Star, Raven, Eugene, Rab, Arrow, Sage, Sawyer, Walsh, Marmal, and I, all stood inside of Astra’s church. I’d gone to check on Astra before coming to the meeting and was beyond relieved to find she was healing well from her wounds—my wounds, really. The doctor said it would take a few weeks, but she’d make a full recovery.
Now it was time to take the queen down, before she could harvest my wolf’s essence or something crazy. I had tried to see things from my wolf’s point of view, but we were cut off. They’d done some magic to keep her mind closed to me, which was bullshit considering she was me! It had to be the cuffs; they locked down our bond like I’d been locked down from communicating with Sawyer. I sensed her fear, but that was all I could get. I just hoped they weren’t draining her blood or torturing her or anything crazy.
‘I’m going to get you out,’ I sent to her, unsure if she could receive it. I had a vague sense of her location, like you would sense where you were upon waking up from sleep, but then it faded like a dream. She was still in Light Fey Territory and I was taking that as a good sign. If the fey allowed the queen to take her to Vampire City, then we would have problems.
“Okay, you all know what we are up against and what needs to happen. The vampires need to be evicted from Wolf City so, who wants to start? We welcome all ideas.” Sawyer opened his hands in a gesture of welcome.
Marmal cleared her throat. “I could get at least a hundred trolls to help. We can…” Her cheeks flushed red. “I’m forbidden from speaking of our magic, but we can be of a big help where metal is involved.”
Sawyer nodded, and then raised one eyebrow. “Metal like swords and guns? Could you render them obsolete?”
Marmal looked physically uncomfortable and I wondered if she actually couldn’t talk about her troll magic, like she was spelled not to.
“She can,” I stated, remembering how she’d burst all of the locks from the cages to free Trip’s captured animals.
Marmal looked relieved that I had been the one to answer.
“That would be amazing. Yes!” Sawyer said, scribbling something on a piece of paper.
Star raised her hand. “We can protect the trolls while they disarm the vampires of any metal weapons. Create a shield around them.”
Sawyer grinned, and I felt his happiness bubble over into me. “Perfect.” He wrote it down.
Rab tapped the table. “The queen won’t fall for that trap. The second she sees us fighting back collectively, she’ll run or hurt Demi’s wolf to draw her out.”
Silence descended over the table.
He was right. I’d told him just before the meeting that we’d had to leave my wolf behind, and the heartbreaking look he’d given me had almost made me burst into tears.
I nodded. “I have a plan for that.”
A crazy fucking plan that every single person at this table was going to say no to.
Sawyer must have sensed it was a wild idea, because he turned to me, one eyebrow raised. “Well?” His body was tense, like he was preparing for a fight. The only person who I could make eye contact with while I verbalized this insanity was Sage. She was the only one who would get it.
“I want to use myself as bait to draw the queen into the Dark Woods where I’ll have the upper hand and I can kill her.” I said it in one big rush and then braced myself for the barrage of comments.
I was not disappointed.
“The place you got lost for A YEAR!” Sawyer yelled.
“Are you crazy?” Raven shot.
“Alpha, no,” Rab added.
“You have a son to think about,” Eugene reminded me. “What if you get lost for another year?”
“Or the queen kills you out there?” Sawyer said, and chills rushed up my arms. “And we can’t get to you, so we never know. I’m not okay with that. No way in hell.”
Sage hadn’t said anything. She just looked at me with compassion, but now held up her hand, cutting Sawyer off when he was about to speak again. “Do you trust that the woods won’t deceive you this time?” she asked me.
I nodded. “You saw how they opened and we made it home. They trust me.”
Sage smiled. “They’ll help you kill her.”
I grinned, mirroring her smile and imagining a giant fucking tree landing on the queen’s face. “Exactly.”
Sawyer frowned. “What are you guys talking about?”
Sage stood, pulling up her shirt to show a network of scars that ran along her abdomen. Everyone at the table gasped and Walsh let loose a pained whimper.
I’d done my best to protect her during our time there, but most of the wounds Sage had sustained before I found her were permanent, even with werewolf healing.
“I went after Demi, ignoring the advice of the others, and the woods tried to kill me.” She pulled her shirt down and placed both palms on the table, leaning toward Sawyer for effect. “They’re alive. The trees move, the animals don’t think for themselves. Everything in that place serves her.” She pointed to me. “And attacks everyone else.”
Sawyer leaned back in his chair. “Holy shit,” he breathed.
Walsh was watching Sage with glowing yellow eyes. I knew they had a lot of unsaid shit between them and I could see his adoration for her all over his face. But Sage had changed, she wasn’t the type to wait around for a guy to man up and declare his feelings for her anymore. Walsh’s chance might already be lost, and that made me sad because I knew he loved her and that she loved him back.
Reaching under the table, Sawyer gave my thigh a squeeze, and that one squeeze said so much. It said: I’m sorry for what you went through. It said: I trust you.
“Okay.” His voice was small, as if he’d failed. “You lead the queen into the Dark Woods, but I want to be there too. I won’t allow you to go alone.”
