“You’re growing up fast, aren’t you?” he said with a frown.
I cringed back a little. I knew he said it from concern. He was the one officer I always hoped to see, because he showed humanity to everyone who passed. But he also knew that as I got older, I’d be more likely to break the law, and he’d have to decide how much he’d let slide. I usually didn’t care that the officers had jobs to do, but in his case, I felt bad for this understanding between us. He had a family, probably, and wouldn’t protect me and risk his job.
“Be careful,” he said, in a soft voice, like it was an order he knew wouldn’t be followed.
Officially, he thought I worked at a cat cafe, which was embarrassing enough. Cat shifters would all be in feline form, and humans would go there to de-stress with the chance to pet and snuggle large cats who would never dare to actually hurt them. I had considered it a time or two, when I was younger, because I wouldn’t be in any danger there like I was with Roy, but it would also be a complete assault on my dignity.
And then, it often led to being a courtesan or mistress.
So, hell no. I’d rather die a spy than live like that.
But…my mouth was feeling very dry. I wished this address was farther away. I wanted to draw this out. Roy said Angus was at a warehouse near the river. I followed the GPS on my phone and I could already see the mark for my destination on the screen.
Come on, girl. You know what you’re doing. You never get caught.
Against my body under my shirt, I had tucked a thin mask and gloves. I pulled the mask over my face and the gloves, which had false fingertips, over my hands. This made me hard to identify later. When I changed, my clothes stayed with my human form, so if I got into a fight, I would appear anonymous.
I slipped into an alley and shifted easily into my other skin. Since I was so small, I could really get away with a lot. Even when I was spotted while spying, so far it had been dismissed with, “Nah, just a house cat.” Most cat shifters turned into panthers or tigers, not a fluffy tabby the size of a Maine Coon.
Now I prowled through the shadows to the building where Angus and his men were meeting. It was an old brick building with a zillion tiny windows, many of them cracked, with worn letters painted on the side declaring it the warehouse for some company that probably hadn’t existed in a century.
A dim light shone against the panes. Very faintly, I heard voices, but I wasn’t even close to being able to hear what they said.
I needed to get closer to the windows. I didn’t see any guards outside the building. Good. Maybe this would be pretty easy.
After all, I just had to see if they had stupid Waylon.
A trash bin outside would be an excellent vantage point, although it was open, so I had to make a daring leap onto the edge. It was a little higher than I would prefer, but I just had to take a pause to line up my leap and then go for it.
My crippled front paws couldn’t always be counted on to save me when I misjudged a jump, but this time I managed to make the jump. I walked the edge to the back of the bin and then lifted my paws to the window, keeping my ears flat.
The window was scratched and dingy but as I pressed my face close, I could see a figure tied to a chair, surrounded by men.
Oh—fuck.
Fuuuck.
They have Waylon. Oh my god.
No one my age that I knew had ever been kidnapped by hunters before. Everything I’d ever thought about Waylon being tough went out the window when I saw him surrounded by Angus and his men. He looked frozen in fear. Of course he did. The bravest guy in Roy’s crew would have shit his pants to be a cat in the hands of hunters. They would kill him before they sold him.
“You thought you could just come on over here, huh? And I don’t care what the excuse was. You should know better than that. Your type is always here to make trouble but instead, we’re going to make some trouble for your mother. Tears. Lots of tears. Transform.”
“No.”
“If you transform, I’ll shoot you in the head. If you stay human, I’ll cut you up piece by piece. I’ll make this take hours. Anytime you want to transform, I’ll put you out of your misery.”
I wondered why Angus wanted him to transform. Probably to skin him for a trophy or something. The hunting profession tended to attract the most sadistic humans out there.
“Never,” Waylon said.
Angus laughed. “They all sound so cocky at first. Hold him down.”
The men converged on Waylon, who immediately transformed into a lynx so his hands and feet could slip his bonds. I leaned in closer. Huh…I had to admit that was cool, I didn’t know the Silver family were lynxes.
