by N. D. Jones
“Cut it out, you two, or I’ll take both of you with me.”
“No thanks, Matriarch.” Solange stood, slim and fit in her black captain’s uniform and boots, her rank insignia—a circular red brush stroke design—on her left shoulder.
“Oh, we’re back to Matriarch. A minute earlier, I was Oriana. Where’s your spine, Captain?”
“Right where it belongs. In my body. I’ll need it when we go hunting and for, well, walking and living.”
“Coward.”
“A coward with an intact body.” Granting Oriana a smile, Solange stepped away from the conference table. “Seriously, Oriana, if you want us to go with you, you know we will. Your mother is going to go ballistic, and I can’t blame her. We dropped a huge ball. She made you Crimson Hunter, gave you Steelcross, promoted me as your captain, and accepted Marrok as your consort. I know none of us takes any of that lightly.”
“We don’t. Mother will be angry and disappointed. Just as we all are. But she’s made plenty of mistakes during her time as matriarch.”
Marrok cough-laughed. “That’s what you’re going with? Really, Oriana? Kalinda will eat you alive, and you’ll be the one returning home with parts of your body missing, not just the spine she’ll rip out of you.”
“Okay, Consort, what strategy would you use?”
“Consort, huh? You’re going with that play. Fine, add all of Kalinda’s poor decisions and mistakes together, add about twenty more for good measure, and tell me what you come up with that rivals us losing track of thirteen hundred muracos.”
“Point taken. Just so we’re clear, you two are blameless.” They began to protest, but she raised her hand, and they quieted. “It doesn’t matter that you’re my captain or that you’re my consort. I’m Matriarch of Steelcross. I’m accountable for everything that happens in this realm, just as protection of Earth Rift’s populous falls to me.”
Oriana didn’t know if she would, in time, become the leader Earth Rift needed and deserved. What she did know, however, was that she needed to ascertain the muraco threat level … then neutralize it.
The muracos had escaped from a location directly within her realm of control, and she hadn’t known. Worse, they were aided by women she thought of as allies. The thought of their duplicity hurt worse than being injected with liquid steel.
Solange moved toward the conference room door. “I’ll leave you two alone to talk. Call me after you return from Iron Spire. We have a lot to do. The more I think about it, Marrok’s probably right about the human regions. I’ll pull together three investigative teams for the footage analysis. When they finish, we’ll have data upon which we can make strong decisions.” Solange smiled her shit-eating grin again. “Try not to jump into a locked closet.”
“Once. I did that once when we were ten, you mage cow.”
“Once is all it takes. You were in there for three hours because you made a mistake and cast a looping spell.”
Oriana slapped her hand over Marrok’s mouth. “She’s not funny. Stop laughing.”
“After a housekeeper found her, she told everyone we were playing hide-and-seek and she had won.”
Solange tossed some braids over her shoulder with a smirk, stuck out her tongue at Oriana, the way she did when they were girls, and left.
“Yuck! You got saliva on my hand.”
“I was laughing. That’s what you get for covering my mouth.” Marrok wiped away laugh tears—his grin big, beautiful, and very sexy.
Oriana kissed him.
Winding his arms around her waist, he slid her from her chair and onto his lap. “Kiss me with your magic.”
“You know that doesn’t work.”
“It does, just not as much as we want it to. But it does work, just as Matriarch Helen wrote.”
“We aren’t having that conversation now.” She tried moving back to her chair, but strong arms kept her put. “Marrok, no.”
“Why not? The little magic you feed me through our kisses helps with the hunger pains.”
Opening the first four buttons of his shirt, Oriana’s fingers hovered over the red rash that began at his nipples and ended at his belly button.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. When I burn you when we make love, at least you heal soon afterward. But these kind of burns stays with you for days. You’re allergic to my magic.”
“That’s not what your grandmother wrote.”
