Forbidden Union: A Paranormal Romance (Harem of The Mindslayer Book 3)

by Willa Hart

  “What is this place?” I whisper, my eyes trying to hold onto something, anything. The sensation of falling trembles through my body and I reach out my arms to my sides. I slowly turn. Even the floor is black marble.

  “This is the Room of Knowledge,” King Rex says. He stands beside me, his gaze glued to me while I spin. A smile spreads over his face. “It’s wondrous, is it not?”

  “I…I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “No one has,” King Rex says. “Unless you’re a Wolveskin.”

  I continue to turn in the center of the room mesmerized by the sensation of floating. Light bathes me from above. I tilt my head up and look to the top of the center of the chamber. “It’s the moon,” I whisper. The full moon is above me. Is it the real moon or simply an image? Regardless, the effect of the moon on me is instantaneous. Washed in her light a sense of wellness and all-knowing rushes through me. I am connected to an energy greater than me.

  “It is Luna, our Goddess of the hunt and the Night,” Rex says. His voice is deep and somber, and his words contain reverence. “This room contains all the knowledge of every Wolveskin who has ever lived before us.”

  I stop turning round and round and my gaze shifts from the moon above me to Rex’s face.

  “Our entire past is contained within this space. Each pack member’s thoughts and knowledge enter this space when they pass from this world to the next.”

  My gaze locks onto Rex.

  “It is here that we can learn about who you’re meant to be to the pack and to the world.”

  “But if all knowledge passes, how is it you don’t know everything there is to know already?” I ask. “I think I’d simply sit in here and soak up all the knowledge of the world if I could learn everything that anyone has ever known before me.”

  “Ah, you’re a smart one, Princess.” A smile curls over Rex’s face. “While we may seek to know all there is to know, our Goddess, Luna, only provides us with the knowledge that is meant for us.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’ll only receive the images that the Goddess wishes you to have.”

  “So I won’t learn everything?”

  “No, you won’t learn everything, but you’ll learn what you need to know.” Rex turns to me. “How is it that I knew of your existence but I didn’t know where you were? Because the Goddess wanted me, for whatever reason, to wait. Perhaps because if I’d known that you were hidden in Ninaku, there would’ve been war long ago?” Rex says with a tinge of anger in his voice. “I like to think that I wouldn’t have let you remain and suffer in the Ninaku laundry, if I’d known you were there.”

  “And yet,” I say, “I learned so much by being a Dreg. I met Jix. I learned how to survive. I understand both the good and the bad of the Eliterrati.”

  Rex nods. “That is often how it is. The Goddess knows there are events that must unfold for each of us, because those events make us into who we need to be so that we can fulfill our destiny in this world. I’m certain there are many reasons that your mother and father hid you in plain sight. As there are many reasons they subverted your childhood memories before leaving you.”

  “I wonder…did they work together? My mother had the Eliterrati ability to manipulate and subvert memories, and my father knew that much of my past would be placed here in this room for me to find when it was time.”

  “I wondered the same thing,” Rex says. “That’s why I wanted you to come here to this room. To see what you might discover as well as to know the history of your pack.”

  My pack.

  These words are difficult for me to digest. I’m a Wolveskin. I’m a part of an entire group of beings that I didn’t even think were real. What does that mean to me and my future? I’ve never even shifted, I don’t even know if I can shift. I’m conscious of so little from my childhood. Whatever memories I have from before the laundry come from when Sarkany and I discovered my childhood home in the Dark Forest and from the White Wolf visiting me in my dreams.

  “Stand over here,” Rex says. He weaves his fingers through mine and guides me to the center of the room.

  Fear clutches my belly. I swallow. What will I discover? What will I find out? Can I even do what my destiny requires of me? I can’t fight. I can barely use my mindpowers. And it seems everywhere I arrive someone is injured, or war and discord follow in my wake.

  I look down. Luna, the full moon, is reflected in the marble at my feet. I stand in her center.

  It’s as though the floor bends away from me.

  “I’ll be close.” Rex’s fingers slip from mine and he steps into the shadows. Shadows that give an illusion of infinity. I’m alone. Or I feel very alone.

