Queen Heir (NYC Mecca #1)

by Jaymin Eve

  The queen’s body was to be brought down to the basement for my viewing. It was time for me to have her cremated. This was a step in our death ceremony and I could not delay it any longer. Her ashes would be kept in the royal castle, and Violet informed me they could be used for powerful spell craft.

  I had been avoiding seeing her actual body – I’d only been at liberty to see it once I became queen, but still, I should have checked it out a few days ago – because the blood-strewn library scene had been bad enough without a body. But I couldn’t delay any longer, the council was demanding we initiate the death ceremony, so it was time I checked her body, made sure there was no evidence missed, and then let her rest with the gods.

  Calista knocked on my open door then. Behind her was a four-foot-tall dominant.

  “Winnie!” I shouted, opening my arms. She was fast asleep when I had finished with my royal duties last night.

  “Sissy!” Winnie shrieked, and leaped into my open arms. Her red fox familiar, Rhett, nuzzled up to Finn. She pulled back then, eyes wide. “Did you hear there was a lizard infestation in my new room!”

  My mouth dropped open in playful pretend shock. “I did! How awful.”

  Winnie nodded. “It was. Rhett was chasing them all over the place and made a mess of my new pink rug.”

  I smiled, smoothing her hair. “Are they all gone now?”

  She nodded, but then chewed her lip lowering her voice to a whisper. “Well, all except Prince Castle.”

  I widened my eyes, playing into her game. “Oh, you must tell me … who is Prince Castle?”

  Winnie smiled with her gorgeous innocence. “He’s one of the lizards. Rhett tried to bite him and kinked his tail. I need to nurse him back to health now.”

  I nodded. “We must get Prince Castle a proper cage.”

  Her wide blue eyes lit up and she nodded. I pulled her in for another hug and relished the smell of her strawberry shampoo. “I love you, Winnie.”

  “Love you too, Sissy.”

  She was my reason for nearly everything I did. If the mecca was threatened, if the fae were going to wage war on Earth, I would give it my all to protect the people I loved.

  “Your Grace,” Calista said formally. “Everything is in place, as per your previous instruction.”

  Yes, I needed to see the queen’s body now. I bade Winnie farewell, leaving her in the capable hands of her attendants, and followed Calista to the basement, down to the room where I had fought for my life and almost killed Selene, the place where I had held a dying Finn in my arms. I shuddered at the memory.

  Just as I was stepping inside, Violet appeared out of thin air, as she often did, and followed us through. She also wanted one last look at the body. Gazing at the back of the room, I saw the white marble casket with the golden royal emblem on the side. Why had I insisted on seeing her dead body? Because I was queen, I had fae popping up, and her lynx possibly in Central Park. I half expected to open that coffin and her body not even be there.

  Violet stayed close, but in her usual manner did not brush against me. My heart ached when I thought about how she had to hold herself from close contact with others. It must be hard being bombarded with all of people’s energy and emotions. I wondered if one day she’d find someone to allow her the freedom to touch and be touched.

  “I have searched the body already, Ari. Not ten minutes ago. She’s most definitely dead.”

  Violet was trying to reassure me, but I knew that her being down here for one more look before we cremated her said a lot. With the fae involved, who knew what was true anymore.

  “I know she’s dead, but the council and our people are crying for her to be sent back to the gods. We have to cremate her now. We can’t wait any longer.”

  Some of her ashes would be spread within the mecca, the rest kept for some powerful spell work. The perfect circle of life. The queen gave back to that which sustained her people. It would be my fate one day, and I was honored to be able to play that role.

  Calista stood to the side. She wasn’t keen on viewing the body.

  Slowly I reached out and cracked the lid. The marble was cold; they had been keeping her in the walk-in freezer until a queen was crowned and she called an end to the investigation. I wasn’t a stranger to death, but I was nervous to see her like this. She’d been queen for my entire life, held in such high esteem. Lifting the lid fully, I peered down. There she was. Her skin had taken on a bluish, translucent hue. They had tried to do her makeup and hair, to cover up the deep slashes which must have marred much of her skin, and make her presentable, but she definitely still looked dead.

