I caught the second arrow in my right hand, grasping it right behind the arrowhead. Despite the strength of my grip, the arrow slid down to the feathers, and the friction of the shaft burned my palm. I kept a grin on my face through the pain.
Fletcher's face blanched, and he blinked rapidly. He seemed unsteady on his feet.
"I love it when the predator becomes the prey," I said.
I dropped his arrow and drew my last from my quiver. Once again, I pricked my thumb with the point, making it far more deadly.
"I have one arrow left," I said. "I think this means I win."
Panicked, bleeding, in shock at the speed of my reactions, Fletcher took one step back.
"Fletcher," I said as I aimed at him, "if you run, I'll shoot you in the back like you tried to shoot me."
I turned my head to Princess Jade and shouted loudly enough for the entire crowd to hear, "Jade, I've already won the contest. You will bow down before me." Damn, I sounded like an actor in a cheap superhero movie.
I drew the bowstring back another inch, and continued, "But if you want me to spare Fletcher's life, all you have to do is beg."
My wolf wagged her tail at the drama. We both enjoyed the expression of hope on Fletcher's face, a hope that quickly died at Jade's words.
"A princess will never beg— " she started.
My arrow pierced Fletcher's heart before she finished, and his lifeless body dropped to the dirt.
"Now, Jade," I said. "It's time for you to submit."
She shook her head, unable to believe I had won. A sphere of almost solid magic appeared around her.
I reached down and picked up Fletcher's last arrow. Slightly damaged from my grab, it could still fly true. I pricked my thumb and left a drop of blood on the tip.
I scrunched up my nose at the stink of magic. "Werewolves hate magic," I said. "To us, it stinks like a skunk."
I pointed my nose to Fletcher's body then sniffed in Jade's direction. "But we can tell the stenches apart."
I nocked and drew the arrow before pointing it at Jade's force field. "Your protection stinks like Fletcher's vest." I tilted my head in a query. "Did you make that vest for him so he could cheat?"
"No," she lied.
"And if so," I continued as if she hadn't spoken, "won't this arrow cut through your protections like my other arrows cut through Fletcher's?"
The stone-cold Jade, the woman who had casually condemned her lover to death, finally started to crumble. Her head shook, and she trembled from head to foot.
She turned to her mother, Princess Perla, imploring with her tear-filled eyes. Perla’s ice-cold glare sealed Jade’s fate.
I waited another ten seconds, reluctant to reveal how powerful werewolf anti-magic was.
The force field shimmered and faded.
Within seconds, she was standing in front of me. Her hands were clasped in front of her, trembling with rage.
I pointed to the dirt, and she reluctantly lay on the ground and bared her throat.
In seconds, my foot was on her throat and she had made her vow to me as her alpha. But her anger was still palpable. If she had been a werewolf, I would have exiled her as untrustworthy.
The smell of her rage spread out over the field. Even though humans and Fae couldn't smell the anger, it still influenced the crowd, her subjects. For the first time I counted the number of bows carried by members of the crowd. They really liked archery here.
And I had just killed their favorite archer.
Angry murmurs from the crowd were followed by a general forward motion.
Jade scrambled to her feet and looked at the crowd with fear in her eyes. I had the feeling that her position had been supported by Fletcher and her mother. The crowd was ready to express their true feelings about Jade.
"If my new subjects attack," I said to Jade, "you'll be the first to die." I gave her my ‘isn't that nice’ smile and a glimpse of my werewolf's eyes.
Through gritted teeth, she said, "My loyal subjects are restless. The people well liked Fletcher."
"You're saying I killed your Robin Hood?"
Jade shook her head in puzzlement. Her glare at the crowd stopped them for a moment, but then a lot of bows came off shoulders.
"Calm them down," I said.
"What?"
"Calm them down," I said. "Say something nice about Fletcher, roll out a couple of barrels of ale, have a celebration of his life. For God's sake, shed a tear at his passing. Don't you know anything about public relations?"