I shook my head. “Weren’t you listening. The trees—”
“I’ll bring a fucking chainsaw!” Sawyer bellowed to the room. “Demi, I’m not ever going to be separated from you again. Ever.”
Damn stubborn idiot. “Fine,” I growled.
“I’m going too. He will probably get killed without my help.” Sage pointed to Sawyer. “And we should bring Creek, because I’m not dealing with some kidnapping situation once the vampires know about my nephew.”
She was right. Shit. She was so right. What if they found out about him…?
“The cabin,” I breathed. “Sawyer, Sage, and Creek can wait in the cabin and I’ll lure the queen there and kill her.”
The thought of seeing the place where I’d birthed my son again filled me with warmth.
“Would the woods hurt Creek?” Sawyer was suddenly rethinking his idea now that it involved our son.
“No,” Rab and I said at the same time.
“He’s the next Paladin alpha. They will not touch him,” Rab added.
The realization of that seemed to dawn on Sawyer and his eyes widened a little. I felt the shock of it through our bond.
‘How will our son lead two packs?’ Sawyer suddenly asked.
I had no fucking clue. ‘Problems for future Sawyer and Demi.’
‘Agreed,’ Sawyer said, and then looked at the leaders around the table.
“How do we protect the women and children during the fight?” Eugene asked. “We have over a hundred pregnant women.”
“What if we got the women, children, and elderly back into the bunker with a week’s worth of food while this plays out?” I offered.
Sawyer nodded. “That could work, although I don’t expect to be fighting for a week. We need to hit them hard and fast. I want this over in twenty-four hours after we start it.”
I blew air through my teeth. “When do we start it?”
Silence descended on the table. No one spoke, no one moved. How did you decide when to start a war that might possibly kill people you cared about?
“Probably sooner rather than later since they’re looking for all of you,” a familiar voice called from the open doorway.
Luka.
Sawyer stood, grinning. “You missed me, didn’t you?”
Luka rolled his eyes. “You know, my aunt can be a real hag, and I thought you might want some help.”
Okay, their little bromance was adorable.
Sawyer welcomed Luka to the table.
“Bennett and Talon?”
“In Spokane. I’ll meet up with them after I help you.”
I had to admit, his loyalty was kinda hot. My eyes flicked to Sage to see if she was drooling over the sexy vampire, but her gaze was pinned on Walsh.
Of course. I then looked at Raven to see her practically undressing Luka with her eyes and I grinned. She must have felt my gaze, because she looked at me and her cheeks pinked. Hmm, they would make a cute couple.
“Have you fed?” I asked Luka. He looked better.
Luka tipped his head to me. “Yes, ma’am. I met a nice fey-Ithaki in the woods. After she tried to kill me, I had lunch.”
Okay … I was no longer attracted to him and was now slightly terrified.
Sawyer was quick to defend his friend. ‘He doesn’t feed from women without permission. Unless they try to kill him of course.’
‘Of course.’
“Can you compulse?” I asked him point-blank. If he was vampire royalty, the queen’s nephew, he had to have some major power.
He stilled, suddenly unmoving more than he was already unmoving. I’d touched a nerve and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was rude to ask, like the trolls couldn’t talk about their magic.
“Because if you can,” I tried to explain, “maybe you could help us lure the queen into the Dark Woods.”
My compulsion power was still at its baby stage, and I had zero hope that it would work on the queen of the freaking vampires.
He raised one eyebrow. “The Dark Woods?”
I nodded. “They’re cursed. I’ll have a better chance to fight her there.”
“We,” Sawyer amended, “will have a better chance to kill the queen there.”
“She has your wolf?” Luka asked.
I inclined my head.
“And she wants your blood to siphon your power?” he asked.
I looked at Sawyer, who shrugged. He had clearly told Luka everything.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Then you can expect she’ll have already fed on your wolf and be fighting fully juiced up.” He said it so nonchalantly, like it wasn’t the most horrible thing you could ever think of.
Fed on my wolf? Fuck.
My face must have betrayed my shock, because he softened, his strong jaw and predatorial gaze relaxing. “That knowledge will help us to be better prepared. And no one can compulse the queen. She’s above all of us in power, linked to all of us in a way that’s hard to explain. Similar to your pack bonds, I imagine.”
Okay, that was interesting information, and cool of him to share. Maybe this vampire dude wasn’t half bad.
“So you can’t help?” My voice was more defeated than I would have liked. I could lure her, like I had before, but I’d be winded by the time I got her to the Dark Woods and I really wanted the element of surprise.
Luka grinned, and it was a feral look of satisfaction, the points of his canines pressing onto his bottom lip. “Oh I didn’t say that. If there is one thing my aunt wants more than obtaining your power, it’s me. She’d like nothing more than to pull my head from my body, but vampire law states you can’t kill another royal lest your entire line be slaughtered, and you lose your reigning position.”
Wow, he was just giving us all the details on vampire society.
‘Told you he was cool,’ Sawyer said in my mind.
‘Okay fine, you were right,’ I acquiesced.
“So, if she can’t kill you, then what makes you think you will make good bait?” Sawyer said what I was thinking.
