"What do you mean?"
She sat up and crossed her legs. "For example, I found information on the hunters. They were originally witches created by the Forseti. I didn't get all the details, but he created them when vampires were made."
Jax raised his eyebrows. "Oh? Is there information about how we were made?"
Kendra shook her head. "No, not in any of the information I looked at. I mean, they might know it, but I was skimming through deities, looking for anything that looked familiar."
"That sounds crazy interesting." I hung up the one dress I'd brought, just in case by some miracle Jax and I found time to go out to dinner or something.
"It really was. When I get more time, Janice promised to take me back so I can study more." Her eyes widened. "I forgot to tell you the best part!"
"Tell me, tell me." I pushed my suitcase aside and jumped on the bed beside her as Jax chuckled at us. He acted like we were silly, but I felt pulsing love through the bond. He liked being a part of this.
"Luci really was Loki. That's as far back as the hunters have data on him, but he was also Hades. And Anubis. And Hel. And Pluto. All of them. He's the literal god of Death."
"Hold on." Jax got on the bed opposite me, looking just as invested in her words as I was. "I know he has said he's a god, but—"
"Yes. He literally is."
Jax's phone beeped as he sputtered. Apparently, he hadn't believed Luci when he'd told us who he was. I'd taken him at his word. Why wouldn't I?
Jax checked his message and got up. "They're ready for us."
I pecked a kiss on Kendra's cheek. "Have fun shopping."
Kendra jumped up and made a portal on the other side of the room, which we'd designated as our portal space. We always worried about popping in somewhere and slicing someone in half because they were standing in the spot Kendra created the portal.
Hey, it could happen. And if it could happen, Kendra would worry about it.
As we stepped into the hall to walk to the council meeting, I looked up at my mate. Confusion still rolled through our bond. "You didn't believe him?"
Jax shook his head. "Not really. I mean, if the gods truly ever existed, which I'm still on the fence if they did, but they don't exist now. There is absolutely no evidence any gods are still on Earth."
"Apparently you were mistaken."
"That's why I'm so shocked. If Luci is a god, then what other deities could still be roaming the world? Out there just... existing?"
I shrugged. "We need to figure it out. Kendra can't not know who gave her powers."
"Now that I know they're actually real, I want to know all about them." He chuckled and opened the council chamber door for me. "I can't not know either."
Oh, geez. Those two were going to be like dogs with their bones. That was a problem for another day, though. The rest of the council was gathered around the table, waiting for us.
"Hello," Dom said, and stood to shake our hands. "Thank you for coming."
Jax pulled his sire into a back-slapping hug. "Glad to be here."
After I pressed a fond kiss to Dom's cheek, he looked around at the gathered council. "Okay. Let's get started. We have a lot to go over today, and I know we're all eager to get started on the apartments."
Celene stood. "The first order of business is that we must come to an agreement on how to handle the vampires in our dungeon."
They'd been down there for a couple of months now. Ever since we'd had the big battle in this very room. Our friend Ava, a necromancer, had used a truth stone to establish which of the vampires had helped Soran and Gretchen of their own free will. The imprisoned were truly guilty, beyond a shadow of a doubt. They'd killed humans, other vampires, and who knew what all else they'd done.
"We kill them." Dominic shrugged. "I know it's extreme, but they've been proven to be beyond rehabilitation."
"Then we have to kill Meredith, too," Jax said sadly. "We have to establish how we want to deal with rule breakers, lawbreakers, and the like. We must be consistent."
I held up my hand. "Hold on. Those people knowingly chose to act the way they did. Meredith is grieving. She's not in her right mind."
"Here we go again," Zeke muttered. "Each crime deserves to have its own individual sentence. There will always be circumstances that make each situation different."
“Have we heard anything from Meredith?” Amaya asked. “How is the search going?”
“We’ve paused it.” Jax’s face changed only slightly, but our bond told me he was very worried about his old friend. “She’s gone underground. We might as well try to search the world. We have a computer expert, Greg, who runs constant scans for us. Things like certain keywords from news articles, also a track on all of her known credit cards, but she’s a vampire. She only needs her ability to compel to be able to disappear.”
Dominic nodded once. “She’ll resurface, eventually. Be patient.”
"What about rolling juries?" Celene suggested, changing the subject. I appreciated her doing it, too, because Jax was miserable about Meredith. "We did that several hundred years ago and it worked pretty well."
"Why'd you stop?" I asked.
She rolled her eyes. "Gretchen didn't like the system."
Of course she didn’t. "It probably made it more difficult for her to be an evil bitch."
That got a laugh from everyone. "Okay, so let's explore the jury idea," Dom said. "Perhaps every vampire can be required to give one week."
"We need an odd number of people on the jury," I said. "So, they can't tie."
"Good, good." Dom started typing on his laptop. I grinned at Jax. It'd been Jax who'd gotten them set up digitally.
No more scrolls and feather pens for our council. We were modern.
We spent a good hour banging out the details of the jury idea. By the time Dominic called a halt on that subject, I was more than ready to move on. "I have something to ask," I said, trying not to sound timid. I was as much a member of this council as any of them.
That fact was sometimes hard to remember when staring at Amaya, a vampire over two thousand years old. "If we are still going the route of creating rogue hunting teams, now that we have an alliance with the hunters, shouldn't we include them in our teams?"
That set off another hour-long debate, but at the end of this one, we had a concrete answer: Yes.
"I will work with Pearl and create teams in different regions of our lands." I put a note on my calendar to schedule a conference call with the hunters' matriarch. "I do think they'll be a good addition."
I agreed. We'd told them about Janice. I was already growing fond of the woman. I was sure they would like her too.
Not long after deciding on the hunters joining the rogue hunting teams, Dom dismissed the meeting. We were to take a fifteen-minute break, then meet in Soran’s suite.
I texted Kendra that we’d be ready to go through Soran’s stuff in fifteen.
8