Page 13 of The Wolf Queen

When I was finished, there were only a handful of men left and they huddled close to each other, eyes wild as they fought to understand what had happened.

I was struggling with it myself.

Just as I was about to speak, I felt a sharp prick of pain in my nose, then a hot rush. Lifting my hand, I caught a flow of blood.

“Darcy…!” Weyland said, striding over to me before tipping my head back. Blood rolled down my throat, pleasing the wolf while revolting the woman.

“Give her here,” Gael said, blue fire prickling across his fingers, but I jerked away.

“No, you’ll just make it worse.”

“Before I make it better.”

An intense spike of pain hit me at his touch but, before I could even scream, the blood stopped, only a single drop more falling to the earth— proving both of us right—and leaving us sharing a moment of rare intimacy. We’d barely touched each other since… Every time he’d tried to touch me, it had seemed as though he’d managed to hurt both of us in ways he couldn’t fix. And that’s why, in this moment, there was such relief in his eyes.

He could heal this, take this one small thing away, and I could see that it made him feel better. His eyes searched mine, boring into them, our whole world reducing down to just the two of us—no one else existed in this tiny little bubble. I could hear his heartbeat and mine, pulsing in time together; feel our connection. But our idyllic moment was interrupted too soon.

“Youarethe chosen one!” Higgins gloated. “You see!” He turned to his people and mine, throwing his hands wide. “She is the herald of the dread lord, praise his name!”

“We need to talk about what this might mean later,” Dane muttered to me.

“Or we could just see if he’s willing to dive down the throat of this dread wolf,” Axe said, with a wink.

“Lady Darcy…!” One of the knights came running partway down the stairs and then faltered to a stop when he saw the chaos; men and wolves and piles of armour strewn across the courtyard. The knight seemed to feel like if he stayed where he was, he’d at least have the higher ground. Dragging his attention back to me, he finished his message. “Your father awaits you in the great hall.”

“Is this to be my castle?”Jan asked, as she and Del walked into the courtyard. Our men had secured much of the keep, and had locked up the small number of my father’s men with no wolf in one of the empty granaries. The non-combatants from our side had been moved to the keep, and the children had been eager to join me.

“You’d want a much better one than this,” I told her. “This is a sad place.”

“This wasn’t much of a fight,” Selene said, appearing beside me. “Tell me the rest of Grania isn’t so weak.”

“This was a bloodless victory,” I told Selene. “Not one fit for the mighty Wolf Maidens.”

“Not one where you wanted to risk us shedding blood, you mean,” she said with a tilt of her head. “Orla and her Maidens have completed the sweep of the forests back in Strelae. The Reavers appear to have pulled back, consolidating their number in Snowmere.”

“Trying to get the shrine below it, no doubt,” I said, visualising the crystal walls of the Shrine of the Goddess.

“And what now, milady?” Selene asked, looking up the steps towards my father’s hall. “You’ve taken a Granian keep and turned all the soldier boys into wolves.” I nodded. “So what lies within?”

“This was my home once,” I told them. “I left this place broken into a million pieces, but I was put back together.” My men shifted restlessly around me, eyes trained on the stone walls, as if they could see knights about to leap out at us. “Now it’s time to see how my father fares. We will need him for what is to come… but I broke him too, last time I was here.”

“The father of our queen?” Selene grinned then. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

Chapter10

“You…”

It’s funny how things live on in our memories, growing bigger and more grand than they ever had been in reality. That was what struck me as I stepped into my father’s hall, a room that was largely empty now. It’d seemed big and cavernous when I was growing up, even on the day I’d left there: a grand place for a grand man. And my position had been determined by my father’s expectations as much as his lack of interest in me. Nevertheless, I’d played the dutiful daughter in this hall, and sat at the little pillow that still lay near my father’s feet.

But he would not be commanding anyone to sit anywhere now.

My eyes travelled up from his feet to see his lip curl as he caught sight of me. As we walked into the hall, all the serving women shrank back at the sudden appearance of a host of Strelan warriors. I told them I had no quarrel with them and dismissed them and the whole time, my father just stared. When he deigned to speak, it was to spit his displeasure.

“Ordering my staff around. Taking my men away. Turning them into filthy wargs.”

My father’s eyes contained all of the contempt that had always been there for me, but now it burned with an arrogance that took my breath away. Especially when I considered his change in circumstance. He no longer sat proudly on his seat of power, as generations of our family had before. The throne was well padded with furs, many wrapped tightly around him to keep him warm and perhaps to make him seem bigger than he was. Because my father was skinny now, his broken hands tucked up under his chin, having set at unnatural angles, the bones threatening to protrude through too thin skin.

“You’ve certainly come up in the world,” he sneered at me, before throwing a sidelong look at my mates, as if to impugn my position.

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