Hunt the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity #11)(42)

“On the night Fala sired me, she witnessed a comet shoot through the sky.”

She finished the biscuit and started to smear something on the pancakes. God almighty, was that peanut butter?

“What does that mean?”

“She interpreted it as a sign that I would one day be a great leader.”

The tiny witch actually began to demolish the large stack of gummy pancakes.

“That seems like a good thing.”

“I never gave it much thought,” he admitted. “Not until my chief, Gunnar, mated.”

She abruptly glanced up. “That’s why you went to the battles.”

He gave a slow nod.

His first thought had been to simply leave the clan and find another.

It wasn’t that he was afraid. Not of the battles or challenging his chief. But Gunnar had become a true friend, before his mating.

It’d been Fala who’d pointed out that by fleeing the territory they would leave the rest of the clan at the mercy of the slavers who made a routine habit of picking off the more vulnerable members.

She reminded him of her vision and insisted it was his duty to take care of those who were too weak to run.

“I had to do something before the clan was completely destroyed,” he said. “Once I completed the trials I intended to return and challenge Gunnar to become chief.”

She unconsciously licked a dab of peanut butter off her lower lip, and Roke’s aversion to the brown paste was suddenly replaced by a compelling vision of spreading it across his body so that tiny, wet tongue could spend an hour or six licking it off him.

“Obviously you succeeded.”

“No.” His distraction was only momentary as he was forced to remember his shock when he’d arrived home. “When I returned to Nevada it was to discover Gunnar and his mate had died in a fire.”

She slowly pushed aside her plate, sensing his long-buried pain through their bond.

“Despite the tragedy, it must have been a relief not to have to challenge him.”

He clenched his hand on the table, the force of his bleak emotions making the windowpane tremble.

“It would have been if I hadn’t suspected that Gunnar’s timely death hadn’t been an accident.”

Her eyes widened. “Murder?”

He nodded, although a vampire didn’t have that particular word in their vocabulary.

Until the previous Anasso had taken command of the vampires they’d been little more than brutal savages who took what they wanted without consequences.

That’s why it was imperative that a vampire become a member of a clan with a strong chief who could protect them.

“Yes.”

She tilted her head to the side, the threads of bronze and gold in her hair shimmering beneath the fluorescent lights.

“Was there another contender to the throne?”

He shrugged. Only a vampire with the mark of CuChulainn could claim the right to become clan chief.

“None that had survived the battles.”

She frowned. “Then it was an enemy?”

“Only one that could have walked past the guards.”

There was a long pause as she studied his grim expression. “You know who it was, don’t you?”

“Fala.”

She sucked in a shocked breath. “Oh.”

Fine cracks began to form on the table where his fist rested against the cheap Formica.

“She had convinced herself that my glorious destiny needed a helping hand.”

“Were you angry with her?”

“I was disappointed she didn’t trust my ability to win a fair fight against Gunnar.”

Her well-guarded expression at last softened, her hand reaching to lightly touch his clenched fist.

“Have you considered the fact that might not be about trust?”

He scowled. “Then what?”

“Maybe she wanted to spare you the trauma of killing a man you once respected. That’s what a mother does.” Her eyes abruptly hardened at the thought of her own mother. “Well, at least, I suppose that’s what a mother would do if she wasn’t a psychopath.”

He inwardly cursed, turning his hand so he could capture her chilled fingers.

He’d revealed his past in an effort to earn her trust, not to bring up old wounds.

“Sally—”

“What happened to her?” she firmly interrupted.

His gaze shifted to where her pale fingers remained in his tight grip, absorbing the tactile connection. Her warmth was the only thing that allowed him to speak past the cold regret that surged through him.

“Not long after Gunnar’s death she met her ancestors.”

“What does that mean?”

“She greeted the dawn,” he said, his tone stripped of emotions. Not that he could hide the intense pain he’d felt when he watched Fala step from their lair into the morning sunlight. He’d never truly forgiven himself for being too far away to save her. “Most assumed that she’d tired of her very long life. It’s not that uncommon among the very ancient.”

Genuine sympathy darkened Sally’s velvet eyes. As much as she longed to be a callous badass, her vulnerable heart would always betray her.

Of course, it was that very vulnerability that constantly managed to unman him, he ruefully conceded.