The Last Emperor

by Kari Gregg

  He edged around the barrier without raising an alarm.

  He crept farther into the dim northern wing, dirt and rock that had fallen from the disintegrating façade gritty under his wingtips. Since the barricades only climbed as high as his chest, Nick hurried down the corridor, counting on the dark interior to hide him. Thin light from transom windows lining the ceiling highlighted whirls of dust stirred as Nick passed. Clusters of statues in marble, bronze, and wood blocked his way, but he discovered a narrow gap through which he could circumvent the collection of discarded gods. He carefully steadied his balance as he hurdled the chipped wing of a headless falcon soaring up from the base of a column. How much of the tribes’ cultural legacy rotted in wanton neglect here?

  Navigating to the other side of the jumbled statues, Nick smothered a dusty cough, but these darker reaches of the decaying northern wing were worse. Broken furniture—most certainly antiques—joined crates of molding books stacked in towers that reached Nick’s shoulders. Paintings leaned, forlorn and forgotten, against the plaster walls. Someone had tried to drape tarps over some of these rejected treasures, but a thick layer of grime covered everything canvas and plastic didn’t protect. The footprints his shoes left in the gritty powder accumulating on the mosaic floor, itself a showpiece and a work of art, confirmed to Nick that no one had walked this part of the cathedral for years.

  He started at a grunt behind him and swung around, caddy raised to deflect the first blow, but only Arit had followed him. Nick’s mate pushed from his crouch, having jumped through the gap Nick had discovered. His mate rubbed his hands together, brushing away dirt and debris. Wide-eyed with curiosity, his gaze swept their surroundings. “Huh,” he said, voice low—too low to draw attention from the bustling crowd they’d left behind them. “Weird.”

  Nick beetled his brows. “What?”

  “Judging by the dirt, no one has bothered the northern wing since before the war.” Arit shrugged, muscles rippling under his leather jacket. “Odd it wasn’t looted.”

  “Priestesses would’ve guarded the capitol cathedral with their lives.” The faithful hadn’t lifted a finger for their emperor, had chosen to throw the weight of their support behind the rebels according to the histories and news reports Nick had studied. Then the elders had turned on the church and withdrawn support shortly after the war had been won. Nick fingered a portrait marred by several jagged tears. “Most of this stuff appears to be damaged.” His mouth quirked, his bitterness saddening him. “Not valuable enough to steal, I guess.”

  Wending a cautious path through the debris, Arit joined him. He squinted at the painting. “Isn’t that Co-regent Stennick? Your grandsire’s mate?”

  “Possibly.” Nick sighed. “Father despised him. Stripped the palaces of every trace of both Stennick and Emperor Gaelis when they died.” Perverse humor surprised a chuckle out of Nick. “Father wouldn’t have appreciated the irony of the tribes scrubbing him from history, too, but I do.”

  “Rebels killed him, but they couldn’t erase your father from history.” Arit’s heavy hand landed on Nick’s shoulder. “No more than Emperor Eton could wipe out the evidence of his sire and father before him.” He squeezed. “The tribes remember.”

  “They hated us.”

  “Not anymore.” Arit nudged Nick toward the dark, gaping maw of another chapel doorway. “C’mon. I bet one of these alcoves is still outfitted with usable pew to sit.”

  The first chapel they entered had been filled with trash, and the second wasn’t much of an improvement, littered with a hodgepodge of broken chairs, scarred benches that creaked alarmingly under Arit’s weight, and three-legged tables. The farther from bustling activity in the nave they searched, the more promising the results, though. In the chapel near the end of the transept, they found what they sought. After he and Arit muscled aside a massive cabinet missing one of its four doors, they created enough room to squirm inside a space showing the same, tired neglect of the entire northern wing, but the cabinet must have blocked the accumulation of trash and debris because a lone pew, a spiderweb of cracks disrupting the marble, occupied the sanctuary. Nothing else. Tapestries, grimy and tattered, still graced the stone walls, though, and a single stained-glass window depicting the mating flight of the virgin hawk goddess Milan filled the room with riotous and incongruously happy color.

  Gingerly perching on the bench until he was sure it wouldn’t disintegrate beneath him, Nick sat.

  Studied the window.