  For some reason that actually lifted a weight from my shoulders. I don’t know what I was thinking coming down here like this, what I expected to find, but this closed the chapter for me. My queen was dead, her lynx was dead – I’d seen some other animal and mistaken it for her familiar – and I was the new queen now. Time to continue with chasing after her killer and let her rest in peace.

  “I will avenge thee,” I said, restating my promise to her, to myself.

  Violet stepped nearer. The whiteness of her skin seemed even more pronounced than usual. Whenever she drew on the mecca, her mass of white hair would swirl, almost as if a breeze ruffled it. I wondered if mine did that now too.

  She held both hands out, running them just above the queen, not touching but close enough it was hard to tell. She murmured in a rhythmic, chanting style, and continued her glide up and down.

  “Her body is pretty much fully drained of blood,” Violet said, her voice trilling with energy. “Catastrophic loss like this would have resulted in death in seconds. Her injuries were beyond any shifter or mecca healing.”

  We already knew this, but it was good to have it confirmed by someone I trusted.

  “I sense no trace magic on her, but there is a faintly odd scent I’m detecting.”

  Scent! Crap, we had overlooked our most important investigative ability. I knew the guards had scented as a wolf; they’d reported nothing but blood and the leaking mecca energy, but I hadn’t done it. It was my duty to confirm there was nothing more.

  In seconds I had my clothes off and was calling on the beast inside of me, letting the change wash over me. Shifting was always painful, as your body slowly morphed. This was the first time I’d shifted since joining with the mecca energy and I probably should have worried that something was going to go wrong, but thankfully I ended up as my normal white wolf with a red slant of color across my nose.

  In this form the world was a different place. My senses were enhanced, especially my smell, and that was what I would focus on. The first and most overwhelming scent was that of decay. Despite the fact she’d been kept in the cold, her body was already starting the process of returning to the earth. Cataloging each scent, I shifted those connected with death to the side, and focused elsewhere.

  The blood was familiar. She had been cleaned, but there was no way to remove it all. I knew the scent of the Red Queen’s blood and it was everywhere. But then as I got close to her right hand, another smell jumped out at me. Not shifter. The scent of bear and wolf carried quite an animalistic tone. This was lighter. Almost floral.

  Was this fae? The woman in the lake had not had a smell to me, but then I had not gotten very close to her and was in human form at the time of our meeting. Violet and I continued to circle the queen, each of us doing our best to sniff out every last iota of information, but I found nothing more. Just that small floral spatter of blood, which I had now committed to memory in case it ever appeared again.

  Violet, too, stepped away, and appeared to be done. I shifted back to human and stepped into my clothes. Then with one last deep breath I walked back to the casket and gently shut the lid.

  “Do you think it’s okay to allow the cremation now?” I asked Violet.

  The magic born nodded. “Yes, there’s no more information I can gather from the body. It’s time.”

  My shoes clicked against the hard tile floors
as I walked over to the attendants. “You may cremate her now. May her soul rest in peace with the gods.”

  They bowed deeply. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

  “Make sure all the ashes are returned to me for the mecca ceremony.”

  They nodded quickly and then got to work.

  Calista and Violet stepped in line beside me and we walked out of that awful room, heading toward the queen’s personal library. I had not been in there since it was sealed. Now it was time to see if there were any new details to learn.

  “Has the human body arrived at Staten Island?” I asked Calista. I needed everything to be ready so I could get all of this investigation wrapped up today.

  She tapped away on her tablet. “Yes, the king’s men have confirmed the arrival.”

  Calista gave me a side look, a look that said she wanted to say more.

  I stopped and faced her. “What?”

  Her lips were pinched, eyes serious. “Are you sure this close friendship with the king is a good idea? Even though it appears all of this is fae related … he’s still a bear.”

