The Last Emperor

by Kari Gregg

  Both Arit and Nick winced at a piercing whistle, building painfully as it rapidly neared.

  Flinching at the abuse of his sensitive ears, Nick stiffened and instinctively braced. “Do you hear—”

  A deafening blast drowned out Nick’s words, the crowd animal rumble of the gathered dignitaries in the nave…everything. The ground jumped under Nick’s feet, shaking as if seized by a violent quake. Stunned, Nick didn’t even scream when Arit shoved him to the floor and covered Nick’s body with his own.

  Plaster fell from the ceiling like rain.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Coughing, choking on dust, Nick shook his head to try to stop the ringing in his ears as he stared up at Arit, whose features tightened with fear. “What?” Nick asked, stupefied and increasingly frantic that sound filtered through to him in only a dull persistent hum.

  His mate grimaced and exaggerated the movement of his mouth. Nick could at least lip read him “Okay?”

  Nick blinked. “I can’t hear you,” he shouted, the words sounding distant and muffled in his injured ears. He wriggled through Arit’s scowling pat-down. Apparently satisfied Nick hadn’t suffered any grievous injuries, Arit lifted off Nick, whose stare swept their surroundings in ripe panic.

  Pieces of the vaulted ceiling littered the ruined chapel, one upper corner of which puffed with smoke racing in from the outside, dark and foreboding through the stained-glass window which was mostly intact. Debris from the blast had punched a singe hole through the pack of racing wolves depicted on the left lower panel. Though the murals on the ceiling above had splintered and cracked, chunks of masonry missing as well as a few support beams, the roof had held. Arit shook, dislodging pebbles and larger lumps of plaster that pelted the floor and Nick, too.

  A bomb.

  Someone had detonated a bomb.

  Brushing the grit off his legs, Nick shot to his feet. Staggered. Arit halted him with a hand at his biceps and spoke words Nick still couldn’t understand. “The people—”

  Another blast rocked the cathedral, almost tossing Nick back to the ground. He wildly spread his feet to steady himself, but Arit would have none of it. Nick’s mate unceremoniously shoved him to the marble bench upon which they’d made love only moments ago.

  Glaring at Nick, he mouthed, “Get down.”

  Gaping, Nick watched the debris cloud from the second detonation—and the next—pour into their shelter from the damaged stained-glass window and a gap that must have been opened at the joint where the wall met the ceiling near the upper corner. He blinked smoke from his watering eyes as, crouching low, Arit dug his hand into the pocket of his leather coat. He withdrew his smartphone and immediately jabbed his finger at the screen.

  Nick started at the sudden vibration against his chest until he remembered he’d slid his own phone into his shirt pocket, but his heavy arms wouldn’t lift to answer the ringtone he couldn’t hear. Nick should be terrified. Fear should be shaking him in his shoes as much as the ground’s fierce tremble rattled through him, but the numbing fog of shock overwhelmed him. He needed to think. Figure out a plan, but his mind raced, his pulse rabbiting.

  Cringing as the ground gave another stomach-rolling jump, Arit spread Nick’s thighs, phone clutched in his grip, and when Nick focused on the powdery grit blanketing his fingers, Arit reached up. He pinched Nick’s chin and forced Nick’s wide-eyed stare to meet Arit’s. “…shelling…southern wing…”

  Heartened at least some of Arit’s shout had begun filtering through the frustrating ringing that filled Nick’s head, he nodded at the doorway still partially blocked by the cabinet. “You need to escape. While you still can.”

  “…think we’re dead.” Arit shook his head. “Safer to stay out of sight.”

  Decades after he’d been executed with the imperial family, Nick shuddered at the realization the rebels might finally succeed in killing him. He coughed at smoke coating his throat, burning his eyes. Another blast rocked them, but now that his stunned senses had begun recovering, Nick could tell the bombing had spared them the worst damage. Dust pattered from the ceiling, but the roof held. The stone walls cracked under the pressure of each shockwave. The floor under his wingtips piled with a layer of sooty debris. The basic structural integrity of this part of the cathedral hadn’t failed yet, though, not like it would’ve collapsed if this area had taken a direct hit. “Fire?”

