Page 54 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“What is a queen but the mother to her country? She can be an attentive one, anticipating what her people need and ensuring they have it, or she can be selfish, negligent, having produced a child yet mentally staying one herself. She can use that absolute power she has over her child, her country, and wield it capriciously, or…”

Pepin turned back to the statue, staring at it as if again begging the woman for her attention. But the stone Mother was invested in the child that grew within her, not the one who’d grown and walked free, full of her own autonomy.

“Or she can be fair and fierce in her defence of her children and in ensuring they grow strong and hale. She can make or break a family, a country, creating the foundation for greatness or hampering it with trauma.”

When Pepin turned back to me, I shook my head and when she paced closer, I edged away.

“No,” I said, like that would make a difference.

“I know this isn’t what you want. You’re still my girl, full of vicious teeth and sharp edges, but you don’t have it in you to join my Maidens, virginity be damned. Because you’ve already reached for more. Mates bring too many other things with them. The potential of a child.” My hand slipped down, coming to rest on my stomach. “But more beside. You can’t stand alone anymore, with just your sword and your bow for company. You sought them.”

“No. No, Pepin…”

“You reached for more and took it and that sealed your fate. Which world would you want your daughter to live in?” she demanded, that dark wolfish headdress appearing from the shadows. “Grania, where its women are shackled to a wheel, for fear that they might rise up and know their own power? Where their backs are scarred for their ‘sins’?”

“No!” My answer was sharper, more insistent now, because right then I could see a blonde-haired little girl or a brown-haired one with bright blue eyes, her chin jerked up, her mouth a thin line, as men, as priests approached her with a switch.

“Or bring her into this world, where she’ll have freedom to love and live, but could have that snatched away at any moment?”

I sucked in a breath then as the knife that had twisted in my gut the moment that I’d found Del and Jan stabbed deeper. My fingers clawed at my stomach, as if that other, lesser, pain could counter the one that swelled deep inside me.

“Raped by a Reaver?” I groaned at her words, feeling the kind of twisting pain that came with my menses. “Torn apart after the fun is over, her body left to rot on the ground and feed the crows. All of her potential, her power, her love, nothing more than food for maggots.”

“Darcy!”

Axe swooped in, grabbing hold of me as the pain tore me in two. My hand slapped down on the cool stone of the statue, a sacrilegious act if ever there was one, but I couldn’t have stopped it if I tried.

“What did you do, Pepin?” Dane growled. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Blood for blood, Darcy,” she said to me, ignoring my mates as they drew weapons and strode forward. I couldn’t pay attention to them. I felt that heavy slither that heralded the beginning of my bleeding time, right as I sobbed out my protest. “You were wise to offer it to me, but you’ll find you end up giving it, either way. Return here with the queen’s blood on your hand and go through the only coronation that matters. Then there’ll be hope for the children you want to bear.”

But right now, all I could do was grind my teeth as I was forced to deal with the death of that immediate possibility. I was bearing no one any child, not this month.

“Damn you, Pepin…”

I was swept up into a pair of arms. Axe, my mind supplied sluggishly.

“I’m getting her out of here. There’s blood, too much blood.”

“Not so much,” Annis assured them once I was wrapped up in the blankets on our bed, a bleeding cloth set between my legs. “It seems a lot to a man, I’ve no doubt, but she’ll be fine. I’ve made a brew for the pain. It tastes bloody awful, even with the honey in it, but it should settle the cramps, lessen the flow. I’ll sit with her if you like.”

“We will do that, thank you, Annis,” Dane replied, his voice all cool command.

“As you like, Highness. Call me if things get worse.”

Then the lot of them crawled onto the bed, like a pack of wolves, but it wasn’t my blood they were after, it was me. I was hauled into one set of arms, another setting up position under my head, stroking through my hair, one last lot working on my feet. I hugged to my abdomen the hot stone bottle I’d been given, the warmth a pale imitation of the golden kind we’d felt in the cave. But one lot of arms was missing from the pile surrounding me as Dane set himself apart from the rest of us.

“We need to mobilise, start testing loyalties, pull in every favour and alliance we’ve formed.” He stared at me with a deadly intensity that was too much for me to face right now. “Our queen is rising and we must make sure her ascension is as easy as possible. I won’t allow for any other possibility.”

27

The start of Dane’s strategy to gather alliances was to present ourselves at the meeting with the king and the nobles the next day. Dane hadn’t wanted me to come, the others more than happy to send him in our stead, but Annis’ bitter brew did the trick. The pain eased, with the flow slowing to something more manageable.

“Are you certain you must be present?” Dane had asked me as I got dressed, then strapped on my swords.

“Women do all manner of things when bleeding,” I said. “We don’t get to sit around waiting till the bloody flow stops. Plus, I need to see if that bastard is actually going to do something about the Reavers. We need to ensure he does.”

Dane had just nodded sharply, his skin too pale, his eyes too blue as he grabbed his own weapons, strapping an inordinate number of them to his body. And so we strode into the meeting room, armed to the teeth and united as a pack, King Ulfric and the lords looking up when we arrived.

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