The Curse (Belador #3)(90)

Lanna lifted her face to Evalle. “Yes. You are Evalle.”

Kellman took his eyes off Lanna long enough to smile up at Evalle. “Good to see you.”

“Glad you and Kardos are safe.” Evalle would have said more but Kardos pulled Lanna’s hair back off her face and Kellman glared at his brother.

Kellman? Now, that was amusing.

Lucky for both of them that overprotective Quinn hadn’t noticed either action.

The Svart Evalle had stunned let out a groan.

Storm walked up next to her and stood over the troll. “He’s not dead?”

Evalle shook her head. “He had Lanna in his hands, so I had to drop the power on the weapon to stun.” She lifted the weapon. “But I can fix that if he doesn’t behave.”

“Wait.” Quinn snapped to his feet and looked down at the troll, who had a gold armband with odd carvings.

Lanna said, “They call that one Lieutenant. He is leader.”

Quinn said, “I couldn’t get into the mind of the other ones, but …”

Everyone fell silent as Quinn stared at the troll and it started trembling. The Svart must have mental shields up even when unconscious.

When Tzader walked up to them, Evalle held up a finger and pointed at Quinn. Tzader nodded and spoke to her telepathically. Sen’s here and he’s going to be here for a while to clean up, plus I told him other trolls are expected to come back here to feed. Once Quinn is finished, Sen will take this Svart to VIPER lockdown.

She hadn’t thought past this battle, but Tzader was right. I’m sure Isak will let us keep the weapon Trey has for a little longer. Trey should be able to pick off Svarts as they show up. I’ll stick around to back him up, but I need to get these two boys out of here. I don’t want them out on the streets until I know it’s relatively safe again.

Tzader turned around, facing the way they came in. Ah, hell.

Evalle turned to find Isak striding across the room.

Sen could have torched Isak with his glare and probably would have if Isak had not been human.

Isak ignored Sen, clueless about the power Sen wielded.

When Sen’s glare shifted to Evalle, Tzader sighed and said to her, I’ll back you up when we go in to explain Isak and the weapons.

Isak eyed the room as he stepped over troll body parts scattered around. When he reached Evalle, he paused. “Nice job.”

She couldn’t help but smile at him. “Thanks for the weapon.”

Storm stepped up next to her with his arms crossed and a scowl planted on his face.

She ignored him and tried to return the weapon to Isak.

Isak said, “Keep it for now.” His attention went to the three teenagers. “Are they—”

“Yes.” That’s when she realized she had an answer to her problem. “I need you to do me a favor, Isak.”

He didn’t say a word, but the grin he gave Storm might start a new battle. “Sure, darlin’. Whatever you want.”

Oh, this was too easy. “Would you take those twins to your warehouse until I can come pick them up? I’ll bring your weapons back when I do.”

When Isak looked at her in horror, Storm broke out a grin.

Crap. She went for the kill. “Please.”

“I’ll take them to Kit.” Then Isak added, “We’ll be expecting you for that dinner you agreed to.”

Storm’s dark eyes slashed at Evalle, full of questions.

She didn’t have time to answer any of them.

As if that weren’t complicated enough, she caught Sen’s gaze, which had latched onto Storm. Evalle caught Storm’s attention and nodded toward Sen.

Storm ignored the evil glare. “I’ll talk to VIPER tomorrow. Sen can stew until then.”

She didn’t think it would be that simple, but they could talk about that later. “Sorry Sen found out about you being here before you were ready.”

“Not a problem. I wouldn’t have stayed out of the picture much longer.”

By now more Beladors were arriving and crowding the area. Tzader ordered everyone away from Quinn, who had dropped to his knees beside the Svart, concentrating. When he didn’t appear to be in distress, Evalle moved the boys and Lanna away.

After a brief argument, Evalle convinced the twins to go with Isak and promised to come get them as soon as she could. Lanna kissed both Kardos and Kellman on their cheeks before they left with Isak, then eased over closer to Quinn but didn’t bother him.

With Isak gone, Sen returned to working through issues with Tzader.

“Bloody hell!” Quinn shouted.

Evalle swung around to Quinn “Are you hurt?”

“No. We’ve been played. This was all a diversion.”

Tzader said, “What do you mean?”

“There’s a team of Svarts being teleported to Treoir. They’re going after the castle—and Brina—and they have another demon Svart. Worse than the one that attacked Evalle.”

Tzader rarely looked shocked. “That’s not possible. How could they know where to …” Then something clearly transpired between him and Quinn that Evalle would love to have heard.

She saw the looks on both their faces. For the first time since she’d known these two men, they were at odds with one another.

Tzader shouted for Sen, who had been standing way across the room, but appeared instantly next to Tzader.