  Pale, rugged features tight with sick worry, Arit shrugged and waved his phone at Nick. “Media reports the mortars came from the Narva District, a conclave of neighborhoods notorious for criminals and extremists.” He thinned his lips. “The people didn’t do this, though. Shifters love you, including the snooty idiots in the capitol.”

  Dazed, Nick shook his head. “The elders who refused to attend the funeral are behind this.” When Arit’s phone shrilly rang out a clamoring alarm, Nick smiled. “Hey, I can hear that.”

  Biting his lip, Arit raised a palm to silence Nick, then jabbed at the screen of his phone again. “Police and soldiers positioned in the capitol as extra security for the funeral are pouring into the Narva District. That’s why the shelling stopped.” Another alert resounded, and Arit grimaced. “The people are clamoring on social media to take to the streets. Journalists report a crowd forming in Sholin Square.” His brow furrowed. “That demonstration is only a few blocks away.”

  Acid pitched and yawed in Nick’s stomach. “You should go.” He squeezed Nick’s shoulder and gulped. “None of them will touch you or recognize who you are unless you’re with me.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” Arit glared at him. “The mob isn’t marching to the cathedral to kill you and if they were, I’d still stay right here, where I belong. With my mate—you.”

  Nick glowered. “One of us needs to live.”

  “We’ll both survive.” Arit cupped Nick’s cheek. “The tribes are rising up to protect you, Your Majesty.”

  “What?” Bewildered, Nick widened his eyes, then scowled. “I’m no emperor worthy of such a high designation. I haven’t been crowned.”

  “A ceremony to crown you would, at this point, be a formality.” Arit turned the phone to show Nick streaming video. “The tribes have chosen.”

  Nick’s jaw dropped at the dark images filling the screen of capitol citizens chanting while they marched down the boulevard toward the cathedral despite the blaring sirens, thick smoke, and riot police assembling to line the sidewalks, shields high and batons at the ready. “Oh my God.” His stomach flipped, horror swamping him. “I’ve triggered a civil war.”

  “Look again.” Insistent, Arit pushed the phone forward. “Look more closely.”

  Ignoring the notifications constantly scrolling across the top of Arit’s phone, Nick squinted at the screen. The people shouted, raised their fists, many outfitted in capitol finery and fashions that would do little to shield them from harm… Nick narrowed his eyes. He grabbed the phone from his mate and lifted it higher, blinking away the sting of smoke and grit, but no, his vision hadn’t blurred. The rough wool coats, worn denim, and plain serviceable boots common outside the cities dotted the mob in abundance.

  He stiffened, spine snapping straight. “Is that Lydia?” he gasped, but he knew. His best friend stood in the back of a Jeep leading the crowd. Someone had given her a bullhorn, and she yelled into it, fist raised, while she goaded and encouraged the protestors. Ice abruptly filled his veins, nausea churning his stomach. “Where’s Rolan?”

  Wherever Lydia was, his brother would not be far.

  He scanned the jumpy video one of the marchers was streaming live, but no matter how intensely Nick searched the mob, Nick could not find a familiar face, nor the mottle gray mane topping Rolan’s head. “Where is he?”

  When Nick wrenched his stare from the streaming video, his mate smiled at him. “Answer your phone.”

  Arresting the minority cabal of elders who had tipped off extremists and aimed them at the crown prince like a loaded gun turned out easier than getting Nick out of t
he transept. Shelling had leveled the southern wing, but the Hall of Kings had also taken heavy damage as well as parts of the northern wing and the nave—reporters, security, cathedral staff, and several elders were killed in the barrage, with many others injured as aging architecture that hadn’t been maintained as it should’ve been critically failed.

  When Arit had left his mate to wriggle past the cabinet blocking the chapel to which they’d escaped, he’d discovered a mountain of rubble cutting off their exit.

  They couldn’t leave.

  The people marched on the cathedral, surrounding the partially collapsed building. Lydia led the protesters at first but was soon joined by Benjic, wearing a sling on his left shoulder and bandages over one side of his head where falling masonry had struck him. The crowd’s chanted slogans and cheering applause at impromptu speeches reverberated in the shelter of Arit’s and Nick’s dusty, forgotten chapel in what remained of the north wing. Benjic had organized the protesters into a bucket brigade, removing debris to dig their emperor from the ruins one chunk of shattered timber or slab of fractured marble at a time, but the rescue hadn’t gained significant inroads into the debris until Rolan arrived with reinforcements.

