The Werewolf Queen

by Brandi Elledge

  It took me several more seconds before I realized the creature was Ariana.

  “Dude, is she trying to give you the kiss of death?” Jo asked.

  “Hellifiknow!” I shrieked. “Either kill me or give me some room, woman.”

  Ariana slowly straightened up as much as her curved back would allow. She shrugged a bony shoulder. “I was trying to read her.”

  “Read me?” I pulled the covers to my chin. “I’m not a book. What are you doing here, Ariana? Aren’t your powers so vast that you don’t need to show up uninvited to my humble home to see the future?”

  Ariana’s wrinkled face lifted into a smile. Obviously, I hadn’t tried hard enough to insult her. “Child, I know that you don’t like me.”

  “Of course, I don’t like you. You use all of us as pawns. To be honest with you, I’m not sure that you’re on the Lux side.”

  Ariana nodded. “This is about Cecil? Try to understand that if Camden hadn’t rescued him, or worse, if Cecil were to die right now, then Death wouldn’t be spurred into action, and Stephan’s life would end very differently and not for the better. Cecil is a vital part of everyone staying on the correct path.”

  Jo walked into the room. “Death?”

  “The Undertaker.” Ariana’s head turned to the side. “You’ve seen him, no?”

  “Oh, now I got you,” Jo said. “Dude, I have had so many fantasies about that morsel. He is one fine piece of—”

  “Jo! Focus.” I scooted up in the bed. “Ariana, I get what you’re saying, but I think if you are here to help us, then you would be upfront with us instead of shady.”

  “Shady?” she asked. “I like shade. It’s hot in the South.” At my eye roll, she smirked. “What if I were to tell you that you needed to go back to Camden? That is the place you will be safe. Would you go?”

  Point for the freaky soothsayer. “No, I wouldn’t.”

  She sat on the edge of my bed, and it took everything I had not to cringe. If she knew of my discomfort, she didn’t let on. Jo walked over to the only chair in my tiny room. In typical Jo fashion, she raked all of the clothes in the chair onto the floor before she took a seat.

  Ariana patted my knee. “I see all. When I deal with the most stubborn of supernaturals, sometimes I have to do some meddling. You might not understand it right then, and I don’t expect you to.”

  Jo’s brow was furrowed. “I didn’t see you coming. Why are you here?”

  “You didn’t see me coming because you are not using your powers correctly. You are like an open line. You let anything and everything come through. Once you learn control, you won’t stay up most nights from seeing complete nonsense. There is nothing you can do about cheating Dan or Susan’s addiction to chocolate. Nonsense, I tell you.”

  I looked over at Jo. “Dan? The guy that owns the gas station? Who is also Timmy’s dad? He’s cheating on his sweet wife who volunteers at the elementary school?”

  “Yep,” Jo said.

  Um. Well, that might be nonsense to Ariana, but as soon as the soothsayer left, I was going to figure out why my bestie didn’t tell me about that golden nugget.

  “I’m here because of Sadie. Her mind frame is in a different place when she is away from her mate, and now there’s a fifty percent chance that she will go down a different path than the one I previously foresaw. I can’t have that. The Lux can’t afford that. I came to ask permission to show you something.”

  I still didn’t trust this woman. “What?”

  “I would like to show you a vision,” she said. “One that will give you a better understanding. I need you to be patient.”

  I looked to Jo for guidance. She shrugged. “Dude, I’m not going to lie. I’m getting nothing off of her. Your guess is as good as mine. If she’s as good as everybody says, then she knows that if she hurts you, I’ll stab her in the eye.”

  To my astonishment, Ariana tilted her head back and laughed, a beautiful sound. “I do like you, Jolene. A lot. I can’t wait until that Fae Prince stumbles upon you. You will show him who’s boss.”

  Jo’s blue eyes rounded. “Want to elaborate?”

  Ariana shook her head. “Sorry, I can’t. Now, ladies, I have got to go make sure that handsome, arrogant, and slightly crazy vampire stays on the path that I need him to. Before I go, may I please show you the vision?”

