by Willa Hart
“They’re all named, Rex…is it a tradition in the pack to name all pups after the current King?” I ask. I pick up Rexland who has fallen between two rocks and is on his back legs pawing at the air.
“No, it’s a tradition to give pups a name that references their father when he is the Alpha.”
A pang crushes through my chest. I stop stroking Rexland and turn to Esmella. “Their father is the Alpha? But I thought that King Rex was the Alpha of the pack?”
“He is!” Esmella smiles and picks up Rexzold.
“You have children?!” I pace in front of Rex. My hands on my hips. My head swims. How is it possible that I have feelings for a man who has children? “Or puppies…or whatever you want to call them, and you have…a wife?”
“Yes, yes, and no,” Rex says with that incorrigible smile that seems to always be on his face when I’m around.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Yes, I have children that, yes, sometimes are puppies, but, no, I do not have a wife.”
“But there is a female Alpha who has born you puppies!” I say. “What would you call that?”
“I would call that a female Alpha that has born me puppies,” Rex says. He walks to me and towers above me. He is so close; I’m conflicted both by my feelings toward him and my feelings toward Sarkany and Taraz.
“I don’t understand, aren’t they the same?”
“Well, I don’t understand how one woman can have multiple fated-mates at the same time who are brothers, and yet here we are.” He lifts an eyebrow and looks at me. “Are you jealous, Princess? That I have mated with a Wolveskin to provide offspring for my pack?”
I cross my arms over my chest and look away from Rex. “You owe me nothing,” I say.
“And yet you behave as though a scorned lover might,” Rex says. He walks around me until he is in front of me and peers into my eyes. “You are a fated-mate to not one, but two Roya Princes and you are jealous of my obligation to my pack?”
“How do you know of me and Taraz?” I ask.
Rex presses a finger to the side of his nose, “Did I not tell you that you cannot fool the olfactory of the Wolveskin?” He walks closer to me and grasps my arms with his giant hands. “I can smell him on you still.” His eyes flash as his pupils dilate; the silver widens and narrows around his pupil. “Do not speak to me of jealousy, Princess.” His voice is low and fueled with heat. “I knew when he took you. Smelled your scent in the air of my very own lair where you lay as my guest. But it’s not my place to tell you how to conduct your affairs and what is needed for the Queen of the Roya, if in fact you will be their Queen. But yes, I fought the urge to rush through the halls of my lair and find you, with him, and rip him from your body, rip his throat open with my teeth.”
A thrill rushes through me with the intensity of Rex’s words and the heat of his desire for me. He pulls me closer and I don’t fight him, because I’m drawn to him in a way that speaks to my very bones.
“You were destined to be mine long before any Roya discovered you or your value. While patience is not my strength, I can be a patient man.” He turns and walks away from me and across the room. “I will wait, Princess. I will bide my time. It is inevitable that the Roya brothers shall make a grievous error where you’re concerned because they are filled with hubris, and there is no way they can know of the great jewel they possess. And when they make their mistake with you, the one that sours your heart on them, I shall be there to make you my mate, my Queen, and my wife. Then you shall not only be my Alpha, but you shall be my pack’s Queen. And that shall have meaning to us all.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sarkany
Leo left for me a fresh horse just outside the castle walls. Beautiful, strong, and fleet of foot. I mount and press my heels into his sides. We spring forward and the guards wave me through, already instructed to let me pass.
Thank you, brother, I think.
There is no response. Leo’s silence doesn’t surprise me. He’s much less passionate than I, and the look in his eyes as I left…well, something ugly is afoot, and he’s determined that he must stay to utilize the ugliness to our advantage. At least there’s hope in my heart that it’s Leo’s desire to end the ugliness and create a safe Kingdom for all. Questions plague my mind as to Leo’s intentions, and yet I cannot stop myself for as much as I love my brothers and am Roya bound, I am in need of my fated-mate and she is my primary concern. I must find Meela and protect her. As though a salmon to spawn, I have no choice but to go to find Meela and spend my days, life, and energy with her.