“I know what she wrote.” Oriana tried pushing from him again, but his arms tightened around her. “Dammit, Marrok, I don’t like hurting you, even if the magic kisses give you enough control where you don’t feel a need to take short breaks from me.”
“I’m not allergic to your magic. I’m allergic to the steel in your body. It comes out in any magic you use on a werewolf. That’s what Matriarch Helen wrote. We both read it.”
“True, which reminds me of another thought I had. I’m positive Mother never read Grandmother’s journals. If she had, she would never have given them to me.”
“You’re probably right about Kalinda. The most important point isn’t Kalinda’s perspective but our actions. You aren’t your grandmother, and I’m not your grandfather. We don’t have to go to the lengths they did. I can take the rashes, if it means I get to stay with you and Keira.” Warm lips nuzzled her neck. “Rashes heal, but our hearts won’t if we’re forced to stay apart.”
“We still don’t have a solution to our ticking time bomb issue. Mmm, yes, that’s good. The things you can do with your lips and tongue.”
“Don’t tempt me. I’ll have you on this table and—”
Oriana kissed him again, pushing wisps of magic from her mouth into his. Careful, she emitted a measured dose. Too much, and he’d be in bed with a fever, painful rashes covering his body.
Through trial and error, they’d learned how much of Oriana’s steel-tainted magic Marrok could “safely” consume, just as Helen and Tuncay had done. Helen had recorded every experiment in her journals, noting the amount of magic used each time and details of Tuncay’s reaction. Helen had theorized that the amount of magic a witch could “safely” use on a werewolf depended on the strength of the witch’s magic, the werewolf’s age and overall health, and how strong his cravings were for witch blood and magic. Helen’s formula for her consort was more of a guide than an exact recipe.
The way Marrok gripped her waist, claimed her mouth, swallowed down her magic, fierce and desperate, she knew he wanted more. Not sex, although he’d take the offer. He always did. But more of her magic. His need pulsed in the air around them, could be tasted on the tongue plundering her mouth.
She pulled her lips away from his.
“Don’t stop.” The words were spoken around elongated eyeteeth.
Oriana touched a fang.
Marrok pulled away from her touch. “Don’t do that. I don’t know what would happen if you cut your finger and I smelled and tasted your blood.”
Fangs retracted as quickly as they’d appeared.
Oriana trusted Marrok not to hurt her, but she wouldn’t tempt fate. Marrok finally let her go, and she returned to her chair.
“Thank you.”
“You won’t be thanking me when you break out in another rash. This isn’t our answer.”
“And you doing what Helen attempted is?”
“I won’t ever do that. I promised you I wouldn’t.” Oriana didn’t have a death wish, so keeping her promise would be easy.
“We’ll work something out before Keira turns twelve.”
“I hope so.”
“We will. As soon as we deal with the muraco situation, we can turn our attention back to our research. Are you positive we have all of Matriarch Helen’s personal records?” Marrok asked.
“I assume you don’t think we do, if you’re asking.”
“I’m unsure. Some entries are daily then the next is weeks or months later.”
“She was busy. Most days, I’m lucky to get home before you put Keira to
bed.”
“That’s only because you’re also Crimson Hunter. But, yeah, I know matriarch’s schedules are tight.”
“But you still think journal entries are missing?”
“Not just single entries. More like entire journals. They’re all dated, so it’s easy to follow. Haven’t you noticed how one journal will end on a topic, but the next will pick up with a different one?”
“Yes, but, as I said, I took that to mean Grandmother was too busy to fill in what happened in the interim. It’s not as if she wrote her journals for anyone other than herself. She was her only audience, so it makes sense that she wouldn’t write every detail of her life in her journals.”
“I know, I know.”
“You’re frustrated.” Touching the side of his face, she smiled when he turned to kiss her palm. “I’ll ask Mother if there are more journals. Based on what we’ve read, I think it’s safe to conclude that Grandmother figured out why Alba destroyed so many historical records.”
“You think that because of Helen’s final experiment?”
