at the man next to me. His furrowed brow shadowed his eyes. His facial hair didn't conceal his deepening frown.

"What's on your mind, Elliott?" I asked, breaking the tense silence.

He huffed, then scrubbed his beard with both hands. "I don't even know where to start."

I could understand where he was coming from. "Let's have a drink before I call it a day," I suggested. "We'll talk about it."

The elevator reached its destination, and I stepped out into a large anteroom. Unlike the dark stone and wood in the foyer below, light bamboo planking stretched out over the floor, and a subtle bone color covered the walls. There were no windows in the anteroom. There was only one in the entire wing. The south-facing wall of the living room held a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. The blackout curtains were never open, though. My vampirism stole the sun from me, but that didn't mean I had to live in a cave. I'd purposefully selected light colors in shades of tan and blue to decorate my space.

None of that mattered right now.

I crossed the anteroom and headed straight for the small bar in the living room. Elliott dropped onto the large leather sofa facing the window.

"Whiskey?" I asked.

"Yeah." A low growl followed his reply. "I should've stayed with her, Nathan. My wolf is pissed, and I'm not sure I can keep him from lashing out at everything that moves."

I poured some of my favorite whiskey in two glasses and strode across the room, handing Elliott his drink. Rather than toss it back like I expected, he stared at the amber liquid like it should have the answers to all his problems. If only.

"You know, it's only a matter of time before Damon claims her," I said. "I think Kenrid already has, at least in spirit."

Elliott growled again. "I know, but I can't seem to convince my wolf that he has to share. It's not in our nature. He has no intention of giving her up, either."

I slumped into the oversized armchair across from him and squeezed my eyes shut. Elliott just confirmed my fears about how quickly Lorna would consume my men. If it were anyone but her, I'd be thrilled that Elliott finally found his mate. I couldn't help but wonder if it was real or a product of Lorna's dhampir magic.

That wasn't right either. Dhampir couldn't influence shifters. I glanced up at Elliott to find him staring back at me.

"I don't know what to do, Nathan." His pleading eyes searched my face for answers I didn't have. "I want to believe everything she told us on the way to the airport. I'm desperate to trust the sincerity in her dhampir's eyes when she asked for my help. Dhampir never asked for help. They killed." He shuddered, no doubt recalling the murder scene we walked in on. "Should I give her the chance to prove herself like Damon said? Will her dhampir prove her worth as our mate?"

I took a long drink of my whiskey, letting the liquor slide down my throat as I tried to come up with a response. The answer he needed to hear might not be what was best for our clan. His wolf needed a reason to compromise, and I needed to protect my people without becoming a hypocrite. I'd never turned anyone away because of what they were. They had to give me a reason to kick them out. Lorna said all the right things. She wanted a chance to prove herself. I'd be breaking the clan's most sacred rule if I denied her that opportunity.

Sometimes I hated being in charge.

"I think we have to give her a chance," I replied. "Our clan was built on accepting everyone. But we're also keeping her away from our vampires for as long as possible."

"Okay," Elliott mumbled, then downed his whiskey, like I'd expected earlier.

"With regards to your wolf," I continued, "even if Damon and Kenrid claim Lorna, that doesn't mean you can't have personal time alone with her. You've seen how well the sirens manage their harems. You can stipulate that your time is yours, not anyone else's."

Elliott snorted. "Wolves don't belong in a harem, Nathan. I get one soulmate who is mine to love and protect."

"And what if Lorna needs more than one protector?" I asked. "If the fae discover her, do you really think you can keep her safe? Would you be able to live with yourself if something happened because you weren't enough?"

A low growl rumbled from Elliott. He didn't like to be questioned any more than the rest of us, but it was true, and he knew it.

"Think about it, my friend. How many times did we have to listen to Damon's lecture in the last two weeks about how she needed all of us?" I reminded him and myself. The entire time Lorna was missing, Damon wouldn't let it go. He insisted it would take all of us to keep her safe. "I don't always agree with Damon's black and white logic, but maybe he was right."

Elliott seemed to deflate, slumping into the cushions beneath him. "Maybe," he agreed. "Do you mind if I bring the boxes up here and sort through them? I don't want to take a chance of someone else finding any info about Lorna."

I nodded and pushed myself out of the chair. Exhaustion almost had me falling over. "Good idea. I'm going to bed."

Elliott rose as well, then took his glass and mine back to the bar. "See you this evening."

He strode back to the anteroom, and I heard the elevator door swish open a moment later. I drew in a deep breath and headed for the sanctuary of my bed. We had a lot to do in the next forty-eight hours before Damon and Kenrid brought Lorna to the fortress. Hopefully, Elliott would find something in all that paperwork we'd taken from Conrad.

As much as I looked forward to seeing Lorna again, I dreaded seeing her dhampir. But I couldn't have one without the other. Didn't that describe all of us, though? Elliott and his wolf. Me and my vampire. Damon? I wasn't sure Damon's demon was any different. Neither was Kenrid. They were what they were.

Maybe Kenrid and Damon were right. If the original dhampir had been raised in a positive environment – like Lorna had – maybe they wouldn't have become the killing machines we'd always known them to be. Maybe there was hope, and I just needed to set aside my paranoid conspiracy theories.

After I talked to Kenrid about the possibility of a fae spell.