Crowned by Fire

by Nenia Campbell

  “Yes, yes,” Royce said, waving him off. “It wasn't my idea, although I admit that it may placate the savages, seeing one of their kind thrown a bone and then patted on the head. Cheyenne and Raj certainly seem quite pleased. They don't have to know how the story ends.” He turned back to Finn. “When the ceremony is over, take the beast somewhere quiet and kill her.”

  “If that is your wish, Father,” Finn said stiffly.

  Royce clasped his arm briefly. “You are ensuring the continued peace of our people,” he said. “My son.”

  (One by one, they all will die….)

  Peace was easily obtained, Finn thought darkly, if everyone in the world was dead.

  It looked as though there would be a scene, after all.

  Catherine was dizzied. She didn't like large gatherings even at the best of times, and surrounded by witches who would have killed her without a second thought, she felt like running from the room.

  She remembered what the witch had told her, about other witches recognizing her for what she was on site, and each suspicious stare instantly gained a whole new dimension of terror.

  Don't even think it. You heard what he said.

  She found herself drinking far too much, and even though the witches had to have guessed that she was not yet twenty-one, none of them made a move to stop her. A few were even sneering, as if she were confirming all their negative stereotypes about shape-shifters and their savagery.

  “Take it easy,” a woman said, gently removing the glass from her grasp. “You'll get sick.”

  The strength in her fingers identified her as a shape-shifter. Catherine looked up and found herself gazing into the level eyes of a very beautiful woman. She had high cheekbones, clearly defined in her oval face, and long hair that hung past her waist. When she smiled, the delineated planes of her angular face rearranged into something that was impossibly, inhumanly beautiful.

  “You must be Catherine Pierce,” she said. “I'm Cheyenne Whitefoot.”

  “Nice to meet you.” She was wearing a uniform similar to the witch's, although red instead of green, and Catherine said, “I didn't know there were any shape-shifters on the Council.”

  A man nearby laughed. It was a harsh laugh, but not entirely unpleasant. “We're the best-kept secret of the place,” he said, and his yellow eyes flashed with contention. She could sense his animal, but wasn't quite sure what it was. Something winged and fierce, she thought. It would have been rude to ask. If he wanted her to know, he would tell her.

  “Who are you?” she asked instead.

  “Raj Briyet.” Instead of shaking her hand, he gave a slight bow; most shape-shifters eschewed physical contact since it could be interpreted as aggressive. Or, in the case of male-female interactions, sexual.

  Catherine breathed out slowly. “A pleasure.”

  “We could say the same,” said Raj. “It is rare to see a shape-shifter recognized as being anything other than a savage.” He lowered his voice. “I'm fairly sure they think we have nightly bacchanals and dance naked at Beltane.”

  “I think you're describing college students, not shape-shifters,” Catherine said wryly.

  “Oh, right,” Raj said. “I forgot to add cannibalism.”

  Cheyenne wrinkled her nose. “Speak for yourself.”

  Catherine smiled a little. She liked these two; they reminded her of someone, her parents maybe. They seemed quite affectionate towards one another, too.

  The two shape-shifters pointed out the other Council members to her. Gabriel Morrows was a disapproving old man who looked vaguely like Merlin and was probably just as powerful. He had a snake familiar named Mythirion that curled around his neck like a thick, emerald collar.

  Emily Garcia was young, somewhere between her age and the witch's, and had shaken only the very tips of Catherine's fingers, as if she had some sort of contagious disease. Her familiar was a sharp-eyed kestrel named Cadenza, who screeched and tried to claw at Catherine's face with her talons when she approached. “Karen Shields's replacement,” said Cheyenne.

  “In more ways than one,” Raj said contemptuously.

  Cheyenne fixed him with a look of disapproval. “Now you don't know that's true.”

  “Karen was barely dead in the grave before his father started looking for replacements.”

  “You mean—Phineas is going to marry her?”

