Equites : Book 4 of the Heku Series (60 page)

“
What am I supposed to do?
Let my 6-year-old run free? Turn off the mothering and let him be
raised by the heku who, apparently, understand him more than I do?”
Emily asked him.

“
Just give him time to
figure out who he is.”

“
And hope he doesn’t kill
me in the process?”

“
You may have to ash him to
teach him who’s boss, even just a controlled burn. If he sees you
as powerful, he’ll back down. Predators won’t take on prey that’s
meaner than they are.” Kyle cringed after he said it.

“
Nice,” Emily sighed and
got up, disappearing into the bathroom. She came a while
later.

“
Going somewhere?” Kyle
asked when she grabbed her purse.

“
Yes, I’m going to the
mainland to go shopping.”

“
Oh good, have fun,” Kyle
said, smiling.

Emily sighed, “Alone.”

Kyle’s smile faded, “Em…”

“
I don’t need to hear it.
I’m going alone.” Emily sat down to slip on some shoes.

“
You know as well as I do,
that we can’t let you go alone.”

“
And you know as well as I
do, that if I want to go alone then I will.” Emily stood up and put
her hands on her hips, “So you can either let me go peacefully, or
I’ll do it anyway.”

“
Damnit, Em,” Kyle
scowled.

“
I hate when you say that…
is that part of the required Equites training? How to yell at
me?”

“
Mark just got the job of
trying to keep you safe, and you’re going to test him by running
off alone to go shopping?” Kyle asked, standing up and starting for
the door.

“
Fine! But just Mark. I’m
not taking my entourage.” Emily scowled and headed for the pier.
Mark caught up with her while she waited on the ferry, and she was
glad to see he’d changed out of the cape and into jeans and a
polo.

***

Once Alexis was down for the night,
Emily sat down on the bed to think. She suddenly had an idea.
Grabbing a flashlight and a lot of extra batteries, she left the
castle out the back door, followed by two of the Cavalry guards.
She hopped on the ATV in the empty barn, and checked to make sure
the guards were with her as she got to the tree line.

“
What are we doing?” one of
them asked.

“
I’m looking for
something,” Emily said, and flipped on the flashlight. She found
what she was looking for after almost an hour.

The two heku guards looked down at the
cement slab.

“
I need that opened,” Emily
told them. They hesitated and then easily lifted it from the
ground. Emily crawled down into the crypt, followed by the
guards.

“
Why do I get the feeling
that you aren’t supposed to be down here?” one of them asked,
looking at the scattered bones.

“
I’m not… come on,” Emily
said, heading further back into the corridor.

They went room to room as Emily shone
her flashlight on the walls and ceiling. This time she ignored the
bones and various objects and focused on the walls, looking for
something written or drawn.

Emily stopped when the walls of the
crypt were stained red and bones were scattered across the surface
of the hallway.

“
Damn, wonder what happened
here,” the tallest guard said.

Emily sighed, “Chevalier got
mad.”

He raised an eyebrow, looking around,
impressed, and then followed Emily deeper into the
tombs.

Any door that Emily couldn’t open, the
guards got for her. She searched late into the night until she
found something that could help her. Behind one of the large, heavy
doors was an office. Papers and books were laid out on the top of a
crypt along with ancient parchment with dark writing in a language
Emily didn’t recognize.

Emily changed the batteries in the
flashlight and sat it down, then she began pouring through books.
If they were in English, she scanned for signs of what she was
looking for, and if they weren’t in English, she sat them
aside.

“
I’d like to yell and throw
a fit… but at least you brought your guards this time,” Kyle said
from the doorway to the room. Mark was standing behind him and
looked irate.

“
Shhh,” Emily whispered,
still reading through a book.

“
What are you looking for?”
Kyle asked, picking up a book written in Danish and thumbing
through it.

Emily sighed, “I couldn’t ash Larsen
or this Ancient.”

“
Right,” Kyle
said.

“
They told me they
protected themselves against my abilities.”

Kyle nodded, “And you want to know
how.”

“
It has to be in here,”
Emily told him, and threw her book on the floor. She reached over
and grabbed another.

Kyle dismissed the rest of the guards
and began to help her look through the books.

After a few hours, Emily turned off
the flashlight. She was running out of batteries and sat back
against the wall.

“
Can I ask you a personal
question?” she asked Kyle.

Kyle sat down the book,
“Sure.”

“
Are you an ‘old
one’?”

“
No”

“
How old are
you?”

Kyle shrugged, and then realized she
couldn’t see him, “I don’t know… don’t really remember.”

“
Do you remember who made
you?”

“
Yes”

“
Did Chevalier make
you?”

“
No”

Emily thought for a moment, “Did you
get to make the choice?”

“
Yes, I did.”

“
What did you do before
becoming heku?”

“
I was a rancher.” Kyle
sounded amused.

“
Were you
married?”

Kyle tensed. He hadn’t ever been asked
that, and had repressed those memories far back into his
mind.

“
I’m sorry, that’s none of
my business,” Emily said softly.

“
No, it’s ok. I just hadn’t
thought about any of that in a while. Yes, I was
married.”

“
Did she know you
turned?”

Kyle sighed, “No, she died before I
chose to join the heku.”

“
I’m sorry.” Emily’s voice
was soft and warm.

“
Back when I was a rancher,
there were just so many diseases and even a common ailment could
kill you.”

Emily nodded, “Have you ever dated a
heku?”

Kyle chuckled, “No, we don’t
date.”

