by Jaymin Eve
“Have you already been here?” I asked the other heir. She didn’t live in the royal home, but this was her territory and she would have gotten here a lot faster than me.
“No, they prevented any from entering while they removed the body and did the initial investigation.” It was hard to tell, she was an expert at hiding her emotions, but I sensed she was upset they had barred her entry but allowed me.
Her words drifted away as both of us took in the scene. Blood had washed the center of the room in swirls and arcs, pooling on the floor and splashing across the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, which were well over fifteen feet high. There were clear signs of a battle; I wanted to move closer. But first I needed to find a path through which wouldn’t result in me tracking the queen’s blood everywhere. Selene stayed back; Calista and the guards too. Only Finn followed me as I gingerly stepped nearer.
When I was right in the center of the main kill zone, I cataloged everything I was seeing, examining the walls, the floor, and the space where she had fallen. Closing my eyes, in my mind I had a very clear picture of what had happened. The two tea cups sitting on the table told me everything I needed to know.
Whomever killed the queen had been someone she trusted.
Chapter Two
Do or die. That’s the Summit’s motto.
Calista broke through the surge of emotions which kept me glued to the floor. “Arianna, we really need to leave.”
Ignoring my advisor I addressed Cruz. The guards were outside of the library, but would easily be able to hear me. “How did the queen die? What injuries did she sustain?”
He hesitated briefly; his face was pale, despite the deep brown of its normal color. “Her throat, thighs, and both wrists were cut … to the bone. She bled out in seconds.”
A thickness filled my throat, a sense of unease, fear and pain. She’d been slaughtered like a freakin’ animal on the floor of her library. I forced myself to focus, to push down the images assaulting my mind. I needed to be strong so I could avenge my queen.
“Who dined with the queen this morning?” I asked, my voice hard, both hands gesturing toward the shattered teapot on the floor. “Who was the last to see her alive?”
He shook his head. “As far as we know she was alone all morning. No one entered or left her building. I was on duty at the front door and can attest to the security of the grounds. Her other guards were stationed outside the library, as they are every morning when she takes tea and surrounds herself with the calming of her books.”
The Red Queen, or Rosalina Devlin, as she had been known when she was an heir, had loved to read. A trait we had in common.
I pressed the guard further. “There are two cups here and clear evidence of a second inhabitant.”
Not to mention the queen didn’t murder herself.
He had nothing more to say, but someone had let my queen down here today, and until we figured out who that betrayer was, all of us were in danger.
“Ragnar?” I didn’t see the body of her lynx. Maybe they’d removed the familiar with her body.
The guard cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. “Missing.”
I inhaled rapidly. Missing? Okay … maybe he had been out hunting like Finn and was dead somewhere. The council would hopefully have word through their contacts in the human authorities.
Finn interrupted my thoughts: I didn’t sense any of the other familiars while I was out this morning. I couldn’t even process that so I just nodded. My eyes fell to Selene.
“It wasn’t me,” she said, reading my expression. “I have plenty of witnesses who can attest to my whereabouts all night and this morning.”
I’m sure she did. Selene had a veritable male harem stashed away in her home.
“But we should investigate the other heirs,” she finished. “If anyone has motive to kill the queen, it is us.”
“There’s no time,” I said. “The Summit is starting. We’re going to be too busy trying to destroy each other.”
I didn’t believe any of the heirs had the skills to kill the Red Queen, not alone. But with help…
“I really need to sniff out this area,” I said, turning back to examine the blood again. My human nose was picking up a few variations of scent, but my wolf would be so much better.
Another guard answered this time, a female. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but there really is no time right now for you to shift. If it helps at all, we have had our best trackers in here already. They detected nothing but the queen and some flowers from the garden.”
Calista backed her up. “The council summons just came through again. We must move.”
I fought for composure, knowing my wolf wanted to be free, and I needed her; my body was already prepared to shift. But unfortunately they were both right. There was no time. The council would not even remotely deal with the queen’s death until a new queen was crowned. The vulnerability to our boroughs was too great right now.
I carefully stepped back through the blood, doing my best to catalog the various scents. I was picking up on lots of familiar smells, the guards, the queen, even Selene, but there were also a few things that were odd. Energy was filtered around the room, and it didn’t feel like that from wolfborn, or bearborn. And what was with the flowery smell?
Were there even any plants in the room? Had the queen been in her garden this morning before having her tea? She’d been killed very early, long before the sun came up. It didn’t make sense that she would have been walking in her garden at that time. But then again, what did I know of the queen’s habits. I needed answers. Everyone in the castle needed to be questioned.
When I reached the doorway, I turned to Cruz. “Seal this room. No one else goes in and out until a new queen is appointed. Then it will be her duty to investigate fully.”
He nodded. “As you wish.”
Selene rolled her eyes, but before he could shut the door my hand snaked out and touched one droplet of blood, touching it to my forehead. I whispered, “I will avenge thee,” and tried to ignore the wetness that had gathered in my eyes.
“Showoff,” Selene murmured as we walked away to the council hall.