  “That's just rumor,” Cheyenne repeated.

  “There's a half-truth in every rumor.”

  “Cannibalism?” she prompted him, quoting his jibe from earlier. “Where is the half-truth in that?”

  “Well, we eat, don't we?” he said. “Just not people. Half-truth. I rest my case.”

  That was funny, but this time Catherine couldn't bring herself to smile. For all its alleged prestige, the Council was starting to have the feel of a gilded cage.

  At the fringe of the group, standing apart from the witches, was a very thin woman wearing gauzy robes that clung to her slender frame like mist. Her hair was a silvery blonde but her face was unwrinkled, so it was impossible to tell how old she really was. The woman positively glowed with magic, but the absence of a familiar suggested she wasn't a witch. When her pale eyes met Catherine's, Catherine turned away in respect—and fear.

  She was out of her depth and knew it.

  Even so, she was pleased to find herself seated between Raj and Cheyenne at dinner. She suspected this placement was not an accident—the witches would quarantine the shape-shifters together, and at the farthest end of the table, to boot—but for once, she was grateful for the stigma. All the disapproving looks and condemning stares were wearing her nerves thin. It was nice to have them a table away.

  “You know,” Cheyenne said, in her low, musical voice, “you're exactly what I expected.”

  Catherine drank her wine. More slowly, this time. “I hope that's a good thing.”

  There was a twinkle in her black eyes. “That's a matter of opinion.”

  The first course was a salad. She hated salad but made an effort to eat the lettuce and tomatoes. She was sure they were very high quality lettuce and tomatoes, but they might as well have been grains of sand for all the pleasure that Catherine got out of them.

  Raj had a similar look of polite distaste on his face, cementing Catherine's suspicions that he was some sort of predator, but Cheyenne was eating happily. “Deer,” Raj muttered, which Catherine initially misheard as 'dear,' “You would enjoy this rabbit food.” So that was it, then. Cheyenne was one of the few shape-shifters that wasn't carnivorous. Vegetarian shape-shifters were quite rare.

  Cheyenne smiled sweetly and chewed her bite of lettuce very deliberately.

  “The prince keeps looking at you,” Raj said. “He seems quite angry about something.”

  Cheyenne made a slight shake of her head.

  “Angrier than usual,” Raj persisted.

  “Don't attract his attention,” she said, in the typical overly cautious manner of Prey.

  When Catherine looked over, he seemed immersed in a conversation with Merlin.

  “Well, he was looking a moment ago.” Raj dug into the meat placed before him.

  “Do you know of a vampire named Alec?” she asked quietly.

  Both shifters went rigid—only another shifter would have noticed—and she knew that the answer was yes. They seemed to know it, too. With an air of resignation, Cheyenne said, “Yes. He used to be a Diad. Water and air, I believe. Back then, he was known as Alec St. Clair.”

  “What was he when he wasn't a vampire?”

  “Captain of the Royal Guard.”

  “But that wasn't enough,” Raj said. “He killed one of his own guardsmen and drank his blood. Then he went on to drain about two dozen shape-shifters, the fucking leech.”

  “Raj.”

  “That's what they are,” Raj said, shaking his head. “Despicable creatures. There's a reason that there are no vampire delegates. Even the broom-humpers know they can't be trusted.”

  “That's not p
olitically correct.”

  “Why? They can't hear me. And I heard two of them remark on 'the savages' earlier this evening.”

  Cheyenne was prevented from making further comments by the witch tapping his wineglass.

  “As I'm sure you are all aware, the reappearance of an ancient Slayer spell book has been the cause behind this recent wave of insurgency among the Slayers.”

  Murmurs followed this statement—some hostile, some curious.

  “The matter has been put to rest, and the book has been safely locked away.”

  “Good riddance,” someone muttered.

  The witch glanced in the direction the comment had come from. “However, their numbers continue to climb—and worse, they are hiring vampires as mercenaries to do their dirty work.”

  Outraged gasps.

