A Hunger Like No Other (Immortals After Dark 2)

Emma marched down the stairs to point a finger in Regin's face. "So, Lachlain plans to forbid me from seeing you, and Annika plans to kill the man I'm sleeping with without even asking me if this is a good idea?" These people were treating her like the old Emma, with everyone jockeying for the right to control her. And that simply did not apply any longer. "I wonder what I plan."

"Tell us!" Nïx cried breathlessly.

Emma glared at Nïx. Rhetorical, here! She had no idea what she planned -

"He seeks you," a vampire intoned from the doorstep, his eyes on her.

Emma's lips parted. The Valkyrie did not believe in coincidence, only in fate. And sometimes fate didn't even bother being subtle.

Lachlain leapt for the vampire just as others appeared. Cass ran headlong into the fight beside him. Emma watched it all as though in slow motion, feeling the vampire's red eyes returning to her again and again.

Suddenly her back met the floor, her legs kicked out from under her.

Lachlain had tripped her? "Get back, Emma!" he roared, shoving her away, sending her flying far across the polished floor.

As she glanced up through the melee, she saw that the vampires kept their gazes trained on her.

Here for her. What if her father knew about her? Had sent them to find her?

But who...?

Suddenly, dreams - nightmares - seeped into reality. Lachlain's memories.

An image of a golden-haired man flashed into her mind. Demestriu. Casually watching Lachlain suffer.

Everyone always says my features are my mother's, but Helen had black hair, black as sable, and dark eyes. The man in the dream is blond, with his sword sheath on his right, indicating he's left-handed.

Emma was a southpaw herself.

No. No way.

Lightning whipped outside. Fatalistic. That was it, she was simply being fatalistic, since this was the absolute worst scenario that could be. Her father couldn't have tortured Lachlain.

Like an acid bath, Lachlain's memory of the fire washed over her - torture that was now her own forever. His rage boiled within her, and she gave herself up to it - just as he had - to get through the pain...

She shuddered, couldn't stifle a whimper. Her thoughts grew dim, distant... She couldn't separate reality from nightmares. Like the way she somehow knew that, deep down in Lachlain's mind, utterly unacknowledged by him was a new suspicion that she was Demestriu's...

She recognized the monster for what he was. Father. Shaking, still on the floor, she gaped at her aunts fighting so valiantly, so perfectly, with all their innate grace and ferocity. Demestriu had taken their queen from them.

Filthy parasite.

Lightning rained down again in a crowded volley.

Fighting all around, and she was frozen. Not with a fear of dying, but with grief and pain. Grief that what she'd wanted so badly - a life with Lachlain, and the love of her coven - was being threatened by the blood running, now itching like poison, in her veins.

Watching these heroic warriors fighting to protect her, when they had no idea what she really was, was killing her. She was unworthy of all of them.

A vampire slumped to the ground. Laughing in delight, Nïx flew on top of him, stabbing her knees into his back, and snatched his hair to lift his head, baring his throat. Poised for her deathblow. The vampire caught sight of Emma. He reached out.

She felt unclean; her veins burned. Unworthy.

But I could make it right. Or at least better.

Nïx caught her gaze across the floor. Winked at her.

Clarity.

"Will I die?" Emma whispered.

"Do you care?" Nïx countered, her words as clear in Emma's ears as if they were right next to each other.

"He seeks you," the thing gasped, reaching for her.

"I seek him, too." Emma wanted to take his hand, but he was so far away - Suddenly, she found herself mere feet from him.

Dizzy... Had she traced? Like a vampire. For the first time...?

Nïx slowly raised her blade, and Emma crawled forward.

She heard Lachlain inhale sharply, knew he'd spotted her. "Emma," he rasped, diving for her, then bellowed, "Goddamn it, Emma, no!"

Too late. A line had been drawn, just as with Heath. No, not drawn - it'd been seared into her mind. Lightning shot down to punctuate her decision. That which she had been born to do.

She stretched out her hand. Met eyes with the vampire.

You have no idea what you're dragging home.

Lachlain roared with fury as that thing - the last one left alive - took Emma. He couldn't comprehend it. She had sought him out?

He clenched Nïx's shoulders. "Why did you hesitate? I saw you hesitate!" He shook her until her head lolled, while she grinned and said, "Wheeee!"

"Where the f**k have they taken her?" he thundered.

One of the Valkyrie punted his bad leg, buckling it, making him release Nïx.

Cass raised her sword again. "You let them in!" she snapped to Regin. "Left Kinevane unguarded."

Regin tilted her head in Lachlain's direction. "He stole a daughter from her foster mother and kept her from the protection of our family."

"Turnabout's a bitch," Kaderin added, dropping down to collect fangs from the severed heads as trophies.

"They f**king have her!" He punched the wall. "How can you be so calm?"

"I can't feel raw emotion, and they won't indulge in the luxury of feeling sorrow," Kaderin explained. "Sorrow weakens the entire collective. It will weaken Emma herself. And we won't borrow trouble."

Lachlain shook with rage, about to turn, about to kill them all -

Suddenly, some hideous noise erupted. Kaderin put her bloody fangs away and dug in her pocket, pulling out a phone. "Crazy Frog," she hissed as she flipped it open. "Regin, you are a fiend."