I could hear the straining of wood as bows were drawn in the crowd. Sure, I could catch one arrow. I could probably dodge a dozen arrows. But if this crowd opened fire with hundreds of arrows, the best I could do would be to hide behind Jade. I took a step closer to her.
Jade was not good at public relations, but was smart enough to realize that I would use her as a shield. She stared at me with wide eyes and whispered, "Help me, alpha."
"I'll handle this," I said. "Get the ale up here. Right now!"
I turned to the crowd and assumed my cheerleader persona. I gave my brightest, most human smile and said, loudly enough to be heard a hundred yards away, "I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the skill and bravery of my fallen competitor." I put a hand on my heart and looked sad.
"Fletcher was an excellent opponent," I said. "You should know that at our level of expertise, the tiniest fraction of misfortune can make the difference between winning and losing. The race does not always go to the swift, nor the battle to the strong: but time and chance happens to all, weak or strong." Quoting the Bible here was probably overkill, but it was a good quote.
I held my arm out, pointing at Fletcher. "Fletcher was swift. Fletcher was strong. Fletcher was a better archer than I." He was also a traitorous scumbag, but I wasn't about to say that in front of his fans.
"But today," I continued, "the fates favored me instead of Fletcher." I hung my head in fake humility, listening carefully for the strain of bowstrings releasing. The crowd was silent.
"I humbly accept the decision of fate," I said.
I heard the wheels of carts bringing casks of ale from Jade's castle heading toward us. Time to wrap this up.
"In celebration of the life, the skill, the generosity of Prince Fletcher"—Jade gasped at my promoting her champion to prince, but what the hell; he was dead. Give the crowd something to appreciate. One glance from me and she shut her mouth—"Princess Jade has declared a wake in his honor. A wake in which you are all invited to drink of royal ale, to sup of royal food, to dance to the music of the royal band."
Jade was furious. "Do you know how much this will cost?" she hissed.
"How much is your life worth?" I asked. "Less than that."
She gritted her teeth and nodded, motioning for her aides to set up the wake.
The crowd closed in, but now with smiles instead of bows. The casks were tapped and they filled hundreds of mugs.
They thrust a mug of fairy ale into my hand. No alcohol until the cubs are born.
Mason understood my dilemma and touched my mug with his index finger. "I've removed the alcohol, dear. Drink freely."
I sniffed the ale. It was still like ambrosia, but without a trace of alcohol. Mason was a godsend.
"What is a wake without a toast to the dearly departed?" I shouted. "All hail Prince Fletcher, the finest archer in all of Fae." Except for me.
The princess was holding her mug, a rictus of a smile on her face. I whispered to her, "Raise your mug, smile, and toast your dead lover, or you will join him."
She looked like it cost her several decades of her long life, but she smiled and toasted the dearly departed Prince Fletcher. She even rubbed her eye demurely as if wiping away a tear. That probably saved her life.
The crowd reacted to her bad acting with a heartfelt cheer. "Long live Princess Jade!" Everybody took a drink.
Then a suspiciously foxlike voice said, "Long live Princess Luna Iron Bow!"
The crowd cheered and re
peated the toast. Then repeated it again, even louder than the cheer for Princess Jade. Her face soured, but she kept quiet.
An hour later, we could escape the party. In the throne room were Jade, Naomi, Mason, me and a few guards.
Jade sat on the throne and drilled me with a stare. "How did you turn the crowd so quickly? Was that some manner of magic? I sensed nothing."
"Pure personality," I said. "I call that part of me 'the cheerleader.' I'm good at reading crowds. Good at giving them what they want."
I mused for a moment. "I was once imprisoned in an Arctic compound, surrounded by guards and people taught to hate me. I had them cheering me on within ten minutes. Another ten minutes and I would have been the master of that compound."
Kuga and Naomi stared. I hadn't shared that story with them. Mason knew.
Jade jumped on the unspoken part of my story. "So what happened? What kept you from becoming the master of that compound?"
"The guards took me away," I said. "They kept me isolated from the crowd after that, fearing my skills."
