by N. D. Jones
Mafdet never understood the point of furnishing a kitchen with a television, no more than she comprehended humans’ affinity for working lunches. Combining one with the other diluted both.
“Turn it up. I don’t want to miss the grand opening of the embassy.”
The man on the barstool beside her pushed the volume button on the remote control. Considering she sat directly in front of the television and had enhanced hearing, the request wasn’t necessary. But Mafdet had waited fifteen years for this moment, so who could blame her for wanting to play with her prey?
Mafdet smiled. A working lunch. I understand now. On occasion, humans have made positive contributions to the world. Not the human male beside me but others like Mi Sun Choi and members of her political party.
“What do you think of Sekhmet’s dress?”
The orange and red of the sleeveless wrap dress complemented her eye color, as well as the golden flecks in her hair. The necklace she wore, a beaded gold choker, belonged to Zarina, as did the three-tone brass and copper cuff bracelets and gold knuckle ring with a ruby center. Sekhmet rarely wore extravagant jewelry, but her visit to Vumaris was a special occasion. Not as special as Mafdet’s side visit to the Blue Spruce gated community in Upper West Minra, though.
She removed the remote from the man’s trembling hand. “When you last saw her, she was Hafsa Sekhem Asha Leothos. Back then, Sekhmet was so young—barely a woman.” Mafdet slid her blade from its sheath and placed it between herself and the man who’d lived fifteen years too long.
“So, former Chief Royster, do you like my sekhem’s dress?” Tapping the television screen with her knuckle, she asked another question meant to entertain her but annoy him. “What do you think of Choi’s repeal of the anti-transmutation policy?” Mafdet pointed to the two lions who flanked Sekhmet. “The Shieldmane to her right is Khalid Ekon. He snarls every time he thinks someone has moved too close to his wife. The lion on Sekhmet’s left is Tau, General Volt’s husband. Trust me, his roar is not worse than his bite. Between the two of them, they’ll keep my sekhem safe while we have our chat.”
“A chat? That’s what you call breaking into my home and threatening me?”
“It’s more warning than your Rogueshades gave us fifteen years ago.”
Despite the intervening years and the restructuring of the new embassy, when Mafdet had entered the renovated building, she was transported back to Sanctum Hotel and the soul-crushing sight of her beloved friends’ corpses. Mafdet’s failure to save them still haunted her.
Sekhmet had bestowed Mafdet with the title of Great Cat of the Nation of Swiftborne. The kindness had touched her more than words could ever express. She hadn’t been referred to by that name in over a century. For just as long, she hadn’t felt worthy of the title. Some days, she still didn’t.
“I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, especially not a kid.”
“Perhaps not but people did, including a young adult not yet ready to be on her own. Sekhmet was raised well, and she’s always been far older than her years. But,” she twisted on the barstool to face the man who had helped ruin so many lives, “at the end of the day, Sekhmet . . . Asha, was thrust into the role of alpha at eighteen because greedy men’s wants outweighed the value they placed on her parents’ lives.”
Royster’s eyes darted to Mafdet’s sword. The hand nearest her weapon twitched, and she smelled the fearfulness that wouldn’t have the human risking the remaining minutes of his life on the unlikely probability that he could grab her blade and kill her.
Mafdet snatched her sword from the island. She despised Royster even more for his casual willingness to send others to commit atrocities that would benefit him while harboring the heart of a coward.
Lifting his eyes from her hand that held Zarina’s gift of friendship and trust, he turned off the television. “Choi and the Common Peace Coalition Party came out of nowhere.”
Standing from the island counter, Royster walked away from Mafdet but not out of the kitchen. She permitted the distance. Fear would keep him compliant while self-pity had prematurely aged him. Royster had gained forty pounds but lost his political standing, respectability, friends, and family. He’d even lost most of his hair, the horseshoe-like ring around the sides and back of his head was all that was left of what had once been a full head of hair.
“Billings and Aguilar never had a chance, did they? Shona bankrolled Choi. That’s how a nothing party swept national, state, and local elections.”
Using the spikes on the knuckle guard handle of her blade, she spun the weapon. “Sekhmet helped fund the campaigns of all Vumarian parties, including the one you used to lead. The Common Peace Coalition Party more than the others, of course, because Choi is a valued friend to the kingdom and sekhem.”
Zarina and Bambara had initiated negotiations between Shona and Choi’s party. But it had been Sekhmet who had expanded her parents’ vision to include political and economic negotiations that resulted in the building of Shona embassies in select felidae and human countries. It was Ekon, however, who oversaw the erection and management of each political residence. Together, Sekhmet and Ekon ruled as well as but differently from Zarina and Bambara.
