by Isa Hunt
I didn't know what to say; her story was one of incredible sorrow. I did the only thing I could at this moment and hugged her close and tight.
“I'm so sorry Li-wun,” I said, feeling sorrow washing over me like cold rain. “That's so, so sad. I'm sorry.”
“Do not worry, child,” she said hoarsely, with tears glistening in her eyes. “As I said, all things must come to an end. I accepted this long ago. And when I finally cross the bridge that leads from this world to the next, I will finally be with my children again, after all these years.”
She looked up at me and smiled.
“And now, now I have an heir once more.”
I felt confused for a second, but then realized what she was saying.
“Whoa, wait, wait a minute,” I stammered, “do you mean, are you trying to say that I'm your heir now?”
“Of course. My own dragon children are long gone from this world, and someone must be heir to my throne. Who better than another dragon queen?”
“I . . . I don't know what to say . . . I mean, I'm not even Chinese, I, I . . . ”
She chuckled warmly.
“And this isn't China, child, and what was left of the last shifter refuge in China was all destroyed many decades ago. I am sorry that I cannot give you much in terms of what I am leaving behind – there is no land, no castle, just a title – a title that is, however, very useful for you. You see – already Sergei of the Vasenkov Tiger Clan has come to pledge his allegiance to you. The alphas of the packs, tribes and clans who were loyal to my throne will now be compelled to shift their loyalty to you, strengthening you against the forces of Artemis. Also, I will leave you many of my old treasures. I'm sure that if you sell some of them, you will have as much money as you need at your disposal.”
“Wow,” I murmured, stunned. “I . . . I don't know what to say, Li-wun.”
“A simple 'thank you' will do,” she answered with a wink.
I hugged her again.
“I wish I could do more than just say 'thank you,' though,” I said, feeling emotional. “You've done so much for me, so very, very much . . . ”
“And you becoming who you were born to be is thanks enough for me,” she answered. “That is all I want now before I die: to see you become the queen you were always meant to be. The queen who wins this war against the tyrant Artemis, and restores order to the shifter world.”
Just then, Benoit and Sergei came back.
“The coast is clear,” said Sergei. “Time to go. The chopper is almost here.”
“Well then,” said Li-wun, “let us depart at once.”
CHAPTER 14 – BENOIT
“How do we get up to the roof, Empress?” I asked Li-wun.
Already my focus was becoming razor-sharp; there was a task at hand, and I intended to see it through to the best of my abilities. I wasn't that happy about having to work with the newcomer, Sergei – yet another rival for Kelly's affections – but duty-bound me to put my own desires aside and do everything I could to keep my queen safe.
My ribs ached with a dull throb, but it was easy enough for me to push through the pain. A trained soldier never lets an injury get in the way of completing the mission.
“Come,” she said. “My guards will lead us up the stairs to the roof. Is the helicopter near, Sergei?”
Sergei glanced at his phone and nodded.
“My pilot will be touching down on the roof in a minute or two. We must hurry.”
The guards we had seen earlier were waiting obediently outside the apartment in the hallway. Li-wun barked some court orders in Mandarin Chinese at them. They nodded and shouldered their assault rifles and started moving briskly toward a stairwell at the end of the hallway. From the way they moved, I could tell they were pros; this was good. We needed all the firepower we could get in the event of Artemis's thugs arriving before we escaped.
“You stay with Kelly and Li-wun,” said Sergei to me. “I'll cover the rear as we move.”
I nodded and moved up next to Kelly. There was the unmistakable glint of fear in her eyes, and as soon as I saw this, all I wanted to do was to hold her close and tell her everything was going to be alright.
I couldn't, of course; I had to protect her before I could comfort her.
“Don't worry,” I said softly to her. “I've got your back. And you already know that I'm willing to die for you. I won't let any harm come to you, not while this heart of mine still beats in my chest.”
She smiled, and I could see tears rimming her eyes.
“You're the poet of the bunch, aren't you?” she asked. “My beautiful, shy, quiet Benoit. I'm so lucky to have you.”
I felt a surge of powerful emotion tearing through my core. Even though I knew she could never be mine alone, for this brief moment in time it almost felt as if it were just she and I.
“No, my queen,” I said. “I'm the lucky one.”
Before we could say anything else, one of the guards, who had run up the stairs ahead of us, yelled something in Mandarin Chinese to Yi-wun.
“He says it's clear,” she said to us. “It's safe to go up to the roof.”
“Alright,” I said to Kelly. “Let's go. Remember, I've got you covered.”
She nodded. I jogged up the steps alongside her. We headed up two flights of steps, and then we were out on the roof. Night had fallen, but bright light was shining directly on us from above: Sergei's chopper. The noise from the whirling blades was deafening, as small as the chopper was, and the rushing air from the blades whipped against us like a storm wind.
Then, in the dark, speckled with the million lights of New York City, I saw a different kind of light gleaming – one that should not have been there. A pair of lights, actually: panther eyes, staring balefully at us from the shadows of the roof of the building next to us, which was just a little higher than this one.
“Oh no,” I muttered under my breath as my heart started to beat faster.