  “Vampires?” Raj said. “Acting as mercenaries? What a shock.”

  The witch cleared his throat. “The true purpose of this assembly was to honor the shape-shifter, Catherine Pierce, for the service paid to the Otherkind—and at no small cost to herself.”

  At no small cost to herself. What a lovely euphemism for losing her family and her mate. Heads turned towards her on all sides. She wasn't about to stand up—she thought she might burst into tears if she did—so she settled for a short nod.

  There was light applause, but it wasn't very enthusiastic and ended almost as soon as it had begun. He passed down a medal, which was handed from member to member until it ended up in Catherine's hands. It was a bronze disc emblazoned with the same pentacle on Finn's robes. The Council's insignia.

  She wasn't sure it would sit well with the emerald necklace, so she looped it around her wrist, until the disc settled against her skin like a metal corsage. She was already eager to go. But the night, it seemed, was just beginning.

  After his speech was a dance. Some classical waltz began to play, and the Councilmen began to dance. Most of them were quite good, although there were some exceptionally horrible dancers. Raj took her for a spin around the floor, but he was quite a bit older than she was; and while this was not necessarily a deterrent in and of itself, it was obvious he had eyes only for Cheyenne.

  Catherine watched the witch dance with Emily. She was beautiful, the way all witches were, with high cheekbones and a slender build. She was also a good dancer. A lot like Karen, except a little darker, and a little less pretty. Her eyes met Catherine's briefly. She didn't sneer, or look down her nose, or any of those other catty things women were always doing in romance novels. What she did was worse: she simply looked back at her dance partner, not sparing her a second thought.

  Because, as far as Emily was concerned, Catherine might not have even existed.

  A few males glanced in her direction but since they were witches Catherine knew none of them would ask her to dance. They were probably just wishing that she wasn't even there. She had another glass of wine, hoping it would soothe her nerves. It didn't.

  Meanwhile, the witch danced with every single female in the room. He even made a polite offer to Cheyenne who, just as politely, declined him. When Catherine realized what that meant, the witch was already making his way over to her. “What did I tell you about drinking?” he said, so quietly that only she would be able to hear him. Aloud he said, coolly, “May I have this dance?”

  “I don't think that's a good idea.”

  “Then you do me a grave dishonor.”

  Reluctantly, she took his hand as he led her back to the floor. She was conscious of the disapproving looks they were drawing; they were the only shifter-witch couple on the floor. Raj and Cheyenne whirled by, a dervish of wild, sensual grace that no witch could hope to match. They both raised their eyebrows, almost in unison. Catherine could only guess their thoughts.

  The witch may have been a very good dancer but she was not. She couldn't understand why until he said, in another one of those asides meant for her ears alone, “Stop trying to lead, Catherine. Ceding control to me for one dance won't turn you subservient.”

  Her grip on his neck faltered. She hadn't realized that she'd been trying to seize control of the steps. She was too aware of everything else—the stares, the whispers, the way his gloved hand felt on the bare skin of her back. She swallowed hard, and the witch said, “You're shaking.”

  “When does this song end?”

  “At my say-so,” he said. “Otherwise, in about six minutes. Why?”

  Catherine tried to pull away and he turned it into a spin.

  “I don't think you want to do that,” he said, still speaking quietly.

  “Why the fuck not?” she hissed.

  “Because,” he twirled her in close again, closer than before, “if you make a scene, you'll give those who would have you dead an excuse to speed up the process.”

  “Who would have me dead?”

  “Well,” he swept her to the side. “My father for one.”

  “Does he know?”

  “What you are? No. If he did, you would already be dead. But he suspects. No, this is less about what you are, and more what you could be. Royce Riordan sees you as a threat, a revolutionary.”

  “He's wrong. I'm not a revolutionary. I'm just…trying not to die.”

  “You're very bad at that,” said the witch. “Because he enlisted me to kill you.”

