White Fire: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 5 by Michele Callahan Page A

somewhere.
    “Well, she’s not dead yet, and Ajax must think he can save her this time. He’s not giving up.”
    Mari expressed exactly what was in Emma’s heart. “That totally stinks.”
    “So you’re single?” Katherine clapped her hands together and smiled. “Okay. Ajax is a head case anyway, trust me, I’ve seen him on a bad day. And I just happen to know a couple of great guys. I’ll invite them over for dinner.” She leapt to her feet and walked to her cell phone. None of them moved or spoke as she dialed.
    “Nicodemus? Can you and the boys come over tonight? We’ve got a situation and Teagh needs your help.”
    Mari grinned and Katherine listened for a minute, then kept talking. “An hour is good. And you better be on your best behavior, there’s someone special I want you guys to meet.”
    Katherine hung up and hummed on her way back to her seat. She sat down, reached for a cookie, and broke it in half. “Okay. Next?”
    Zoey burst out laughing. “You are evil.”
    Emma couldn’t believe it. “Did you just serve me up on a silver platter to an Immortal male?”
    Katherine smiled. “Nope. Five of them.”
    Mari’s grin was pure mischief. “Resistance is futile.”
    Emma turned to her. “What does that even mean?”
    Katherine answered. “It means, if Ajax isn’t available, we’re going to get you a fine-looking, delicious Mate, who is. And Nicodemus is hot, hot, hot.”
    “You see the movie, Thor ?” Mari’s grin was infectious and Emma nodded. Who hadn’t? “Thor’s got nothing on Nicodemus.”
     
    <><><>
     
    “This is pointless.” Ajax looked around at the faces of the men before him, warriors all, and wanted to kill something. They’d been arguing for hours.
    “I believe I said that two hours ago.” Raiden, a male he remembered only from his spy’s reports prior to the Crux, stood before him, a forbidden son accepted by the goddess, a Darkwalker who was Mated to the most powerful healer Ajax had ever encountered.
    “We’re running out of time. The new moon begins in two days.” Teagh spoke from his place beside his brother. Bran and Teagh, half-blood brothers, who’d sworn a blood oath to him long ago, stood shoulder to shoulder across from him, as they had for centuries. They looked nothing alike. Teagh’s father had been dark skinned, from Earth’s southern hemisphere, where Bran’s father had been a Viking of the north. But their Immortal mother, a daughter of the Archiver’s line, had given birth to two sons who could command the portals and used them to gain political affluence and access to a King.
    Fortunately, the two brothers had more honor than their mother. Anger still stewed in his chest every time he looked at them, but it was anger at himself. They’d saved his life, brought him back from the abyss when he’d thought he was lost.
    No. Emma did that.
    The nagging voice in his head spoke of little else but the human female. Even now, he strained to hear the women’s conversation inside the house, and fought back a growl as Teagh’s Marked Mate, Katherine, suggested that Emma choose Nicodemus as a Mate, while Mari agreed and implied that the Darkwalker was “hot, hot, hot”.
    He wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but assumed Katherine referred to a lover’s heat, the fire in the blood, the want…
    No. He didn’t have time for the human females. Not until after the Crux. Katherine had said he was a ” head case ”, and perhaps he was. But he had a war to fight, a battle to plan for, and his people to protect. He did not have time to dedicate to trying to understand a human female, a female that was not his.
    “Let’s take a break and resume this conversation later, once the Darkwalkers have arrived. They may know more of Droghan’s plan.” Aron crossed his arms and his tone invited no argument. So, his brother had heard Katherine’s call to Nicodemus as well. Ajax wasn’t the only one listening to the women. Aron, his identical twin, was