I glanced around at the building to the rear of us and saw more animal eyes staring coldly at us from the shadows. Then, with a mounting sense of dread, I glanced at the building on the right – and from its roof, more wild animal eyes shone.
“We've got company!” I roared, preparing to fire.
As the helicopter started to descend toward the roof, they attacked. Pumas, lions, bears, gorillas, wolves – all started leaping off of the buildings around us onto the roof of this one. We had been ambushed.
I started firing rapidly, forcing myself to stay cool as I picked off my targets one by one. I was vaguely aware of Sergei and Li-wun's guards yelling and firing as well, but my vision turned to tunnel vision as my mind focused on the unfolding battle.
“Stay next to me!” I yelled to Kelly. “Whatever happens, stay next to me! I'm gonna get you on the chopper, whatever it takes!”
A puma came charging for me at full speed, roaring and spitting. I dropped to my knees and put two bullets through its skull, and it came skidding to a halt, dead, at my feet. But I paid no attention to it, even though Kelly screamed with terror next to me; my attention was already on the next threat, a huge bear thundering toward us from the rear.
I emptied my clip into its face, and it roared, staggered back a few paces and then fell dead as I popped a new clip into my gun.
“Duck!” yelled Sergei from behind me.
I grabbed Kelly and pulled her violently down onto the ground – and a lion sailed through the air above us, just where we had been standing. Sergei took it down in mid-air though, and the beast was dead before it even hit the ground.
As I hit the ground, though, a blinding white flash of intense pain ripped through my body from my broken ribs, and I dropped my gun. I gasped and groaned, but forced myself to focus. I had to protect Kelly, I had to.
I reached for my gun – but as I did, a huge hairy hand grabbed it from the ground and tossed it away, and I found myself staring at the face of a huge, angry gorilla.
It ignored me, however, and lunged for Kelly, tryin
g to grab her. I kicked the creature in the face, still lying on my back. That got its attention. It roared and reached down to grab me – and that's when I shifted into my wolf form. In a split second, I transformed from man to wolf. My clothes exploded in a shower of cloth fragments, but a ruined suit meant nothing in a situation of life or death. I jumped up and lunged for the gorilla's throat with my jaws, and we fell to the ground together, locked in a vicious struggle.
I lunged and bit and kicked, but the creature was way too powerful for me. He gripped me with his immensely powerful hands, slipping them around my throat, and with a roar started to crush my throat, throttling the life out of me. I writhed and kicked and snarled, but it was no use – the end was near.
Then, however, I saw a gun appearing out of the corner of my eye. The muzzle was pressed against the side of the gorilla's head, and then there was a bang – and the creature's eyes rolled back in their sockets, and its iron grip slackened from my throat as it fell back, dead.
Sergei, still in his human form, knelt down next to me.
“Are you okay, my friend?”
I shifted back to my human form and groaned.
“Not really . . . but I'll live.”
He offered me his hand, which I gripped, and he pulled me to my feet.
“Hurry!” he said. “We're ready to taking off!”
All around me the roof was littered with dead bodies. Li-wun's guards had all been killed, but she and Kelly were safe. Groaning, and naked, I hobbled as fast as I could behind Sergei to the helicopter. The pilot took off his jacket and tossed it to me as I climbed in.
“Thanks,” I said.
He grinned and said something to me in Russian, and then we started to take off, rising up vertically into the sky.
We had only barely survived the ambush, but we were safe . . . for now.
“Let's get out of here,” I muttered. “Let's get the hell out of here.”
CHAPTER 15 – KELLY
My heart was pounding from what had just happened, and I was breathing hard with fear and panic. Hordes of wild animals – well, not exactly wild animals, but shifters – had launched a surprise attack, and thanks to Benoit and Sergei, and Li-wun's courageous guards, who had died in the fighting, we were safe. Benoit had almost been killed though, and I could see that he was having trouble breathing.
“Oh my God, Benoit, are you okay?” I asked him.
“I'll . . . be fine . . . ” he croaked, gripping his throat, which was dark red from where the gorilla shifter had throttled him.
“The enemy is closer than we think,” murmured Li-wun, who was obviously very shaken up. “But how . . . how did he find us so quickly? How?”
Sergei talked with the pilot in Russian for a while, and then he turned to speak to us. His expensive suit had been ripped open in places, and he was bleeding from long streaks – in groups of four – from lion and bear claws across his torso.
“Sergei, you're bleeding!” I gasped. “You're hurt!”
He shrugged and grinned, and his eyes shone with something that seemed to be madness; this man, it would seem, revealed in combat and was a natural born fighter.
“They are nothing, just scratches,” he said. “When you fight battles, you get hurt. It's nothing to me.”
“What did you say to your pilot?” asked Benoit.
“I asked him how much fuel he has. Luckily for us, it's a full tank, so I instructed him to fly out over the ocean, as far as we can get from land. That way if there's anyone trying to follow us on the ground, we'll throw them off. We'll travel over the ocean for maybe a hundred miles, then when we're sure to have thrown off any ground pursuit, we'll fly back over land.”
Benoit nodded.
“Good thinking.”