The wind whistles through my hair. I ride past the city gates and the gates of Ninaku. My horse moves fast along the Long Road. Where is Meela? I don’t know, but everything within me says to go where I last saw her. The Wishing Tree outside my hunting shack. For while Leo controls Uncle now, what if that should change?
Meela…Meela…my mind presses over the connection to her. The private link between our minds that only fated-mates share. My pretty little bird, answer me! Meela. I am hours in the darkness riding on the Outer Bound Road and still no answer. Nothing from Meela, nothing from Taraz. I keep pushing through the many miles. In the distance my hunting shack rises up to greet me. I pull back on the reins and slide from my horse. We walk into a thicket of trees just off the entrance road. I will approach quietly because last time I was here we were attacked, and while Leo seems to have control over Uncle, I’m unsure that there aren’t guards stationed here to try and take my life. I glide through the woods to the back entrance. The gate is ajar, and blood is still frozen in the snow on the path. I sent several guards to the Demon of Hades when they attempted to take my Meela.
Sarkany?
Meela? I stop and crouch down to the ground, behind a giant pine. Meela, my beautiful bird! You are alive! Where are you? My Meela!
My throat chokes tight with emotion and my heart fills with love. I knew my mate was alive, I could feel her living over our connection even if I couldn’t communicate with her. But I also felt a darkness as though she were unconscious, and now I know…she’s alive.
Meela! Show me where you are, show me how to find you…you are…you are alive!
My love, my joy, she thinks.
My heart swells with her response to me. I felt that she was alive, but fear built within me as to where she was and if she were conscious.
You are safe? You are well? My horse snorts behind me and paws the ground. I loop his reins around the pine and move away from him. Closer to the gate, but under the cover of the trees and the darkness. Where are you? I must find you!
I…I don’t know where I am or how to tell you where I am… I—
Are you with Taraz?
Yes…yes…we’re together.
A strange feeling pulses in our connection. Not fear or anger…confusion? Are you afraid? Is something wrong? Has someone hurt you?
No…no one has hurt us. We are in the Dark Forest and we are safe, but we are with…
A light flashes ahead of me, a glint of moonlight off silver. There is someone here…at the hunting lodge. I pull my knife.
Sarkany? Fear in Meela’s thoughts.
I crouch low and move to the wall.
Meela, not now, there is someone at the hunting lodge, I think.
Cold stone presses through my cloak and I creep along the wall to the gate. My footsteps light and even on the snow.
Sarkany, please—
I can’t block Meela, but I can turn her down and I do, because I need to concentrate. The lodge is mine. The place where I’m most me. It’s foul that Uncle desecrated this place by taking me and Leo and attempting to kidnap Meela.
Rage pulses through my chest.
Whoever is sneaking around the lodge is about to feel the steel of my blade, I think.
Sarkany, please no!
I slink around the edge and onto the grounds. Darkness keeps me safe. I know this place as no one else does; if there is someone at the hunting lodge, they don
’t have a chance against me. I take a deep breath and dash across the lawn to the wall of the lodge. The back entrance is around the corner and the Wishing Tree peeks up over the stone wall where Meela and I took our vows. I press forward to the back entrance, turn the corner and stop.
Teeth, long and sharp, are bared an inch from my face.
Rrrrrrrr.
Standing on the back stairs, waiting for me, is a giant black wolf. His head is bigger than mine, and his hackles are raised. From my left and my right a pack of giant wolves emerges. Goddess! They’re upon me—a pack of them! I can’t take all of them to hell with me, but I’ll take what I can. I raise my arm to strike deep into the wolf’s shoulder—
Sarkany! No! No! Do not strike! Meela screams so loudly through our connection that I freeze. They are not there to hurt you…please!
Meela! What? Confusion pulses through me, to pause is to surely die.
Listen to your mate, human. The giant black wolf in front of me sends me a thought.
