Secret Treaties (The Valens Legacy Book 9)

  Secret Treaties

  Published by Jan Stryvant

  Copyright 2018 Jan Stryvant

  Copyright Jan Stryvant 2018

  Cover Credits: eBook Launch (http://ebooklaunch.com/)

  No part of this eBook may be reproduced in any form without expressed, written consent from the author. The material in this story may feature graphic depictions of a sexual or adult nature and is intended for a mature audience only. All characters in this story are fictional and of the legal age of consent for any activities they engage in. Any resemblance between characters, places, or things in this story, and people living or dead, actual places, or events, is purely coincidental. It's fiction; I made it up.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be copied and given away, or copied and sold, to other people. Got that? No copying, please! If you would like to share this book with another person, it would be really nice if you purchased an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use, please consider purchasing your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  #68687

  Jan Stryvant Books:

  The Valens Legacy:

  Black Friday Book 1

  Perfect Strangers Book 2

  Over Our Heads Book 3

  Head Down Book 4

  When It Falls Book 5

  Stand On It Book 6

  Vegas Rules Book 7

  Desperate Measures Book 8

  Secret Treaties Book 9

  Shadow

  Table of Contents

  Somewhere in Kansas

  Messy's Place

  Keep it in the Family

  All The Madmen

  Dirty Deeds

  In the West Hills

  Cause and Effect

  Consequences

  White House

  Mountain House, Friday Night

  Dog Eat Dog

  On the Road

  Meetings, Bloody Meetings

  Fresno

  Sunday Morning

  Home Again

  Failure is not an Option

  Friends?

  If at First You Don't Succeed, Cheat

  Wakeup Call

  Afterword

  Somewhere in Kansas

  "Gentlemen," Gerald Perkins, the Eruditio head for all of North America, said from his seat at the head of the table, "I'm very glad you could all make it here today."

  "Well, it's not like you gave us much of a choice, now, is it?" Todd Quincy Adams, the Vestibulum's North American leader, replied.

  Gerald smiled. "No, I did not, and I don't apologize for that, either. The Stuttgart treaty is clear, and as the administrators of that treaty, we hold to it very firmly, as our ancestors all agreed to. I can assure you, this same meeting is taking place on all continents, and as far as I know, no one has refused to show up."

  Gerald looked around the room; no one looked happy to be here, not that he blamed them. Violation of the demon protocols was a very serious offense. Not showing up at any meeting that was called to discuss it was an automatic death sentence for the leader who refused.

  "As per the agreement, no one is to engage in the summoning of demons. However," Gerald turned to look at Rupert Spencer, who was not just the leader of the North American Gradatim, but all of Gradatim, "someone has."

  "Why are you looking at me?" Rupert replied heatedly.

  "Because on May nineteenth, just two days ago, a demon was observed at your chapter in Eugene Oregon, engaged in battle."

  "You mean the council compound that was attacked and later destroyed by that werelion rebel!"

  "So you're not denying that members of your council had in fact summoned a demon?"

  Gerald noticed that the leaders of the Vestibulum and the Ascendance both were looking surprised. Obviously the rumors hadn't reached them yet.

  "They were attacked! How am I supposed to know what they did in their last desperate moments? Since I got the initial report from them about the attack, I've heard nothing from them! I just learned this morning from members of our Portland council that all of the buildings there have been burnt to the ground!"

  "Rupert, the accords and the treaty are clear: Under no circumstances is the summoning of demons allowed. As for what your people found," Gerald looked around the table slowly, "I sent people to Eugene myself. They questioned, and then executed, all the people they found living there. Then they burned everything to the ground."

  Gerald turned back to Rupert. "As per the accords and the treaty."

  "How do we know about the demon?" Todd asked.

  Gerald nodded to the flat-screen TV on the far wall. As everyone turned to look at it, a black and white video began to play. It showed a werelion fighting a demon on the roof of a building, up until the moment the demon suddenly disappeared.

  "Where did you get that!" Rupert demanded, looking at Gerald.

  "Sean Valens, the werelion in the video, sent it to Arthur Troy, the head of the Reno Council of Sapientia. Arthur, recognizing the danger involved, immediately sent it to me. I apologize for the poor quality of the video, but the fight was taking place at night.

  "However," Gerald continued, "the people I dispatched to Eugene did in fact confirm that the people there were studying how to summon and control demons. So I must ask you Rupert: What did Gradatim, and you as their leader, know of these experiments?"

  "Nothing!" Rupert lied. "And I resent the implication that those involved in this research had any backing, or even the consent, of the Council of Gradatim! The Eugene compound was a retirement community for our scholars! Its only purpose was the quiet study of magic and the expanding of our knowledge!"

  "You mean weapon's research," Duncan Roberts, the Sapientia leader, said with a sarcastic snort.

  "As if none of the rest of you are engaged in the same!" Rupert retorted.

  "No, we're not. We honor the Demon Accords!"

  "Gentlemen," Gerald said, raising a hand. "This is not the time for arguments. Rupert, the accords are quite clear on this. If another one of your councils are discovered engaging in this behavior, you and the rest of the leadership board for Gradatim will pay the price, and everyone at that council will be executed."