  “Calista, I know it’s your job to look out for me, but the king isn’t going to hurt me.” The truth of this rang in my voice.

  Calista’s professional manner faltered. “I know he saved you at the coronation, but how can you be so sure he doesn’t intend to harm you? How can you be so casual in front of our sworn enemy? He knows an awful lot about the fae. How? What if he’s the ally of the dark Tuatha de Danann and all of this is some elaborate ploy?”

  I shook my head. She was raising suspicions I didn’t want to acknowledge. I needed his friendship. I couldn’t face the fae on my own.

  “His people died too. He gave us the history book that his family have been ferreting information into for years.”

  She shook her head. “We know nothing about him. We know nothing of his family.”

  This was true, but I intended to find out more when I got the chance. I decided to share with Calista one of the real reasons I trusted the king.

  “I have known him for a long time. We were friends. We met on the Island when I was fifteen, and then again during the Summit.”

  It was time she knew everything. My words hung in the air like a wet blanket, but as realization crossed Calista’s face she nodded. “That’s why he looks at you that way.” She inched closer to me, locking eyes with me like one of my dominants would. “Be very, very careful there, My Lady. Matters of the heart have cost even the greatest of leaders their lives.”

  I stood taller, jutting my chin out. “I’m fully in control of this situation, and am only doing what’s best for my people. If the fae are coming, we need the bears as allies.”

  She nodded, but the look in her eyes said she didn’t believe me. I wasn’t sure I believed myself but now wasn’t the time to deal with it.

  I had one final task to do before it was time to set out for Staten Island. Violet, who’d been silent during our argument, met my eyes. She inclined her head slightly and I knew I had her support.

  “I’ll meet you both back at your quarters,” Calista said, parting ways with us at the main stairs. “I have no desire to see the blood again.”

  Couldn’t blame her. I had no desire in that direction either. But this was what a queen had to do. My guards, who were always trailing me, stayed several paces back as Violet and I crossed the many halls and floors to reach the mammoth library. The huge doors were closed, a magical seal along with reinforced bars, marked the very locked nature of them. Violet stepped forward first, taking a few minutes to unravel Sabina’s spelling. Then it was Blaine’s turn. He used his shifter strength to remove the bars.

  Then it was my turn to step inside and find out everything I could. Luckily I had my best friend by my side. The moment I stepped in the room I was hit with the memory of seeing this scene the first night of the Summit: the two tea cups, the horrific splatters of blood.

  “Talk to me, tell me your secrets,” I said to the room. Violet began to disrobe; this time we’d both be wolves. I was hoping we would find more than a floral scent to give us a lead.

  I never tired of seeing Violet’s shimmering pearl-colored fur. Her wolf was breathtaking; all of the magic born were, like mysterious figures out of a fantasy painting. It took me even longer than usual to shift; this was my second shift in such a small period of time. I would need to consume massive amounts of calories when we were done here or risk being fatigued on Staten Island.

  Once I was wolf again, I let my nose skim the ground and started scenting the corner of the room where the most blood was. Death … the queen … it was all I smelled. Next I went over to the chairs. Sniffing the one on the left I smelled the queen instantly. Moving to the one on the right, my wolf froze. It was that floral scent again. I remembered now the first time I viewed this scene thinking that the queen had been in her garden. But maybe it was nothing to do with flowers at all.

  Violet… In this form an alpha could speak into any of their packs’ minds. As queen I could speak to all wolf shifters in any form.

  She trotted over and smelled the chair. I could see her wolf mulling over that floral scent. Then she leaped up onto the chair and smelled the two tea cups, and met my eyes.

  If this floral scent is fae, then we have our killer.

  I agreed. Someone got into this room undetected. They were someone my queen trusted enough to be without guards and serve tea to. And they were powerful enough to kill her. I had a lot of questions for that water fae the next time we saw her. And this time if she didn’t answer them, I wasn’t letting her go.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A bear’s den is no place for a wolf.