  Experienced in tunneling through frequent landslides in the rocky, highest peaks of the Ural Mountains where they lived as nomad smugglers, what remained of Rolan’s birth family assessed the jagged wreckage and immediately identified the stained-glass window of Nick’s chapel as the best avenue of escape. When Nick had refused to destroy this piece of the tribes’ cultural heritage, the smugglers had simply set another explosion, smaller and precisely targeted, to blow a hole through the north wing’s exterior wall.

  Arit at his side, Nick emerged from the dust and smoke to the crowd’s thunderous acclimation.

  “My cousin, Geffen Drago.” With an elaborate flourish, Rolan presented a scruffy shifter still wearing the furs characteristic of Ural nomads.

  “I apologize for our delay in reaching the capitol, Your Majesty.” The man stooped to a stiff bow. “Our pack is accustomed to travel but not through the interior where many of us face arrest and imprisonment for insurgency.”

  “The Dragos never gave up their support of the imperial family,” Lydia said, hand clasped in Rolan’s. “When Benjic contacted us about rumors threatening assassination, they all insisted on racing into the heart of the territories to protect you—men, women, children.”

  “Benjic?” Eyes widening, Arit started. “My sire? That Benjic.”

  “Now he recognizes my claim as his sire.” Chuckling, the elder joined them at the crumbling hole punched into the cathedral. He clapped Arit on the back. “Did I have any hope of winning my son if I didn’t employ each of the considerable resources at my disposal to defend his mate? I think not. When I heard vague rumblings about an attempt on Nick’s life, I ordered satellites realigned, got a text through to the Urals.”

  Nick grasped his adopted brother by his biceps and pulled Rolan into a fierce hug. He dragged Rolan’s newly discovered cousin into the embrace, too. “Thank you,” he told them.

  “Some of the peoples never forgot you.” Rolan nodded. “My family didn’t.”

  Blood staining his bandages, Benjic stooped to bow at Nick next. “Your Majesty.”

  Annoyed, Arit pressed his lips into a line. “He hasn’t been crowned yet.”

  “A failure we can speedily rectify.” His sire removed the Founder’s Diadem from hiding within the folds of his sling. “We won’t be able to safely dig the ancestral crowns of the empire from the debris filling the Hall of Kings for some time. I took the liberty of sending a runner to bring this from your things at the hotel.” Benjic held the piece high, offering the heavy chain mail glittering with sapphires to Arit. “The emperor’s mate traditionally does the honors.”

  Hands still clasped, Nick squeezed Arit’s fingers, and Arit ping ponged his attention from his flummoxed mate to the diadem then back to Nick again. Arit bit his lip. “The Council—”

  “—won’t dare oppose the will of the people.” He cocked his head to one side, smiling at the shouting, cheering rumble of protestors impatiently waiting to see their emperor freed from the rubble. “As long as the constitutional amendments and other changes we agreed upon are respected…?”

  When Arit gawped at Nick, his mate nodded. “I am a man of my word.”

  “I’m counting on it.” Benjic crudely shoved the diadem into Arit’s free hand. “Let us greet your people and see it done.”

  Rolan and Lydia shared a grin. “Let’s.”

  Bewildered, Arit stared at the Founder’s Diadem with rounded eyes and hefted it in his grip, surprised at the heavy weight. Rolan, Lydia, and the Ural insurgents of Rolan’s bloodline escorted them around the debris and to the front of the cathedral, where the crowd’s roar was loudest.

  “You planned this?” he asked Nick, dumbfounded.

  “‘Plan’ is a strong word.” His mate arched a sardonic eyebrow. “One does not plan to be shelled in the imperial cathedral, and no ruler worthy of the designation would countenance the wanton murders and injuries incurred in such an attack.”

  “Not even to regain a throne?”

  “Not even for that.” Nick shook his head. “I expected and prepared for an assassination attempt, though. Just not one endangering innocents and destroying a historic landmark.”