“There he goes!”
“Get him!”
They moved fast. Clearly they were expecting the transformation, but Waylon lunged forward, putting in his best effort to get away. He leapt, his paws skidding on the floor. The chair was still tied to his waist, and he whipped it around and struck one of the guys with the chair.
Go Waylon! Go get them! He might have been kind of an ass but I was definitely rooting for him now.
They fired a few shots at him. One pinged off the chair. I was going to pass out for not breathing.
“Go ahead and kill him,” Angus said.
Waylon ran behind a pile of boxes, dragging the chair with him. Ugh, if he could just get rid of the chair, he would probably get to a safer vantage point or even get out a window. They ran after him. A second later he dashed out the other side, in human form, but now he was holding the chair like a shield.
I couldn’t believe it. He’d managed to get free of the chair entirely, that fast.
Daaang. He’s good.
He struck another guy hard with the chair, knocking him unconscious.
Then Angus shot him. The bullet grazed his leg.
“Chair down. Hands up. Road ends here, kid.”
The two men who were still untouched by chair-related blows walked behind him, guns pointed at him. Waylon hesitated and although I couldn’t see his facial expression that well through the old murky glass, I knew he was considering whether it was better to die fighting than to surrender.
“Don’t kill him until he changes back!” Angus bellowed. “I’ll rest my feet on your fur in my office, kid.”
Waylon lunged for him. The other two men were ready. They moved with him and caught his arms in theirs. Angus drew a sword. Then, he moved a box with a first aid logo closer, like just to be obvious about it. I’m going to hurt you, and then I’m going to keep you alive long enough to hurt you some more. “Right hand,” he said.
Waylon struggled with everything he had as they forced his right arm outward. Angus looked like he wasn’t going to hesitate a moment in chopping his hand right off. In fact, he looked like he would relish it.
Waylon was dripping sweat. “Do it,” he said. “We all have to meet our maker someday, but only one of us is going straight to hell.”
My eyes widened. That’s…brave.
I couldn’t watch.
But I couldn’t turn away.
On pure, insane impulse, I leapt through the broken windowpane.
Chapter Two
Frankie
I transformed, pulling out my knives as I jumped down into the fray. I had the advantage of surprise for a second or two, and I lifted one of my knives and jammed it straight into the side of one of the men holding onto Waylon. Hopefully I got his vitals.
I’d trained for this. I’d trained like crazy. But the one thing I’d never actually done was killed a human.
They say all cats have the killer instinct. I sure did. My human side got nervous in anticipation of danger, but when the fight was on, it all blurred in a way that was almost exciting. The man swayed heavily, letting out a gurgling scream. Waylon broke away. The men fell forward. I didn’t manage to pull the blade out in time. Waylon grabbed his gun even as he was falling, but I could feel my hands panicking and fumbling. When I was in over my head, my mind went blank and my hands go
t clumsy. Waylon quickly moved to cover my back. We were on the defense, but not powerless, as the other two men circled us.
In the background, however, I noticed the first guy to get hit with a chair had now recovered from the blow and was sneaking up around us from the wall of boxes. He pointed his gun at us.
“Neither of you move,” he said.
“You shoot, I shoot,” Waylon said.
I couldn’t help but be impressed with how composed Waylon was in this situation. He was just a kid, same as I was, and when I thought he seemed older than me, I always thought it was just in an I-smoke-too-much-pot kind of way. I underestimated him. But I could never tell him. I would never know anything more about him. I couldn’t imagine we were going to get out of this.
“Try it,” Angus said. “These guns were blessed by a witch. They only fire for their owners.”
“You’re bluffing,” Waylon said.
“Am I? I’m willing to try it if you are.”
Waylon grabbed me and shoved me toward the boxes, out of the other guy’s way, and then, as he shouted at me, “Run, girl!”, he fired at Angus’ head. Even as he knew, no matter what, one of the other guys was going to shoot him in retaliation.