  That night, just as the sun was setting, I gathered Monica, Derek, Blaine, Victor, and Ben and prepared them for the task at hand. I was reasonably energized, having consumed two queens’ worth of food in my last meal, but still the worry of what we were slowly unraveling was constantly beating at me. If a single dark fae, a member of the Tuatha de Danann, had managed to kill our queen of the mecca and then escape, leaving nothing behind but a dash of floral scent, we were in a world of trouble.

  As soon as my dominants were geared up and ready to go, I gave them a quick rundown. “This is a joint meeting whereby we are guests of the bear king. We’ll be comparing the bodies of our intruders in a better effort to find the queen’s killer.”

  They nodded. No one questioned me. Part of me wanted to ask Calista to stay behind. After her stern words I didn’t want her watching my every move in front of the king, but a wiser part of me knew that this was her job as my advisor. She needed to be strong where I was weak, and I would be lying if I didn’t admit the king had become a weakness of mine.

  Violet had left earlier, right after we examined the library, and would be waiting there for us. I’d protested this, worried for her safety. But she simply laughed at me before taking off. She wanted extra time to get started on the examinations of the bodies, and also, to Calista’s delight, have an early insight into the safety of the territory for me.

  Sending my dominants out to wait, I finished getting ready and was pleased that Finn arrived just as I needed him. I wouldn’t dream about going into the king’s territory without my familiar. I zipped up my knee-high leather boots, sliding in an ornate silver dagger, which had been my mother’s. I wore skinny jeans and a silk top, casual but still professional. I wanted to be comfortable in case I had to run or fight my way out of there. After the ercho attack I knew we weren’t safe anywhere anymore.

  We traveled with ease from the Manhattan vortex to the Staten Island one. I hadn’t ever been here before but I recognized the different energy signatures. The second we arrived I stepped off the disc, crossing to where my guards stood. They had come through the vortex first to ascertain it was a safe environment before I made the journey. Just beyond the dimly lit building were distinct and giant outlines of two bear shifters, Kade and Gerald, already waiting for us, with no other guards.

&nb
sp; This allowed me and my people to relax a little. He was outnumbered. Of course we were in bear territory, but that show of trust went a long way.

  Kade surveyed our group. “Welcome,” he said.

  His familiar was gone and he had cleaned up. His dark mass of wild waves looked styled; his beard was trimmed and neat against his rugged features. He wore a black button-down shirt over dark-wash jeans and a heavy sword hung from a sheath in his belt. Shifters tended to prefer swords over most weapons. Guns were rarely used; bullets didn’t do much damage to a fast regenerating shifter … but cut their head off with a sword … worked every time.

  “Violet and our magic born have already found some interesting anomalies with the bodies,” he told me as we walked outside.

  I nodded, but my guard was up. I was walking the streets of Staten Island with the king of the bear shifters. Not a comfortable place for me, even if he was a friend. Two blacked-out Range Rovers waited on the curb for us, engines running and drivers at the wheel.

  “My drivers will take us to my home.” He gestured for me to get in the back seat, but Ben stepped forward.

  “With all due respect, Your Majesty, I will be driving the queen. I have memorized the route.” Ben’s tone was respectful but his words implied he didn’t trust Kade’s driver.

  Kade’s jaw clenched the slightest bit. “Of course.”

  The king asked his driver to get out and let Ben take the wheel. Then he sat shotgun while I sat in back between Blaine and Monica with Finn in the back cargo hold. Calista went in the other car with the rest of my guard and Gerald.

  That was so like Ben to memorize where the king lived and have three exit points. He was a damn good dominant. We drove in silence as I admired the view. Staten Island was so different than Manhattan. There was more space, people seemed more relaxed here. There were so many trees and actual houses. We began driving toward the water, and pretty soon we had pulled up to a beautiful tree-lined street with large mansions perched on manicured lawns. I don’t know why I’d assumed he would live in a tall high-rise estate like I did.