  Why the hell not. “Sure.”

  She scooted up on the bed and placed each of her hands on either side of my head. At first nothing happened, but then my world changed. I was no longer in my homey pink trailer. I was transported to a time when cars didn’t exist, and there were no paved roads. A house that appeared vaguely familiar came into view. After studying it for a few minutes, I recognized it as Camden’s family estate. It was smaller, someone had added to the house over time, and it didn’t look as luxurious as it did now. Two little boys tumbled in the yard as their parents lovingly watched from a blanket on the grass. One child had fair hair and one had dark hair. One had pale skin, and one looked like his skin was bronzed from the sun. The fair one with his bright blue eyes the color of the sky favored his mother, and the dark one shared his father’s coloring. The oldest brother—the dark-haired one— laughed, causing both parents to smile. He looked over to where his parents were, and his blue-green eyes twinkled. My heart squeezed as I recognized Camden as a small boy. He was the cutest child. One memory after another flooded me, and each time I saw the same family. One thing never changed—the amount of love they had for one another.

  Then a vision came riddled with pain. A group of rogue werewolves approached Camden’s mother. She was out in her garden when she heard them. Her husband was at a council meeting, and she was alone with her small boys. She knew what the rogue werewolves were there to do, so she led them into the woods far from the house, where she didn’t fear her sons would hear the commotion and come out to investigate. She died with honor by protecting the ones she loved.

  The next image had me sobbing. Camden’s father cradled her mauled body and wept. The guilt of not being there to protect her consumed him, for Ariana had warned them both that his mate was in danger. He’d refused to listen because his pride got in the way. Who would go against a king? Everyone feared him and with Ariana’s powers, his sons would be even more powerful. More feared. No one would touch his family. He hadn’t listened to the soothsayer’s warnings, and now he had to pay the ultimate sacrifice. He had lost his mate.

  Ariana had known the king would take his own life in his grief, but she hadn’t stopped him. It was eleven-year-old Camden who stumbled upon his father’s body. It was also Camden who shielded his brother from the ugly truth. Vision after vision and memory after memory showed how Camden struggled to hold his own against grown wolves wanting the title of king, and how he had to be strong not only to survive for himself, but for his brother. His life was anything but easy, and my heart wept for the boy who hadn’t had a childhood.

  Ariana lifted her hands and the memories stopped. I opened my eyes. Jo was pacing by my bed, chewing on her already short nails.

  Ariana gave me a sad smile. “You’ve seen everything that Camden went through, and you know that I could have stopped it. Would you like to know why I didn’t?” At my nod, she said, “Because when Camden’s father, Jacoby, lost his mate, he lost his mind. I saw he also had a fifty-fifty chance of living, and that path showed me more death. I would have lost Camden and Jamison. They would have been with their father one night somewhere they should have never been. My boys would have died trying to protect their father from a mass of rogue werewolves. A father riddled with guilt who didn’t care if he lived or died. I love my boys, and I wasn’t going to lose them.”

  Maybe I misunderstood her intentions, but I still didn’t understand why she was showing me any of this. She stood up from the bed. “Patience. Please remember to be patient.” She turned to Jo. “You’ve seen what you must do?”

  Jo nodded. “Yes, but I can’t see my outcome.”

  “You’ll
live. I’ve already told you that you will go up against the Fae Prince. Whether you will be the victor or not is totally up to you.” She gave each of us a nod before fog swirled around her and she disappeared. I didn’t know she could do that. It seemed like I didn’t know a whole lot about Ariana.

  “Was she talking about the Fae Prince who betrayed his grandfather? The one that stole the key from him?”

  “One and the same,” she said. Her face was pale against her midnight hair. Even paler than normal. She stood to leave my bedroom.

  “What have you seen that you must do?”

  “Sorry, dude. You’ll have to file that under need to know, and you don’t need to know.” She gave me a saucy wink. “Maybe one day I’ll let you sit at the cool kids’ table. But not today.”

  “Just answer this, are you okay?”

  “Dude, when have I ever been less than exceedingly magnificent? ‘Okay’ is too generic of a word for me. It’s not even in my vocabulary.”

