Not that he tried very hard.

“You do possess mystical powers,” he rasped, sweeping her off her feet as he went in search of the bedroom. “You just read my mind.”

Styx’s lair in Chicago

Roke didn’t think it was possible that the night, which was already in the crapper, could get any worse.

Tough to top being mated against his will.

But less than an hour after Sally headed to the kitchen to begin brewing her spell and Roke had gone to the gym to work off his seething frustration, he returned to Styx’s study to discover the Anasso throwing his cell phone across the room.

It didn’t take a genius to realize that the latest news wasn’t good, but even forewarned Roke was caught with his mouth hanging open as Styx shared the latest update.

Santiago and Nefri had not only spent the day in the lair of a dragon (a dragon, for Christ’s sake), but Santiago discovered that Gaius might be in the power of the ultimate vampire who was spreading violent emotions like a plague so he could feed.

Perfect.

Just perfect.

Folding his arms over his chest, he waited for Styx to halt his pacing, impervious to the flickering electricity and shattering chandelier.

At least the house was still standing.

“Do you want me to join Santiago?” he at last demanded. “He’s obviously going to need all the help he can get.”

The towering Aztec gave a decisive shake of his head, the turquoise ornaments in his long braid glinting in the splintered light. “Not until we know more about this creature and its powers. I don’t intend to turn my people into fodder for another crazed deity,” he snarled, pausing to study Roke with an unnervingly piercing gaze. “And I doubt you could leave even if you wanted to.”

“Don’t be—” Roke snapped his lips together as his powers instinctively tested his bond with Sally, making sure that she was still near and unharmed. It was an unconscious reflex, but one that he did on a regular basis. Which proved Styx was right. “Shit.”

Styx held his frustrated glare. “For now you need to concentrate on yourself.”

Infuriated by the constant reminder that he was well and truly trapped, Roke slammed a door on his bond with Sally, momentarily succeeding in blunting his awareness of her.

It wouldn’t last more than a few minutes. But it was a tiny win for his ravaged pride.

“I knew that witch was going to be trouble,” he muttered, a bitterness edging his words. “Of course, all women are trouble in one way or another.”

Styx blinked, as if startled by his vehemence. “You don’t like women? Hell, I never considered the possibility.”

Roke snorted. He wasn’t offended. Immortality meant vampires who weren’t mated often experimented with different genders, different species, and a wide variety of sexual appetites.

“I’m physically attracted to females,” he corrected Styx.

“Good,” Styx said. “Not that I give a damn one way or another, but the female will be bound to you until we can find a way to break the mating. You don’t need any additional”—he searched for a word to cover the hideous situation—“confusion.”

“Confusion?” It was Roke’s turn to pace from one end of the office to the other. “It’s a fucking nightmare.”

Styx grimaced. “We’ll find a way to free you from the witch.”

“And if you can’t?”

“Easy, Roke,” Styx murmured.

Abruptly Roke realized his anger was causing the floor to shake beneath their feet. Unlike some vampires, his own powers had little effect on electrical objects, but he could cause significant structural damage if he lost control.

With a grim effort, he leashed his powers. That didn’t, however, ease his frustration, which threatened to combust at the least provocation.

“This is . . .”

“A nightmare,” Styx murmured. “I got that.”

Roke clenched his fists, his gaze trained on the glass cabinet that held Styx’s priceless collection of ancient scrolls. “Did you know my previous clan chief?” he asked abruptly. He could sense Styx’s confusion.

“Gunnar occasionally petitioned my master, but he tended to be a recluse when he visited. I doubt I exchanged half a dozen words with him,” Styx at last admitted. “Why?”

Roke had to force the words past his stiff lips. Speaking about his former clan chief was always difficult. Even after all these years. “When Gunnar allowed me to join his clan he was a stable leader who demanded obedience, but treated us with a justice rarely found in those days.”

“You were fortunate.”

“I was,” Roke agreed. Before the previous Anasso had taken control, vampires had been little better than savage beasts who brutalized one another as easily as they brutalized lesser demons. It was nothing less than a miracle to find a clan that respected one another. “Until Gunnar found his mate.”

“Many clan chiefs are mated.”

Roke curled his lip. “Not to a female who is so vain and needy that she demands constant attention.”

“This mate was a vampire?” Styx demanded.

“Yes, but very weak,” he explained, not bothering to disguise his disgust for the female who’d destroyed so much. “Her only true power was her beauty and she used it like a weapon to get her way. Gunnar went from being a strong, decisive leader of a clan no one would dare to attack, to a slave to his lusts who spent so much time pandering to his female we lost everything.”

He sensed it as Styx moved to stand at his side. “Everything?”

He gave a restless shrug. “The mines that made our wealth were allowed to be overrun with humans and the majority of our land was taken by a rival vampire clan, along with our best warriors.”

“What happened to Gunnar?”

Roke hesitated. The history of his clan wasn’t a secret. But the ultimate fate of Gunnar was something that was never discussed.

Not by anyone.

“While I traveled to enter the battles of Durotriges he was killed when his lair was struck by lightning and burned to the ground.” He reluctantly turned to meet Styx’s unwavering gaze. “Or that was the story I was given.”

Predictably the older vampire pounced on his suggestive words. “You don’t believe it?”

“I made no secret of the fact that if I survived the battles I intended to challenge Gunnar to become the chief.” He grimaced. “I fear . . .”

Styx laid a hand on his shoulder. “Roke?”

The memory of his beloved sire burned through his brain. The female vampire had been a wisewoman before being turned, and while she had no memory of her past, she possessed an unshakable belief in mystic portents.

Including an omen that she’d read the night Roke was turned.

She’d claimed that it meant that Roke would one day be a great leader.

He’d always humored the ancient vampire, never suspecting she might take matters into her own hands.

At least not until Gunnar was dead.

“I suspect that someone made certain there wouldn’t be any chance of me losing that challenge,” he grudgingly admitted.

Thankfully Styx didn’t press for answers Roke had no intention of giving. Instead he gave Roke’s shoulder an understanding squeeze. “That’s why you’ve been so anxious to return to your people,” he said, his words a statement, not a question.

Roke nodded. “I swore when they made me their chief I would devote myself to protecting them. Instead I’ve abandoned them.”

“You didn’t abandon them,” Styx interrupted him, his hawkish features unyielding. “I forced you to remain in Chicago.”

“The result is the same. They’re without their leader,” Roke pointed out in sour tones, refusing to console himself with the knowledge he’d left them in perfectly capable hands. Kale might be dependable enough, but it was Roke’s responsibility to be with his clan. “And now, for the true cherry topper, I’m mated to a witch who not only sold her soul to the Dark Lord, but who hates vampires.”

Styx’s fingers tightened to a painful grip. “Roke . . .”

He shrugged off the warning hand, on a sudden roll. “Hell, I couldn’t possibly have been trapped with a worse mate if I tried.”

The scent of peaches filled the air. No, not peaches . . . scorched peaches. As if the scrumptious fruit had been tossed in a raging fire.

Shit.

Slowly turning, Roke met the furious glare of his mate, forced to hastily duck as she tossed a heavy crystal vase at his head.

“Right back at you,” she hissed, tossing another vase. “Jackass.”

Roke groaned. His only emotion should be relief that the female hadn’t been able to use her magic. He would no doubt be missing a vital part of his male anatomy right now.

Instead, all he could feel was a fierce, searing need to gather the angry Sally in his arms and promise that she would never be hurt again.

Especially not by him.

Chapter 22

Gauis’s lair in Wisconsin

Gaius struggled to shake off the clinging sense of lethargy that shrouded him in a thick blanket of unconsciousness.