“Real?” Vayne laughed. “Of course, she’s real. She created your kind. One day, the Valkyrie abandoned her. Her own flesh and blood, and they abandoned her.”
“Have you seen her?” Eira asked.
“Not in a long, long time.”
What would an Ancient consider a long, long time to be? Would that be measured in centuries or millennia? It wasn’t her concern, though. The Freyja of old, the one responsible for bringing about the Valkyrie and the berserkers, was practically a myth, and she had nothing to do with the Valkyrie of today. She’d abandoned them, by Emme’s estimation, though she wasn’t sure of the history. Had the Valkyrie rewritten history? Had they left Freyja behind all those years ago, as Vayne had stated?
The sorceress studied the armband. “Mae mentioned that this is keeping your wolf at bay, but when you don’t wear it, he tries to kill you? And has been for years?”
Asa nodded.
“I’ve seen the scars of those attempts,” Range affirmed. “We all have.”
The other two Wulfsen brothers nodded emphatically. “Sure have.”
Vayne stepped away and paced the floor in front of the window, her heels tapping on the hardwood.
“Can you help him?” Magnus asked. “Can you fix this?”
“I have to think on it. Sorcery wasn’t used on them during the study, right?”
Asa shrugged. “Not that I know of. They gave us drugs by IV. Took samples of our blood, hair, skin scrapings.”
“Did they do any testing while you were shifted?” Magnus asked.
“Yeah,” Asa said.
“Nope. No. Nah.” Came from the other three brothers.
Then Range turned to Asa. “They got you to shift?”
“Yeah.” Asa looked at his brothers one at a time. “You didn’t?”
“No, I didn’t.” Range affirmed.
“Me either,” and “Nope,” came from Jason and Davin.
“So, what can we draw from this?” Griz said. “If Range’s eyes are turning red, but he didn’t shift during the study, then the red eyes have nothing to do with the study.”
“True. But what’s happening with my wolf started after the study,” Asa asserted. “And as of right now, that’s the only problem I see. I don’t care what color my eyes are.” He gritted his teeth. “The red eyes might be part of being the son of a vampire.”
Emme thought the whole descended-from-a-vampire thing wasn’t an easy pill for a shifter to swallow. She knew she would have had an issue with it.
“So, then, solution?” Griz asked the Ancients. “As I see it, this is for you four Ancients to fix. These guys didn’t deserve to be born with these genetics.” He threw his hands upward. “You play gods to those of us who don’t have your power. You should clean up your mess.” He looked at Asa. “No offense, not saying you’re a mess, just sayin’.”
Magnus hissed again then muttered to Vayne. “He doesn’t seem to realize whom he’s talking to.”
Griz shrugged. “Sure, I get it. You could kill me before I could blink. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t tell it how I see it.”
Omar stepped between Magnus and Griz, facing the vampire. “You do not threaten my kind.” His voice was a low rumble. “It is bad enough you chose to bed my daughter.”
Vayne tsked. “If you are casting stones, Omar, keep in mind that you had a daughter. We agreed not to procreate. To no muddy the situations. I have to wonder how many half-Ancient children are out there that we don’t know about.”
Omar grunted. “You should ask the other Ancients.”
“Maybe we were hasty in determining that convention,” Quake said.
“Ha.” Magnus’s brown eyes flashed red for a brief second. “You say that because of your little swamp tiger.”
Quake whirled on him. The room seemed to roll like an earthquake’s tremor. Lightning cracked outside. In the near distance, thunder rolled. “You don’t speak of her.”
“I shouldn’t say that I’ve considered sampling her wares?”
Emme had no clue what the hell they were talking about, but they were scaring her, and she didn’t frighten easily. Was this going to be an Ancient World War?
“Gentlemen.” Vayne stepped between the two, grabbing their neckties in each hand. “Settle down. You’ll scare the near-mortals in the room.” She proceeded to tuck the ties in and pat them into place. “Play nice.”
“Do you have a suggestion?” Mae asked Vayne. “Any idea how to help them?”
“I could check to see if the soul binding between Asa and his wolf is intact,” Vayne suggested. “If you prefer I didn’t, then he could wear that arm brace forever.”
Range, Jason, and Devin growled in unison.
“No?” Vayne shrugged. “What if Magnus were to turn him? Make him a vampire?”
“Hell, no,” Asa burst out. “I’m a wolf shifter.”
Staying silent, Magnus raised a brow.
“No offense,” Asa told the one who’d fathered him.
With pursed lips and amusement in his eyes, Magnus nodded his acceptance of the apology.
“What do you need to do this?” Asa asked Vayne.
“To not be around a three-ring circus that’s distracting me with their male pissing contests.” She pointedly glanced between Magnus, Omar, Quake, and Griz.
“I’ll show you to a private, secluded area,” Quake told her.
Asa and Vayne followed Quake out of the room.
“Well,” Eira muttered to Emme. “This has been a most interesting turn of events.”
Range turned to Omar and Magnus. “What happened to my mother? Why did you have our memories taken away?”
Omar put a hand on his shoulder. “My daughter was always more comfortable in her wolf. It was rare to get her to shift to human and come into civilization. She preferred the forest and her solitude.” He cast an irritated glance toward Magnus. “How he managed to seduce her away from her woods and nature, to join him in society, much less for a century is beyond me.”
Magnus snarled at Omar. “I loved your daughter. She— I will not discuss her.” He turned to Range. “I had your memories erased to protect her. I didn’t want you used to find where she was and put into peril. Many would kill to have the power of an Ancient. As the daughter of one, she’d have been used to draw one—or more—of us out. To keep her safe and you safe, and all the rest of us safe, it seemed best her young wolf pups did not know the circumstances of their birthright.” He gave a continental shrug.
Emme found their conversation interesting, but her mind was on Asa and what he might be going through. Was checking on the soul binding between Asa and his wolf painful? Would it harm one or the other?
She found herself wishing she was in there with him. Or, if not, then maybe she could be a fly on the wall.
Chapter Seventeen
Asa followed Vayne and Quake down the corridor. Two doors away from the room they’d just been in, he led the way into a room that was set up more like a sitting room. Four wing chairs flanked a pair of side tables.