  Catherine missed a step, and ended up stumbling into his chest. “What?” she said weakly.

  “Rather inconvenient,” the witch said, “considering how much effort it took keeping you alive.”

  She tried to pull away again, and the witch pulled her back easily. “Stop that,” he said.

  “You just said that you were going to kill me.”

  “Perhaps,” said the witch.

  Catherine stared at him. “Perhaps?” she echoed.

  “It would solve most of my problems.”

  “Did you know?” Catherine said. “Is this what you meant, when you said you were fated?”

  His mouth twisted oddly. “No,” he admitted. “But then, Fate moves in mysterious ways.” The music slowed down, and he let his steps slow with them. “This puts me into an interesting situation, shifter mine. If I kill you, the savages will have my head. If I don't kill you, my father has mine.”

  “I didn't drink enough to even begin to comprehend where your going with this,” she said.

  “Allow me to demonstrate, then,” said the witch, with that mocking smile she had grown to hate.

  “Don't you dare—”

  “I dare everything.”

  And then, before the entire Council, before she could stop him, he pulled her close and kissed her.

  Chapter Eight

  Bad things happened whenever they kissed, but Finn believed this might be the worst to date.

  Even though his eyes were closed, he could sense the revulsion of the other Council members. The tension in the room was electric, like the last few seconds of stillness before the atmosphere tipped in favor of a storm.

  And oh, what a storm this will be.

  But for one glorious moment, he didn't have to hide who he was. Everything was out in the open and it left him feeling exhilarated, untouchable, amazing.

  The consequences—those would come later.

  Catherine resisted and he could feel her pulse hitting hard against his fingertips even through the gloves. With a deftness that came from years of practice, he coaxed open her mouth and found, as the music stopped abruptly with a discomfited screech, that her tongue was still bittersweet from the tannins of the wine she'd been consuming.

  “What are you doing?” she said. “What have you done?”

  Finn elected not to answer that. He intended to take advantage of the moment for as long as he could before the Council members came to their senses.

  She managed to pull away again, moving her face when he tried to recapture her mouth. “You told me not to call attention to myself. You fucking hypocrite.”

  He stroked his fingers down her downy cheek. “I also told you to trus
t me.”

  “I wouldn't trust you any further than I could throw you.”

  That brought a smile to his lips. “Is that a compliment?”

  “I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to meditate on that in hell.”

  “Nobody's going to hell. At least not yet.”

  The dance floor was empty. Everyone had rushed to clear it the moment that his lips had touched hers.

  He found himself wondering how many of those shocked expressions were masks. Whether any of those stiff-collared officials had ever woken up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, aching for a taste of the forbidden.

  Royce stood up from his chair. His fingers were gripping the armrests tightly enough that his grip would have left dents in the wood if he were a shape-shifter.

  “What are you doing?” his father thundered.

  “Do you need to see it again to understand?”

  And he tipped the shape-shifter back easily, brushing his mouth lightly against her unrelenting lips without taking his eyes off his father. Judas kiss. This one is for you.

  The look she was giving him rivaled his father's in anger.

  Straightening, Finn casually wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I would have thought it obvious. One would have to be deaf to miss the whispers about my, how you say—” he paused, as though struggling to think of the right word “—preferences. You, yourself, thought to query about it at the start of the evening, if I recall correctly.”

  That deflected some of the attention to his father. He had not seen Royce this angry in a while. Not since he'd found out that his wife had been fucking a human. Finn had to smile. I've got you bested, Mother. This—this is far worse.

  “How can you stand there and smirk at me? If you have violated the Second Rule, your title, your lands, your inheritance—they will all be forfeit. This is serious.”

  “About as serious as violating the Truce, you might say.”

  Royce stopped. In the silence that followed, Finn imagined he could hear the sound of the shape-shifter's pounding heart. Or was that his own? Did he still have one?

  “I do not understand,” said his father coldly. But Finn thought he saw the slightest trace of fear on Royce's face.