As we flew over the ocean, watching the thousands of lights that made up the New York skyline disappear behind us, my heart rate finally started to slow down. Li-wun reached across to me from her seat and clasped my hand in her tiny, wrinkled hands.
“You are safe now Kelly. We are safe . . . and we can continue your training when we arrive in the mountains. I know that you are afraid, but know that you are safe now, at this moment.”
Still holding my hand, she turned to Sergei and Benoit.
“You two are most deserving of your status as alphas of your respective packs and clans,” she said. “You each fought nobly in that battle, placing yourselves in mortal danger in order to rescue your queen. She is lucky to have men of such bravery and valor serving her.”
“Thank you, Empress,” said Sergei, bowing to Li-wun.
Benoit simply smiled and gave a polite nod.
“Benoit,” I said, my voice strong and clear with sincerity, “you have twice now proved to me that you are willing to die for me. I don't think I've ever met anyone who is as loyal as you, and I'm honored to call you . . . my mate,” I said, thinking for a moment just how weird that term still sounded to me.
He smiled warmly, and I could see that he was taking my words to heart, that what I was saying really touched him deeply.
“And to you, Sergei, I say the same,” I continued. “Even though I have known you for such a short time, you too showed me that you were willing to lay down your life for me. I am honored to have a man like you fighting for me.”
He bowed to me, as he had done for Li-Wun.
“I swore by the sword of my ancestors,” he said, patting the sword that was still on his hip, “to serve you, Queen Kelly. And nothing will come between me and that vow – nothing but death.”
Queen Kelly. Wow. I never imagined that that would be something that people would call me. As weird as it was, I was slowly starting to get used to it. I definitely wasn't completely used to it yet, not by a long shot – but it was getting easier to accept that this was who I was. I felt like I'd done a ton of growing up over the past few days, and that a maturity that I never knew I possessed had somehow emerged from me.
On the other hand, though, a large part of me still felt like the bartender at the Full Moon bar in a little town in Florida who had been plucked out of an easy if boring existence, and tossed head first into the deep end of a pool full of sharks.
I mean, all of this was so surreal and crazy that it did sometimes feel like some gigantic dream – or nightmare – that I would wake up from any second.
I wondered what my best friend Rhonda thought was going on. I had meant to call her, but . . . what on earth was I going to say to her? How was I going to explain any of this?
Abe at The Full Moon had tried to call a few times, but I hadn't picked up. I knew that he would be calling to ask why the hell I'd missed my shifts, and it wasn't out of any concern for my well-being; he was just pissed that I had missed work, and he wanted to be able to fire me in person. Well, considering I may never set foot in my little Florida town again at this rate, I figured he would just have to forgo that pleasure.
And old Mr. Jenkins down the hall from my shabby little apartment. I felt a little pang of sadness when I thought of him with his soft, husky voice and his grandfatherly smile. He was probably wondering why he hadn't seen me around the apartment building for a while, and I figured he would be getting worried. I wondered if he was going to file a missing person report with the cops . . . He may well do it, I guessed and depending on how seriously they took it, that could mean trouble. Publicity was the last thing I needed now, and I certainly didn't need my face splashed across news reports and such. I figured I'd better call him and tell him I was out of town 'visiting relatives' for a while or something.
Interrupting my thoughts, the pilot said something in Russian, and while I couldn't understand what he had said, from the tone he used it didn't sound too good.
“What did he say, Sergei?” I asked.
“Not good, not good,” muttered Sergei.
“What's going on?”
Sergei didn't answer me this time. Instead, he opened the side door of the helicopter and leaned out, looking behind us. He nodded grimly, and then
slammed the door shut. He turned and spoke to the pilot in Russian again.
“Come on Sergei, tell me what's happening!” I demanded.
“We're being followed,” he said calmly. “By another chopper. I was asking him if he has any anti-aircraft guns on this chopper.”
“Oh shit,” muttered Benoit.
Just then, a voice crackled through the helicopter's radio – a voice I'd never heard before, but one that somehow managed to send icy chills running down my spine.
“Hello Kelly, hello Li-wun,” rasped the deep, gravelly voice. “You thought you could get from my men and me, didn't you? Hahaha. Don't you realize yet that there is no escape? Don't you understand that whatever you do, wherever you try to run, I will find you? My helicopter is bigger and faster than yours, and we'll be on you in a few short minutes. You can't outrun us, and you can't outmaneuver us. Now give yourselves up, my lovely dragon queens, and I'll not only kill both of you quickly and painlessly, but I'll also let your friends live and walk away. You have my word on that. If you try to fight, though, I'll make sure that you all suffer in prolonged, intense agony, and you'll be praying for death for many days before it finally comes to you. Your choice . . . ”
“Artemis,” whispered Li-wun. “It's Artemis.”
CHAPTER 16 – KELLY
As soon as I had heard the strange voice on the chopper's radio, I had somehow known it had been Artemis. I don't know how; perhaps he and I were linked in some way. But now that Li-wun had confirmed that it was indeed him, a strange mix of emotions raced through me. There was an intense fear; on some level, I understood how powerful Artemis was. Also, however, there was a violent rage, an intense wrath of the kind I didn't think I'd ever experienced before. Who the hell did this guy think he was?