"But you're here now," said Jade. "In my lands. How did you escape this prison?"
"I killed dozens of soldiers, broke both the will and the bones of my captors, and broke out of that steel and cement box."
A shudder went down her spine at the mention of a steel prison. The Fae have no love for iron or steel.
"Not to be indelicate," I said, stepping onto the dais on which rested the throne. "But this is no longer 'your' land. I won it by defeating your champion."
A sour look as she rose. "I acknowledge your rights." She blinked quickly—was she holding back tears? "Will you take my throne?"
"I won't take your throne; I have no appetite for ruling. Your leash shall be long. I have made pacts with some of your sisters and"—I nodded at Naomi—"with the kitsune queendom."
"Princess Chrysoberyl informed me of your dealings."
"That was quick. Are you friends on Facebook?"
"On what? No, she contacted me via scrying stone." A look of pure jealousy crossed her face. "We could have made a more advantageous deal. We have resources that my sister does not."
"'The race goes not to the swift, the battle not to the strong,'" I quoted myself. "Nor the best deals to the fiefdom with the deepest pockets." I shifted to intimate mode. "Chrys and I have an understanding. Both I and my wolf trust her to keep her word."
She composed herself and said, "Perhaps we can also earn your trust in the interest of future pacts with your allies."
"Perhaps."
28
Instead of lingering in Jade's lands, we set out immediately for the next sister's fiefdom.
"So, what's Princess Alexandrite like?" I asked Mason as we crossed leagues in minutes on the magical roads he had built.
"Except for Mother, she's the coldest, most calculating woman I've ever met. You can't trust her not to take advantage of any weakness."
"Sounds like there's no love lost between you two."
"Love is in short supply in our lands. Alex oversaw part of my education. She had, mm, very firm ideas on how males should be educated and disciplined. My time with her was less than pleasurable. She's one reason I left our lands for Earth."
"Such strange names you use. Alexandrite, who wears only violet. Ruby, who wears only red. Wait a minute," I interrupted myself, "your mother named all her daughters after gemstones?"
"In the order of the rainbow colors."
"That's kind of—"
"Megalomaniacal?"
I laughed. "I would say cute. Remember, my mom's litters were named in alphabetical order."
"Really," he said as he took a sip of wine. "Aren't there over twenty-six?"
"Yes, nearly forty cubs," I said. "They assigned each litter one letter. So all the cubs from the first litter have names beginning with A. The next litter all have names beginning with B, and so on."
I shuddered at the memory of Raymond's boast that he would run the world by the time he reached the end of the alphabet. Mason noticed and reached over to hug me.
"We both have unpleasant histories to confront. You faced down Raymond, and I will face down Alex and my mother."
I didn’t know what to expect when we entered Princess Alexandrite's courtyard. The courtyard was large enough to hold several hundred, and spectators filled the area up to the edges. The center of the courtyard was tiled in squares about three feet wide in alternating dark and white marble.
Her guards and courtiers were arrayed in a row eight-wide beside her, most in that ceramic armor enameled in violet, some in leather cuirasses. Behind that row were another eight squires, bare-chested and wearing loincloths.
The princess was also armored, with her helmet under one arm. She stood easy, with the look of someone who spent a lot of time in that armor. She reminded me of a statue of Athena. Even under the scintillating sky, her armor shone pure violet, unlike the others surrounding her.
Beside her stood a man who towered over her, also armored. He was almost as tall as Ferdinand, though proportioned as a man. Well over two hundred pounds of bad news. He stared at us with contempt.
We stopped a pace away from Alexandrite and her companion. Silence stretched out, no sounds other than breathing and heartbeats. Alexandrite and her companions were standing as still as statues or chess pieces—
Crap. The princess would challenge me to a game of chess. My heart fell. I barely knew how to move the pieces; a game against an expert would end in only a few moves.
A quote from an old movie flashed through my mind: The only winning move is not to play. How could I keep this game from starting?
When in doubt, piss them off. In intimate, big-sister to little-sister mode, I said, "Shrinking Violet, a nice place you got here, with all these chessmen lined up." I pointed at the warrior by her side. "Is Kong here your king?"