Wolveskin! I think. How am I hearing the thoughts of Wolveskin?
Not just Wolveskin, Meela thinks. More than Wolveskin.
More? How can they be more?
Make your choice, Prince Roya, the black wolf sends me a thought. Drop your steel or die.
The pack closes in around me. Crouched low to the ground with teeth bared, a dozen giant wolves draw closer. All Wolveskin.
Sarkany, please do as he says. I can explain if you will do as he asks.
Rrrrr.
Meela…you are certain? I swallow. There is little chance that I can fight my way out of this pack alive, but damn, I’d rather fight my way out of anything than surrender.
Yes, Meela thinks. For me. Please, please, they…they will bring you to me.
I close my eyes and drop my blade to the snow. I slowly bring my hand to my side and open my eyes. The black wolf closes his lips and his teeth disappear. He leaps off the steps that lead into the lodge and effortlessly lands by my side. He’s a giant—nearly as big as my horse.
Get on human, he thinks.
Will I hurt him?
Ha! That’s funny, the black wolf thinks.
I lift my leg to mount the black wolf when a blade whizzes through the air and grazes my cheek.
Thunk. The sound of steel splitting flesh and bone. My stomach curls. Even a warrior dislikes war.
The scream of a Wolveskin rends the air. My gaze travels the route of the blade and now, lying on the ground with a knife in her side, the Wolveskin transforms before my eyes from wolf to…a woman with long red hair.
“What the fuck?” I turn toward the back wall from where the blade came.
Assassin, the black wolf thinks.
Three of the pack peel off and race toward the wall. I bend down and pick up my blade and turn toward the wall.
We don’t have time to die tonight, the black Wolveskin thinks.
We both look toward the back wall. This assassin could only have been sent by my Uncle; I’d like to send him back to the Palace in pieces. I turn and look into the wolf’s eyes. Silver lines the pupils of his eyes. Intelligence. Knowledge. A kindred warrior soul. I see it all within his eyes.
No time to die tonight, but do we have time to fight? A tiny smile curves the edges of my mouth. I swear I see this giant Wolveskin smile.
There’s always time to fight, he thinks.
I nod and together we bolt toward the back wall, not knowing which one of us shall survive but knowing the battle is worth the ride.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Leo
Uncle is no longer the Regent with an Iron Fist. Since Wagu’s death, Uncle has gone from a strong and terrifying “Mindslayer” to an old and weak man under Palace arrest.
“No one else is to enter,” I tell the Palace guards that stand before Uncle’s suite of rooms. I pull open the doors. He stands in front of the window, his shoulders hunched. While it is nearly noon, he has not dressed for the day. Instead he wears a silken purple robe and slippers. His once cleanly-shaven face glistens with an old man’s grey whiskers. A vacant stare on his face, he gazes beyond the Palace windows to the cold and grey landscape beyond and toward the Wall of Ninaku.
“I’ve convened The Counsel,” I say.
No response. His eyes do not look away from the frigid winter landscape outside.
“Uncle?” Nothing, no movement, no recognition. I send a tendril to his mind. Uncle’s thoughts are grey and dark and cold.
I shiver.
Not a space in which anyone should live and yet…my thoughts as of late with the absence of Sarkany and Taraz have held very little color and joy. As much as Sarkany might enrage me with his rash decisions and penchant for acting on his passions before thinking through the results of his actions, I love him. Admiration pulses through me. If I’m completely honest, I adore in Sarkany the very thing that irritates me the most—his ability to act on his beliefs absent the desires and pressure of others. He is so jovial, so carefree. I smile. The colors of red and gold flash through my mind, so akin in my thoughts are those two colors to Sarkany. And Taraz, analytical and precise. How he spends hours upon hours with his tiny mechanical objects and specimens. One day he’ll save our world from something with his gadgets and gizmos. So unaware of the reality of our world and the Palace and ruling a kingdom. Dark blue and forest green fills my mind when I think of Taraz. I sigh. If only I could go to them now. Please Goddess, let my brothers be safe.
