For the first time in my life, I was wearing… pants. Arwen had convinced Kailani and I that it would be easier to ride in and move through Fallenmoore on foot if needed. To be honest, I was mortified to be seen in such things, but they were also really roomy and comfortable. And they had pockets!
“I can make my way to you in a half a day,” Drae said to his wife as Kailani and Raife were a few feet over, having their own goodbye. We had water, food, maps and the tin box.
Lucien pulled me aside and looked down at me with a gaze that told me his heart was breaking just as much as mine.
We just got married. I’d slept in his arms one night. It wasn’t enough. I wanted more.
His eyes were wide and full of trepidation. “I only just got you. I’m not ready to let you go.”
“I will bring back King Axil and his men and we will win this war. I promise.” I threaded my fingers into his and then leaned forward to place a kiss on his lips. He was hesitant at first, but then he opened his mouth and deepened the kiss.
When I pulled away, he smiled as he ran his fingers through my hair. “I don’t know what’s worse, not knowing what you taste like, or knowing and then not being able to kiss you.”
I grinned. “Definitely the latter.”
He swallowed hard. “If anything happens to you, I’ll freeze this entire realm. I won’t be able to control it.”
Fear spiked in my heart because I knew he was telling the truth. “I’ll be fine. Please keep my family safe.”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“Alright, lovebirds! We gotta fly,” Kailani called out from behind Lucien. Arwen had shifted into a beautiful blue dragon and the elf queen was loading supplies into her basket.
There was nothing more to say. We’d said all of our goodbyes, had our kisses. The only thing to do was to leave the ones we loved and go flying into unknown danger for the good of our people. Such was the way of a queen.
Lucien helped lift me into the basket on Arwen’s back and I settled into the seat with Kailani. “Do you plan on needing those?” I asked her as I took in the small open box of alcohol bottles. The tops were open and there were strips of soaked cloth hanging out the top.
Kailani grinned. “Backup plan in case anyone messes with us on the way.”
I liked her, really liked her. She was unlike any lady I’d ever met. Piper and my mom and Libby came running out to wave us off then, and I tried not to look at the tears on my sister’s cheeks.
As Arwen kicked off the ground, I swallowed my emotions down and put on a smile, waving to everyone.
Once we were up in the air, Kailani grabbed the tin box and shook it lightly, rattling the contents. “Are we going to peek?” she asked me with a devilish grin.
I laughed and took the box from her, setting it by our feet. “No, let’s give it to King Axil as promised.”
Kailani pouted but settled into the seat for the flight. It started to snow then, a fine dusting covering us as we left Winter Court.
“Awww,” Kailani said. “He made it snow for you.”
I turned and looked down at the ground. Everyone else had gone inside but Lucien. He was staring up at us as snow fell from the sky.
It reminded me of the day he came to negotiate my dowry, how he’d given in to everything I wanted and heaped compliments on me and respected our household staff.
Lucien Thorne had been nothing like I imagined. He was so much better, and I prayed to the Maker that we’d win this war and get to live the rest of our lives together.
THE FLIGHT over Archmere and into Fallenmoore was breathtaking. I’d been to Archmere once but never from this vantage point. It was so green. It looked like Spring and parts of Fall, but all over. Then when we got to the border of Fallenmoore I was grateful for my fur cloak. It reminded me of Winter Court and Lucien. Snowcapped mountains spanned the horizon for as far as the eye could see.
I’d never considered myself sheltered. I was a princess and had traveled all throughout Archmere and Embergate, but it wasn’t until this moment, when I saw the pack of wolves down below, that I realized how little of the realm I had experienced.
I looked to Kailani, whose eyes were wide, and knew that she too had never seen a wolven.
“They’re so big,” I exclaimed, as Arwen lowered us to the ground.
The hulking mass of fur and muscle was a sight to behold.
They were larger than a cougarin and almost as big as a bearin! I suddenly felt nervous about the task ahead of us. Were they civil in their animal form? Or only as humans? I knew the moon affected them, and I’d heard them howling once when I visited a border town in Archmere. The wolves knew we were here, and craned their heads skyward as we descended over them.
Kailani reached down and clutched the tin box tightly as Arwen landed among the pack of two dozen or so wolves.
They circled us, surrounding Arwen on all sides as Kailani and I stepped out of the basket and approached one of the wolves.
The wolven was looking us right in the eyes, and had cocked their head to the side, so I could see the intelligence there.
“My name is Queen Madelynn of Thorngate,” I told them.
Kailani bowed slightly beside me and I kicked myself for not doing the same. “I am Queen Kailani of Archmere, and that is Queen Arwen of Embergate. We seek an audience with your king.”
