Lachlan’s head snapped sideways, pinning Valor with an accusing glare for the length of a heartbeat before turning back to the enemy.
I couldn’t blame the woman for keeping us in the dark about that little bit of information. She thought she’d been protecting her family. But damn if that didn’t make our situation a fuck-load more dangerous. In high enough doses, Night Thistle would drive a vampire into instant, irreversible, fixated bloodlust that would require an assassin’s bullet to put down.
“Why would you betray us like that? You had everything!” he shouted, his gun-hand shaking slightly and drawing every ounce of my attention. “You were destined to take over Moorehouse! You would have been the first woman with a seat on the Board of the Sons!”
Sons...The Sons of Honor.
No. Fucking. Way.
The pieces clicked in rapid succession. Moorehouse. Sons. Night Thistle. Why the hell hadn’t I seen it?
“Every Moorehouse was killed after the 1802 massacre.” My statement shut them all up. Lachlan tensed at my side.
Moorehouse’s gaze snapped back to meet mine. “You mean the systematic slaughter of a hundred and three patriots?” he asked softly. “Is that what you call it? The massacre?”
“No,” Lachlan answered for me. “That’s what we call the night the Sons of Honor lost all their integrity by breaking the Covenant they’d begged us for, and massacring the noble bloodlines of witches, wolves, and demons, to include my grandfather and the Markovs!” His voice shook the glass in the panels of the doors that lined the halls.
“The covenant never should have existed!” Moorhouse shouted. “We could have won the revolution without you! But the original thirteen families were so weak that they put the fate of this country in the hands of…abominations. They’d made a deal with the devil and finally started to set things right by beginning your extermination. They were patriots who died defending the human race, and we will finish their fight!”
The guards all nodded, the same crazed zeal in their eyes that shone in Moorehouse’s.
Lyric’s heart slowed even further, and it took everything in my body to keep my gaze locked on Moorehouse. If I could just keep him talking, he’d slip and give me the split-second advantage I needed to get Lyric out of here alive.
“They were cowards who murdered children in their beds,” Lachlan countered.
“My ancestor, Zebulon Moorehouse, was no coward! He ran from the house as a horde of you undead fucks set it on fire! He lived, and we live on! Descendants of the twelve honorable families who wouldn’t live under the reign of evil!”
Twelve. Because the O’Flanneries had been the thirteenth and never wavered from their support of the Covenant.
I felt an ice-kissed breeze along the back of my neck and smiled. It was time.
“What the fuck are you smiling about? I have your queen! I have the upper hand!” His voice pitched higher with every word.
“Zebulon Moorehouse didn’t escape the fire. I let him go.” I shrugged.
Moorehouse’s jaw dropped.
Good.
Prickles of heat danced over my forearm, and my grin widened.
“He was the nephew of Abigail and Ephraim, if I remember correctly, and I do.” That night was crystal clear in my memory. I could still smell the wood as it caught fire. “After all, he was the one who’d led us to that meetinghouse where all the families were celebrating the death of our loved ones.”
“You lie!” He shuffled Lyric forward, and her heartbeat picked back up. “It was his son Isaac, my great-great-great-grandfather, who wrote The Liberated Sons’ Manifesto! Isaac wrote it all down and raised us up! Zebulon was a hero!”
I cocked my head to the side. “You’re telling me that you’re not just a Moorehouse, but you’re a direct descendant of Zebulon?” Fascinating.
“I am honored to be his progeny!” He yanked Lyric even higher against his chest, and her toes dangled off the floor before she found the ground again.
My stomach churned, and my vision flipped back to thermal for two blinks. Then it was back, and I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at my mate’s eyes.
They were locked on mine, wide, but steady.
I’m okay. I felt her words down the bond as clearly as if she’d whispered them in my ear, and they steadied me like nothing else could have. My queen wasn’t quivering in fear. She was strong and shaken, but nowhere near broken.
She glanced to my left, then my right.
I nodded almost imperceptibly, but she saw it.
“What honor do you have?” Moorehouse yelled, his complexion shifting from red to almost purple in his rage. “If you saw Zebulon that night, you were there when they set the building on fire! You let them die!”
“In my defense, they were already dead. In fact, I personally killed Ephraim and Abigail, who I might add, was dancing around in my mother’s pearls. The pearls Ephraim had taken off my mother’s body the night before while I’d been upstate.” I bared my fangs. “And I thought the fire was a fitting ending since they’d dragged my parents wounded bodies from the safety of our home into the sun to burn. Why do you think we killed every human involved? They were the only ones who knew the location of the estate.”
Some of the color left Moorehouse’s face. “And the humans here that you’ve slaughtered? You betrayed your own Covenant!”
“For which I will answer to the Conclave. It was your kind that broke the Covenant, not ours.”
“And I’m ready to rule justifiable homicide.” Genevieve appeared to my right in the space between my arm and Benedict, her icy glamour falling away in an avalanche of magic. “What about you, Xavier?”
Heat blasted at my left as Xavier dropped his own glamour, cracking a yawn. “I agree, and I’ve got O’Flannery here on the nanny cam.” He wiggled his cell phone.
“I agree. No charges will be brought by the Consortium.”
“Excellent, then we all agree.” Xavier cracked a grin, revealing a dimple.
“But…but…” Moorehouse sputtered, and the gun against Lyric’s head began to tremble. “We’re protected here! You can’t—”
“Please. I wear jewelry with more ruby dust than this.” Genevieve rolled her eyes. “We’re ancients, you dumbass human.”
Xavier sighed. “Now will you just get to the part where you tell Borehouse over here that Zeb was half-vampire? Because this whole evil mastermind speech is boring the shit out of me, and I have better things to do at five a.m., like sleep.”
Valor sucked in an audible breath.
Moorehouse lost a little of that color. “You lie!”
“Like I’d even bother with you. I’ve seen enough.” His gaze settled on a wounded guard at the edge of the hallway. “Oooh, look, a nice survivor to interrogate. I want answers on how you convinced those low-level demons to attack the vampire princess.” He gripped the man by the collar, then nodded at Lyric. “Nice to meet you, Seer. Good luck surviving the morning.” He disappeared.
Moorehouse gave a battle cry and wrenched the gun away from Lyric’s head.
Now.
Bullets erupted from the pistol as I charged him, speeding past the diaphanous barrier of frosted wind as I raced toward Lyric.