A cheer rang out.
Bride shook with terror.
"Father?" Bryani said to the old man. "Is this the way it's to be?"
The old man took his time scanning the crowd before he faced his daughter. "You should have consulted me before you brought her here, Bryani. You seek protection for our enemies when there is not a family among us who hasn't been torn apart by the Katagaria. Gods of Olympus, look what they have done to our own family. I have lost your mother's sanity and all my children save you to them. You barely returned from their clutches and then only because you managed to fight them off. Now you beg clemency for one of them? Have they driven you completely mad, too, daughter?"
He passed a less than sympathetic gaze to Bride. "We shall put the timoria to a vote. Who among you says aye?"
The roar was so loud that Bride had to cover her ears.
"Who says nay?"
"I do," Bryani said, but she was a lone voice in the crowd.
The old man gripped his staff and took a deep breath. "It is decided, then. Prepare the human for the timoria."
Bride had a really bad feeling the timoria wasn't a good thing, especially when three women came forward to drag her off.
"What's happening?" she asked the women who grabbed her. "What's a timoria?"
"I'm so sorry, Bride," Bryani said before she was pulled away. "Please forgive me."
Forgive her for what?
"Excuse me?" Bride snapped hysterically as she tried to pry the women's hands off her. It was useless. "Would you please tell me what the hell is going on here?"
The tallest of the women turned on her with a snarl. "For mating with a Katagari, there is only one punishment. You will be given to the unmated men of our clan."
"Given to them how?"
The look on the woman's face said it all. They intended to rape her.
Bride screamed and fought them with everything she had.
Vane took a minute to get his bearings as he arrived in ancient Britain. Time-travel always disoriented him. It took a lot of power to time-jump.
He also had to be careful now. If he sent out probes to locate Bride, they could be intercepted by his mother or her people. Not that he feared them. But he didn't want to go to war without an army.
In this time period, his mother's people ruled. His grandfather was the regis of one of the most powerful wolf clans and it was said that good old Gramps had killed more Katagaria than any other Sentinel in their history.
Vane took a deep breath as he scoped out the village on the other side of the hedge where he was crouched. They would be expecting him.
Sort of.
Vane heard something rustling in the forest behind him. Spinning around, he expected it to be a wild animal or one of his mother's people.
It wasn't.
It was Fury.
Vane couldn't have been more stunned if he'd found his mother right in front of him. At least that would have made sense. Fury's presence made none whatsoever.
The wolf flashed instantly to human form and gaped in all his naked horror at Vane, who quickly averted his gaze.
"What the hell are you doing here?" they asked each other simultaneously.
"Put some clothes on me," Fury said, snarling the words as he cupped himself with his hands.
Rather than go blind, Vane quickly obliged and dressed the wolf in black jeans and a T-shirt. "Why are you here, Fury?"
He spoke between clenched teeth. "I'm doing what I told you I was doing. I'm leading the tessera away from you and Bride, only here you are while they are over there." Fury pointed angrily at a hill not far away. "You're supposed to be in New Orleans, you moron, not Britain."
Suspicious of Fury, Vane frowned. "Why did you bring the tessera here?"
Fury gave him a sinister glare. "Because this was the easiest way I knew of to eliminate them all at once. I can't do it alone and I thought Bryani would get her rocks off hacking one of Markus's tesseras into pieces."
Vane was even more confused and suspicious than before. "You know about Bryani?"
Fury rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I do. She gleefully ran me through and left me for dead several centuries back. Wanna see the scars?"
Vane caught the scent of Stefan coming closer to them.
Fury grabbed him by the arm and hauled him toward a copse of trees. "Look, we're in serious danger here. The Arcadians hate us with a passion."
"I know."
"No you don't," Fury said, his tone gravely earnest. "You really don't know how much they would pay to have both of us for breakfast. We have to get you out of here."
Vane wrested his arm free. "Bride is in that village and I'm not going anywhere unless she's with me."
Fury cursed. "How long has she been there?"
"I don't know, since I just arrived. Time doesn't flow the same way in both time periods, you know that."