Page 41 of Blood of a Huntsman

She managed to get to her knees.

"Drusilla will…use you. And spit you out."

Cat started to feel better. The tremor was stopping. The pain around her abdomen receded.

"Drusilla is bound by her oath as well as any of us. She promised me France, Germany, and Spain, and I shall have them."

"What about the queen, then?" Cat pushed, hoping for answers.

If she lived through today, she needed to know as much as possible.

Anika snorted. "That upstart is an idiot. Ambitious, I'll give you that. But an idiot nonetheless. She doesn't have enough support to achieve her goal. And while Chloe and Tom breathe, she can't even use her one real source of power."

The professor knew a lot more than she, a lot more than all of them. She needed to keep her talking without realizing that Cat was interrogating her.

Cat decided to do what she did best, a strategy that generally worked with ancient vampires, who often underestimated youth. She played dumb.

"You mean Chloe is stopping the queen? That doesn't make any sense."

But it did. She perfectly understood what Anika had hinted at.

The so-called queen was drawing power from the Eirikrsons, power that she'd managed to steal from them while no one could access it. Now that the true heirs were back, she was cut off from it.

Which could only mean one thing. The queen had been turned by an Eirikrson.

"The two petulant children may not use Skyhall, but you know what's buried inside. The same thing festers under your house, here on the hill."

Cat nodded.

When all seven founder lines turned against Eirikr, they used dark magic to seal him in his tomb on Cosnoc, the forbidden hill. Magic that had cost a lot more than a few coins tossed at a parlor-trick witch.

Blood.

The strength of the seven families’ blood kept Eirikr imprisoned. The spell had not faded through the ages because the blood anchoring it still lay under the tomb.

The beating hearts of the seven strongest among their kind.

The purpose of the sacrifice had been to seal Eirikr, but soon, the seven noticed that their strength increased while in their house.

As did their cruelty. Their rage. Their darkness.

Every family soon moved away. Save for Levi, Anika, and Alexius.

Cat used to believe that was because they were strong enough to withstand the pull of the evil presence. Now she wasn't so sure.

Something tapped at the window, and Anika let in a large eagle.

"I think that's quite enough chitchat, don't you?"

She rolled her note and placed it in the bird's claw.

"Yes. I think so, too," Cat replied, eyes on the window.

She was no Seth. She was no Drusilla. Her power was minimal. Inconsequential.

But for better or worse, she was a Stormhale, and she'd be damned if she let a treacherous bitch ruin her life.

Cat called to the sky with everything she had, everything she was. She called to the blood under her house and the clouds overhead. She even called to the waters of the lake, though they'd never answered her before. She dug deep inside her, emptying her mind of everything, everyone, except the one thing that mattered in the end.

Power.

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