  Rupert nodded his head angrily. "Of course! I understand, and trust me when I say that heads are going to roll when I get back to Los Angeles and have a long talk with my scholars as to why none of them alerted me to what was going on up there!"

  Gerald nodded. "We will expect to be notified of anything you discover, again as per the accords."

  "Yes, we'll notify you," Rupert sighed.

  Geoffrey Marson of the Ascendance spoke up, "Gerald, are you one hundred percent sure none of the demons escaped?"

  "That is why we killed everyone," Gerald replied. "A summoned demon can only stay as long as its summoner is still alive."

  "Oh, I didn't know that," Geoffrey said, then looked over at Rupert, "my knowledge of demons is quite lacking, seeing as we don't study them in the Ascendance."

  Geoffrey smiled at Rupert as he fumed but withheld any retort.

  "Well," Todd said, looking at the others, "as long as we're here, what are we going to do about this lycan rebellion?"

  "I wasn't aware we were required to do anything," Gerald replied.

  "But they're endangering the silence! They're taking away our property!"

  "I'd hardly refer to intelligent beings as 'property'. I don't understand your fascination with these outdated beliefs."

  "If you're really worried about the silence, just let your lycans
go free," Duncan said with a smile.

  "You're just siding with them so you can reclaim your past glory!" Todd replied to him heatedly.

  "Actually, the fiscal case was rather compelling," Duncan said, leaning back in his chair and looking around the table, "but I will share this with you; the government has become aware of Mr. Valens and his actions."

  "They have?" Todd said, looking surprised. Duncan noticed that Gerald was the only one at the table who didn't seem surprised by this tidbit of information.

  "Yes, they have. It also seems like they're leaning his way. I would not be surprised if they were to take sides."

  "They can't do that!" Geoffrey said.

  Duncan shrugged. "They can do whatever they please. The York Treaty with the United States specified that, as long as we stay out of their business, they'll stay out of ours."

  "But the lycans are our business!" Todd said.

  "Opinions on that seem to be varied," Duncan said, then looked back to Gerald. "Are we done?"

  Gerald nodded. "We are adjourned."

  "Finally!" Rupert said as he got up and quickly left the room.

  "He lied to us, didn't he?" Geoffrey said, once the door had closed behind Rupert's back.

  "It's not my place to speculate," Gerald said, "but yes, he did."

  "I thought it wasn't your place to speculate?" Todd said with laugh.

  "I'm not. We don't have enough proof to trigger the next phase of the accords, but we had enough that we called this meeting to make everyone aware of what happened, and that we will be watching Rupert and his people. I would suggest that the rest of you may wish to keep an eye on them, as well."

  "Well, at least the government hasn't heard about this yet," Duncan said as he got to his feet.

  "I'm surprised they found out about the lycan rebellion," Geoffrey said to Duncan as he got to his feet as well.

  "Oh, they've been keeping an eye on us since they were founded. Let's just be happy that Mr. Valens has them distracted enough that they missed this. I'd hate to see what their reaction might be."

  "Oh that, I think we can all agree," Geoffrey said as the others nodded.

  "So, how bad was it?" Brenda asked her husband as he got into the car to take them back to the airport.

  "Not as bad as I’d feared, but worse than I expected. They had video."

  Brenda blinked. "Of the demon?"

  "Yup, of it fighting that werelion."

  "Huh, how was it doing?"

  Rupert shrugged. "I didn't see enough to tell. Someone killed Morrison just as the fight was starting." He shook his head. "I can't believe that idiot decided to use the demon! I told him to keep it hidden, and he has it fighting someone on the roof of a building of all places!"

  Brenda shrugged. "Maybe he lost control of it? Out of the dozen people who've tried to summon one, only four lived long enough to succeed, and three of those couldn't control them and were killed almost immediately."

  Rupert sighed and shook his head. "Well, we'll never know now. Perkins sent in a cleanup crew and killed everyone who was there. Then he had it all burned to the ground."

  "Harsh."

  "Yeah, we're going to need to have Bera commit suicide. Set it up to look good, with a note confessing his guilt. We'll turn all his assistants over to Perkins."

  "Won't Perkins kill them all?"

  "Better them than us," Rupert said with a sour expression, "but this is why I met with Bera privately, and never allowed him to discuss the project with anyone else. If he told his assistants, I don't doubt they'll be drained of everything they know and killed. If he kept his mouth shut, we'll get them back."

  "When should I stage his death?"

  "Wait two days. I want it to look like the heat of the investigation, as well as his guilt at violating the accords, drove him to it. For now, order the scholars to search our records to make sure no one else is doing any research. I'll send out the order to everyone to make sure none of our people are doing anything they shouldn't be."

  Brenda nodded. "Got it."

  Rupert looked out the window of the limousine and sighed. "Gods, I hate Kansas; why the hell did they have the meeting here?"

  "Because it's central to everyone, I guess," Brenda said with a shrug.

  "So what do we do now?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "They hit Eugene. They're heading north, that means Portland has to be next."

  "I would have thought they'd have gone for San Francisco."