  Marginally comforted when Arit joined him on the bench, Nick let the peaceful quiet wash over him. “It’s beautiful. Thank you,” he eventually murmured.

  “You’re welcome.” Arit wriggled closer. Stroked Nick’s thigh. He nodded at the soaring hawk represented in delicate glass. “Superstition, tradition, and faith still have a purpose in the tribes. Whether hawk shifters ever existed doesn’t matter as long as their legends give us a reason for hope.”

  “Oh, the hawks were real.” Glancing at his mate, Nick arched an eyebrow. “We wolves wiped them out before the first Marisek united the tribes under his banner.” He titled his chin at Milan, the Goddess. “The foundation of the Crystal Palace was laid over ancient catacombs containing funerary stele inscribed with genealogies claiming Malin as their root.”

  Arit gaped. “You’re lying.”

  “Toly discovered the tunnels, but I was the one who escaped into them every summer, as often as I could, practically from the moment I took my first steps.” Shaking his head, Nick chuckled. “Mother and Father sealed the entrance for fear I’d be lost or hurt, but I found another way in. My brothers and sisters explored the catacombs very little. They thought it was creepy. I loved mapping it, though, seeing what no one else has.” When Arit gawped at him, Nick grinned. “The hawks had icons, too. I don’t know if they were mating gifts, but ossuaries in the oldest tunnels contained carved stones alongside the bones.” His smile widened. “Hollow bones. Like a bird’s.”

  “But—” Arit’s mouth worked open and shut. “That’s a major discovery! The tribes argued for centuries about the old gods, swearing any tales of non-wolf shifters in each territory outside their own was fable and fantasy. The tribes didn’t stop fighting battles over it until the first emperor gathered all the gods and goddesses into a pantheon to be revered and respected by all.”

  “I don’t know of any proof of lynx shifters or bears.” Nick lifted his palm. “Just the hawks. Evidence of extinct brethren shifters doesn’t prove the existence of their gods and goddesses, either.”

  Arit dug his fingers into the meat of Nick’s thigh in his excitement. “But you think lynx and bear shifters existed, too.”

  “I do.” Nick leaned into his mate. “Are we a fairy tale? Wolf shifters exist. We have to at least consider the possibility the old legends of other shifters beyond our own kind could be true. If hawks once ruled the southern plains but were descried as myth after defeat and their ultimate extinction, I’ve no reason to believe real lynxes and bears were spared the same fate.”

  Nick’s heart melted at Arit’s awe as he struggled to process this new reality, at the bewildered wonder etching his face. “The empire kept knowledge of brethren shifters secret,” Arit said. “Why?”

  “Until I found the stele, we passed tales down our bloodline from one emperor to the next like every other high alpha prince of the tribes and that alone. Nothing else.”

  “And once you discovered evidence?”

  “Father said proving the truth of hawk shifters settled nothing about the question of hawk gods and goddesses. He feared providing proof of hawks but not bears and lynxes would upset the delicate compromise of the pantheon and risked war between the tribes.” Warmth and fond memory swelled Nick’s chest. “He also said the peoples needed faith. More than proof, more than the monarchy, more than anything. Our shared faith makes us strong.”

  “You won’t reveal what you know. No matter what your discovery could mean to science and the historical record.” Arit scowled.
“If you are crowned, you’ll bury your secrets.”

  “Temporarily.” Nick cupped Arit’s cheek, feathering his thumb across the rough stubble. “If traces of hawk shifters remain, clues about bears in the north and lynxes in the Urals could, too—burial grounds hidden by ancient glaciers, old claw marks or paintings lost inside caves. Something. Anything. We, as a people, have been too distracted by war and hardship in the modern age to search.” He leaned, pressing his own cheek against Arit’s ear. “Reopening our borders would bring new technologies as well as archeologists and historians from the lands of men who would aid our investigations. I think the proof is waiting for the tribes to stop fighting with each other and neighboring lands long enough to discover it…because human scientists also believe that. I wouldn’t chance any announcement about the hawk catacombs until we’ve legitimately searched the most promising sites for bears and lynxes.”

  Though Arit lowered his hands to Nick’s waist to yank him closer, he firmed his jaw under Nick’s caress. “Don’t you get it? Shifters have had enough of political lies.” He growled. “No more.”