“Yes.” Oriana lowered her hand to her lap. “Maybe you’re right about missing journals because I’ve read nothing to explain why she thought it a good idea to cut into her arms and legs. We’ve read her archives, so we know she wasn’t insane, but she wound up killing herself and others in a dangerous experiment. I have no clue what she hoped to achieve.”
“I’ll reread her journals while you’re away hunting muracos. Maybe we missed something. Or I could go with you. Come on, don’t shake your head.”
“I won’t risk you getting bit by a muraco. You know what’ll happen if you do.”
“Madness or death,” he droned, his voice lacking the seriousness the awful possibilities warranted.
“The saliva of a muraco is more poisonous to black werewolves than metal. With my magic kiss, you’ll only get a rash and fever, but contact with the blood or saliva of a white werewolf will change you in ways I don’t want to think about.”
The prospect of her sweet Marrok turning feral—not because his bloodlust had been so great he’d pushed past the magic in his silver snare to attack a witch and drink her blood, but because a crazed muraco took away his free will—brought out every protective instinct inside her.
“I’ll be careful. I could help you.”
“No!” Shit, she hadn’t meant the word to come out as a command, but Marrok’s flared nostrils confirmed he’d heard the unintended order. “I didn’t mean—”
He shoved his chair back, putting more than physical distance between them. “I get it.”
“You don’t, and I don’t have time to argue.”
“We aren’t arguing. I said I get it.”
One of these days Marrok would learn how to align his facial expressions with his lies.
“I’m sorry for hurting you. I want our marriage to be one of equals. I’m trying my best, but it’s not easy. The kind of marriage I want us to have goes against everything I’ve seen and been raised to believe. You’re free to make your own decisions, Marrok, regardless of whether they conflict with my opinion and desires. At the same time, you need to know I’ll never shirk my duty.”
“As matriarch and Crimson Hunter?”
“No, as your mate.”
Pulling her chair farther from the conference table, Marrok knelt in front of her. Hands grasping hers, he brought them to his mouth and kissed. “You can’t stand between me and everything. That’s not how life works.”
“I refuse to accept what you’re saying.” She knew Marrok was talking about more than just himself. “Keira is our daughter. I won’t let her be hurt. Ever. And I won’t have our son injected with a damn rage disrupter. I hate you being in that silver snare.”
Oriana refused to cry, but she couldn’t help the high pitch her voice had taken or the tremors running though her body. She wanted to sink into the strong arms Marrok wrapped around her, to give in to the unacceptable because battling a tidal wave wasn’t a war any mortal could win.
Her life would be easier if she accepted the way things were, the way society had been for over a millennium. Except … Oriana’s life wouldn’t be easier because she wouldn’t have Marrok … and she wouldn’t have herself.
“You’re stubborn as hell.”
“I know.” A tear escaped. Two. Three. More. “I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you. I would kill every muraco if it meant keeping you safe.”
“That declaration is scarier than your stubbornness. I think I know how Tuncay felt and why he ran into Helen’s burning room.”
“Because he loved Grandmother.”
Leaning back from Oriana, Marrok used the sleeve of his shirt to clean her face. “Yeah, that. But also because she’d spent years working her ass off to give him the same freedoms she’d had her entire life. I’m not blind, Oriana. I see the way your eyes fall to my silver snare when you think I’m not paying attention. You’re guilty of nothing. You haven’t wronged me.”
She glanced down at his open shirt, rash redder after their magic kiss. “It’s not about personal wrongs but group oppression. We’re products of this society. But where it’s granted me power and privilege, it’s given you limitations and self-doubt. I may not have created this lopsided system, but I’ve benefitted from it more than most. If those in power aren’t willing to make personal sacrifices, to stop being so damn entitled and scared, then what hope is there for us?”
“Go slow to go fast.”