The gun didn’t fire. Angus wasn’t bluffing.
The other man had his sights on Waylon’s head and in a split second, he’d be dead.
“No!” I screamed. “No! Kill him and I’ll fucking kill all of you!”
I was pulling out the knives from my leg sheaths, but even as I did, I started feeling this heavy, pounding sensation in my head. I felt this terrible pressure building and building. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
What is this? More than a headache. A brain hemorrhage?
But I was so angry that I was still lunging for Angus even when I couldn’t see him through the force pulsing inside my head.
And then the pressure suddenly exploded out of me.
I felt like my body was a bomb. Some ferocious force burst out of my body and shot its way through the whole room. It wasn’t visible, but I felt it. As it touched Angus and each of his men, they turned to dust, For a second, their dust forms were frozen in silent screams, and then their bodies scattered across the floor.
Waylon was left untouched.
Now I knew I was hallucinating. Something really was wrong with my brain. What I felt seemed so real. This power came out of me and it was like my anger turned into will, and my will turned into reality. I wanted the hunters to die, and they did.
“What—the—fuck!?” Waylon sputtered. “What the fuck!?” He turned around in a full circle, quickly dodging a pile of ash that used to be Angus.
I sank to my knees. “I’m dreaming…”
“What did you do?” he said. “How? You just—holy shit.” He sank both hands into his dark brown hair, which curled loosely around his fingers. “You incinerated them with your mind. Who are you?”
I looked at him. The shock on his face didn’t seem like a dream. And as the pounding in my head died back a little, I realized I didn’t feel like I was in a dream either. But there were definitely four piles of ash on the dirty old plank floor of the warehouse.
“I’m…” I swallowed. My mouth was dry as a desert.
“It’s like the prophecy,” he said. “The three queens, and the Black Queen is the queen of vengeance.” A sudden grin slashed his face, and I jumped back. “I don’t believe it,” he said, “but it was amazing. Where did you come from?”
I was afraid to speak. We had only met a few times. I didn’t want him to remember me. Since I was wearing a mask, he didn’t seem to know my eyes, but I worried he would recognize my voice.
The Black Queen. The queen of vengeance. The queen with the power to destroy her enemies with a mere thought.
That could not possibly be me. But there was also no way I could deny that I had done something impossible, far beyond any magic we knew.
In the space of a second or two, my thoughts flashed over what this would mean. I thought of how Roy had been giving me jobs to do for him since I was a kid, and how they were turning more dangerous. But right now I was a nobody. No one knew me. No one wanted me.
If I was the Black Queen, everyone would want me. They would want to use me and my powers. I wouldn’t be able to control it. It wasn’t like I would be safe. Not at all. I would still have to sleep. There were still other ways to manipulate me and blackmail me into using my powers.
Assuming I even knew how to use this power. This had never happened before. It just burst out of me now. It wasn’t like I could train. It wasn’t knife fighting. There was no safety equipment to practice with. I destroyed these guys with a thought. And could I control it? What if I killed someone on accident? Or what if I was in danger again and I couldn’t repeat this?
“This means…maybe we don’t have to fear these assholes anymore,” Waylon said. “The prophecy…” He crept closer to me, moving slowly like he didn’t want to scare me off. “Did you know you could do this?”
“No…,” I whispered.
“You have to tell someone,” he said. “Maybe you should go to Viktor.”
The president of Istara? This was all getting too real.
I couldn’t face it. I started to run. But Waylon, dammit… Well, I already knew he was fearless. Despite knowing I could destroy people, his hand clamped around my arm.
“Where are you going?” he demanded. “I almost got tortured and murdered by hunters and you saved my life! Now you’re just going to run? We all need you! Where are you going? I’ll take you to someone who can help protect you and figure out what’s going on.” He tried to grab my mask. I could feel the pressure in my head again. I tried to tamp it down.