I watched the wolven who’d cocked her head as her face began to change. It looked like it was… melting. The sound of bones cracking filled the space as her fur retreated and gave way to smooth skin. It was horrifying and fascinating at the same time and I could not look away, even when the creature was reduced to a naked female who crouched in the dirt staring up at us.
I swallowed hard as she stood and tipped her chin high, meeting my gaze and never dropping it. She didn’t say a word, she just held my gaze. I started to wonder if maybe they didn’t speak Avalierian and had a mother tongue we didn’t know, when she grinned.
“You are an alpha among your people?” she asked. Her long dark hair cascaded over one shoulder, but her breasts were exposed as well as the rest of her, and yet she made no effort to cover herself.
I had to remind myself that these were cultural customs that might be normal to them and so I tried to act like it didn’t bother me. “I am,” I told her. Alpha and queen were similar. We were both leaders of our people.
“Can you take us to King Moon?” Kailani asked.
The wolven woman pointed to the mountain range in the distance, where a small stream of fire curled towards the sky.
“Our king lives on Death Mountain. You will find him there,” she said.
Death Mountain. That didn’t sound too cozy.
“Thank you.” I bowed my head and she hissed.
Walking over, she reached out and grasped my chin, tipping my head up. “Don’t bow unless you are submissive. If you are an alpha, a queen, you keep your chin up, maintain eye contact. If the king thinks you are weak, he will kill you.”
My eyes bugged at that moment. Kill me? I was a queen of a neighboring territory. Surely she didn’t mean it?
Kailani and I shared a worried look, then the woman stared at Arwen’s dragon form. “She is a threat to the king. She cannot go to Death Mountain in dragon form or she’ll be shot from the sky without question. She stays here or walks there as a human.”
Okay, clearly there were some rules here we hadn’t known about. I started to panic, unsure now what to do. But before I could even think of a solution, Arwen shifted back into her human body.
More cracking bones, dragon scales turned to soft pink skin, and now I was standing before two naked women.
Good grief.
Trying to maintain eye contact when a woman’s breasts were exposed was harder than I realized. I was trying to conceal my blush but knew I must be failing.
“They’re not going anywhere without me,” Arwen told the woman, holding her eye contact, chin held high like the wolven had suggested.
The dark-haired woman grinned. “Two alphas,” she said through her smile.
Kailani scoffed. “Three alphas. I’m an alpha too.”
The woman shook her head. “No. You’re second-in-command. Maybe. More like mid-pack.”
Kailani frowned at that and crossed her arms over her chest. It seemed the custom here was to size up a person and immediately rank them based on dominance. Little did she know Kailani was a powerful warrior.
Arwen cleared her throat. “Would you and your pack escort us to Death Mountain? We can pay you.”
The woman looked at a wolf behind her and something unseen passed between them. “We will take you to the base of the mountain. We avoid politics whenever possible,” she said.
That was an interesting comment.
Avoid politics… were they some rebel pack that lived outside of government rule?
“Thank you,” Arwen said, and then began to rifle through her basket for clothes and shoes. Once she was bundled up, the wolven woman shifted back into her wolf form without a word. The pack broke up and about a dozen of the wolves formed a V, pointing the way, and we walked inside of it.
Once we’d been walking for about an hour, Arwen slipped closer to Kailani and I. “None of the other kings besides Lucien have spoken to Axil since they were young boys. We don’t know what kind of situation we will be walking into here, but if anything goes wrong, get outside and I fly us home.”
We nodded and I found myself wondering what could go wrong. Lucien had spoken to me of King Axil like a beloved friend. He told me they sent letters over the years and remained on good terms since their yearly retreats stopped.
“Lucien speaks highly of King Axil. Said he would not hesitate to help us,” I told them in an attempt to put their minds at ease.
Kailani looked sideways at me. “Then why were we told Arwen would be shot out of the sky?”
I chewed my lip. Good point. Only the dragon king or queen could shift into a dragon. If he’d told his men to shoot a dragon out of the sky, he would be knowingly killing the king or queen.
I lowered my voice to barely a whisper, the loudest sound being the crunching of our boots on snow. “If need be, I can protect us with my wind power. We will be okay.”
Arwen looked at me with unease. “Do you know the power the wolf king holds?”
I swallowed the lump of trepidation lodged in my throat at her tone. “He can shift into a very large wolf?”
Arwen chuckled. “The king of the wolves can take over your mind and render your wind power useless.”
My mouth went bone dry. Take over my mind? But… “Are you sure?”
Arwen gazed at the lead wolf who we’d spoken with earlier. She was watching us and simply gave a single nod. Great, she’d heard our entire conversation.
“Yep,” Arwen confirmed.
Oh fae. What had we gotten ourselves into?
