Eternity of Vengeance : Book 7 of the Heku Series (55 page)

“Just a couple hours ago,” Mark said
as he walked up.

“Where was Horace today?”

“Up past the leech pond.
He was stationed there for a few hours this morning.”

She nodded and whistled,
“Devia!”

When the dog ran in, Emily
slipped a bridle on her stallion and led him out of the stables. By
the time she slid onto the horse, Mark, Silas, and Kralen were
mounted and ready to go.

She shook her head and
then called the Border collie as she set off through the city. The
heku spoke about the serial killer while Emily thought through
reasons for Horace’s horse to be listless and shaky. It wasn’t
until they got to a small field outside of the pond that Emily slid
off and bent down to pick up a small white flower.

“What’d you find?” Mark asked, looking
closely at the flower in her hand.

“Hemlock, damnit. That
horse must be dumber than a box of rocks,” she said, and got back
onto her horse.

“Is hemlock bad?”

“Yes, it has neurotoxins.
Hopefully she didn’t eat too much. Take this,” she said, and handed
it over to Mark. “Make sure your guards don’t let their horses sit
and munch on this stuff.”

He took it and looked closely at it,
“Will do.”

Emily looked out over the
changing fall colors of the nearby trees and flexed her left hand.
It felt stiff to her and tingled slightly.

“You ok?” Kralen asked, and pulled his
mare up beside her.

“Sure, just looking.”

“Did you hurt your hand?”

“No, just bent it
wrong.”

“When’re you going to
officially re-join the Cavalry?” Silas asked. Mark looked up and
moved his horse up beside them.

She grinned, “Never, I told you… not
my thing.”

“She’s already a member
anyway,” Mark said, and then smiled broadly when she looked over at
him.

“No I’m not.”

“You can’t quit the
Cavalry, or guard staff for that matter. It’s against all heku
tradition.”

“Yes I can, and I did.”

“Can’t… it’s never been
done,” Mark said, and kicked his horse into a gallop.

Emily glared at him and
did the same, easily catching up and passing him. Devia ran along
behind them, barking and nipping at the horses as they ran. They
were just past the front gates to Council City when she heard
shouting and stopped her horse. She glanced behind her and saw the
three heku were further away and watching down a dark
street.

“What’s up?” Emily asked when she
neared them.

“City Guards are
fighting,” Silas whispered. Emily looked toward the noise and saw
fifteen heku in a bloody brawl.

“Stop them!”

“Let them fight it out,
unless it gets out of hand, and then we’ll step in,” Mark told her,
keeping a close eye on the fight.

She sighed, “We can’t just let them
kill each other.”

“Course we can. They’ll
feel better after there’s blood spilled,” Kralen said, and then
laughed.

“Lady Emily?” she heard
from behind her. She turned to find one of the prison
guards.

“What did I do now?” she asked him,
frowning.

He grinned slightly, “I’m
not here for the Council. We have a prisoner asking for you and
Elder Chevalier said it would be ok to relay that to
you.”

“Which prisoner?”

“Alec, Ma’am.”

“I… I don’t know,” she said, and
suddenly found her heart racing.

Mark pulled his horse up beside her
and laid a hand on her shoulder, “If you want to talk to him, we’ll
go with you.”

“The Elder said you could,
so it’s ok,” the guard said, and watched her.

Silas hissed at the prison guard and
his eyes grew wide, then he blurred away quickly, returning to his
post.

She sighed, “I wonder what he
wants.”

“Why don’t we all go find
out?” Kralen suggested. “If it gets out of hand, we’ll just leave
and he can go back to his cell where he belongs.”

“He hates me,” Emily
whispered as she watched her horse pick at the lush grass alongside
the city street.

“Alec is too new to the
heku lifestyle. He’s just confused.”

“He chose Exavior over me.”

“I’m not saying it’s an excuse, but
it’s hard to break your ties to your maker,” Silas told
her.

She nodded, “I’ve heard
that.”

“Bring Alec to the
conference room,” Mark said, and then looked toward Emily. “We’ll
be there.”

She took a deep breath and
kicked her horse into a canter back toward the palace. The city
guards were no longer fighting, and it seemed to her like a sudden
silence had fallen over the city.

Members of the Cavalry
took their horses and the four headed quietly into the conference
room.

Emily stopped outside of
the door and took a deep breath before turning to Mark, “Let me do
this alone.”

He frowned slightly, “Are you
sure?”

“Yes,” she whispered, and
walked into the conference room, shutting the door behind
her.

Alec shifted uncomfortably as Emily
took a seat across from him and laid her hands on the table, “You
called for me?”

Alec nodded, “How are you,
Emi?”

“I’m good, thanks.”

They sat in silence for a
few minutes before Emily spoke, “Did you need
something?”

“Yes… I made a mistake. I
see that now and I wanted to apologize.”

“Ok”

“I don’t want to spend my new life in
prison.”

“So are you apologizing to get out of
prison, or to ask forgiveness for turning on your
family?”

“We both turned on our families, don’t
you think?”

“No, actually, I don’t think I
did.”

“You did… when you chose the Equites
over me.”

Emily fought the tears, “You wanted me
to leave my husband and children to go live with someone who
tortured me.”

“I wouldn’t have let that happen,”
Alec told her.

“You wouldn’t have had a
choice.”

He sighed, “I don’t want
to get into this again, Emi. I want to know how to get out of your
prison.”

“My prison?”

“Yes, I believe I am here because they
are afraid I will hurt you.”

