Page 2 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

Dane’s voice, it took me a while to recognise it. All that cool, calm assuredness was gone and instead, there was… a twin to my own agony. No, worse. It wasn’t my mother who’d cast her spell over me, manipulating me with everything she had to force me to do her bidding. I forced my eyes up. I didn’t want to. I wasn’t ready to. They called us two souled, and right now, my beast was a ball of snarling fury, wanting to rip and tear everything around her. But I did it anyway.

Gael looked at me with eyes too wide, his skin too pale, his fractured eye fairly glowing against it. He blinked when I met his gaze, then reached out, stopping when I flinched, then moving much slower to press his fingers to the scar he’d left on my neck. That’s when I let out a sigh. My spine sagged, tension slowly leaching out of my body, never to return, it felt. It was then that I laid my head against his shoulder and he tightened his grip on me, sheltering me against his chest. My eyes fell closed for a second, just breathing him in.

“Congratulations are in order, brother?” Dane said, trying for sincerity, but the words came out stiff.

“Don’t try and deflect. None of you met us at Weyland’s house as planned and when I woke up, Darcy was gone and so were her weapons. She’s… aching. She hurts so fucking much, and the last time I saw her, she was ecstatic,” Gael replied.

“Mother,” came Axe’s grunt. “Fucking whore.”

“Axe,” Weyland said.

“No, the epithet stands,” Axe insisted. “We didn’t make it back to Weyland’s house because we were drunk. On the night, on the success, riding the wave of the people’s outrage. But mostly we were drunk on her. On Darcy.” My name was said much softer and somehow that made it harder to hear. “She was in my arms last night, curled up against me, nestling against my chest like she is against yours now, brother. Her mouth was on mine.”

My eyes screwed shut at that, as if that would stop me from seeing Axe and the interloper kiss, even if he was doing it because he thought it was me. My brain wouldn’t let it go, the fact it wasn’t me. That someone else had taken what was mine.

“She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me as the crowds started to cheer for change,” Weyland said, my eyes screwing tighter. “I felt on top of the fucking world. We were doing something, actually doing something, and Darcy was there with me, right by my side. She touched me, pulled me closer, her mouth on mine…”

“I forgot everything.” That was Dane, his voice like ashes. “I forgot the plan and the need to stir the people. I forgot about being a prince, about being my father’s son. I forgot everything but being with Darcy. She was there, next to me, pressed against my side. I smelled her scent in my nose and felt her breath on my skin and I couldn’t think of anything else but her. It was the happiest moment of my life and…”

The sound of his voice breaking, that’s what had my eyes opening again. I wanted to shy away from all of them, take fur and run the hell away from this place. My father’s keep, the castle, because places of power seemed to be nesting grounds for serpents who viciously struck out at any and every thing that might be a threat to their power, but that’s when I had a realisation. I forced myself to look up, first at Gael, my mate, the other part of my soul, but then to the other parts as well.

Dane looked wrecked, well beyond what a hangover might do to him. There were shadows in his eyes as well as under them, making him look pale and drawn. Then I shifted focus, unable to look too long at that pain.

Weyland tried for his usual cocky smile, but when that fell to pieces almost immediately, it felt like my heart broke. He should never look like this: wan, clammy, but also torn in two. He was always self assured, confident and I saw the urge to put on that mask rise, but he couldn’t. It was then I felt my breath stutter in my chest, at the sheer destructiveness of their mother.

And then there was Axe. None of the brash warrior who’d sat me up on Poll’s back was here right now. His braids were half unravelled, an externalisation of what had been done to him. He raked a hand through his hair, perhaps in response to my attention, but his fingers snagged on the knots there, resulting in an explosion of curses from him.

“Do you have a comb?” I asked.

“What?”

Dane blinked, stepping forward, then stopping himself when he actually heard it. He frowned slightly, then looked at the others helplessly.

“Of course, you’ve got one, pretty boy,” Axe said as Weyland pulled one out of his pocket.

“Maybe I started carrying one when I saw how keen our mate is on…”

Our mate, that was the sticking point in Weyland’s reply, all the heat fading from his voice, but not from his eyes. He swallowed and then held out the comb, an olive branch of sorts. I took it, not letting myself think too much about the action until I had the fine piece of carved bone in my hands. I smoothed my fingers over the polished white surface and then gestured to Axe.

“Sit down.”

He moved to do that where he was, but I pointed to a spot on the floor close to me, unable to look at any of them once I’d done so. My gaze was downcast and demure in a way that Linnea would have loved, but Axe did as he was told, settling down in front of me.

I could smell him: his musky scent soured slightly with that of the ale he’d been drinking last night and as I lifted one section of his hair, I caught the faint floral scent of her. My hand tightened around his hair, not pulling it, just gripping it, taking possession of it. But I forced my fingers to loosen, to lay the hank over his shoulder and then I began working. Smoothing out his hair, finding the knots and then combing them free. Axe’s hair turned from snarled and messy to smooth and silky before I went to work on the next part.

“I’m going to kill your mother.”

The quiet was what drew the words out of me. The others had sat down too, circling me, surrounding me like a pack would. This seemed to settle the other half of my soul somewhat, the grooming helping as well. We were reclaiming what was ours, what she… she’d tried to take from us, so every stroke reaffirmed that.

“I challenged her, in her bedroom, as she lay between two men who weren’t the king.”

“You did what?”

My focus was jerked up by Dane’s abrupt question and that treated me to the sight of each man’s response. Weyland grinned, sharp and bright, the first sign of my mate’s true nature returning. His fangs flashed and his eyes burned as he stared at me, nodding slowly in approval.

“Did you?”

There was something wild in Axe’s eyes as he looked over his shoulder. He searched my face for evidence that this was real, true and then his eyes widened when he saw the conviction there.

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