Chapter Eleven

??ran?: eight days later

Nyko's leg muscles tightened ashe strode into ??ran?'s conference room, meeting place of the community's twelve-person Council. The last time he'd been here the wall partition had been pushed back, transforming the conference room into a courtroom, and he'd been watching his little brother, Shon, defend himself in a criminal trial. Not that much defending had been going on.

"The reasons I did what I did are nobody's business" was all Shon had been willing to say when challenged to explain why he'd attacked Luvera Nichita, now Luvera Parthen.

So this room wasn't exactly Nyko's favorite.

He came to a stop in front of the U-shaped conference table, standing at parade rest on the far right side of the rest of the Special Ops Topside Team members: Dev, Sedge, Gábor, minus Thomal, but Arc was here to take his place, and since Arc was half-crazed with worry these days, Jacken had secretly asked Nyko to tag along as a potential team member. As strange as Arc was acting these days, he probably shouldn't have been a part of any operation right now, but with Thomal's life on the line, Arc wasn't letting anyone put him on the sidelines.

Roth Mihnea, black-haired, nicely dressed, and seated in the top dog spot at the head of the conference table—even though Toni was the real head honcho around here—glanced expectantly at the team.

Nyko felt tension roll off of Dev.

During this Thomal crisis, the Council had insisted on a daily check-in from the team. Which meant every day Dev, as team leader, was forced to admit they weren't any closer to finding Pandra Parthen than they'd been when they started. And failure didn't sit well with Dev, especially when his best friend's life hung in the balance.

"Any progress?" Roth asked, even though the four of them probably would've run in here, whooping and hollering, if there had been.

"No, sir," Dev answered.

Same-old, same-old. Or maybe not…

Roth rounded on Jacken, who was seated on the right arm of the U, across from Toni on the left. "It's been eight days."

"I'm aware of that." The grooves around Jacken's eyes and mouth made it look like his face had been wrung out. He wasn't feeling too fond of the warriors' lack of success, either.

"Were you also aware," Roth continued with a harder edge in his voice, "that Thomal fell unconscious this morning?"

Now Arc's tension boiled into the room.

A muscle pulsed in Jacken's cheek.

That was news to everyone.

"The situation has become dire," Roth pronounced.

An expression crossed Jacken's features that Nyko couldn't entirely interpret—he'd go with disgusted impatience, though. "The warriors have always treated this situation as dire, Roth. Alex has been working around the clock to find evidence we can use to track down Parthen, but whoever's running things on Parthen's end has security locked down extremely tight."

Nyko shifted his attention over to the empty Council seat next to Toni. Where was Alex, anyway?

Alex Parthen wore two important hats in the community, that of computer expert and Soothsayer. The latter meant Alex was the only person who could read the Str?vechi Caiet, the ancient text of the Varcolac…although read wasn't the most accurate description. Alex saw certain future possibilities, or answers to questions, or law interpretations through visions. Unfortunately, Alex didn't have any control over visions of the future. They came when they merry well pleased. Otherwise Alex would surely have told them where Pandra Parthen was by now.

Funny enough, Nyko and Alex had recently become friends. Funny, because Big Bad Nyko and a computer nerd were as opposite as two men could get. But he and Alex were trying to map out the Hell Tunnels—a network of torturously hot passageways that led from ??ran? to the demon town of O??rat—and they needed each other for that. Alex would go into a meditative state to try and see the pathways using his Soothsayer skills, while Nyko followed his directions via a headset…and tried not to melt. As soon as the tunnels were completely mapped, the Varcolac could turn the tables on the Om R?u, who'd always been able to get at them and not the other way around. Once the Om R?u knew that they could be pursued into the Hell Tunnels after an attack on the Varcolac, said attacks would undoubtedly lessen, or stop altogether. And, more importantly, the Varcolac could finally get into O??rat to save the human women there.

Roth sat forward in his chair. "The unbreachable security we're facing is exactly why we need to discuss the option of negotiating directly with Mr. Parthen himself."

Jacken barked out a laugh. "Parthen isn't going to negotiate with us."

"Mr. Parthen won't negotiate with you," Roth came back concisely. "He most certainly will with her." He nodded toward Toni.

