Page 194 of Settle Down, Princess

A darkness threatened to swallow me, its jaws opening wide, and as I stared into that maw I knew. If I let its jaws snap tight around me, I wouldn’t survive. I’d lose all that made me who I was, my family, my brothers, but most of all, her.

Jessalyn.

A light formed in the darkness at the thought of her name and that’s what I clung to.

But that was so damn hard.

My body felt like it was made of lead, my limbs too heavy, too hard to move. It was as if something shoved my head back under the tide of darkness every time I tried, right up until this moment.

The wolf had been scratching at me since I found Jessalyn again, his patience with all of the things that preoccupied my mind gone. All we needed was our mate, he insisted. Wars could be fought. Humans were always squabbling over increasingly more complicated fights, unable to resolve issues of dominance cleanly like we wolf shifters could, but her… No one and nothing would ever know the bright burning love I felt for the tiny princess, and when the wolf and I focused on that, we were wrenched free.

“Creed—!”

I jerked myself upright. No, we did. The wolf and I had an uncomfortable relationship. His savagery didn’t sit well with the other half of me, but right now it was the only appropriate response.

“Jessalyn…”

My eyes jerked sideways, seeing the moon shining down on the walls of the capital, and finally, I saw it for what it was. Humans loved to put animals in cages, to corral them into spaces, but that came from a need to create a cage for themselves first. They built these massive edifices and then hid behind them, thinking they’d keep them safe.

But we knew.

“My mate was taken!” My roar had people jerking their heads up off beds, the fact this was the infirmary tent made clear now. The wolf shifters I’d chosen to keep by my side and protect Jessalyn each came back to consciousness. “The Raven…” No, not that, I thought. I couldn’t explain the vagaries of human politics. “The king has taken my mate from me!”

That’s what this was about the entire time. I cared nothing for crowns or thrones or even gold, but they did. Arik and Magnus were two surly alpha wolves stuck in the same pack, unable to resolve the question of who should rule.

But I had the answer.

“Master Creed.” James, the Duke of Fallspire, rose to his feet. I watched his hands go out, like he could ward my fury off, but that point was well past. “You’re saying that the king stole Princess Jessalyn?”

I didn’t have time for this, to justify or explain what I was about to do. He could follow or not, him and all of his tin clad knights, because rather than answer his question, I threw my head back and howled.

All my pain went into the sound, along with the haze of confusion, the feeling of having everything I’d ever wanted, only for it to be torn from me all over again. Most of all though, was that searing need to protect. Jessalyn was mine. My fangs had sunk into her neck, my claim burned into her flesh. She was mine, and I would kill any and all that sought to get in my way when I went to retrieve her.

The first answering howl had my heart swelling. We couldn’t put into words what we felt, but this. There was fury, disbelief and complete outrage that was both a salve to my own fury, while also fanning the flames of anger higher. Then more howls came, filling the tent, filling the entire camp spread about us. Humans started to chatter furiously, knowing on some instinctive level what this meant, but perhaps they did not expect it to happen so quickly. My claws flexed, the wolf and I manifesting right now. My sensitive wolf nose tested the air, searching for a sign of my mate before leaping forward to go and find one.

In the half form, we had a powerful stride. The wolf’s haunches had me flying across the ground between the camp and the city wall, but not alone. The earth shook with the thudding steps as more and more wolf shifters joined us, stampeding towards the perilously high walls of the capital.

But they weren’t tall enough.

Bricks made of baked clay, mortar made from concrete, they all shattered as we punched our claws into the walls, each puncture allowing us to swing our bodies higher, only to draw a claw back and stab it into the next brick. The voices of human guards, no doubt stationed at the parapets, grew more and more high pitched. It was the squeaking of mice, and I could imagine the lot of them scurrying around in a maze they created for themselves.

But I was a wolf.

Life only made sense when I was with my pack, my heart settling when I formed those bonds with my brothers. If I thought that brought enough feeling to crack open my heart, it was nothing compared to the way I felt about Jessalyn. This king, this Magnus, who set himself above others not due to his superiority, who had done nothing to prove his worthiness, he might have been left to sit upon his bloody throne, if he hadn’t done this.

Taken her.

The wolf and I burned, a bright red haze colouring my view of the wall as I climbed higher, each one of my fellow shifters turned the same hellish colour. It masked the blood that fountained from the guard’s neck as my claws drove themselves into his throat. He sought to drive me back as I swung over the top of the parapet, but that was never going to stand. Other guards were dispatched in a similarly brutal way, but it was our roars that threatened to shake the very foundations of this wall, that had the rest backing away. Spears held out, swords pointing from behind shields, we noted that this had become a defensive thing rather than aggressive.

“Where too, brother?” Kern, the shifter I’d met at one of the first garrisons, asked.

“There.”

I stabbed a finger at the shadowy shape of the palace, rearing up on the rise it’d been built on, the rest of the city in rings around it. “In there lies a monster. One that tears apart women. The one who dared to bring knights onto the packlands. In that palace is my mate, and if she dies, she will only be the first, your own mates following soon after.”

I didn’t know if that was true, because I’d never been able to understand the king. There was a wanton, useless cruelty in him that had no analog in wolves. We heard the screams of our prey when we hunted in fur, tasted their blood as they scrabbled to get away, but none of this was done for the thrill of it. We killed because we must, to survive, and that’s what we’d do right now.

“With me!” I shouted. “With me, and we will tear this false king’s head from his neck. He thinks we are but dogs to be ordered around for his amusement, but we are no tame pets. We are the wolves of Khean and we will avenge this insult in blood!”

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