Page 142 of Settle Down, Princess

“It’s been sighted on the road to Fallspire,” I said quickly, pushing past that uncomfortable fact. “On the very outskirts of your lands.”

“A king must answer the call of the stag,” Silas said smoothly.

“He must indeed.” The Duke recovered quickly, nodding to himself, his eyes dancing. “I’ll send word to the castle, but first, to my bannermen. We must plan this meticulously.”

“We must.” I pulled the devices from my pockets and then held them out. “We’ve discussed things with some people eminently qualified to help us achieve our aims. The Raven had it right the first time. An accident is the only solution. A king dying while hunting the golden stag? The people would see that event as fated, masking our own involvement in the process.”

“They would indeed.” For the first time since Ariel’s death, I saw the duke truly smile as he clapped his hand on my arm. “Now, come into the great hall while we wait for the lords to arrive.”

He meant to make me feel welcome by steering me towards his hall, but like everything in this duchy, it just brought back more unpleasant memories. Of the hall being filled with soldiers and lords, pouring over maps and moving around small markers to make clear how they intended to fight the upcoming war.

Back then I’d felt a wild kind of glee, finally, finally striking back against a brother who had made my life a misery. But I’d done so with a crown of antlers on my head. I’d long since put such boyish things aside, optimism being the first casualty of war, but not the last. I blinked, seeing a graceful figure walking down the chairs that lined one side of the duke’s great table, wine ewer in her hands as she looked over her shoulder at me and smiled.

“Sit, sit,” the Duke urged, gesturing to the table, but I just stared, seeing Ariel fade before my very eyes before I could bear to pull out a chair.

Chapter 82

Creed

“Here?” one of the human commanders we’d liberated from the garrison asked. There were many of them now. We’d gone from camp to camp, to another few small garrisons and most had opened the gates with welcome arms. Some were left with a skeleton crew of humans to man their posts with no idea how they could fulfil their orders.

“Here,” I confirmed, coming back to skin as we crouched under a small rise and stared at the main border garrison.

It was a supply centre, a crucial point logistically as food, uniforms and weapons for the entire border were shipped out of here. As such it was heavily staffed, with both wolf shifters and humans and I needed to find out where the former were.

I glanced at my fellow shifters, cautioning them to stay quiet and where they were as I got to my feet, creeping around the edge of the garrison as I kept the shadows, the thick pine needles swallowing my steps. I waited until I got close to the rear gate of the place before sending up a howl.

Our ability to communicate over long distances and using a means humans could not decode was both lauded and distrusted by our human comrades and that was evident now. I heard the scuffle inside, lamps swinging in the darkness, marking each human as the clambered onto the parapets on this side of the garrison and peered into the night, but it wasn’t their response I cared about. One howl, then another, then a whole host of them, communicated what I needed to know.

We couldn’t howl coordinates, direct orders or anything specific. The wolf’s mind kept innumerable amounts of data inside his mind, about weather, prey patterns and the environment, but not human concerns about who, what and when. Our high command thought us dogs, able to be trained to pass on this sort of information, but that’s not how it worked. Feeling, that’s what I caught, of frustration, rage and betrayal as well as the pace, pace, pace of being confined into a small space.

Not the stockade I reasoned. Unless they’d won the loyalty of some of the shifters inside the garrison they’d never be able to manage to cage members of my people, so they had to be in the barracks. The commander would’ve watched them all go to bed that night in their own part of the garrison, then used stout bars across the door to keep them in. I communicated that when I jogged back to the rest of our men.

“Locked up in the barracks?” one of the humans said, paling in the moonlight. “They’d do that?”

“If they’re following orders.” An ex commander of one of the smaller garrisons shot me an apologetic look. “They know they could never force you into the stockade.”

“So they must trick us while we sleep,” the shifter Harrow growled, looking over his shoulder at the men.

“They are following orders.” I let my power bleed into my voice, knowing it would make my words seem all the more persuasive. “Orders none of them wish to put in place, but they follow them, just as we always have.”

I had all of their attention now, because I knew what they were thinking about. Of all the times they kissed their loved ones as they marched away, off to do the king’s bidding, never knowing if this was the last time you’d see them, but… I swallowed hard, the image of Jessalyn brought forward far too easily, her visage burning inside my heart like a flame that refused to go out.

“So what are ours, alpha?” another wolf shifter asked me, and it wasn’t just shifterkind that paid me attention. Those soldiers that had deserted, they were used to taking orders, ones that made sense to them and right now they figured they came from me, so I told them what needed to happen.

“You’re going to scale those walls?” A grizzled veteran eyed the walls of the garrison and then me. “They were constructed by master artisans. Each block has seamless joins. There’s no mortar to gain purchase on.”

“Don’t need it.” Kern, one of the shifters from the border garrisons grinned and the humans flinched at the sight of his fangs in the moonlight.

“Well, if you can scale those walls without help, what do you need us to do?” a human commander asked.

“Provide a distraction,” I said, then explained exactly how.

I’d forgotten what it felt like, to prepare for a fight with a group of males you trust at your back. As I looked back at the mass of wolf shifters crouched down beside me, my heart wrenched. Not for want of Jessalyn this time, but for them. I was so damn far away from my pack, from my brothers, the men I had bonded my heart, my life force to. If I turned around now, it’d take days to get to the capital.

But I wouldn’t.

Free the shifters. Free all of the shifters, that’s what burned inside my chest. Once I did that, then I could return victorious, bringing each shifter to kneel at my queen’s feet. That’s what hardened my resolve as I turned to the others.

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