“Are there any regional updates since our last meeting two days ago?” she asked.
A woman of Asian descent, wearing a silver kimono and a ridiculous green hat the Queen of England would admire, stood first and delivered her report. I listened, taking time to become acclimated to the council before starting my task. That was my excuse anyway, but to be honest, nerves kept my mind from going there. The council members—not just creatures from my books, but the most powerful ones of our society—were intimidating enough. What if I screwed up? What if my wall fell and everyone found out what I was doing? I didn’t have the best control under ideal circumstances, and now I’d been thrown to the wolves. Part of me wanted to know what was going on, but the other part hid like a coward.
The Asian woman said the Daemoni had pulled back, with the last two attacks in China and Vietnam nearly twenty-four hours ago, about the same time Vanessa found Tristan and me in the Aegean Sea. Finding us was easy for the vamp—she’d drank my blood, creating a connection between us. It wouldn’t last, though. As she burned through my blood, consuming it as a fire consumes fuel, the connection would weaken and disappear. That’s what Tristan had told me, anyway.
Other council members simply said they’d experienced the same in their regions, although two had suffered rogue attacks. One this morning had delayed two council members.
Amadis all over the world were on edge, knowing attacks could resume at any time, and the council briefly discussed options for fighting back, but I tuned them out. The Ang’dora had enlarged the capacity of my brain, or, at least, allowed me to engage those parts most humans never do use, but I still had difficulty following the conversation, being unfamiliar with my new world—or with war strategy, for that matter. I observed my subjects a little longer, needing to gain a better understanding of them before tapping into their minds.
Besides Solomon and Armand, the French vampire who’d been shut down by Rina, the only other vampire on the council was Julia, who I recognized from the Keys. As Owen had mentioned, Julia definitely appeared to be a closer advisor to Rina than the rest of the council, besides Solomon. Rina looked to her often, and I suspected they exchanged silent communication frequently, though Julia never spoke aloud. The dark-haired vampire had eyed me during the meeting’s opening, more closely than everyone else, scrutinizing me just as she had done at the beach house. She still felt wrong to me, though I couldn’t explain the feeling.
Armand, it became apparent, oversaw the Amadis equivalent of the police—the group who ensured Amadis people managed themselves responsibly, whether within the Amadis society or while mainstreaming in the Norman world. In other words, that they didn’t bite or curse people.
My gaze skimmed over the shifters, who were nearly as mesmerizing as the vampires and easier to identify than I expected. I couldn’t distinguish by sight exactly what kind of were-animal each was—by possessing animal bodies, the Ancients had created a shifter bloodline in the form of every predatory animal on Earth. I thought one woman may have been a bird, perhaps an eagle or falcon. With thin limbs but powerful-looking shoulders and chest, round eyes, and a long nose, she certainly looked like a bird.
I identified the mages easily, too—not only because they obviously weren’t vamps or shifterss, but while in the village, Tristan had pointed out their eccentric tastes, including their fashion styles. It wasn’t so easy determining what kind of mage each was—a female witch, a male wizard, or a more powerful warlock. All I knew was they weren’t sorcerers because according to Owen, the Amadis didn’t have any.
“Martin,” Rina said, the name catching my attention, “your intelligence update, please.”
The man sitting next to Charlotte stood, and I bit off a small sound of surprise. I’d expected to see an older version of Owen, but my protector definitely took after his mother, except his stature, which was exactly like his father’s—tall with long, sinewy muscles wrapping their lean frames.
“Yes, Ms. Katerina,” Martin said, giving her a nod. He scrubbed his hand through his shoulder-length, black hair, just as Owen would do, and, like Owen, three lines appeared between his eyebrows when he pushed them together in thought. The resemblance stopped there, however. Besides his dark hair that was nearly opposite Owen’s blond, Martin’s blue eyes were several shades lighter than Owen’s and set into a fine-boned face that gave him a pretty-boy look.
Martin pressed his long-fingered hand down his white, button-down shirt, as if straightening it, pushed his shoulders back and lifted his chin. He spoke with a faint trace of an Irish accent and lilt, as if he’d had many years’ practice in hiding it. “As we expected, the Daemoni are preparing for war. Their attacks on Amadis villages may have stopped for the time being, but they’re making plans to grow their army.”
The statement sent a chill up my spine. Building their army meant attacking and infecting norms—changing them into vampires and shifters. Of course, that meant the Amadis must fight back by converting the newly turned as quickly as possible, saving their souls and growing our own army at the same time.
“They won’t let Tristan—or Alexis—go easily, of course,” Martin added. “They will fight for them, harder than ever. Since we have them protected here, they appear to be in the midst of making plans for flushing them out. I recommend we keep them here on the island as long as possible, for their protection.”
“I disagree,” Armand said. “They need to mainstream. The boy is getting old enough to remember what he sees here. He cannot know our secrets, since he will . . .”
I didn’t hear the rest of Armand’s sentence—I didn’t have to, though, to understand he and others would want to protect the Amadis secrets from Dorian, their future enemy.
Rina broke into my mind.
“Alexis,” she said, again sounding as though she yelled in my head, automatically grabbing my attention. “Have you started?”
I pressed my lips together and wiped my palms on my dress as tendrils of anxiety slithered in and around me.
“Focus on the mages,” Rina instructed. “They are the only ones who could block me. You do not need to worry about the others.”
I pulled in a deep breath, tried to blow out the tension inside me, and commanded myself to proceed. The discussion of when we’d need to mainstream resided in one part of my brain, while I used another part to conjure my cloud. I envisioned enlarging the black cloud beyond my head, which took more work than ever before, probably because nerves tried to hold it in. With effort, I pushed it out to enshroud Charlotte, who I thought would be a good start. Nice and safe.
She wasn’t completely focused on the conversation either, but silently cussed at Mom for dragging her onto the council with all of its hellishly boring meetings, when she could be out fighting. Although, she also admitted to herself, she was happy to be paired up with Mom again and couldn’t wait for the paybacks Mom owed her for this meeting. Paybacks that involved margaritas on the beach and working with me. Hmm . . . what does that mean? I couldn’t linger on that last thought, though, and forced the cloud to Martin, but didn’t stay long with him, either—his mind was focused completely on the discussion, and he was Owen’s dad, after all. A pang of guilt stabbed at me for invading his parents’ thoughts in the first place.