Mafdet smiled. The love Sekhmet and Ekon had for each other mirrored that of Sekhmet’s parents. In that vein, the alphas were very much alike.
The sword stopped spinning. The sharp end of the blade pointed past Mafdet’s arm and toward a frowning Royster.
She stood. Time to conclude her working lunch. “Would you like to call your daughter and say goodbye?”
Royster stumbled backward, tripping over his cat’s food dish and falling against a sink filled with soapy water and dirty dishes, reminding Mafdet of what he had been doing before he’d sensed her standing behind him.
Royster’s wide eyes darted around the sunny kitchen. They settled on a knife butcher block at the end of the counter near the sink.
Mafdet retrieved her sword and slid it into its sheath. As much as she loved Zarina’s gift—Mafdet’s Claws—the weapon couldn’t replace what humans like Silas Royster had taken from her and the felidae of the Nation of Swiftborne.
She nodded to the butcher block. “Let’s see who’s faster. If you beat me to it, I’ll leave and never return. If you don’t, I’ll slit your throat after you call your daughter to let her know you love her. That’s more than the Rogueshade gave Sekhmet before they took her parents from her.”
“If, umm . . . if I win, you’ll let me go?” Royster licked pink lips over which a faint sheen of sweat had formed. “You’ll keep your word and let me go?” Eyes skidded to the knife butcher block then back to her, the calculation clear in his eyes.
Mafdet was across the room from the rack of knives while Royster stood a mere ten feet away. Probability was on his side, wasn’t it?
Royster must’ve thought so because, with a speed impressive for a human male of his age and weight, he ran for the butcher block. His armed stretched, so too did his fingers, both long—longer than Mafdet’s.
She watched him run for his life—gritted teeth and flushed skin.
Royster lunged, his hand an inch away from extending his lifespan.
Mafdet smacked the butcher block off the counter. Knives flew from the slots and the wooden block crashed to the floor.
Royster’s hand froze in midair, his eyes on the spot where the knife butcher block had been. “H-how? I am right here. R-right here.” Like dead weight, his hand dropped to his side. “You didn’t move. You . . . you didn’t move.”
“Swiftborne,” she snarled into his ear. “Now call your daughter.”
Royster cried.
Mafdet handed him his phone.
Fifteen minutes later, it was done.
Ball cap low and collar of her sports jacket pulled high, Mafdet walked away from the quiet house and up the street. Sword hidden under her jacket, not a speck of Royster’s blood remained on the blade. It’s finally over.
The phone in her sweatpant
s pocket vibrated. She dug it out and—
“Where are you?”
“What have I told you about snapping questions at me? I—”
“Is he dead?” Tamani asked.
Scanning the surrounding area, Mafdet made sure to keep her head down but ears and eyes alert. She couldn’t prevent someone in the community from seeing her, but she could minimize the probability of them getting an unobstructed view.
“I’m Sekhmet’s First Shieldmane, of course Royster is dead.”
“Good. We should’ve killed the bastard fifteen years ago. But the sekhem didn’t sanction Royster’s murder—then or now.”
No, Sekhmet hadn’t. Without such a sanction, Mafdet couldn’t expect her sekhem to shield her from potential legal repercussions. Mafdet expected nothing from Sekhmet, not even her forgiveness for acting on her own but in her name.
“Look, I didn’t call to discuss Royster. We will, though, because no one, not even you, Mafdet, has the right to take action, especially of this magnitude, without consent from our alphas.”
“Any blowback will fall on me.”
“You’re too damn old to be that naïve, and I don’t have time to chew your ass out the way you deserve. Sekhmet is here as a political ally to the new Vumaris chief. How do you think it will appear when Royster turns up dead?”
Exiting through the metal security gate that hadn’t been able to keep Mafdet out, she escaped onto a quiet suburban street. She’d parked her rental truck a mile away. If she jogged, she could reach it in ten minutes.
She stopped. “Maybe I should return and dispose of Royster’s body.”
Tamani’s half sigh, half snarl annoyed Mafdet because, in her long life, only a handful of people had the ability to get under her skin when she’d made a poor choice. Of those rare few, Tamani was the only one still alive to remind Mafdet that her actions bore consequences for others.
“It’s too late. Leave it. We’ll handle any potential backlash. The entire world saw Sekhmet on television while you were with Royster. At least there is that. That, and I know you are too skilled to have been seen or left evidence capable of being traced back to us. So, bring your ass back to the embassy.”
Cell phone clutched securely in her hand, she ran down the street, careful to maintain a human-level speed. “If you didn’t call about Royster, why did you call?”
“A woman came to the embassy’s security checkpoint looking for you.”
“A woman? Who?”
Mafdet couldn’t hear anything other than Tamani on the other end. She wondered why she had left the security office to call her when that was a secure location.