My teeth clamped down in anger at her coldness. “I hope the final round is you and me,” I told her.
She grinned. “I’ve been hoping that since the day I met you.”
Bitch.
Her creepy snake slithered down her arm to come face to face with Finn. Finn confided in me once that familiars could talk to each other; I wondered what they were saying now. Whatever it was, my wolf wasn’t sharing.
The scent of the queen’s death lingered as we took the elevators back to the ground floor. From there we were led into the grand hall. The moment our group stepped through the door, I was under the scrutiny of the legendary wolf council. I took a moment to scan my surroundings. I would not be trusting anyone until I had the queen’s murderer’s head on a stick.
Once I had the room mapped out, I focused on the eleven council members who were all sitting with their backs very erect against their high, ornately carved chairs. Each had a codex of honor on their laps. This book brought me back to my school days with Calista. I threw my copy of the codex in the fire when I was twelve.
Firstly, I hated that outdated book.
Secondly, I had memorized the entire thing.
Being queen meant you ruled all, yes, but the damn council was intertwined in everything you did. So I had to play nice here.
Bowing my head only a few inches as protocol demanded, “Council,” I said in a strong but respectful voice.
Selene bowed deeply, gave a low curtsy, and a few council members frowned. The low curtsy was appropriate when we were just heirs, but now that the Summit had started we were in line to the throne and above our previous place. I tried not to grin. When I was queen they would give me a head bow and I would never bow to anyone again. It sounded cold but it was our way.
“We heard you had trouble getting here?” Councilmember Jeran asked me. H
is eyes lingered on my honor marks before falling to observe Finn.
“Yes, we were attacked. Two of my guards were murdered.”
A few council members frowned, a few looked angry, and the others simply nodded as if it was an acceptable part of the lives we lived.
Suddenly, the doors flew open and Breanna walked in. Her yellow shirt was covered in blood, brown hair a matted mess, and she wore one honor mark on her forehead. Her large brown and black hawk was perched fiercely on her shoulder.
The council looked disturbed.
“Where is Devina?” one of them asked.
Breanna pointed to the honor mark on her forehead, her hand shaking slightly. “Gone.”
Now that caused an outrage. The entire council stood and began shouting, gesturing wildly.
“Lock down the building! Close the hall. No one leaves this house until a new queen is chosen.”
I picked this completely inappropriate time to think about why the hell I hadn’t eaten breakfast. The Summit until coronation could last anywhere from three days to two weeks. Looked like I was living here until I either died or took over. Already it was down to three of us.
May the best heir win.
I stood upon a dais, Breanna on one side of me and Selene on the other. We wore fresh sets of our royal colors – red, purple, and yellow for the line we descended from. There was no longer a green representative. That still hadn’t settled with me. Too much death, too quickly.
Below us, gathered together in the large space, were some of our people. I still had all six of my trusted dominants, Blaine, Jen, Derek, Ben, Victor and Monica, bloodied but alive. They had arrived not long ago from the vortex battle. They’d heal soon and be back to fighting fit. Well, the physical stuff would heal. All of us mourned our friends who were lost guarding the vortex.
My dominants were joined by another fourteen of the strongest members from my Bronx wolves. The council ordered that each heir have twenty of their pack members to join with the royal guards who would be split between the three of us. Since this Summit had begun in bloodshed, we would be on high alert for the full duration.
Finn sat beside me. All the heirs had their familiars close by, and I took comfort from his presence. His energy was not unlike the mecca itself, on a smaller scale, and I was used to the strength and warmth of it.
We got this, I said to him. He winked one of his large, yellow eyes, and I couldn’t stop my grin.
“We need to secure the next queen immediately,” Torine said, drawing our attention. With his tufts of white and black hair, small stature, and large dark eyes, Torine was one of the oldest still walking this earth and his council was respected above all others. That being said, he was approaching his three-hundredth year, and at around that age a wolf began to go rabid, losing all humanity, all reason. The alpha of that wolf then had the duty to carry out the Act of Honor, ending the life of their ailing charge. I couldn’t really imagine Torine going rabid one day.
I shook my head to clear those thoughts and focused on what he was saying.
“The queen and one heir already murdered this morning. If we don’t fill the void in our pack powers, we’ll no doubt find ourselves in the midst of another wolf-bear-shifter war. They’ll come in force. They’ve already sent assassins to try and stop this Summit, and rumor is they are amassing an army.”
The council was assuming, as I had done, that the attacks on us heirs had been from the bear shifters. Despite their human appearance and scent, there was no way they were humans, and that really limited the options.
Bears made sense. Throughout history, we had been more enemies than allies, and mostly only ever crossed paths during peace negotiations – which were almost always failures. Still, I’d heard news that their new king did things a little differently. I seriously doubted it. Brutal by nature, the bears were interested in power and nothing more. They had short tempers and were quick to anger, unlike wolves who respected strategy before striking. That’s why we were in the place of highest power. We thought before acting, unlike the big brutes who went screaming into battle and died for their hasty decisions. We also bested them through numbers. But Torine made a very good point. Without the energy of the queen tying all of us together, we were in a vulnerable position, and the bears were already taking advantage of that.