  Close your eyes.

  The inner voice that speaks into my mind isn’t mine, nor is it any person I know. Not Sarkany. Not Taraz. Not Leo. Not Rex. The voice is soothing and soft.

  Your future awaits. You have a job you must fulfill. A destiny that has been given to only you.

  I close my eyes. My body feels as though it lifts away from me, as though I am…not of this place or this space. I open my eyes. The Knowledge Room in the Wolveskin lair is gone…disappeared…I am…I am in a field. Sunshine warms my skin. My fingertips reach down and brush against tall grass that reaches my hips. There are wildflowers. Across the space in the distance, to my right, is the Dark Forest. Ahead of me, far away, is the Wall of Ninaku, and beyond the Wall that surrounds the Dreg Slum I see the spires of the Palace.

  I glance over my shoulder; behind me, far in the distance with miles of forest and field between where I stand and where they rise up from the earth are the mountains of the North. A land that is rough and rugged, a place I’ve never traveled to. A place where there is no Ninaku. Dregs live in a slum without walls, not segregated by brick and mortar but instead by something more insidious, segregated by mindtraps.

  You must go North. The voice says.

  I shake my head and continue to walk across the open field toward Ninaku, knowing that I want only to get back to the Ninaku District. I must find Huali, I think.

  Go to the North, the voice says again.

  I am meant to lead the Dregs, I think.

  You won’t learn to lead them in Ninaku, the voice continues.

  I don’t need to ask her who she is or why she knows. In my heart, I’m certain it’s the Goddess Luna that speaks to me.

  Why? What is it that you want from me? Can’t I simply stay here? Can’t I hide? It was never my desire to lead, to be put in danger, I think. Why?

  We don’t pick our destiny, the voice says. Our destiny picks us. You will not find what you need to fulfill your destiny in Ninaku where the Kingdom is separated by a great wall. Go North. There you will find many who are sympathetic to you and to your cause. You may also find those that you love.

  Finally, in the field I turn. My gaze slips over the entrance to the Dark Forest. There, as usual, I see Mother with a grey wolf—who I now know is Father—and with them is…Huali.

  My heart leaps. She is alive! They are alive!

  Go North.

  A furry creature scurries across my feet. I glance down.

  Stupid girl, it’s you again? Why do I see you every time! The skunk waddles across my foot. Go North! You hear it too, don’t you? When the great Goddess Luna speaks, we must do as she says. Even us skunks.

  I turn toward Ninaku. Jix and Sarkany and Taraz stand in front of the great Ninaku gate. Behind them, is…is…Leo! He walks toward them with bold and aggressive purpose. None of them see Leo. Leo draws his sword.

  My heart hammers in my chest. Oh no! Jix! Taraz! Sarkany! I start to run. But it’s as though my feet are trapped in mud. I open my mouth to scream but I can’t utter a sound. Sarkany stands with his back toward his brother Leo. Sarkany’s eyes lock with mine and he smiles. Leo raises his sword.

  No, no, no, no! I force my legs to move, to run, to get to Sarkany, to save him. Leo is right behind Sarkany. Leo swings, the heavy metal blade glints
in the sunlight, Sarkany raises his arm to wave at me. Love in his gaze as the blade comes through the air—

  “Nooooo!” I scream. I’m ripped away. My body tumbles through darkness. Through space over and over rolling and falling. I reach out, grasping for something, anything to hold onto, but my fingertips clutch nothingness. I open my eyes.

  I sit on a throne in the Wolveskin throne room. Three cubs tumble at my feet. I stand and kneel. Across from me on the far wall is a mirror. My face is reflected back, I am…I press my hand to my head…wearing a crown. I am a Queen. A cub sits on my foot.

  Yap, yap, yap!

  I open my arms. Three cubs scramble onto my lap. Soft fur brushes against my cheeks and arms. Nipping puppy teeth graze my arms. A tongue licks my face.

  Joy bounds through my heart. I kiss the top of each furry head. Taking a long sniff of the scent of each one. Ahhh, the babies smell so sweet, like sunshine and milk and soap.