  “Was hiding among the humans to survive the rebellion and its aftermath a lie?”

  Cursing, Arit stiffened. “Of course not,” he finally said, body vibrating with the ill temper Nick could now readily sense through their strengthening bond. “If you had come forward sooner, when you were still young and most vulnerable, the council would’ve sent assassins to kill you.”

  “I agree. Yet here I am, alive and in the imperial cathedral of my forefathers. Plotting to regain the throne.” Nick inhaled the comforting woodsy scent of his mate. “Timing is vital to avoid unnecessary violence and bloodshed. I’ll do whatever I must to lessen the probability of more death.”

  Arit harrumphed. “Except your own.”

  Nick drew back from the wonderful sanctuary of the curve of his mate’s neck. “What?”

  “Don’t pretend you are safe,” Arit argued, high points of angry color reddening his cheeks. “Many elders bow to your popularity in the territories to ally with your cause as a political expediency alone. The council holdouts will strike back. They must or lose the power they accumulated, abused and corrupted after the revolution. What will your grudging, reluctant supporters do when they strike?”

  Warmth spread through Nick at the worried sparkle in his mate’s eyes. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “My fate rests with the peoples. Always has.”

  “The peoples nearly killed you once already.” Snarling, Arit dug his fingers into Nick’s hips. “I don’t want you to die.”

  “I don’t want you to die, either.”

  They both tipped their heads, mouths seeking. Their kiss stretched into forever, the slick dance of tongues a delight to Nick. He swallowed Arit’s rumbling groan and turned to bring their chests together, Arit’s hard muscle flush against his through the layers of Nick’s formal attire and Arit’s heavy leather jacket. The earthy musk of Arit’s arousal supplanted the sour tang of angry fear in Nick’s nostrils. He threaded his hands in Arit’s mane of hair to hold his mate’s wicked mouth steady as he licked, tasted, and made a meal of Arit’s lush lips.

  “We don’t have time,” Arit panted. “We should return to Benjic’s chapel before the alarm over our absence is raised.”

  Cocking his head, chest heaving, Nick concentrated on the distant, muffled noises in the nave. He shook his head. “They’re still arguing over seating and the order of the processional.” He firmed his grip in Arit’s hair. “And if they weren’t, am I not their crown prince? They will wait.” Desire setting him ablaze, Nick lapped at Arit’s frowning mouth. “Help me forget the pain and suffering of what I lost. Of what will come. Run away with me a while longer. I need you.”

  Moaning, Arit opened his mouth to Nick, but rather than letting Nick take as Nick wanted, Arit marauded. Nick shivered at the urgent stab of Arit’s tongue, the mastery and control in his mate’s claim. Nick’s pulse roared in his ears, overwhelming the bustling noises nearby. He shuddered as his wolf’s canines pushed through his gums, this time welcoming the sign of his lust for Arit as natural, proper, and endlessly pleasing to him. When Arit’s sharp wolf’s teeth emerged to roughly scrape Nick’s lip, Nick trembled. He traced the points with the tip of his tongue and gladly swallowed his mate’s hungry growl.

  “I have to—” Arit yanked and, nearly spilling the both of them to the dirty and dusty floor, he dragged Nick onto his lap.

  Nick spread his thighs to make a home for Arit close to his body, eager for whatever Arit had in mind. When Arit thrust up, the hard length of his dick ruthlessly concealed behind frustrating sturdy denim, Nick greeted him by grinding down. The tingling want at Nick’s crotch redoubled with the friction of his mate to rub against. Sweat beaded Arit’s neck as they grinded their hips together, a temptation Nick could not resist. He dipped his head to sample salt and the musky tang that was wholly Arit.

  “Stop,” Arit said and reached for Nick’s zipper.

  Happy to comply, Nick, too, freed Arit’s beautiful cock from his jeans and then slammed his eyes shut, blowing out a hiss of pleasure when Arit released Nick from his pants as well. Arit shoved Nick’s grip aside and, urging Nick closer still, Arit mashed their cocks together. His fingers wrapped around them like a vise and he pumped.

  Nick whined at the zing of wanton heat searing through him.

