A Guardians Passion (30 page)

Rayne nodded despite the fissure growing in his heart. While he wanted nothing more than to calm her, Freya was not the type who would stand for it. She didn’t want pity. She wanted only revenge. She would take the comfort they gave, but it was blood that she wanted.

“We will make him pay,” Rayne promised. “My strength is returning quickly. Before it was just the strain; Fen needed help for a longer period. He would not calm until we found you. I was worried he would tear the others to pieces, but you cannot go. I swear to you, Freya, we will bring you his head. It would be safer if you were with Geraldine and Gaea—”

“I’m coming with you,” she insisted.

Fenris chimed in, his voice soft with defeat. “Yes. She will be safe with us.”

“
Ertu geðveikur
?”

Fenris scowled at the questioning of his sanity, but his embrace around Freya tightened, and she even snuggled against his chest. It was as if they had formed a united front in that instant.

Rayne shook his head, wondering how in the world he could get through to them both. Freya was certainly the key, but she was back into her superwoman stage. Rayne loved that his female was a fighter and thought that her being with child would warrant some caution at least. He hadn’t expected Freya to become a domestic goddess but had hoped that she would see the protection of their cub as being just as important and noble as bringing down a demon.

Despite wanting to avoid an argument, Rayne could not submit to either decision. “You know that I don’t doubt that you can handle your own, that you are a damned fierce warrior,” he told Freya. “I know that you even brought down one of the beasts back at the retreat, but Birathan, that giant… Hunting a flock, you know what that entails. If any of us know, it’s you and—”

“That fucker put his tongue so far in me I swear I can still taste him, Rayne.”

Rayne’s heart staggered. The image conveyed by the bluntness of her words was too potent in his mind. He closed his eyes and prayed for the chaos to stop. Yes, he would want to
see
the creature torn apart as well.

“Now, don’t get me wrong, Rayne. I could stay here and dwell on it. Me and Bun. I could wait until you guys get back, pretend that I am not crazed as hell, but I need to be there when that fucker really is torn limb from limb. I
need
to be strong. I don’t need nightmares. We should be what they fear, not the other way around.”

Rayne was flushed with heat, furious that Birathan had managed to do the one thing many had not: put a vacant and vulnerable light within his warrior’s eyes. The anguish in Freya’s voice could not be cloaked by anger.

“You could find them for me, couldn’t you?”

Rayne went cold, knowing what her words meant. It wasn’t Freya’s fault, or any measure of selfishness upon her part, but what she was asking was not a light thing.

His mother’s kind had been werewolves. She had been a close friend to Gaea and a member of Fenris’s pack. His father’s race, however, was very different. Thinking back to the first time he had ever heard the word
wytchen
, Rayne remembered how he had thought of men and women with unruly hair and long robes that reeked of sage, who carried staffs and concealed satchels full of spells. He had assumed that his father would be a wizened, sage-like being with twinkling eyes and a beard. The pack had always called Rayne a witch-wolf for his abilities. They still did. What even he hadn’t known at the time was that wytchen weren’t witches.

Then at the age of seventeen, he finally met his father.

Although Rayne had always possessed some magical aptitude, he could not command the elements, space, or time, but his father could. Dona had come to him, offering to take him away from the only family he had ever known, willing to show him the truth of magic and true power, as he had put it. His mother had just died, and Rayne had been a wreck. Despite Gaea’s and Fenris’s warnings, Rayne had demanded that his father return his mother to life. His father should have been kind enough—at least to his son’s memory if not in honor of what the mother of his child had once been—to have refused. Instead, Dona granted his wish. Just the thought of his mother’s horribly reanimated corpse, a gray, mechanical thing unable to speak, a shell without a soul, brought chills to him.

No, he chose wolves. A thousand times over he had and would choose the love and respect of his pack, but for what Freya needed, he would require more than just their love, simplicity, and security. “I can…find them,” he said finally.

Freya must have seen the reservation in his glance or scented his nervousness. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Yes.”

Would it be risky? Would it be inviting chaos to the party? Possibly. Were they short on time before Birathan regained his strength? More than possible. Rayne nodded much more confidently than he felt. He even gave his best smile of vengeance. “The asprega and their leader won’t see another night.”