“You keep telling me that. But when is slow too slow?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do. It’s now. It’s the reason why we have thirteen hundred unaccounted-for muracos. I wish I could convince myself Mother won’t sanction their deaths, but I know she will. I also wish they only had their rage disrupters removed because they want to live in peace and not hurt anyone. But I know, we know, oppression breeds hatred, even in the most unlikely of places. We’re way past the point of going slow to go fast.”
“Where does that leave us then?”
“With me tracking down as many muracos as I can find, and with you researching anything that could help us. If Grandmother found something, maybe you can find it too.”
Oriana allowed herself to be pulled to her feet when Marrok stood. She thought he would say something about that being the same plan they’d had since the day they married. Or that it had taken Helen decades to unearth whatever it was she’d figured out and that they had far less time than that.
Marrok didn’t. He only smiled down at her, his hands still holding hers. There it was. Bold and bright and unapologetic.
His love.
His faith.
She cherished one but felt the undeserved weight of the other.
“Be safe, Oriana. How can we make that son you keep talking about if you let those muracos eat you?” Gathering her close, Marrok whispered into her ear. “I’m the only werewolf allowed to eat you. Remember that.”
January 11, 2243
Irongarde Realm
Iron Spire
“Just because it’s midday in Steelcross doesn’t mean it’s the same time here. You also don’t jump into your mother’s bedroom without warning.”
Oriana sat at the foot of Kalinda’s bed, smiling as her mother grumbled her way to full wakefulness. Considering what she had to tell Kalinda, Oriana should’ve been on her best behavior when approaching her mother at two in the morning. But the imp that still lived inside Oriana reared her head and couldn’t resist irritating Kalinda. A short-sighted decision since she was there for a serious matter that wouldn’t leave either of them smiling.
Kalinda pushed up in bed, propping herself against her vintage, bamboo headboard. The nightstands flanking her bed matched the headboard. For all that Kalinda surrounded herself with steel and iron, not a single piece of furniture in her suite was crafted from metal.
Until her marriage to Marrok, Oriana hadn’t understood her mother’s outward love of metals but personal preference
for natural composite materials like bamboo and other true woods. Oriana surveyed the large bedroom. Nothing had changed since she’d last been there. But the absence of metal reinforced what she’d come to understand about her mother.
“Why are you smiling at me?” Kalinda’s hand rose to her head, pushing back stray hairs that had come free of her loose ponytail. “I must look a fright.”
“No, you’re beautiful.”
Whatever self-consciousness that had momentarily gripped Kalinda seeped away with the narrowing of her eyes.
“Why are you here in the middle of the night? Since you’re still wearing a silly grin, I assume Keira is well.”
“She is. You should visit more often.”
“Or you could’ve brought my granddaughter with you.” Kalinda’s eyes swept over her king-sized bed. “There’s plenty of room. Bring Keira to me tomorrow. She can stay until one of us tires of the other.”
Oriana grinned, but wanted to roll her eyes. “You’re warm-hearted beyond words, Mother.”
“Indeed. Now, tell me what you’ve done or failed to do.”
Kicking off her high-heeled shoes, Oriana drew her legs onto the bed, sitting cross-legged and facing her mother’s outstretched legs. “When Marrok moved to Steel Rise, I had my suite redecorated.”
“I am aware. I’ve been in your suite of rooms. Why are you telling me what I already know?”
It was a pointless stalling tactic, but one Oriana found amusing.
“Wood furniture. No metal.”
“Again, I know.”
Oriana pointed to the open bedroom door that led to the sitting area then to the bathroom to her left. “Your suite is also metal-free. You even have bamboo floors throughout.”
“Yes, I’m well acquainted with my living space. Are you planning on stepping down from the Matriarchy and taking up the glamorous career of interior design?”
Despite Kalinda’s haughty tone, Oriana heard the smile in her voice, although she wore a too-familiar scowl.
“I changed the furniture in my suite for Marrok’s comfort. Why did you change yours?”
Kalinda’s right eyebrow rose, lips thinned, and hands twisted in the duvet across her lap.