  "Me too, in fact Atticus was positive it was going to be next, so he sent a bunch of his boys up there to help defend it! And they hit Eugene instead."

  "Maybe we should send Wilston?" Brenda mused.

  "I thought he was your 'expert'?"

  Brenda laughed. "What good is an expert if you don't use him? We make it simple: he kills that lion, all is forgiven, and we'll find him a place in the organization worthy of his skills."

  "And if he doesn't?" Rupert asked.

  Brenda smiled evilly. "Then I doubt we'll have to worry about him ever again, will we?"

  Messy's Place

  Sean sat at the table while his sister-in-law loaded his plate down with more food. If there was one thing Messy could do, it was cook, and apparently she enjoyed doing it in large quantities. Daelyn's brother Caerwyn was talking with Daelyn as they sat next to each other. The current topic of discussion was techniques for mining old lava vents. Something Caerwyn was apparently quite the expert on.

  What you mined from lava vents, Sean had no idea, nor really any interest. Roxy was chowing down about as heavily as he was, same for Peg. Roberta and Jolene were being much more refined in their appetites, probably to Messy's dismay, but even they were now eating more than they used to.

  Cali was sitting so close to Sean that their legs and hips were touching. Sean actually had to put his left arm around her, because he couldn't use it without jostling her. Sean was also currently in his hybrid form, which meant he had to stoop a lot when going through any of the hallways.

  The reason, plain and simple, was that a lot of dwarves didn't care much for dark elves. In fact, a fair number of them, he had discovered, actually hated them. They were willing to cut Cali some slack, because she was one of Sean's wives, and dwarves both liked and respected lions. But it had been made clear to all of them, that it would be best for Cali if she stayed by Sean's side whenever they were in the dwarven halls, which was what they called their towns.

  Cali had taken this advice to heart after a quiet conversation with Daelyn. Daelyn had simply told Sean that she would introduce him to the business side of Maxwell, repeatedly, if she caught him without Cali around.

  Sean figured that anything that worried Daelyn enough to make threats was something he needed to respect.

  "What time are we meeting with the Portland area pack alpha?" Roberta asked.

  "Sometime after ten," Sean said as he started in on his pancakes. "He's driving down here with Jonas."

  "Why's Jonas going to be there?"

  Sean snorted. "I think Jonas feels both angry and guilty over the whole Dawn incident. She snowed him for years, and he got caught with his pants down."

  "He's also unhappy with you," Roxy said between bites. "You made him admit his biggest secret and his biggest fear."

  "Yeah," Sean agreed, "I know. That's the problem with being the first lion any of these people have ever run into. They just don't understand that we're blunt."

  "Was Sampson blunt?" Cali asked.

  Roberta laughed. "Oh yeah, Sampson could be as blunt as a sledgehammer. He did it so often that the few times he decided to use a little finesse, you often didn't even realize he'd conned you out of your shorts until the next day."

  "Is that how you ended up with Sarah?"

  Sean almost laughed at the smirk on Roberta's face. "Oh no, that one was alllll me! Trust me on that one!"

  "So where are we meeting them, here?" Roberta asked, turning back to Sean.

  "No, the dwarves are
all a little spooked about what happened in Eugene."

  "More than just a little," Caerwyn spoke up. Sean guessed he'd been listening to them while talking with Daelyn. "Demons are serious business. We remember the stories of the demon wars, and until we're sure the issue in Eugene has been dealt with fully, the elders aren't allowing anyone they don't know inside the mountain."

  "You let him in," Roberta pointed out.

  "Yeah, but he's my brother-in-law, and he's a lion."

  "You lions and your rule breaking!" Peg snickered.

  "Yeah," Sean smiled, "it's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it."

  "You know," Jolene said, looking thoughtful, "I know lions get to do things us mere mortals don't, but just why do you dwarves always make exceptions for them?"

  Caerwyn shrugged. "No idea. It's just the law."

  Jolene looked surprised at that. "It's the law?"

  Caerwyn nodded. "Lions are always welcome, and always accepted. It's considered bad luck to anger one, as well."

  "Really? Why's that?"

  "Because they might kill you," Caerwyn said with a grin.

  "And everyone will say 'he had it coming'." Daelyn chuckled.

  "Do you know why?" Jolene asked, turning to look at Sean.

  Sean shrugged. "I never asked. Oh, that reminds me," Sean turned back to Caerwyn, "could I get a couple of cheap iron swords?'

  Cali sat up suddenly. "Oh! And daggers! Cold iron daggers, too! I'll balance them if you can't!"

  Daelyn rolled her eyes. "Don't let any of the smiths hear you saying that."

  "What's cold iron?" Roxy asked. "I've heard it mentioned before, but isn't it just regular iron?"

  "Do you want yours to be cold iron as well, Sean?" Caerwyn asked.

  'Yes!' the First spoke up, surprising Sean.

  "Yes," Sean nodded, "if that's possible."

  Caerwyn nodded to Sean and then turned to Roxy. "Cold iron is iron that has never known a furnace or a forge. It's not as strong as iron that has, of course, it's harder to work and takes longer to make, and is by no means as strong as steel."