Jacken sat back in his chair in a posture of false calm. "So let me see if I've got this right? You want me to bring my pregnant wife topside to meet with a man whose main goal is to steal her and pair her with one of his sociopathic half-R?u. A man who's already shown that he doesn't have a qualm about using abortifacients, seeing as he nearly jacked up Marissa Nichita with one. And the baby Toni carries—my genes—sit about as high up on the evolutionary scale to Parthen as gum on the bottom of his shoe. Is that what you're saying?"

Oh, boy. Nyko dropped his gaze. He really wished he was off fixing a toaster right now instead of here.

Syrian Popovici, Jacken's former blood donor, turned to look at Jacken from where she sat on his right. "We trust the Special Ops Team to keep Dr. Parthen safe during the meeting, Jacken."

Jacken turned his cold gaze to Syrian. "That from someone who's never faced down Parthen's power, thank you." He addressed the entire Council again as he added, "We don't know Parthen's full potential, yet, but you can be damned sure that he'll blast my men with everything he's got in order to get Toni. So, I'd be sending my men into what could easily be a suicide mission, only to end up losing Toni and our chance at this Pandra woman, too. Combating Parthen head-on isn't the way to do this."

Balc Oarg?, one of ??ran?'s electricians, who was wearing jeans and a T-shirt even though this was an official meeting, spoke up. "Doesn't Dr. Parthen have the power to handle herself now?"

"That doesn't play into this," Jacken shot back.

For some reason, Toni didn't like to use the enchantment power she'd acquired when she'd bonded to Jacken.

?lsi Korzha, gray-blonde owner and operator of Aunt ?lsi's coffee shop, pinched her lips together. "Then come up with another plan, Jacken. The only thing I hear you doing is shooting down everyone else's ideas, but not recommending any of your own. Thomal will be dead soon."

"All right, please," Toni finally inserted. "Nobody is in any doubt about how grave this situation is. But this isn't a Council decision. Jacken is my bonded mate and it's his right to protect me as he sees fit." She looked at Roth. "I'm actually shocked you're not respecting that. Would you allow the Council to make decisions about your wife?"

Roth's expression chilled. "My wife isn't one of the leaders of this community. You don't have the luxury of being only a mate in this, Toni."

"Any decision that affects my marriage," Toni returned, "is a mate issue, and will be made exclusively by Jacken and me."

Nyko shifted his feet. That sounded pretty danged final.

Some of the rigidity eased from Jacken's mouth, and he captured Toni's gaze across the U.

Toni stood. "We'll let the Council know our decision shortly." She exited.

Jacken followed, then the team.

In the hall, Toni turned to face Jacken. "Roth does have a point about my position, Jacken. We have to fix this." She rubbed her eyebrows. "Contact my father, anyway, and say that you want to meet with him. He might agree out of curiosity. I don't have any idea how to get Pandra out of him. We'll have to be creative."

Jacken nodded. "The last few days, I've been brewing some—"

"Hey!" Alex hurried down the hallway toward them, dressed, as usual, in khaki pants and a button-down shirt; most days Nyko thought of the professor from Gilligan's Island whenever he saw Alex. He also wore gold-rimmed glasses, and—because he was Royal Fey like his sister—had a bit of red streaking his hair. "Sorry I'm late," Alex went on. "But I had a vision, and wanted to gather more information on the Internet before I brought it to the Council."

"The Council has somewhat adjourned," Toni said drolly. "What have you got?"

Alex held out a piece of paper. "This is the air manifest for Delta Airlines. A flight arranged by Raymond Parthen is arriving in San Diego tomorrow evening with two very interesting women on it."

Jacken's brows edged together. "Interesting how?"

"According to my vision, they're Royal Dragons." Alex glanced at Nyko, probably figuring Nyko, as a man of half-R?u bloodlines who could only ever hope to have a future with a Royal woman, would be the most invested in that information.

And, definitely, Nyko's heartbeat had lurched into a couple of strange beats.

Alex pushed his glasses higher on his nose. "I know it's probably pushing things to save them with everything that's going on with Thomal, but—"

"No," Jacken cut in. "Actually, this is perfect. We'll try to grab one or more Topside Om R?u dickheads while we're saving the women on this mission, give ourselves some bargaining power." He looked at Dev. "Get your team ready to deploy."