  A mother’s love, says the voice.

  I pull the puppies into my arms and stroke their fur.

  Yes, I feel that they’re mine. My children, which would mean…I glance toward the doorway of the throne room. Rex enters, a crown on his head. Beside him is Taraz who also wears a crown, and beside him is a third with a crown on his head as well…no…that can’t possibly be! This…this…vision or dream or whatever it is cannot be showing me the truth of my future because who I’m seeing as a third King will never happen—can never happen.

  What you believe to be the truth now, is not always the truth for forever, the voice says.

  I grasp the female cub and look into her eyes. I bend forward to give her a kiss on the nose and then she’s gone. I tumble through the darkness. I open my eyes. I’m in the Room of Knowledge. A million glittering diamonds of light surround me, and glitter and the moon is above me and beneath my feet. I press my hand to my forehead.

  “To go North? I’m to go North?” I shake my head and look up toward the moon above me. “What will that mean to Taraz and Sarkany?”

  I ask the empty space. I receive no answer.

  Rex walks from the shadows. “You received messages,” he says. Warmth in his eyes. Possibly even understanding with my obvious confusion. “She rarely gives me easy answers, I can tell that she didn’t spare you, either.”

  I close my eyes. I scrub my hands over my face. “I have more questions than before.” I open my eyes and glance around the room. “Can I…can’t I go back?”

  Rex looks up to the ceiling; the moon that was full above us and cast her light upon me and the circle is no longer there. Luna has slipped away.

  “Not on this night,” Rex says. “She calls to each of us through the White Wolf, and when she’s finished sharing what she believes we need to know, she slips out of our sight.”

  “How am I supposed to know what all of it meant?”

  “What did she tell you to do? I’ve discovered that her direction is often quite clear, but that unfortunately what she demands is a challenge to what I want to do. I falter only when I think I know better and do what I want instead of what she suggests.” He traces his finger along the scar that cuts through his eyebrow.

  I sigh. Dammit. “She said to go to the North. That I’m not to return to Ninaku yet.” I shake my head. “Not now. That my destiny awaits me in the Northern Province. Not here and not in Ninaku, but in the North.”

  Rex nods. “I wondered if it were so.”

  I raise an eyebrow.

  “She recently informed me to prepare for the cold. I’m a Wolveskin so I enjoy the cold from time to time, but not even I enjoy the frigid nights of the North. It would seem, Princess, that both you and I are destined to follow the Snow Path to the Northern Kingdom where Eliterrati and Dreg live side by side,”

  “And where Mindslayers roam the streets at will,” I continue. “Have you not heard the stories of what takes place to Dregs in the North?” I ask and shiver.

  “You’re not only a Dreg, Meela,” Rex says. “You, my darling woman, are a Queen.”

  “So you say.” I stop short of telling him of the throne room and the cubs and the three Kings I saw enter the room.

  “Ah, well sometimes we each learn different things from the Goddess about those that surround us.”

  I close my eyes and see Leo rushing toward Sarkany’s back with his blade drawn all while Sarkany smiles toward me. Goddess! I shiver with the vision. No, no, it cannot be that Sarkany will be killed by Leo, can it?

  “Something bad,” Rex says. “Something that makes you”—he rubs his hands up and down over my arms as though trying to warm me—“something that upsets you.”

  I nod. I’m unsure why, but I can’t share some of my visions with Rex. What I saw happening between Leo and Sarkany? I can’t utter the words. Describing the scene I witnessed makes what I saw too real. I must keep the thought to myself for now…I must do as I was told and pray that Huali is alive and that Sarkany will be too.

  “North, we are to go North,” I say. “Without traveling to Ninaku first. For whatever reason she has commanded that we go.”

  A strained look passes over Rex’s face. His gaze slides away from me. Just as I can’t share all my visions with Rex, are there parts of his visions that he cannot share with me?