  I chuckled as she left my small bedroom. I had no clue what the two paths were that Ariana said that I might take, but I felt hopeful she wouldn’t have left here if she didn’t think it would have been the right path. Maybe her impromptu visit helped me in some way, and if that were the case, then I would thank her. That was if our paths ever crossed again. I might not be psychic, but I had a feeling I would see Ariana again.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The second visitor of the night was just as unwelcome as the first. Apparently, no one believed in calling or had any sense of personal space. A beautiful girl sat in the same chair Jo had cleared out earlier. Her black dreadlocks hung to her lower back. Her nose was a little long and sported a nose ring, and her mouth a bit too wide, but it still didn’t detract from her beauty. Her caramel eyes lit up when she saw that I was awake.

  “It’s about damn time,” she said.

  “I’m sorry that I was sleeping. At night. In my bedroom. Welcome to Grand Central Station. How can I help you?”

  “Cheeky. I like it.” That voice… I recognized that voice. Warm and sultry.

  Aww hell. I sat up in bed, pushing my messy blonde hair behind me. “Carmen?”

  “And smart. Good for you.” She did a slow clap. “So, here’s the thing, precious, like all beautiful princesses in every other fairytale, I have an evil stepmother. My father, the Demon King, has always been a douchecanoe, so it’s not like I can blame that on her, but she has helped him up his game when it comes to pure evilness.”

  Why was she telling me this? Did it look like I needed a bedtime story? I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. “Carmen, why are you in this body? What happened to Celia’s body?”

  She gave a laugh that died prematurely. “Yeah, so this is where the story gets funny. My body is kept in a concealed lava pit. It’s the only way my father can control me. We have some serious dysfunction in my family. That’s still not the funny part. Wait for it. It’ll come in a second. I’ve had to resort to stealing bodies. The poor kid I inhabited was being pulled off of life support when I claimed her body. Then, of course, there was Celia. Normally, I don’t take over someone’s body unless they’re dead, but I was desperate, and her life expectancy wasn’t going to be long if that wolf of yours had anything to say about it. So, I went home to daddy dearest in Celia’s body. After a demon inhabits a body for twenty-four hours, the source dies. Not a big deal, right?”

  “Um. I’m guessing it was, or you wouldn’t be here in another body.”

  She waved a hand over her body. “This one was overdosing in a club. Ask me where Celia’s body is.”

  “Where is—”

  “I’ll tell you where! My father, that asshat, commanded me to exit her body. Apparently, he knows Celia and has been jonesing after her. So here I am, tracking down another body because my father won’t let me have mine, and now Celia is planning to kill me.”

  My head spun. “Why does she want you dead? Because you took control of her body?”

  She tossed a braid behind her shoulder and looked at her silver nail polish, which was chipping. “Oh, precious! Did I leave out that part? Celia is my new mommy.”

  “What?” I croaked.

  “Yeah, maybe it wasn’t so funny. Father married her, and now she’s my new stepmother. Honestly, he goes through women faster than I go through underwear but still. Now that she’s in an authoritative position, she wants revenge on you and your wolf because you killed her father. She also wants me dead because I took over her body, or it could be because once I released her, she was rude to me, so I threw a fork at her head. Or it might have been a dagger. Honestly, it’s a toss up at this point. Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Without trying to sound rude, why are you here?”

  “Come to think of it, this part isn’t funny either. Sorry I misled you. I’m here to warn you that they are on their way to kill you and your wolf. Who they will go after first, I haven’t a clue.”

  I jumped up and started throwing on clothes, not caring that I had an audience. “Why come here and tell me anything?”

  “Would you believe me if I said some creepy woman told me that if I didn’t, I would die? The thing with my powers is I can tell when someone is lying. So either she believed what she was saying, or she was telling the truth. Plus, she promised that if I had your back when you needed me the most, then she would send the power eliminator to help me rescue my body.”

