Page 195 of Settle Down, Princess

“In blood!” came the cry of the other shifters.

The guards were left to cower behind their weapons, because we jumped off the parapets and down onto the stones below, barely even registering the impact before sprinting on. Down streets emptied by the night, anyone who dared to still walk them threw themselves out of our way, sitting in the bushes to stare in wonder as we ran past. Rich houses and poor ones, we ignored every one, racing faster and faster as we went up the rise. Our howls filled the air, making clear our intention. The guards at the palace obviously could not interpret it though, as they moved en masse to try and form a blockade in front of the gate as it was slowly swung closed.

“What’re your directions, alpha?” one of the wolf shifters asked me through a panting smile. “What do you want us to do with these soldiers and their tin suits?”

“Remove the obstacle,” I replied, the wolf replied, looking past the gates to the palace beyond. “My mate is inside and…”

“Jessalyn is inside?” Silas, Arik and Roan came melting out of the shadows. Their eyes went wide as they rushed over, but not before Arik’s fingers sank into my chest fur and jerked me closer. My muzzle to his face, few humans would’ve dared to do such a thing, but he did. “I told you to protect her! I told you to keep her safe!” Fear turned his scent acrid as he stared at the palace. “She cannot be inside that palace.”

“We’ll get her out, brother,” Silas told him.

“Before what?” Arik shoved me away before turning on Silas. “Before he touches her. Before he…” His voice broke as Arik fought to get the words out. “Before he fucking tears her clothes from her, though he might break her fingers first. He does so like to listen to them cry before he rapes them. Nothing permanent, nothing that will completely incapacitate her. That comes later.”

“No, it won’t.” My word was absolute, because I’d been living with the spectre of Arik’s trauma the entire time we were joined together. “You saw things you shouldn’t have. Survived things that perhaps it would’ve been better if you hadn’t, but your experience means nothing here. You were a powerless boy before, but now…” I nodded slowly. “You are the Bastard Prince and we are your band. The lad that saw his lover mutilated and killed died the same day Ariel did.” My hand slapped down on his shoulder, my claws pricking the skin beneath his armour. “You are not the man you were, but only you can decide who he is going forward.”

I watched Arik’s focus shift, and I thought it was to meet my eyes, but instead they trailed over my shoulder. I wasn’t sure what he saw, but whatever it was, it had him nodding slowly.

“You’ve brought an army, brother.” Arik noted the shifters at my back. “But we’ll need the whole thing if we’re to win this.”

“You won’t be getting into the castle, bastard!” one of the guards shouted out as more and more came rushing through the gates. “You’ll have to get past us.”

“It’s almost like they want to get torn limb from limb.” Silas cleaned his thumbnail with his knife point casually. “Curious.” When he focused back on us, I saw the keen intelligence in his gaze. “It feels like we’ve been on this path since the moment we met, so how about it? Make mincemeat of those idiots there.” His eyes narrowed as he inspected the guards. “Especially that idiot, Masters. That sadistic prick deserves to go down.”

“I’m in,” Roan said, offering his hand. My claw covered it quickly, then so did Silas’, the three of us staring at Arik.

“This is your opportunity to right the wrong of Ariel’s death, of all the princesses’ deaths,” I told him. “History doesn’t have to repeat itself. We can create a new path, a better one.”

“You really believe that, don’t you?” Arik had said things like this before, but never with any kind of hope in his voice and that was what had me standing straighter now. “Right, well, if this is the path we’re taking, did any of you think to bring a horn with you?” His gaze scanned the lot of wolf shifters, but Silas slapped a horn into the commander’s hand. “How did you…? Never mind.”

He weighed it in his hand, staring at it as he considered what would happen if he blew it.

“When I send up the alarm, the forces beyond the gate will mobilise. All of the leaders of the different factions in the camp know what this will mean. This will have soldiers massing at the capital gates, but it’d be beneficial if there was no obstacle to them entering the city.”

“Alpha?” Kern asked me, all of the wolf shifters moving restlessly.

“Humans think they understand what our dominance fights are, but they don’t,” I told him. “They are too fractious to allow the results of one fight to settle things and too fond of power not to try and stack the deck in their favour. That’s what this so-called king has done in stealing my mate. Go back to the gates, clear the way, allow our host into the capital. Take the ground as quickly and peacefully as you can. Pack doesn’t fight pack.”

“Pack doesn’t fight pack,” the other shifters repeated back with a nod.

“We will retrieve my mate and then mount this usurper’s head on a pike, to make clear what happens to those that seek to get between a shifter and his mate,” I snapped, watching the human guards shuffle back instinctively.

“Happy hunting, alpha,” Kern said before turning to the others. “You heard the alpha. Move out!”

I caught the moment the guards started to relax and so did my brothers.

“They think they’ve got a chance, just tackling the four of us,” Roan said with a snicker, drawing his sword. “They might’ve managed it if it was just the one person.”

“But that’s never how this fight would go,” I told him. “We are strongest together. We are pack.”

“So then let’s show them what this pack is capable of,” Arik said, breaking into a run.

Chapter 110

“Start talking, Old Man, and we’ll see if you walk free of this room in one piece.”

Selene’s words hung in the air, her command not fading away until it was obeyed. I wasn’t sure how the Raven would respond, but a snort of a laugh wasn’t what I anticipated happening. Desiree and I sidled closer to each other, our fingers linking as we held the other tight.

“Your eyes burn with condemnation, daughter,” he said as he met Selene’s gaze. “I know you and your brother think me a harsh father.’

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