“Either one of you ladies want to concede to me?” Selene murmured, her voice confident. “It’s not worth your life, and we need to get this sorted straight away.”
Breanna and I exchanged a glance, and it was clear both of us had the same thought. No way in hell. We might as well spit on the queen’s grave. With a shake of our heads, we both turned back to the front. There was no point even replying. Selene had no honor and would never avenge the fallen. Over my dead body would she be queen.
And even if I had thought she would make a decent queen, the Summit didn’t work like that, you had no option to forfeit. We had been trained from birth for this. All of us would fight for our place, for our chance to rule. I would never let Selene just take the role. The queen’s energy filtered to every single pack member, and Selene’s cold heart would influence the wolves in the worst way.
With my hand resting against the thick fur of my familiar, I focused closely on Torine. He was now kicking off the initial Summit events. Once everything was officiated, the first challenge would begin. All of the council and pack members were turned to face us now. My Bronx pack, wearing red armbands, were close to the front, none of them willing to be far from me. My heart ached to not see all of my most trusted dominants there. But there was nothing I could do now but take down those responsible for killing my two guards at the vortex.
“We have three heirs who will compete for the honor of being queen: Arianna, from our beloved Red Queen’s lineage. Selene, from the Purple Hearts pack. And finally Breanna, from the ancient Yellow Wood pack.”
Another of the council stepped forward. He held a large flag in his hand that was a checkered four-way pattern, each section a color of the royal houses. “Let the Summit begin,” he shouted, and the crowd followed with shouts and howls. Even Finn beside me seemed to burst with newfound energy.
The three of us held our right hand out as Torine stepped out from his council area and crossed the dais. From a sheath at his side he took an ornate blade, one infused just slightly with a mix of silver and iron so our wounds would not heal quickly, and slashed across each of our palms.
I clenched my fist, ignoring the biting sting, and let my blood drip into the large ceremonial cup below us. From here it would overflow and run down and into the center of the mecca. The royal home was built above one of the largest reservoirs of mecca magic.
Our blood sacrifice was used to set the magic into motion. Once it started, there was no stopping the Summit until the coronation. The second the final heir’s blood filled the cup, it drained mysteriously, flowing into the mecca. Howls were still ringing out around us, and I could feel the tingles of magic on my skin as the energy beneath us responded to the stream of blood we were feeding into it.
My eyes fluttered as the power washed over and through me. I had always had a particularly close affinity to the magical mecca, which was odd since it was not shifter in origin. We were only its guardians, and had the responsibility to not let it fall into the control of those who would either abuse the power or destroy themselves – humans especially.
As the cut on my palm finally sealed itself, the blood sacrifice was complete. I stood taller, my body ready for whatever was going to be thrown at us. We had no idea of the events, they were randomly selected from thousands of options by the council. Which meant we could only hope it was a task we had an affinity for or had studied at some point in our life. Although we were all genetically ready to be queen, only the strongest, most cunning, and level headed would rule. This was how it had been done for hundreds of years. Of course, I’d never expected to be called. Queens generally lived a hundred or more years. But here I was.
Sel
ene was the last heir in the purple line, so she had a lot of pressure on her. Their line had not been queen for a very long time. Devina had a three-year-old heir sister, and five retired heir cousins who were hard at work trying to produce more green heirs. So even though she was cut down before the Summit started, the royal green line would live on. It was drilled into us since birth that our duty was to be a strong alpha heir, to select an exceptional breeding partner, and try and produce more heirs. Just because we were heirs, though, did not mean we would automatically have children who would receive familiars. But we had the best chance.
Of course, to be an heir-brood mare was not exactly a joyous destiny.
My mother died giving birth to Winnie. Wolf births were very dangerous, the fetus constantly shifting form – blood loss was common. On top of that, for some reason unknown to us, heirs had an awful time getting and remaining pregnant. My mother had six miscarriages before she had Winnie. She never talked much about getting pregnant with me, so I went with the assumption I’d been easier. Winnie, on the other hand, she’d talked about constantly. Before there had even been a belly to show her miracle pregnancy. I’d sit at her feet and listen with total focus. I loved my mother, but just like my aunt, she’d always held me at a bit of a distance.
My attention snapped back to the council as silence descended and all eleven of them rose. I could feel magic sizzling in the air. The Summit had officially begun. The far door to the grand room opened and in walked Sabina, the Manhattan pack’s magic born, powerful and ancient. But she was still no match for Violet. No one was.
Even though I had gazed upon the magic born my entire life, their unique looks and energy still held me mesmerized – me and everyone else. The magnetism of them drew your gaze, held it, and kept you in their thrall. Sabina’s white skin was void of any pigment, along with her white hair, lashes, and brows. All magic born were extremely pale in coloring, which made them even more beautiful and fascinating. Their wolves were truly a sight to behold, a beauty that could not be replicated by any other. Their fur shimmered iridescently, almost like fur made of mother of pearl.