“I thought you said you had no family.”
“I don’t. Not blood family.”
“Either the woman being held in the security office is a liar or you have more family than you know. We’ve known each other for a long time, Mafdet, and you’re many things but a liar isn’t one of them. So, tell me why I have a felidae female not only asking to speak with you but claiming to be your daughter.”
Mafdet skidded to a halt, winded but not from the short run. “My what?”
It had been so long since she’d seen her deceased girls, it took a few disorienting seconds to conjure images of them. But, once she had, the guilt that bloomed whenever she thought of her lost family felt like the knife wound she’d given Silas Royster. Instead of dying, however, as Royster had, Mafdet became angry.
“I don’t know who that woman is in your security office, but she isn’t my daughter. I no longer have children.” Nor a husband, or parents, or . . . Swiftborne Nation.
Unlocking the door to the rental truck, Mafdet hopped inside. Tossing her ball cap and sword onto the passenger seat beside her, she jammed the key into the ignition. She didn’t know who in the hell the imposter was or why she’d decided to target her, but she would make her regret seeking her out.
“She says her name is Zendaya Rastaff.”
Mafdet peeled away from the curb and straight into traffic. She ignored the warning blare of horns and headed for the Shona embassy.
“It’s not her. Zen is dead. They’re all dead.”
“Hold on.”
Mafdet barreled down streets, running red lights and exceeding driving limits.
“Are you still there?”
“Where else would I be?” Accelerating, Mafdet made a right turn faster than she should’ve. Her mind whirled and her heart pounded. Her girls were gone. Dead. Killed. And Mafdet had been powerless to protect them. Just as she had failed to protect Zarina, Bambara, and Asha.
“I’m now outside of the security office. I can put her on the phone or wait for you to get here. What is your ETA?”
“Twelve minutes.”
“Not far. Your call, my friend.”
Every self-preservation impulse screamed for Mafdet to put an end to the charade right there and now. But a stronger instinct—one she thought buried with her girls—maternal love, had Mafdet’s fists tightening on the steering wheel and foot pushing down the pedal.
“It’s not her.” More, it had been so long, Mafdet wouldn’t recognize Zendaya’s voice if, miracle of miracles, the woman turned out to be her child. She tossed away that impossibility as a dream unbecoming of a woman of her years and experience. “I don’t know what she wants but, whatever it is, she won’t achieve her ends. Does Sekhmet know?”
“Not yet. She and Ekon are still meeting with Chief Choi, Deputy Chief DeGuzeman and the press. When they finish, I will report to them. So, I suggest you get here before I have to make my report without your input.”
In record time, Mafdet arrived at the embassy and was out the truck and on the other side of the security office door—winded and anxious. But also afraid of what slimy creature had slithered its way out of her past and into her present.
Mafdet opened the door.
THE END
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Other Books by N. D. Jones
Winged Warriors Trilogy (Paranormal Romance)
Fire, Fury, Faith (Book 1)
Heat, Hunt, Hope (Book 2)
Lies, Lust, Love (Book 3)
Death and Destiny Trilogy (Paranormal Romance)
Of Fear and Faith (Book 1)
Of Beasts and Bonds (Book 2)
Of Deception and Divinity (Book 3)
Death and Destiny: The Complete Series
Forever Yours Series (Fantasy Romance)
Bound Souls (Book 1)
Fated Paths (Book 2)
Dragon Shifter Romance (Standalone Novels)
Stones of Dracontias: The Bloodstone Dragon
Dragon Lore and Love: Isis and Osiris
The Styles of Love Trilogy (Contemporary Romance)
The Perks of Higher Ed (Book 1)
The Wish of Xmas Present (Book 2)
The Gift of Second Chances (Book 3)
Rhythm and Blue Skies: Malcolm and Sky’s Complete Story
The Styles of Love Trilogy: The Complete Series
Sins of the Sister (Dark Fantasy Short Story)
Fairy Tale Fatale Series (Urban Fantasy)
Crimson Hunter: A Red Riding Hood Reimagining
Feline Nation Duology (Urban Fantasy)
A Queen’s Pride (Book 1)
Mafdet’s Claws (Book 2)
ABOUT
N. D. Jones, Ed.D. is a USA Today bestselling author who lives in Maryland with her husband and two children. In her desire to see more novels with positive, sexy, and three-dimensional African American characters as soul mates, friends, and lovers, she took on that challenge herself. Along with the fantasy romance series Forever Yours, and a contemporary romance trilogy, The Styles of Love, she has authored three paranormal romance series: Winged Warriors, Death and Destiny, and Dragon Shifter Romance.
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A Queen’s Pride Playlist
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