They are alive. I know this. Even while their minds have been closed to me—they are alive.
Soon we shall all be together again. I will make sure of it. My duty. My oath. My one desire. Even if it does mean suffering my brother with his “little bird.”
“Lord Regent Vlissimal,” I say more insistently, and Uncle’s head snaps toward me, startled from his thoughts.
“The Counsel will convene tomorrow,” I say.
He lifts an eyebrow. His eyes are dead with grief…and nothingness. “I am empty of all,” he whispers. “And without desire for this world.”
I take a deep breath. “I’ve heard of such things,” I say. “If an Eliterrati merges with a Dreg who has the curse, such a fusion changes both their minds. Should one die, the other can barely survive.”
Uncle closes his eyes and his nostrils flare. He swallows. “He…he was more than my valet,” he says. “More than my para-succubus he was—”
“Yes, I know you believe that he was your greatest love,” I say. “How ironic that you and your greatest love spent a lifetime killing those that were just like the man you chose as your mate.” I squint my eyes and walk toward him. “What must that feel like now that he’s gone? Or better question, what did that feel like to you and to Wagu every time you made him mindslay someone that had the same gift as he?”
Uncle’s bottom lip trembles and his eyes shine with tears. Good. Let them.
“You’ve destroyed so many lives,” I say. “And for what?”
“For the good of the blood,” Uncle says.
“Ha! For the good of the blood? And all while you were in love with the type of Dreg you spent a lifetime mindslaying? If only Mother had known,” I say.
“My choice was different than the changes that the Queen wished to unleash upon the Kingdom,” Uncle says. His eyes flash with anger. “She wanted to allow the Dreg and the Wolveskin, and Goddess knows whatever other creature might crawl out of the Dark Forest, to breed and inter-mix with Eliterrati! What kind of uprising might that unleash in the Kingdom? A civil war?”
I press my lips together.
“There are many Eliterrati and even Dreg who share my beliefs,” Uncle says. “And while my union with Wagu might have been illegal because he was a Dreg and I was an Eliterrati, Wagu and I could not taint the Eliterrati blood. We could produce no offspring. Our love and union impacted no one but us.”
“And what about all the Dregs you had Wagu mindslay? The Dregs who had The Curse? Just as Wagu did? All those you sent to their graves that were j
ust like your beloved Wagu?”
Uncle turns away from me and clasps his hands behind his back. “There are sacrifices that must be made to keep a Kingdom at peace.”
My stomach tightens with his words. How many in the Kingdom share his beliefs? Could there be a civil war? Blood in the streets?
“What you did was wrong, Uncle. It would appear that you believe that the laws of the Kingdom did not apply to you, Lord Regent.” I take a deep cleansing breath. “When we speak to the counsel, you’ll recommend that I be crowned,” I say. “For the good and safety of the Kingdom.”
“I can do no such thing,” Uncle says.
“You will indeed do so,” I say, straightening my spine.
“Or what?” Uncle asks; he turns his head toward me. “You’ll slay me? Kill me? I have lost all that I wish to live for. There is nothing left for me now in this world.”
“Nothing?” I ask. “Nothing at all?”
His eyes widen. “You would not harm your cousin Katya.”
“Much like you wouldn’t meld with a Dreg?”
The muscles in his jaw flinch.
“Try me, Uncle,” I step closer to him. “Much like you, I have little left to lose. Both my brothers flee because of you. One may be dead, and both are closed off to me for a reason I do not know. So try me today in front of The Counsel and live to see what might happen to Katya if you don’t do as I tell you and have me appointed King.”
“I knew you were ambitious,” Uncle says. “But I did not know how ambitious until now.”
“You have little idea, just how motivated I am,” I say. My voice is low and anger rages about my belly. Let Uncle think what he wishes, my only motivation is to get my brothers home without fear of either of them being slayed or imprisoned. “Or how motivating I can be.”