  “Power eliminator?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Precious, you’ve been sheltered for way too long. There is only one known power eliminator. He’s like a silencer, but he can drain supernaturals’ power, well, except for the Undertaker’s. No one can take his power.” She waved a hand in front of her. “Look, I don’t have time for a history lesson. You should know all of this, considering it’s your brother. Besides, we have company.”

  My brother? I thought the coolest power my brother had was teleporting. Whenever he got back home, I would be having a long talk with him. How could he hide this from me and why? Carmen jumped up from the chair and withdrew a dagger. It was so unexpected that I just stood there, hating myself for misjudging her. The knife went sailing an inch past my head and through the only window I had in my room. The window was open because in the summer, our air conditioning never worked, and the trailer became a sauna. The dagger hit a demon in the eye. He wasn’t dead, but it stopped him from grabbing me and pulling me through the window. Kong was outside roaring. He was my primary concern at the moment as I ran barefoot through the tiny trailer.

  Outside in my small flower garden, he wrestled two demons. He grabbed both by their heads and rammed them together. Their heads thumped against each other like ripe watermelons. He did this over and over until they stopped moving.

  Carmen stood beside me on the porch. She let out a loud whistle and gave the ogre a little shimmy. “You go, you big lug. There is another one that’s missing an eye around here somewhere. I’ll go find him.”

  She skipped off the porch and was whistling as she rounded the other side of the trailer. “Marco? Can I get a Polo? Little demon. Come out, come out wherever you are.”

  Kong looked at me. His massive head tilted to the side. “Friend, yet?”

  I looked at where the Demon Princess had gone. “Still not sure, buddy.”

  Where was Jo? It wasn’t like her to let all the entertainment go by without her commentary. “Kong, have you seen Jo?”

  He nodded. “Gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  He picked up one of the demons by his horns. “Gone with these.”

  “They took her?” I screamed in panic.

  “No. She let them take.”

  I came down the porch steps just as Carmen was dragging a dead demon by his foot behind her. That wasn’t possible. “Why would she leave with one of them without putting up a fight? She knows demons are sadistic, especially the king.” Looking over at Carmen, I said, “No offense.”

  “It is what it is, precious.”

&n
bsp; The trailer phone rang, and I took off at a dead run. I knew it had to be Jo. What was she up to? This was somehow Ariana’s doing. What was her game this time? Whatever path she needed me on, if she thought she could use Jo to get me there, she was dead wrong. Or maybe she was completely right.

  “Hello?” I half screamed, as I picked up the phone.

  A voice I had missed greeted me. “Sadie, I need you to come home.”

  “I am home, Camden.”

  I could almost hear him clenching his teeth. “Fine, I need you to come to my estate. Can you teleport here?” When I didn’t say a word, he added, “It’s about your friend.”

  “I’ll be right there, and I’m bringing two with me.” Before he could ask any questions, I hung up the phone. I would rather not ask him for permission to bring a Demon Princess to his home.

  The first thing I did before I left was reach out to my father, telling him he needed to be aware that there could be a threat coming to town. How did those demons break through the town’s wards? Unless Jo helped them. He promised to hold a council meeting. I didn’t tell him that I had gotten back home earlier because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by not coming by to see him. The truth was I thought I was home for good and could visit with him and Granny soon. I had wanted to take the day to mope around, so I could put on a happy face for my family tomorrow. I took today for granted, and now I didn’t know when I would get to see my family again.

  After I teleported Kong and then Carmen to Camden’s foyer, I went to search for the wolf. I found him coming out of the elevator.

  Instead of exiting, he held the door. “I knew you were here. I was coming for you. Let’s go upstairs to talk, okay?” I nodded, not knowing what else to do. My emotions were all over the place. I had been away from him for one day, and I had missed him so much the pain was surreal.

  He was even more handsome than I remembered, and that was a difficult feat. I followed him to his upstairs haven where he led me to a couch. He took the armchair and turned it, so he was facing me. My heart pounded with fear. Just by his body language alone, I knew something was wrong. Jo had to be okay. Didn’t Ariana say something about her battling a Fae Prince? My friend had a part in this war, too, and she couldn’t do it if she were dead.