“
What do you mean? I see
heku together all the time.”

“
Together, yes,” Kyle
explained. “We don’t date, though. Did you date
Chevalier?”

Emily frowned, “No, guess I didn’t. So
don’t evade the question.”

“
No, I haven’t.”

“
Ever considered a mortal?”
Emily asked. She knew this was pushing it.

Kyle chuckled, “Yes.”

“
Willing to give a mortal a
try?”

“
Are you trying to set me
up?” His heart skipped a beat as he wondered briefly if she meant
herself.

“
Maybe”

“
No, I won’t date a
mortal,” he said, lying.

“
Why not?”

Kyle sighed, “I don’t want to watch
someone I love die again. I don’t want to have to live without the
person I love.”

Emily thought for a moment, “Does
Chevalier wish I would turn?”

Kyle’s mouth fell open at this
question. He paused and composed himself, “He’s never
said.”

“
Do you wish I would?”
Emily thought that seemed like an innocent enough
question.

“
I… think we should get
back to the books,” Kyle said. He enjoyed having the opportunity to
watch and study her when she couldn’t see him, but he wasn’t going
to go through these questions with her.

Emily nodded and turned on the
flashlight. She picked up another book and looked through
it.

“
Hrm, what’s
‘
dulcris cruor’?” Emily asked.

Kyle took the book from her and looked
at it, “You are.”

Emily took the book back from him,
“This is it then.”

“
I’m not sure we should
tell anyone about this,” Kyle said after a few minutes.

“
Why not?”

“
Think about if you are
attacked, the only way you have to fight it off is to ash, what if
that’s taken away,” Kyle said.

Emily nodded, “I realize
that. I had to deal with it with Larsen.”

“
I just don’t know if it’s
a good idea to take that defense away from you,” Kyle told
her.

“
What’s bloodletting?” She
ignored his comment.

“
Give me that,” Kyle said,
and took the book. He read for a moment, “So the heku is completely
drained of blood, and then feeds off of the ‘dulcris
cruor’.”

“
Sounds easy
enough.”

“
No, it’s not. Once the
heku is drained of blood, their survival instincts will kick in and
they won’t want to stop feeding.”

“
So let’s try it,” Emily
said.

Kyle smiled, “Not a
chance.”

“
You’re afraid it won’t
work and I’ll ash you?”

“
No, I’m afraid of draining
you,” Kyle said calmly.

“
Oh, well, there has to be
a way around that.”

“
It’s not worth the risk.
The protection only lasts for about a week,” Kyle said, shutting
the book.

Emily picked it up, “I’m at least
going to show Chev.”

Kyle took the book from
her, “I don’t think it should leave this crypt, and I don’t think
you should tell anyone what it said.”

“
What if Alexis learns to
ash? She could wipe out the entire city.”

“
Stop trying to protect us!
If someone does something that scares her, then they deserve to be
burned.” Kyle took the book and started tearing it into
pieces.

“
Let’s try it,” Emily said
again.

“
No, end of discussion,”
Kyle said, dropping pieces of the book onto the floor.

Emily’s flashlight slowly died,
“Dang.”

“
I can get us out,” Kyle
said, watching her again.

Emily rubbed her arms, it
was starting to get cold.

“
My turn?” Kyle
asked.

“
Ask away.”

“
Why do you stay with the
heku? It’s obviously not for protection,” Kyle asked her, and
studied her face.

“
Would you believe love?”
Emily smiled.

“
Take Chevalier out of the
picture, then you would leave?”

“
Hmm, no, I guess
not.”

“
Then why? I mean, look at
all that has happened to you in the last eight or nine years. Why
do you stay?”

Emily pulled her knees up
to her chest and wrapped her arm around them, “It’s the first place
I’ve ever known where I feel like I am wanted… pathetic
huh?”

“
Not at all.”

“
Don’t get me wrong, I’m
pretty sure if I lost the ability to ash or reproduce, I’d be
dropped out on my ass,” Emily laughed.

“
Oh I bet not. We’ve all
become quite attached.”

“
Which brings me back to
why in the hell you all don’t kick me out on my ass? Take Chevalier
out of the picture,” Emily said, and laid her head on her knees,
her face toward him.

“
Oh we’ve thought about it…
but we’re afraid you’d wipe out Council City,” Kyle
chuckled.

Emily threw her flashlight
at him. She couldn’t see because of the dark, but he caught it and
set it down beside him.

“
If Chevalier was banished,
for any reason, would you stay?”

“
I’ve thought about that
before,” Emily said seriously. “I decided I would go to the Valle
and offer to stay with them if they would un-banish
him.”

Kyle gasped. He’d never
heard of anything like that before, “I would keep that little bit
of information to yourself.”

Emily nodded, “I will, but we’re being
honest here, right?”

“
Right, next question. Did
you love Keith?” Kyle watched her expression closely and noticed
her arms tightened around her knees.

Emily sighed, “I thought I
did, but now, that I look back… no, I didn’t. You must have thought
I was quite the idiot when you first met me. Here I come in the car
with your Chief Enforcer. I have a bruise around my neck, and the
within an hour I had the crap beat out of me.”

“
Quite the contrary. I was
fascinated by you from the moment you stepped out of that car. It
took a lot of control on my part not to kill him the first time he
hit you.”

“
Why didn’t you?” Emily
asked.

“
It was obvious to me that
the Chief Enforcer was interested in you, and I wasn’t going to
break his orders,” Kyle sighed. He’d often regretted that
decision.