She shook her head. As long as he didn't know she was Valkyrie it worked for her.

Killing the unwitting Forbearers would be easy for her and her sisters. Too easy. Almost like being your own secret Santa.

Myst had just confirmed rumors in the Lore that whispered of asses and elbows and this Horde's inability to differentiate between the two.

***

"What are you?" Nikolai Wroth demanded again, surprised his voice was steady.

When he'd seen her in the light, he'd felt like exhaling a stunned breath—if his kind respired—for she was strikingly lovely, with a beauty only hinted at from the distance of the battlefield. He'd been attracted to that face to his reckless peril.

Though she had expected him to recognize her kind, all he could determine was that she wasn't human and that he hadn't a clue what she might be. Her ears said fey, but she also had the smallest fangs.

"Free me," the creature said. Flawless skin, coral pink lips, flame red hair. The eyes that flickered over him appraisingly were an impossible green.

The way she held the bars was suggestive—everything about her was…suggestive.

"Swear fealty to my king, and I will free you."

"I can't do that, but you've no right to keep me here."

His brother Murdoch passed by then, raised his eyebrows at Wroth's discovery, and muttered in Estonian, "Sweet Christ." Then he walked on. Why was Wroth unable to do the same?

"What's your name?" He wasn't used to his questions going unanswered.

Another stroke of the bars. "What do you want it to be?"

He scowled. "Are you a vampire?"

"Not the last time I checked." Her voice was sensual. He couldn't place her accent, but it was drawling, honeyed.

"Are you innocent of malice against us?"

She waved a dismissing hand. "Oh, good God, no! I love, love, love to kill leeches."