“She can’t kill me. But her lackeys can. They’ll get thrown in jail for murder and she won’t lose one night’s sleep about it. But she’ll want to be there to make sure the job is done.” He sounded so sure of himself.
“How would the Magical Creature Council even know if it was her or one of her henchmen?” I said. There were so many councils in the supernatural world, but I knew the MCC were involved in sentencing.
Luka looked to Sawyer and something passed between them. They were hiding something…
Sawyer finally nodded, and Luka returned it. “The MCC is made up of one representative from each of the races. The newest witch representative has … a unique power. One that has made court cases and DNA testing obsolete.”
The table started to murmur at that. What kind of power could make an entire court hearing and presenting evidence no longer necessary?
“She’s a human lie detector,” Star said so suddenly I jumped. I’d forgotten she was here. “She can invade your memories, displaying them onto a blank wall like a movie projector.”
Holy. Fucking. What?
“What do you mean? She can replay Luka’s death to see who really killed him and free the queen of guilt?” I asked.
Star nodded, but Luka held up a hand. “For the record, I don’t plan on dying.”
“Right,” I muttered, completely frazzled by this latest development.
It hit me then why Luka and Sawyer shared that look. Why Sawyer’s case and sentencing had been moved up so quickly.
“Sawyer, did she…?” My voice cracked.
His hand slipped under the desk and squeezed my thigh. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, and everyone looked down at their hands as if inspecting their nails.
‘She saw you kill Vicon, but I wasn’t there to show what he did to me, to testify on your behalf, so they sentenced you to death.’ Tears filled my eyes and a deep sense of regret washed over me. ‘Sawyer, I’m so sorry.’ Sawyer spent a year in prison because I’d chosen to go to the Dark Woods and take the alpha trial. I chose the Paladin people over my own mate.
‘You didn’t know I would be captured. I didn’t know either. There’s no sense in living in the past. You got me out.’
My lip quivered and I knew now wasn’t the time for this conversation, but I felt so awful that I hadn’t been there to support him. Shaking it off, I faced Luka again. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”
Over the next hour we devised a plan that accounted for all the parts that needed to be dealt with. The women and children who were not in fighting shape, the queen, the vampires, fey, and witches occupying Wolf City who needed to be expunged. The trolls that Marmal needed to bring in. All of it. It was like a detailed clock with all the cogs and wheels turning. Everything would need to work for this to be pulled off.
In the end, we had a solid strategy. Marmal left with Pearl to fetch the trolls, and the others departed to do their part.
It was only Luka, Sawyer, and me now.
“Once I kill the queen, will you be king?” I asked Luka. Thinking of ripping her head off gave me satisfaction, but I wanted to know what would happen after, politically.
I wouldn’t be opposed to that. He seemed cool, and we could all work together for a more peaceful future between the vampires and werewolves.
He chuckled. “I wish it were that easy. The Drakes are many. The queen is one of sixteen siblings. I have dozens of aunts, uncles, and cousins who will all be vying for the position. Only the most powerful can be crowned, which of course is me.”
Of course. Luka wasn’t lacking in self-confidence, that was for sure. “How are there that many of you if you can’t reproduce with each other?
His gaze flicked to Sawyer’s, and he swallowed hard. Again, I’d touched a nerve.
‘He has a dark past. He’s been through a lot,’ was all Sawyer said.
Shit. Now I felt bad. I was about to change the subject when he spoke:
“My family is a legacy family, purebred, obsessed with genetics. That means they stay human and purposefully keep having children and then change us when we reach the age of twenty to forty, freezing time in our bodies forever.”
My mouth popped open. Legacy family? I’d never heard of such a thing—wait, so that meant…
“There are human Drakes?” I gasped. They were popping out little Drake vampires like farm animals! It was one of the craziest things I’d ever heard, and also kind of genius if you were concerned with royal lineage.
He just nodded, a deep sadness washing over his features before it was removed by a calm and stoic expression.
“So once the queen dies…?” Sawyer brought both of our attention back to the task, and my cheeks heated with shame that I’d made his friend relive something dark.
“Once the queen dies…” Luka seemed to enjoy the topic change. “There will be a month of mourning. No leadership talk can even happen until that’s over. And during that month all the cousins and uncles and aunts will be trying to assassinate each other so that they can be chosen next.”
I sputtered in shock at his words. “That’s quite the dysfunctional family,” I offered, and then regretted my words.
“You have no idea,” Luka said dryly, seemingly unperturbed by my bluntness.
“So you’ll hide out in Spokane for the month, take your chance with the hunters?” Sawyer said.
Luka reached up, stretching his arms over his head. “That’s the plan.”
Were we really doing this? Taking back Wolf City, killing the queen? Could life go back to normal somewhat? I’d been in survival mode for so long, I didn’t even know what normal looked like anymore.
“As soon as Marmal gets back with the trolls … we attack,” Sawyer announced. “The queen knows we’re out of prison. She’ll be expecting retaliation, and I don’t want to give her the time to plan.”
I nodded in agreement. The first war we’d lost because we’d relied too much on technology and guns and helicopters and fancy modern things. All of which the witches had brought down the first day. This time we were smarter, this time we would bring down their guns, and fight them with brute pack strength.