I don’t want to kill him. But I have to get away. I tried to twist my arm. He was stronger, and persistent.
“Don’t look at me!” I screamed in a panic. “Forget this ever happened!”
Another wave of power came out of me and threw him back off of me. He fell back and hit the ground with a groan.
“Shit…,” I breathed.
He was moving. And he didn’t turn to dust. Thank god.
He clutched his head, blinking, rubbing his eyes. “What the…what the fuck? Where am I? Who’s there?” His face rose in my direction. His green eyes looked clouded. His expression was confused with a dash of fury.
Ohhh…
I did not just do what I think I did.
Waylon’s hand closed around the gun as he realized what was in his hands, but it definitely seemed that he couldn’t see and didn’t remember where he was. I took a step back.
“Who is there?” he demanded, holding up the gun. “Tell me where I am and what you just gave me or I’ll shoot. I swear to god.”
If he couldn’t see, that wasn’t much of a threat, but I was too panicked to stick around and find out. I transformed even as I was already running and hauled ass for the door.
I ran all the way back to the bridge, where I stopped to compose myself, and only then did I realize that maybe I should have helped him get out of there or tried to give him his vision back. His leg was bleeding too. But then he might figure out who I was and I would be in the same deep trouble as before.
Right now…no one knew. No one knew.
Yeah. You’re safe. You made it. He can take care of himself. I was panting hard, holding my knees before straightening out and pulling myself together. I had to recover before some human started asking what I was up to.
As long as he never remembered and I kept this power under control, I would be safe. I couldn’t tell anyone, at least until I figured out what this all meant. I didn’t kill him, so that was good. He’d figure out how to get home somehow. He was a tough kid. He had a gun and hunters kept a distance from each other, usually, so…since all the hunters in the building had been turned to ash, he could probably find his way home. His vision would probably return in a few hours, right? And his memory, never, hopefully?
I had no idea how this worked.
I would need a story to tell Roy, but…if Waylon never remembered any of this, it didn’t need to be a complicated story.
If Waylon did remember, I was fucked anyway.
I got there and I didn’t see Angus or anybody, but Waylon was there and he seemed super drunk or something. That’s not my business, so I just got out of there.
That was believable. Waylon drank too much. He experimented freely with substances. He was already a “bad kid”. Even if he tried to claim something else, Roy and even Bobby would probably believe me. They would never guess the truth, that was for sure.
I had no trouble getting back across the bridge, since I was just going home, back where I belonged. I headed straight for O’Malley’s. I wanted to pretend this had never happened and just be a normal teenager for a night.
I really, really wanted to tell myself this had never happened.
On the corner outside the pub, the day’s newspaper showed President Viktor Castella walking along with a serious expression, flanked by his security detail. TRADE TALKS ONGOING, the headline said. The other headline showed Randall Bloom, the wealthiest man in America. BLOOM TAKES HARDLINE STANCE AGAINST ISTARAN TRADE DEAL. Everyone hated Bloom. The tech giant used his money and power to squash any attempt for shifters to gain more power of their own. Generally, it was adult stuff I didn’t pay attention to at all. It was hard enough dealing with the clashes in our neighborhood. The idea of being plunged onto the world stage and every shifter in the world seeing me as a prophesied savior…
Oh god. I feel so sick. But maybe I’m not the Black Queen at all. There could be another explanation for it…
The idea of me being the Black Queen was already pretty absurd, but I truly could not think of another explanation.
Ian stepped out the door. “Hey! I saw you through the window. Are you just going to stand there or do you want to eat potato skins?”
“I want to eat potato skins. Definitely. I was just catching my breath.”
I passed through the green doors under Celtic knots carved around the doorway, and the signs that said:
Black Queen: Stray: Fated Mates Paranormal Shifter Romance (Shifters Among Us Book 1) Page 2