The door creaked as Ezra returned with two gallon jugs of iced tea and several liters of water. He stopped just short of the bed, eyes cast down. The omega obviously realized that something serious was going on.

Thinking upon Freya’s words, Rayne resolved to fulfill his alpha’s wish. Mind reeling as thoughts of how he would deal with his father, how he could destroy Birathan and keep Freya and their child safe along with Fenris, joined together to cause an ache behind his eyes. Rayne considered the meal remaining before him. He felt hollow, as if he had never eaten a day in his life.

While Fenris could most certainly provide the brute force of a sword, Rayne needed to be the shield. And not just against the asprega.

Rayne looked to the omega, that he had become somewhat fond of. “Ezra, we’re going to need more meat,” he commanded.

SHE HAD NEVER seen Rayne consume so much. Despite the explanation that he gave of needing to refill his energy stores, Freya suspected that a great deal of his appetite came from nervousness, although of exactly what she didn’t know.

Rayne’s scent kept wavering from anger to anxiety. She couldn’t fault her beta. It wasn’t until she had said the words out loud that she even realized how disturbed she was by Birathan’s invasion of her body. She wasn’t entirely sure that she would have been able to stop such a creature even if she hadn’t been pregnant. Rayne had cause to worry, as did she.

There were so many more important matters at hand, and yet some part of Freya had been disabled. She kept oscillating between the need to do something or hiding beneath Fen and protecting Bun. She knew it wasn’t cowardice to want to stay away from harm, but she worried that if she didn’t do something to kill the bogeyman haunting her thoughts, then she would never be able to.

Fenris seemed to have resigned himself to the notion that she would hunt; however, Rayne was unrelenting. His attention had been focused upon eating, but the crease hadn’t left his brow.

“You want me to stay here, Rayne?” she asked finally.

He looked up from his second platter of meat and vegetables, this time hunks of beef, carrots, and potatoes, and shook his head.

“He knows what must be done. It is the
how
that worries him,” Fenris muttered.

Freya turned in her alpha’s arms. He was somber but resigned, certainly nowhere near as compulsive and anxiety riddled as Rayne seemed to be. “He just needs to burn some incense, look into a bowl, or something, right? A spell?” That was what witches did, she figured. Rayne was always mixing up a concoction or healing wounds, and on occasion, she had even seen him create a charm or two.

Rayne finished chewing a large slab of meat before accepting a swig of tea from Ezra. “Don’t worry, my alpha. I have this covered. When would you like to leave?”

As soon as we can, she thought but reined in her impatience. With a sigh, she gestured for Fenris to let her go. Although content to remain within his bearlike embrace, she had work to do, namely to get dressed and find out what type of artillery Cole had brought. She knew that her mother and Gaea had undoubtedly brought a few choice weapons themselves, but she had no intention of seeing either until after she had dealt with the asprega.

The shit was already hitting the fan. While Rayne had still been deep in slumber, Ezra had informed them of Vaegar planning an all-out assault upon vampire kind. He had ordered enough communication, surveillance, warriors, and firepower to wage war in a small third-world country. Setting up his central command within the ballroom of the mansion, Vaegar was determined on tracking down every last female and cub who had been stolen.

Ezra had also let her know that the attacks were soon to begin, and that the plan was for brute-force invasions. There would be no kindly inquisitions, no diplomacy. Vaegar was forming large squads, coordinating with packs across the United States, Europe, Africa, and every other large landmass, five squads for every territory, with the sole intent of hunting vampires down. While many husbands and fathers yearned to be involved, Vaegar had deferred the task to the hunters and warrior wolves with the fewer emotional attachments, at Geraldine’s suggestion. Mistakes would be fewer that way, Geraldine insisted.

The efficient omega had even managed to get clothes and boots for them.

She moved over to the edge of the bed, missing Fenris’s warmth and strength despite the short time she had been without. Still, as much as she wanted to go back into his arms, and as welcoming as Fenris seemed to be to take her up again, Freya stood. She looked down at the sight of her three males. “Whenever you are ready,” she said, addressing Rayne.

