Page 47 of Heir

It was only a fifteen-minute ride on the train before our stop and we all followed Omaera like lost lambs.

I’d always enjoyed the company of women. I’d been with many over the centuries and certainly found them to be the fairer, but stronger, sex. However, I’d never been taken with one, or rendered to a puppy following one around so obediently, like I was with Omaera.

Was it because she was my mate? Was that the only reason?

Or was there more to it?

Was it because she was the Queen?

We’d only ever had kings for as long as I’d been alive. And as far as anyone knew, King Donovar never had a mate. So there was no queen. Yes, the mages had Queen Anysa and she was a wonderful and fair leader, but she was a leader mainly in title only. The true shift of power and reign over all belonged to King Donovar, or in this case, Queen Omaera now.

We emerged back out into daylight, in a new borough of the city. This area of town was much nicer than where Omaera lived. Less hipster-ish and more family friendly. There were supermarkets, drugstores, pet stores, a dog park, an elementary school, and a medical clinic, all within spitting distance of each other. Flowerbeds covered every available non-road or sidewalk area, and baskets teeming with more greenery and petals hung from the ornate, green streetlamps.

“Why don’t you live here?” Zandren asked. “It smells better than where you live. And it’s nicer.”

I snorted. Maybe there was a second thing that we agreed on.

“Because I like the apartment Gemma and I share. It’s ours. What’s wrong with it?” She glanced up at the bear. “You don’t have to stay, you know?”

“Yes, I do,” he said plainly. “And it’s fine. This place is just nicer. And smells better.”

Leave it to the bear to keep it real and honest.

We reached a tall, narrow, yellow house with white shutters, a plum-colored door, and matching plum-hued wide steps up to the porch. It had a white picket fence all the way around and red geraniums in every plant pot and basket.

“If this is where you grew up, why’d you leave?” Zandren asked.

I snorted. He was digging himself a hole, and I was happy to sit back and watch. The vampire hadn’t said a damned word since we left the house, but none of us were complaining. He was a big Debbie Downer, and until I caught him scowling, I often forgot he was even there.

“Do bears live with their parents and families for life?” she asked him, opening the gate on the picket fence.

“No,” he said plainly.

She raised her brows at him. “So why should humans be different?”

“Because this place is nicer than your place. This place has a yard. It has grass.”

She made an impatient noise in her throat and climbed the stairs. “Again, Pooh Bear, you are welcome to leave my apartment at any time. Nobody is forcing you to stay.”

I chuckled, but his deep angry growl made me pause. His eyes narrowed, and he sniffed the air, turning his head back and forth.

“What is it, Lassie? Is Timmy in the well?”

But my smile fell the moment he faced me, dead-serious and contemplating shifting. “I smell demons.”

“Yeah, me. Apparently,” Omaera said, reaching for the doorknob, but Zandren’s big hand grabbed her wrist and he pulled her back until she smacked into his chest.

“Not you, Little One. You smell of lilacs, honeysuckle, and cayenne. This is not your scent. But it is the scent of demons.”

Her palms were on his chest, and she glanced up at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means someone has been here to visit Delia before us,” Drak said, opening the door and stepping into the brightly-lit home with all the stained glass, wainscotting, and old-fashioned-but-recently-repainted crown molding.

I didn’t have such a keen sense of smell as the shifter, but I knew what death smelled like.

Drak, Zandren, and I all exchanged looks.

Omaera tried to break free of Zandren. “Why does the house smell like that?”

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