Page 25 of Alan

9

Alan

The dark tunnel opened into a wide, round room lined with torches.

And full of Blood Moon Priestesses.

I spotted Selene and went straight to her. “Where are they?” I demanded, snarling at the sight of her. Time had been good to her, but then it would be. I was certain she hadn’t aged a day in appearance in at least two centuries.

How dare she stand there, looking calm and peaceful without a hair out of place, while holding two women hostage in her godforsaken cave?

“You cannot see them?” she asked. Her voice rang out loud and clear over the entrance of my team, who entered the room behind me. I got the sense she was laughing at me, as the Priestesses tended to do to anyone who did not share their powers.

As though I had no powers of my own.

“If you’ve placed a spell on them, you know I cannot.” I glanced around, ensuring every one of the witches was covered by at least one dragon. “Bring them out, reveal them, whatever you need to do.”

“You know I cannot let her go,” Selene murmured. “You know it is impossible. She is one of us.”

“Like hell!” Tamhas bellowed. “She is my mate, not one of your Priestesses.”

“Your mate?” For once, Selene appeared surprised. As though there was something she wasn’t clever enough to foresee.

“Yes. His mate. You were not aware?”

“We hardly had time to discuss such matters,” she informed me. “You interrupted us before I could inquire after her personal life.”

“Where is she?” Tamhas demanded.

I sensed his desire to lunge for the Priestess, to hurt her if need be, and I hoped he could gather his wits in time to avoid such foolishness. We might well have been dragons and powerful in our own right, but Selene was by far the most talented and powerful Priestess in generations.

I doubted her powers had subsided over the decades. If anything, they’d strengthened.

“How dare you enter our home and demand anything from us?” I recognized Iris. She hadn’t changed much, always looking to start a fight.

I recognized all of them, in fact—including Hecate, whose eyes I remembered not to look into. She would certainly be of a mind to silence or freeze all of us.

“This does not need to devolve into a fight,” I reminded everyone around me. “We have not come here to attack you. We’ve merely come to retrieve Keira and Emelie.”

“You cannot have either of them,” Selene announced. How she could make such a statement while hardly batting an eyelash was far beyond me.

“Do you truly wish for things to come to a head between us?” I asked. “After what you’ve done to our clan?”

She blinked. For once, something threw her off-balance. “What are you referring to? You are the reason we were forced deeper than ever into hiding. We’ve had to protect ourselves all these years, because of you.”

It was my turn to blink. “What do you mean?”

We stared at each other for a long, tense moment, sizing up the other’s intentions. If there was one thing I remembered clearest about Selene, it was her sense of fairness. She would not make up untruths simply to legitimize the grudge against our clan.

My shoulders fell, my body relaxing. “It seems we have more than a few topics to discuss. What is the purpose of this? I’m willing to stand down and promise no shifting against your coven so long as you at least bring Keira and Emelie to us. We will work everything else out, I’m certain. We’re both civilized and reasonable.”

She pursed her lips in thought, and I knew what she was doing to me. She could read energies, impressions. I merely needed her to see and understand the motivation behind my words. I meant her no harm.

We only wanted what was ours. Even if that meant Emelie, too.

She held up both hands—I tensed, fearing she was about to cast a spell to harm us. Instead, it was a signal to her coven, as all of them backed down from the fighting stances they’d taken when we entered.

“You cannot mean this,” Iris hissed.

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