“You are here because you
took over where Exavior left off. You led the Ferus faction,
instigated attacks against the Equites and the Valle, and just
won’t stop… You have to let it go, Alec.”

Alec whispered harshly,
“Don’t act all high and mighty… You are the one living with the
same creatures that killed your mother. How would your Dad like
that, Emi? He was hell-bent on keeping you safe from them, and as
soon as he dies, you join up with them.”

Her eyes narrowed, “That was the
Encala…”

“Same species… you think
no Equites never attacked you or your Mom? She was terrified of
heku and you protect them now.”

“You can’t generalize the
species, Alec. You know good and well that the Equites don’t treat
me badly and…”

“Yes they do! You’re just
too stupid to realize it. You never were a bright one, Emi,” Alec
said, and leaned back in his chair with a sigh.

“If my Dad was alive, he
would support me on this and you know it! You can call me names all
you want, but it’s not going to change the fact that the Equites
are my family now. I offered to let you come over, but you insisted
on staying with Exavior.”

“Allen would not have
agreed with you!” Alec growled. “You may not remember how much he
hated the heku, but I sure as hell do…”

“Yet you joined them.”

“That’s different. I
wasn’t the one he was fighting to protect, you are.”

“What exactly are you
hoping to accomplish by this, Alec?” Emily asked. It was obvious to
Alec that she was getting extremely angry.

“I want you to pull your head out of
your ass and join me in an unfactioned coven.”

“What makes you think I would do
that?”

“It’s where you belong,”
he said, smiling. “It’s no secret that you and the Equites are no
longer close.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh yeah? Why are you making your own
meals?”

“There’s no reason to have
it done for me, when I can do it myself.”

“Where is your Rubicon?”

“In storage… what does that have to do
with anything?”

Alec grinned, “You make
your own meals because you don’t want to bother the Equites. You
drive that old beat-up Chevy because you bought it yourself and the
Rubicon was purchased by an Equites. You no longer feel welcome
here, and you’re afraid if you make a pain out of yourself, they’ll
kick you out… again… Next time they may not come looking for
you.”

“They didn’t kick me out, that was
a…”

“They didn’t stop it though did
they?”

“No, they didn’t. I don’t
blame them for that,” Emily told him.

“They didn’t stop it
because Chevalier is the only heku keeping you here. The rest would
let you walk out of here and wouldn’t so much as think of you
again.”

Emily lightly tapped her fingers on
the desk, too angry to speak.

“I also didn’t hear of
Chevalier going out to find you, not once. He sent the Cavalry,
secretly hoping you wouldn’t come back. He had to put up pretenses
to keep the other factions happy, to make them think you were still
Equites property.”

She stood up suddenly and
headed for the door. Alec reached out and grabbed her wrist
tightly, “Stop making mistakes, Emi. Stop pretending the Equites
are your family… see them for what they are. I’m all you have left
in this world.”

“Let go,” she whispered, still facing
the door.

“Let me out of here and come with
me.”

She shook her head and
ignored the pain in her wrist as his grasp tightened on her,
“No.”

“Maybe it’s you that needs
to learn the meaning of proditor,” Alec hissed.

Emily turned to him, “I don’t even
know what that means.”

“Your son once tried to
brand Damon with the word proditor… to brand him a traitor. You,
Emi, are the real traitor, and it’s only a matter of time before
everyone sees that,” Alec said, grinning evilly. “You don’t have
the loyalty to stay with the Equites… You’ll turn on them as you
turned on your family, and when you do, they will hunt you
down.”

When the conference room
suddenly flooded with the Council, Alec let go of Emily’s wrist and
was pinned against the wall. Emily ran for the garage and was soon
alone in her truck, heading away from the city.

As she drove at fast
speeds down the Interstate, her eyes filled with tears at Alec’s
words. Her Dad had hated the heku, warned her about them, and even
known one killed her mother. She knew that he would be upset that
she’d grown to love the species and married into it. Alec was all
she had left of her family before Chevalier, and he had turned
against her.

Emily pulled over at the
side of the Interstate when a heavy rain started and she couldn’t
fight the tears any longer. She leaned her head against the
steering wheel and wrapped her arms around herself. Thunder crashed
from above and the sky lit up with huge flashes of lighting. The
rain continued to pound the old truck and Emily used the solidarity
to think through what Alec had told her.

Emily jumped when someone
suddenly opened the passenger door and sat down beside her. She
frowned slightly at the gray robed figure and then smiled when
Sotomar dropped his hood and looked at her.

“Fancy meeting you out here,” he said,
and handed her a tissue.

Emily wiped her eyes and nodded, “Long
day.”

“I would imagine.”

“What are you doing this far from
home?”

“We came to get Larry and
Cody. It is the Valle’s time with them,” he explained, and looked
out as the rain began to come down harder. “Might I ask why you are
out here in the rain by yourself?”

“Thinking”

“Do you need to talk?”

“It’s Alec.”

Sotomar nodded, “Is he
free?”

“No”

“He would, therefore, ask
you to free him.”

Emily nodded, but didn’t
reply.

“When you denied that… then he would
get angry.”

“He did.”

“And the only ammunition
he has is to bring up when you stayed with the Equites instead of
joining him and Exavior with the Ferus.”

“You’re good,” Emily said,
and smiled slightly.

“Things are still tense
between you and the Equites Council. I would imagine he thought it
would be a good time to play off of your weaknesses,” Sotomar said,
and turned to look at her.