Page 80 of Blood Bearon
Rachel smiled, backing out of the way to let the two of them go. They had jobs that needed doing. Unlike her. Watching them go, she felt a pang of hopelessness. Not for the fight to come, but for her part in it.
Is this what I’m destined for? To stay in a room filled with empty thrones, while everyone else does the work for me?
“Rachel.”
She blinked, returning to the present to find the Queen paused halfway out the door.
“Yes, uh, my Queen?” she replied, remembering the proper way to formally address the head of House Ursa.
The green eyes rolled upward briefly at the title. “You are a trained marksman, yes? They teach that in your police academy?”
Pulling herself upright, Rachel nodded sharply. “Yes, Ma’am. Qualified from pistol to assault rifle, expert marksman with all but the heavy assaults. They’re just too big for me,” she said with a shrug, accepting her limitations.
The Queen grinned, and she motioned to the one she called Knox. “Take her to the armory. Get her outfitted and find a spot for her where she can be of assistance but not in the way.”
The bodyguard started to protest, but the Queen cut him off.
“If she wants to fight alongside us, for the man that she cares for, Knox, who are you to deny her that right? Give her the respect she deserves, understood?”
“Yes, my Queen!” Knox barked, drawing himself up to attention and slamming a fist to his chest.
Kaelyn winked at Rachel, then turned to go.
“Don’t take too long though, Knox. I want you by my side.”
The big shifter beamed with pride, then motioned to Rachel. “Follow me.”
She grinned, evil. It was about time!
38
“Rachel!” he called, jogging through the hallways. “Rachel!”
Khove had searched nearly the entire Manor for his mate, but she was gone. Disappeared into thin air. He worried for her. The attack was likely to occur any time now. Ten minutes before, a shroud of purest darkness had gone up around the Manor, blocking all sunlight.
Everyone knew the purpose behind such a spell. True sunlight was the anathema to Faeries, and if it touched them, they would be sent back to their own plane of existence. By blocking it, Korred was preparing the way for his army to assault the Manor. It was almost time. Soon, the final battle would begin.
But before that happened, Korred needed to find his mate. She needed to hear something, something he had to tell her before the fighting swept him up—in case he wasn’t given the chance to say it again.
“Rachel,” he called once more, but his hope was fading that he would find her before it was too late.
Where are you, Rach?
Khove wanted to see her smiling face one last time. Once the walls were breached, he knew the fight that would follow would be brutal, and leave an impact upon him for the rest of his life.
Although he hadn’t been present at the battle of Novarupta in 1912 when the combined forces of the shifters had finally defeated the mages for good, ushering in the longest period of peace anyone could remember, he’d heard about it from those who had been there when he was younger.
The stories that had been described to him were enough to give him nightmares. Shifters lived somewhat longer than humans, usually reaching into their twelfth or thirteenth century with relative ease, and so plenty of veterans of that fight had been around to relay their tales of horror.
Khove knew that simply by scale alone, this fight would be smaller, but he suspected it might be more vicious. Korred was—simply put—insane, and he wanted them all dead, not defeated.
Thunderous clangs filled the hallway, dashing all prior thoughts from his head. The alarms rang out constantly, meaning only one thing.
It had begun.
He abandoned his quest for Rachel, sparing only the briefest of moments to close his eyes and sent her a mental message composed of but three words. Then he turned and dashed for his reporting area, sword firmly strapped to his back.
As he neared the Grand Hallway, he encountered more shifters, most in battle gear as they flowed outward to the secondary and tertiary lines of defenses. Faces were grim, and banter was almost nonexistent. These men knew what awaited them out there, and though they went to defend their homes, there was no joy, no anticipation of the fight.