  “Then, Princess, let us prepare for the journey. I was instructed that we’re to leave when next the moon is full. We have much to do.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Rex

  I enter my private study. Arianna stands before the fireplace, her red-gold curls glinting in the firelight. Shadows flicker across the muscles of her bare arms. She twirls a blade across her knuckles. The metal flashes with fire much like her eyes. She burns bright. Arianna has always burned bright. A fierce warrior and protector. Her warrior nature desires freedom. Her wildness drew me to her when I was a young King rebelling against the burden of my rule, but now…now I seek the gentle warmth of Meela.

  “The stink of your longing for the human wafts off you in waves,” Arianna says. She paces before the hearth as though caught in a cage. “It’s humiliating to return to the lair when my pups still jump about and be greeted with the smell of your attraction to that human bitch.” She slams her knife deep into the wood of my desk. Fur sprouts with her anger and shimmers reddish gold on her arms. Her incisors lengthen. “You disrespect me and my position within this pack.” Her voice sounds more and more like a growl.

  How carefully my Alpha has kept her rage locked within her. She is a cunning and smart warrior not to have let her Wolveskin anger rage in front of Meela or the pack. But even with her restraint, anger rages through me. I breathe to control my beast, for should I shift now, I’m uncertain that Arianna would live to see her human form again.

  Rex? Meela’s thoughts enter my mind. There is so much rage…where are you?

  Not now, I respond.

  I need to speak to you abou—

  Not. Now.

  Too late, I’m nearly there, Meela thinks.

  Meela’s scent proceeds her. Arianna shifts. Her lip curls back showing me her teeth.

  “Stand down, Arianna, for you shall not survive my rage.”

  She growls.

  Meela is close. Do not come in here, Meela it is not safe, I think.

  Arianna’s wolf glances toward the door as do I. The wooden door opens, and Arianna leaps as Meela comes through the doorway.

  My beast roars, and within an instant I stand as a wolf between Arianna and Meela. I have little control. I growl and bare my teeth. Arianna growls back and we face off. I lunge, requiring that she submit, but instead she lunges at me. I nip her side, careful not to break her skin but aggressive enough that she knows my bite is a painful warning of what I’m willing to do to protect Meela.

  Arianna falls back and slinks along the far wall. She turns and runs toward me again. This time, I nip her and taste the metal of blood. She does not yelp. She again backs away and paces. Her eyes look past me to where I’m certain Meela stands frozen. Two Wolves
kins, both far bigger than her, fight to what could possibly be my Alpha female’s death, should Arianna not soon submit.

  I do not lunge. I merely remain in my defensive position making it clear I have no plan on letting Arianna past me to Meela. Nor do I wish to attack Arianna. Finally, Arianna turns away as though to retreat, but just as I am nearly certain this horrible moment is over, Arianna races from the shadows of my room. She leaps toward me and Meela. I catch her with my teeth and hear the squeal and a yelp. My teeth feel the skin give way and a crunch of bone. Arianna falls to the floor of my chamber. She shifts to her human form, and her breathing is labored. Brianna runs into my study.

  “Get Dr. Atta,” I say. “Please, get her now.”

  I press my hand to Arianna’s ribs, for it is there near her belly where I felt my teeth sink in. It is warm and wet beneath her vest. I pull my fingertips away and they are red with my Alpha’s blood.

  “Dammit.” I press my fingers there to staunch the flow of blood. Arianna’s eyelids flutter open and she looks at me with a mate’s love. “Do not die, do you understand,” I say. “You have no right to die. It is your King’s command, that you live.”

  She does not smile at my attempt at a joke but instead only closes her eyes. Where is Dr. Atta? Across from me stands Meela, her eyes wide.

  “Is she…?”

  “I hope not,” I say.

  But I do not know if my female Alpha will live or die this day.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rex

  “It was a foolish choice,” I say.

  Rexnold and Rexina snuggle on Arianna’s lap. This is her third day in bed in her room and the first time in as many days that I felt calm enough to come and speak with my Alpha female. “Meela is a Queen, a guest, and a Wolveskin. For you to leap at her when she has not shifted is against our most sacred law.”

  “She can’t shift. So how would you have me battle her?”

  “In the form that she is. You know the rules. You lost hold of your beast. It’s not appropriate behavior for a leader. Is it really necessary for me to tell you this?”