Fenris eased back against a pile of pillows. Despite Ezra tentatively offering the big male food from the most recent platter, Fenris’s attention was on Rayne. “You will summon your father?”

Rayne groaned, casting a dark glare toward Fenris.

“She would have to meet him eventually.”

Freya felt as if she was missing something. She knew that Rayne’s father was a witch, a wytchen as he often corrected her. She also knew he wasn’t fond of the man. Freya had never pressed her beta for the reasoning behind every roll of the eyes, every hiss or scowl that Rayne gave whenever Dona was mentioned. At first, she had suspected abandonment issues, but Fenris had assured her that Rayne was quite happy to have been raised by wolves, as he put it.

“What’s wrong with your father? Why do we need him?”

“He can drop us right in the middle of the flock. He can teleport. He can do a lot of things.”

Gathering up her clothing, she saw the advantage. “That would be perfect.”

“It
is
perfect,” Rayne insisted before Fenris could give the comment that seemed to be teetering upon his parted lips. “He can get us silently among them. He may even be able to aid in the recovery of the other mothers and cubs.”

A wave of expectation crashed over Freya, joy filling her. Vaegar would still want his revenge, but a swifter, safer resolution was the ideal situation. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”

Neither Fenris nor Rayne commented, both reserved before her enthusiasm. She didn’t like the long silence they both gave. She didn’t understand why they felt so reluctant about calling in an ace when they needed one. Assuming it had to do with their pride, Freya decided she would hold off on her judgment until she could see for herself. If Rayne’s father was the “business,” then it was past time to bring in a professional.

She was about to head to the bathroom with her pile of clothing in hand, when a knock at the door brought her to a halt.

Ezra scrambled off the bed and went to address the guest, who turned out to be a light-brown-skinned wolf in a tight black shirt that left neither bosom nor muscles to the imagination.

“How’s my girl?”

Clutching her clothing as tightly as her heart clenched inside her chest, Freya wondered at the motivation of her mother. Geraldine and Gaea both had agreed to give Freya and her males space to recover, yet the look in Geraldine’s eyes wasn’t one of worry. It was one of suspicion.

Freya bristled. She wasn’t a child, but she couldn’t deny that she felt like one in the unwavering scrutiny of her mother’s gaze. “I’m fine.”

“How are your boys doing?” Geraldine asked the question, but her gaze never moved from Freya.

Fenris and Rayne both grunted acknowledgment, with Ezra the only one muttering any semblance of an actual word. The electricity of alertness was obviously shared throughout the room.

“Fenris? Boys?” Geraldine inquired. “Can I speak to Freya? Alone?”

Fenris tried to run interference, a fearsome sight to everyone it seemed except the wolf at the door. Getting up from the bed, abs and pecs bulging as if chiseled from alabaster, Fenris wore only the boxers that Ezra had brought for him, and still he looked ready for any confrontation.
Looked
was the key word. “Geraldine. Anything you can say to her, you can say around us. We
are
family, and Freya requires us to be near her.”

Geraldine nodded as if she understood, but the resolve in her eyes spoke differently. “I’m gonna ask you again, Fenris, and I want you to know I mean no disrespect. I’ve given you all plenty of time to get it together. After I’m done, if you still need a moment, then you can have it. But right now I need to speak to my child, my cub. Alone.”

Freya was stunned by the amount of time that Fenris held out. While he could have easily bested Geraldine in a physical confrontation, within a minute even, the authority that she wielded wasn’t any easy thing to stand against. He managed nearly seven seconds before his dark blue eyes sought confirmation from her. “Freya?”

“It’s fine.” She sighed nervously, setting the clothing in her arms back upon the dresser. Somehow she suspected that she wouldn’t be getting dressed just yet.

Geraldine stepped into the room. “Off with you and you,” she directed Fenris and Rayne and then turned to Ezra. “You too, omega.”

Fenris waited by the door. Ezra was the first to leave. Fenris waited as Rayne took the last slab of meat from the tray and lifted the empty platter. He directed Rayne’s attention to the dresser. Rayne finished his steak before he got up. He padded across the floor, unabashedly nude but wearing more than enough reluctance. He grabbed a pair of sweatpants from the dresser and slid them on, taking his time.