A stifled giggle from Naomi was the only response. Alexandrite just looked puzzled. This world needs cable.
"So, you've guessed what the Challenge shall be—"
I cut her off while staring down King Kong. "But you got a problem with Kong. His fat ass won't fit in one of those squares. Doesn't that mean I automatically win?"
His backhanded smack was superhumanly fast. I could have dodged, but wanted to make a point. It jerked my head around and brought blood to my lips and wounds to my cheek.
My right-handed slash with extended claws ripped his throat out. Fountaining fairy blood splashed over Alexandrite, coating her face, hair, and armor in red, mixing with violet to make purple.
Kong took two staggering steps, lips moving as he tried to speak without breath. Then he collapsed at my feet.
"Hey, Alex, looks like your king is down. I'm not a chess expert, but doesn't that mean I win?"
"No—but—I… that's not how the game is played!"
"Oh, I was supposed to play by your rules? Rustle up another king and we'll play." I looked down at my still-bloody claws. "But I gotta warn you, anyone who steps into my square will get the same treatment."
The scent of fear from the other chessmen was pleasant. Alexandrite still looked stubborn.
I stepped up close, getting way into her personal space. Smiling for the crowd, I said, "Are you sure you don't want to submit? Your sisters are already on my side."
I touched her magically enhanced armor with the tips of three claws and made a wavy gesture down her torso. She watched in horror as ceramic chips curled away from my touch, tinkling as they struck the ground.
"You stay out of my space, and I'll stay out of yours," I whispered. "Otherwise…" I pointed at the fallen king.
"My army could strike you down, no matter how strong you are."
"Wouldn't that be breaking the rules? Wouldn't that mean Mason and Naomi could cut loose? They are both much stronger than you realize." I shivered a bit. "Mason scares me sometimes. You know he sunk a huge island into the sea on Earth? There might not be much left of your fiefdom once we're through."
Cold
calculation flashed in her violet eyes, weighing the threat against the reward.
"I will submit," she whispered.
I retracted my claws and pulled her close for a one-armed hug. My cheerleader voice boomed out over the crowd. "Don't be a shrinking violet! Say it loud! Say it proud! Long live Alexandrite, packmate to Luna!"
"Long live Alexandrite, long live Luna the quee—" At my glare, Naomi changed her chant to "Luna the chess-master!"
"Alex, I think you should roll out some barrels of ale and set up food for the spectators for after the ceremony. Announce it now and we'll get the foot-on-your-throat part over with quickly."
"Why?"
"Public relations. Getting your crowd something to look forward to so they won't attack when I put my foot on your throat. And mostly because I fucking told you to."
Again, that cold calculation, then she acceded. I waited several minutes, until the first barrel of ale was set up, then motioned for Alexandrite to lie down on the marble. I made sure I centered her head on the White Queen's square.
I walked through her champion's blood before putting my booted foot on her throat. I had no concern for her comfort at this point.
I expected to have to coach her on the oath, but she already knew it by heart.
"I, Princess Alexandrite, acknowledge Princess Luna of Luna Pack as my alpha."
I pulled her up and hugged her, completing the pact.
Three days later, we left Alexandrite's fiefdom, heading back to the capital down the now-familiar road.
We arrived at the spot where I had destroyed a granite paving block. It had been filled in by a road crew; the only sign that it was different was that the new block was unworn.
We continued walking and came up to the section of land that homed the slow-time orchard. Full of energy from my string of victories, I skipped ahead to see how far that bird had flown in the past week. The breeze picked up, pushing at my back and flapping my hair in the wind. With almost all my foes subdued, we wouldn’t have to unleash any of the surprises Mason and I had concocted.
But the bird was gone from the orchard. In fact, the other birds and the insects were moving at normal speed.
Lycan Legacy - 4 - 5 - 6: Princess - Progeny - Paladin: Book 4 - 5 - 6 in the Lycan Legacy Series Page 25