  When they completed their path around the debris piled at the corner of the transept, Deban and Belia shouted encouragement at an ocean of protestors gathered in the square in front of the ruined Hall of Kings. Relief filled Arit because, for capitol elites, the pair hadn’t seemed too bad. He was glad the bombing had spared them.

  Belia lifted a megaphone to his mouth and shouted, “There he is!”

  The crowd’s celebratory roar vibrated through Arit’s lungs, shook the ground under his feet. He tightened his grasp on Nick, fear for his mate supplanting his shock. His panicked gaze swept the protestors, searching for the barrel of a long rifle in the masses that would finish what the mortars had started, but only happy faces and triumphantly raised fists met his stare. Anxiety rabid inside him, Arit edged closer. “Nick,” he murmured into his mate’s ear.

  “It’s all right.” Nick patted their clasped hands and then lifted his to wave at his people, who shrieked giddy delight. “They don’t want to hurt me.”

  “Your enemies could have planted snipers.”

  “Maybe.” Nick shrugged, pulling Arit along when Deban waved an invitation for them to join he and Belia atop a truck. “I’m harder to kill than most. C’mon.”

  Benjic helped Nick climb onto the tailgate, and once Nick had steadied, he pivoted to haul Arit up to stand beside him. When Arit held Nick’s hand again, reluctant to let his mate go, Nick raised their joined hands and then pointed to a nearby building, a wall upon which someone had projected an enlarged livestream of the truck.

  The shifters roared their approval.

  “Crown him.” Belia shoved the megaphone to Benjic. “Before they tear the city apart.”

  Arit gawped at Benjic when he laughed. Waggling his eyebrows at Nick and Arit, he lifted the megaphone. “When I first met Nick Goode,” he began, screaming to be heard over the thunderous chanting, “I tried to snare him in a trap of his own lies.” The crowd booed. “Because I couldn’t believe anyone could be strong enough to survive the imperial family’s executions or intelligent enough to hide in the lands of men for long.” He grinned at Nick. “I was wrong.”

  Arit gulped, nervous energy streaking through him.

  “He taught me his strength by returning to the tribes on his terms, with dignity and a selfless desire to lay to rest the bones of family lost in the war.” The gathered shifters yelled out their approval. “He showed me his intelligence when he rejected the offer of a broken throne and a showy title that would have signified nothing except fame and celebrity. He proved his wisdom by sharing with me his dreams for the tribes—dreams his parents gifted to him before their deaths—
of an empire jointly governed by a self-sacrificing leader and a parliament comprised of representatives elected by the people and guided by the hard-won experience of tribal elders who had struggled alone with the burden of ruling the tribes.”

  Linked to Nick by their clasped hands, Arit jerked in surprise and pivoted to face Nick, who only smiled at the crowd, his features a bland mask.

  “On the memories of the family he loved, Nick Goode swore to end hereditary monarchy. He promised he would never agree to the restitution of another emperor—be the crown worn by him or his future sons and daughters—without first winning the respect and support of the peoples.” Benjic raised his fist. “Do you accept him?”

  The crowd’s responding roar resonated through the capitol.

  Through Arit’s mate, trembling next to him.

  Through Arit.

  “Do you accept him?” Benjic repeated, his words a battle cry, and while the gathered marchers screamed raucous demands for the emperor they’d chosen, Benjic grabbed Arit and yanked him to his side. “Then let his mate give the high alpha whose strength and integrity are beyond reproach the crown and title he deserves.”

  Shuddering, eyes so wide Arit wondered they didn’t pop free of his skull, he stared in dumbfounded shock at the teeming crowd.

  Benjic shook him from his paralyzed stupor. “Crown him,” he said, his chin jerking to Nick. “Or the riot and bloodshed will be on your head.”

  Fingers tightening on the hard links of the diadem, Arit swallowed the anxious knot lodged in his throat. “I don’t know how. What I’m supposed to say and do.”

  Nick brushed his silky mouth on Arit’s temple. “The people don’t care about ceremony.” He dropped to his knees and looked up, stare steady on his mate. “Rituals don’t matter. Just results.”

  Heart pounding, stupefied wonder filling him, Arit unfurled his fingers and stretched out the chain mail of the Founder’s Diadem. When the embedded sapphires caught in the light, sparkling, the crowd hushed. Anticipation built.