Page 83 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

“She’s gone feral. She’s going to kill Malia!”

“Oh no, she’s not.” Dane stepped forward then, ignoring the frantic rasp of Malia-wolf’s breath and staring at me. “You’re going to set Malia down now, aren’t you, my love, my mate? You’ve defended yourself admirably.” I was caught then by the shine in his eyes, the radiant smile on his face. “You are strong enough to vanquish this challenger.” My eyes flicked back to the now exhausted wolf in my hands, sagging in my grip. “But you’re also strong enough to let her live. She won’t be a threat to you ever again.”

His voice was persuasive, sinuous, sliding under my defences and dismantling everything in a way that seemed entirely effortless. I tossed the wolf to the ground, leaving her to suck in frantic breaths, her family rushing in to cluster around her, many of them glaring up at me.

But none taking a step forward to challenge me.

“Shift!” Aurora said imperiously, slipping off the throne to stand before me. I felt her will pushing down on me, but it was not an oppressive thing. I could’ve shaken it off, if I wanted to, but something told me now wasn’t the time. Because when my breath began to even out and my heart slowed, the fire that had burned inside me sputtered out and it just left me like this.

In a body that wasn’t mine. I stared at my now massive hands, at the way my claws raked out from blocky fingertips, then traced the spread of silky black fur that trailed across my limbs. My thoughts raced. This was not me. I couldn’t do this. I didn’t shift, wasn’t a warg. I had the one soul… But as my thoughts began to tumble frantically around in my head, another form of knowledge entered my awareness. It didn’t use words, didn’t spit out observations in rapid succession. It just knew.

That I needed to bide my time, because I was on enemy turf. That I was strong, but I would need to build my pack, far beyond what the males had planned, before I could openly display my powers. That if I did not submit to this queen, just for now, she would issue another challenge, one I wasn’t ready to meet. So when her mouth opened again, when she injected all of her will into the command, I took that direction to heart, let my beast recede and was just left with Darcy, standing there now, in clothes that sported great rips down their length.

“You’re out of control,” the queen said, holding out a shaking finger to me. “To allow a duel to go so far! If you can’t control whatever it is that’s inside you—”

“She’ll need to train with the Wolf Maidens,” Mother Aeve said smoothly. “We have so few women that can take the half form now, they are the only ones who will be able to teach her control. That’s what you were about to say, weren’t you, my queen?”

Aurora’s face screwed up at that, becoming a furious mask before she hastily smoothed it out again.

“Of course, Holy Mother.” The queen eyed me speculatively then, with a strange gleam in her eyes. “The Wolf Maidens would welcome another such as Darcy to their number.”

I’d been fascinated by the brief mention of these wolf-women warriors back in Bayard, but right now it felt like I had put down one threat, only to be presented with another. I just nodded in response to their ruling and took my place back with the others.

“Well done, lass,” Nordred said, his voice cutting through the hissed worries of the other men, as Pep just stared at me with wide eyes.

“But out of the frying pan and into the fire,” Dane said grimly. “We’ll talk further once we are able to leave court.”

The next fewhours were spent in an interminably boring way. Nobles brought forth their complaints, the king and queen made judgements and then came the next. On and on it went, until finally we were all excused.

I ran down the stairs when we got out the main door, Pep following hot on my heels.

“You hated that place too? Nordred made me come up today,” she said, “but forgive me, Darcy, I won’t be returning if you are called to court. After it all started out so promisingly with that challenge. Gods, girl, you didn’t tell me you were two-souled!”

“I didn’t know,” I said, blinking, feeling oddly like something had been stolen from me. Perhaps if I’d been left alone, I’d have discovered… whatever was inside me under my own steam. Instead, I was forced to grab for whatever means I had to survive and now, here I was. I watched my nails turn to claws, the fur springing up across my arm before I took a deep breath and released it again. Taking the half form, half-beast, half-human, seemed to be an appropriate thing for me, because apparently I wasn’t human anymore and neither was I a wolf.

“Mother will tryto force Darcy to join the Wolf Maidens,” Weyland said when we reached their suite. “I knew she’d seek to separate us by any means possible, but this?”

“The Wolf Maidens are a religious order and a martial one,” Gael explained to me. “All of the women who can maintain a half form are relegated there to protect the throne. A Maiden can’t have a mate and needs to remain a virgin.”

“Well, that’s a situation we can rectify right now,” Axe said with a grin, one that faltered under everyone else’s inspection.

“Training with the Maidens would be useful for Darcy,” Nordred said and the other men growled their disapproval at this. “They can teach her things none of us can. A woman’s relationship with her beast is different to a man’s.”

“And that’s all she’ll know, if Mother has her way,” Dane said. “This isn’t about what’s best for Darcy. It’s about furthering the Queen’s ambitions.”

“Her motivations might be suspect,” Nordred said. “But that doesn’t mean the proposal is a terrible one.”

They kept bickering,passionately defending their points of view as I drifted into the bedroom of the suite, then past that to the bathing room.

You could see this was a place lived in by men. Shaving soap, a strap and a straight razor lay on the bench, as did bottles of cologne that smelled of pine needles and sandalwood when I sprayed them into the air. But this was all me delaying what I’d come in here to do.

I stared into the mirror, saw my thin face, full lips, freckles scattered across my cheekbones and my flame red hair still bound back from my face, making it appear even thinner, then my bright blue eyes. But that wasn’t what I’d come here to look at. It was easier now to summon… whatever it was I’d become. I let my hands turn to paws first, holding them up before the glass as they appeared to lengthen, grow hairier, great sabre-like claws protruding from the ends. But letting that out seemed to let everything else out too.

I grew before my very eyes in a process that could only be described as magic. I went from being a wiry looking girl to a beast. Any traces of femininity, of humanity, were lost. I became a lean rope of a thing, all hard muscle and fur. Darcy was gone, all but for those blue eyes, and even they were a recent development. My face shifted, morphing into this grotesque combination of wolf and woman, until finally furry ears twitched atop of my head. I was a woman in a wolf mask, or was I a wolf in a human mask? I couldn’t tell. I just stared and stared and stared.

“Darcy?” There came a knock on the door, and I released the half wolf form, reaching for my humanity and donning it like one would a robe. And wasn’t that a strange thing? I’d thought my human nature the sum total of what I was, so to find it was one of several options was dizzying. I opened the door and found Gael standing in the doorway. “Are you alright? This has been…”

“There aren’t any words for what this has been, are there, Gael?” I asked in a low voice, some of my previous form’s growl in it. “This is what you wanted to keep me away from. Why you wanted to protect me.”

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