  “Bite me,” Arit commanded as his skillful hand stroked them both into madness. “I want them to see your mark on me and know whose claim I bear.”

  Senses whirling in a passionate fog, Nick could no more refuse Arit’s invitation than deny his next gasping breath. He sliced his sharp canines into the meat of Arit’s throat and growled his greedy delight at the first salty splash of blood hot on his tongue. His balls drew up close to his body, tightening. His heart pounded like war drums, the cadence of his labored breaths matched by his mate’s every dizzying stroke.

  Arit reached orgasm first. He grunted, and Nick’s desire soared at the gamey scent of semen. It spurted from Arit’s cock pulsing beside Nick’s in Arit’s fist to coat Arit’s shirt in thick ropes. Arit’s tight grip didn’t slacken, nor his taunting pumps slow. He quickened, driving Nick up, up, up. Over the edge.

  Clamping his teeth into Arit’s throat, Nick snarled. His world exploded, pleasure overcoming him in intense waves. His muscles bunched. The enervating scent of their sex filled his nose while the satisfaction of his release dazzled his every nerve ending. He gulped Arit’s rich blood, because his mate had offered it to fulfill Nick’s craving. Nick could make a banquet of Arit, take his essence deep inside his own body, and when Arit jerked Nick’s arm to Arit’s mouth, a hot puff of Arit’s panting breath warming the skin of the forearm Arit bared, the burst of satiation burning through Nick redoubled. The pain of Arit’s bite meant nothing. A trifle, soon gone and forgotten. What mattered was the blood in his veins seeping down Arit’s throat to his gullet. The only thing that was important was his mate strengthening Nick’s mark by sucking at the wound. Nick’s cock pulsed and spit, sending Nick into sweet oblivion.

  When his thunderous heartbeat slowed its wild gallop, as soon as Nick could stand the idea of separating from his mate, he relaxed the clench of his jaws. He slid his teeth free of the raw, ferocious wound, trying and failing to tamp down his pride that the mark he’d made must surely scar Arit. This time, the wolf within his mate wouldn’t heal the tracks Nick had left in Arit’s skin, and Nick hoped against hope the pain radiating up his arm meant Arit’s bite would leave traces in his flesh, too.

  Their mating would be completed, wholly and irrevocably.

  Nick longed for it, craved the end of his restless need to bind Arit to him today, tomorrow, and for all time. The yearning sparked by their mating heat at the train station had built to a wildfire inside Nick with their every touch, every word, with each moment they shared together. Nick had desired him from the first, Arit above all others. Though he’d rejected the trappings of aristocracy of
fered by his sire, Arit’s nobility and innate strength beckoned to Nick. Taunted him. Nick thirsted for the visible signs proving their mating had been settled between them more than he even wanted to retain his crown.

  When Arit released his bite and skated a drugged kiss over the ragged wound he’d torn, Nick shuddered. Smears of glistening red painted Arit’s mouth and chin as he turned toward Nick, who could not deny him, could never refuse the rich wonder of his mate’s kiss salted and coppery with Nick’s own blood. Arit groaned, angling his jaw to one side so he could lick Nick’s lips, slick with blood, too. Arit’s blood.

  Stirred by lust, sealed in blood, and witnessed in the marks born in their flesh, they two became one.

  Tempered now, at least for a while, Nick’s desire finally gave way to affection. He grinned against Arit’s mouth, wishing they could prolong their coming together, though knowing they didn’t dare. The busy noises from the nave as elders and dignitaries streamed inside had slackened. Arit’s disappointed sigh told Nick that his mate had noticed the slowing of activity, too, but when Arit squared his shoulders as though to pull away, Nick clung tighter.

  “A few more minutes,” Nick said.

  “You’re covered in blood and semen.” Nick swept his gaze down their chests to their cocks softening in his grasp. “And due to stand before every shifter VIP in the capitol at any moment. Shit.”

  Laughter bubbled out of Nick. He’d rarely felt as light and free. “You’re a mess, too.”

  Arit rolled his eyes. “I’m not their emperor.” He harrumphed, his mouth twisting in distaste. “Maybe if I zip up my leather jacket. We can use my shirt to mop up the worst of—”