Crimson Highlander (Onyx Assassins 2)

“Good, you made it,” Alek said from the head of the table. Lachlan, his second, sat at his left, a grim look on his face.

“Do you suddenly feel like you’ve been summoned to the principal’s office?” I asked Olivia. My smile fell when I saw hers had.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Alek said, his smile tense. “Why don’t you two have a seat?”

We took the chairs closest to them.

“I think you both know the dire situation facing our world.” Alek leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the thick onyx table.

“Global warming?” I guessed.

Lachlan lifted a brow.

“The Sons have amassed an army right under our noses,” Alek went on, ignoring me completely. “When they attacked the school, knowing we were already mounting a rescue for Daphne…” He shook his head. “We’re getting to where we might just be outnumbered. And while I know our skills make us far more lethal, they don’t matter if it’s a hundred to one.”

My stomach did gymnastics.

“We need to increase our ranks,” Lachlan continued. “But we need warriors. Not trainees.”

What they said was true. We’d faced increased attacks from the Sons of Honor, who were hell-bent on destroying anyone supernatural. They were organized. They were deadly. They were going after civilians, and their number one target was Avianna and had been since her return.

“What are you thinking?” I asked. “Do we need to expand recruitment—”

“You already know what I’m thinking, and you’ve already voiced your concern.” Alek’s features tightened.

Now my stomach wasn’t flipping, it was falling straight to the floor. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“I am.”

“Fuck.” I leaned back in my chair and rubbed the nape of my neck.

“Would someone care to speak in terms I understand?” Olivia asked.

“They want to wake the Hunters,” I told her.

She gasped. “You can’t be serious.”

Both Lachlan and Alek stared at her with stern, unfazed gazes.

“You are serious,” she muttered. “Okay, then.”

“They’ve been in stasis for centuries,” I argued. “Saint was already documented as being half-mad when they locked themselves away, and you think we should awaken them? Six of the deadliest vampires this world has ever seen?”

“You’re the deadliest vampire the world has ever seen,” Alek noted. “Take my mental powers out of the equation, and you know there isn’t a living creature you can’t kill.”

“Flattery gets you nowhere right now, my king.” My mind was already racing, going through the six hunters and any weakness that had been documented before they’d put themselves in stasis.

“You know you can take them out if you need to,” Lachlan argued. “I’ve seen you spar with four of them. Hell, five if you count that bar fight in—”

“I don’t count that bar fight.” I shook my head. “And yes, I can probably take one of them down, but if all six come at me? If even one of them has been driven into madness from bloodlust?”

“You’ll have to figure it out,” Alek said bluntly.

“Awesome.” I let my head fall back against the back of the chair. “And why would you drag Olivia into this?”

Alek’s gaze shifted to my right.

“Because I know where they sleep,” she said quietly.

My head snapped her direction. “You what?” No one knew where the six had entombed themselves for this exact reason. They’d made it pretty clear that they didn’t want to be awakened for fun.

“I assume you still know how to go home?” Alek asked her.

“Sure do. Turn left at Russia. If you hit the North Pole, you’ve gone too far,” she quipped, dropping her head to her hands. “You have to send someone else.”

“They’re your parents,” Lachlan argued, “Lady Sorokin.”

“And they have no clue what I actually do!” She jerked her face up, and her eyes were wider than I’d ever seen. “Have you met my mother?”

Alek cleared his throat. “She’s a very…intense woman.”

Olivia snorted. “Sure. That’s a word for it. Didn’t you ever wonder why a woman so determined to see her daughters married and mated would let her youngest enter the service of the crown as a bodyguard? She thinks it’s unseemly for a woman to arm herself, let alone—” She dropped her head into her hands again. “Ugh! Send. Someone. Else.”

“That explains the email,” Alek grumbled.

“What email?” I asked.

“The Duchess Sorokin responded to my request saying she’d only discuss it in person with her daughter since I liked to hide my sister’s ladies in waiting away and sever their communications with the outside world.”

“Omigod,” Olivia mumbled into her hands.

I laughed out loud. “The fact that she thinks your sister even has ladies in waiting is amazing.”

Olivia looked over at me slowly, narrowing her eyes.

“Oh, come on, how bad can it be?” I shrugged. “We’ll go show our faces for the thirty seconds we’ll be allowed to live before awakening the most bloodthirsty vampires the world has ever seen!”

“That’s. Not. It.” Red crept up her neck until she was full-on blushing.