Page 3 of Queen of Darkness
“I can see that,” I said, nodding. “But I also know that I can’t just sit around, Aaron. I have to actuallydosomething, and I need you to see that.”
“I’m saying we do something. We leave. Find somewhere she won’t find us. Hell, if Fenrir could hide for hundreds of years, so can we.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I have to stop it. I have to find a way. If I start running and hiding now, then I’m going to have to run for my entire life. This stupid Blood Letter will be hanging over my head for decades, centuries even, like the Sword of Damocles. Nowhere will be safe for me. Or anyone around me.”
“So, what, you’d rather go and die just to do something? Is that it?” Aaron asked, his temper quite visibly fraying. “You’d rather just leave me?”
I frowned at him. “Isthatwhat this is all about? You think I’m doing this because I don’t want to be with you? That I don’t want to go off with you?”
“It certainly feels that way.”
“Argh!” I shouted, clenching my fists so tightly that my fingernails started to jab into my palms. “You arrogant, idioticmoron!I can’t let myselfbewith you if I’m always going to be looking over my shoulder, fearing that someone will come after me. How am I supposed to let down my guard if I have to always watch out for an attack that I can’t see coming?”
Aaron didn’t have a response to that.
“Three bounty hunters have come after us in the last two weeks, ever since Bianca died,” I said.
Bianca, a mage imbued with considerable power from an elder god, had been the first hunter to come after me. She’d only been stopped through a lot of luck and the sacrifice of more good shifters than I cared to think about. The funerals had only finished two days ago.
“And we dealt with both of them,” Aaron pointed out. “The two of us.”
“Yes, we did. But we won’t always,” I said, quietly but firmly putting my foot down. I was done arguing. “Eventually, someone will come for us that wecan’tdeal with, Aaron. That’s why I have to go to her. That’s why I have to find a way to end this now, while I still can. Even if that means she has to die.”
“Jo–” he started to protest, but I shook my head, short hair bouncing everywhere.
“No, Aaron,” I said, my voice dull, flat. Devoid of emotion. “I’m going after the queen. I’m putting an end to this. If you can’t support that, then you’ll just have to stay here.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I turned on my heel and walked away. Before I left, I would have to pay my respects to the Alpha and let him know I was departing. His town, and my pack, would be safe now. No more attacks would come their way.
As I walked, I pulled up my memories of Queen Elenia’s throne room from my first visit to Madrigal, the city of vampires. I pictured her sitting there, tall and lithe, her dull reddish hair falling down her back, black eyes alert and aware.
I’m coming for you,I snarled at the memory.And I won’t stop until one of us is dead.
Chapter Three
My anger began fading as I approached Aldridge Manor, the home of our pack leader and the pack’s central hub. Replacing it was a burning sense of purpose. I finally had something to direct my energy and anger toward, something that could actually result in some good coming into the world.
Good that would combat the negative of what I’d become. A monster who had to feed for all eternity. My fingers played with one of the vials of blood I kept on me at all times to ensure that I wouldn’t cede control to the Hunger and go off the rails.
Aaron has been doing this for who knows how long. The rest of his team has been doing it for centuries as well. If they can do it, so can I.
Maybe. But that didn’t mean I liked it.
The three-story manor house sitting at the top of a slow-rising driveway from the road was no longer the dark, imposing thing it had been under our former Alpha. Now, it was bright and almost welcoming. Lights were on everywhere, and some people even wandered the grounds talking quietly amongst themselves.
Johnathan really has come into his own,I observed, my lips quirking upward. I certainly hadn’t expected it of him, but when his father was killed and the torch passed to him, Johnathan had well and truly stepped up to the plate.
I exchanged nods with a pair of guards making their rounds and headed up the wide stone steps to the front door, letting myself in. Turning left, I strode down the hallway, the thick runner rug covering up the rich hardwood underneath, dulling the sounds of my boots.
“Is he still working?” I asked a shifter while I passed his desk.
“Hey, Jo. Um, yes, he’s in there.”
I paused. Something in the speaker’s tone rang like a warning bell. “What is it, Kyler?”
The other wolf shifter sighed, biting his lip before looking up at me. I nearly gasped at howyounghe looked. We were the same age, but his face was full of a youth and exuberance that I didn’t see when I looked in the mirror.
And innocence. This one hasn’t seen what you’ve seen, journeyed where you’ve been. He hasn’t felt death like you have.
