Munro (Immortals After Dark #18) by Kresley Cole

            “How does Nïx figure into this?”

            “When the Vertas alliance gathered outside Quondam’s sphere to free you and your men, the Valkyrie said, ‘You assume Munro wants to be rescued? You’ll ruin everything between him and his cellmate.’” Loa tapped her chin with a manicured nail. “Now it makes sense why that was so funny to her. Anyway, she outlawed any aggression against the warlocks. After that, the witches ditched the campaign, and no one else could pierce the boundary. Will couldn’t abide leaving you in there, so he’s off to find Nïx and talk her out of her decree.”

            Kereny asked, “And who would Nïx be?”

            Munro answered, “The Ever-Knowing One. She’s a three-thousand-year-old Valkyrie and the de facto leader of the Vertas League. She’s also the most powerful soothsayer in all the worlds.” Yet her godlike strengths were equaled by her many weaknesses—disorientation, capriciousness, madness. “Looks like the warlocks were no’ the only ones who foresaw you’d be mine.”

            Hell, Nïx had actually done him a solid letting him rot in that dungeon. If there’d been any interference from outside Quondam, Munro would’ve lost his chance to go back in time for Kereny.

            But Nïx hadn’t done Ariza any bloody favors. “Why would the Valkyrie side with the warlocks?”

            “She said all the factions in the Lore—from the warlocks to the werewolves and from the Vertas to the Pravus alliances—would need to unite to stand any chance against the Møriør. She mentioned recruitments. And Moneyball. She said she needed ringers, and she was off to get them.”

            “Are the Møriør such a danger?” Jels hadn’t been concerned about the Vertas, but he feared the Møriør.

            “Oh, you have been gone awhile,” Loa said. “They blew down Val Hall, lair of the Valkyries.”

            “With explosives?”

            “With a single breath. Darach Lyka—the primordial Lykae—razed it to the ground.”

            “Fuck me.” Another worry. Put it on the list.

            Loa muttered, “That ship has officially sailed.”

            After flirting for years, he and Loa had kissed before he’d left for Quondam, but neither had experienced the life-changing heights they’d both expected. Once it was over, she’d patted him on the shoulder and said, “We’ll never be revisitin’ this again,” and he’d given her a definitive nod.

            Kereny’s watchful gaze was unreadable as she said, “Lyka’s the one originally bitten by a wolf in the Book of Lore, right? Is he your great-great—great times twenty—grandfather?”

            “Nay, he bit and turned others, who then begat our bloodlines. But each Lykae beast can be traced to his bite.”

            Kereny nodded, taking everything in, then said, “You might as well go ahead and explain what the Møriør is.”

            “Aye, then. They’re a group of primordials—the oldest and strongest of each immortal species. Their members range from the King of Hell to a giant. True monsters. They mean to rule all Loreans beneath a single bootheel.” He couldn’t even contemplate that threat now. “But one enemy at a time. Now we contend with the warlocks.” He asked the priestess, “Can you arrange for the House of Witches to place a boundary spell like yours over Glenrial? Jels might know of my wards.”

            “On it.” Loa’s fingers flew over her phone screen once more. Moments later came an incoming-text beep. She scanned the response. “Done. With my surcharge, naturally.”

            Kereny couldn’t control her curiosity. “Did you somehow send a telegram to the witches?”

            “Well, in a way, yes. A telephone telegram, of sorts.” She told Munro, “I assume your own phone is in a pile somewhere in Quondam’s dungeon.”

            Or an acid pit. “Something like that. And I’ve got to check on my wards.” Also, King Lachlain would need a status report.

            Loa crossed to an aisle with a sign that read: Wicca Tech! She collected a phone and tossed it to him. “Just released by the House of Witches.”

            “Wicca tech?” The packaging claimed that the phone was shatterproof, fireproof, and waterproof “all the way to Nereus’s lair.” The battery was promised to last a decade, and reception was “guaranteed anywhere in all the worlds!”