Page 6 of The Wolf Queen

He frowned slightly, then, catching her idea, scanned the nearby landscape before nodding to the dilapidated shed over on the right.

“Take that out as quickly as possible.”

Selene turned to me, not the others, and her eyes burned bright into mine.

“You have your objective, now you just need to carry it out.” Axe hefted his weapon in his hands, but she shook her head at him. “Toss your weapons to one side.” Axe made a pained sound. “I’m not saying don’t use them in battle…” She scanned each man. “You’re all warriors, practised in your own individual skills and strengths as fighters, but right now, that’s not what’s needed. You need to surrender those talents to her.”

My eyes dropped to the ground as I studied the grass with undue interest.

I felt like I’d suffered more than the loss of my child in all of this. Each time one of my mates reached out for me, I found it hard to let them in. My childhood was hardly a loveless place, but… everyone who’d tried to help me, support me, had needed to do so clandestinely, including Nordred. That pain, it throbbed again like a new wound, seeping blood everywhere, and my hands were too busy pressing down, trying to staunch the flow, to spare time for anyone else’s wounds. But when I looked up, I found the eyes of each one of my mates boring into mine.

Because they were hurting too.

Nordred was a legend to them and someone who I loved, and so they grieved his passing, but… they were mourning the loss of other, fundamental relationships in their lives. Their father… Their mother… And their child… Because that’s what the babe would’ve been: theirs, ours. Another child for us to bestow all our love upon, a sibling for Jan and Del to fuss over and protect. Another member of the family we were each trying so desperately to build. And, as that realisation struck me, that’s when I felt it.

Their love, their pain, had been battering at my shields without me registering it, but it was only now that the hard shell I had been hiding inside started to crack. My eyes burned with the effort of keeping my tears back, because I didn’t want them obscuring this. I loved each one of my mates with my whole heart and that was what hurt the most.

The symbol of that love—our child—had been torn from us. More than my country had been torn apart; the fabric of our relationships had, as well. And while I was focussed on the survival of everyone and everything outside of our pack, I couldn’t focus on us. But Selene’s words had helped me to see that the centre—the heart—of our pack needed healing before we could be strong for each other. I shifted my feet tentatively, then took just one step forward, and somehow that made it easier. As I moved toward them, my mates stepped forward to meet me, ready to broach that gap—and I realised that they had been waiting to do so; waiting until I was ready.

“Darcy…” Weyland whispered my name as he pulled me into his chest and I felt warmed through as soon as we touched, a sensation that would usually only be achieved by standing in the sun for an hour. His hands went to my hair, collecting it up and balling it at my nape, as the others drew closer.

“We can do this, lass.” Axe’s voice was rough, ragged with emotion, and full of a certainty I didn’t feel, but perhaps that was how it worked. Each one of us provided what the others lacked. “You’re tough, fight like the bloody devil, and rush in where angels fear to tread, but you need to remember that we’re right there with you.” His hand landed on my back, stroking up and down my spine.

“I’ll go through hell for you—and I’ll always come out the other side.” My eyes flicked sideways to see Gael standing there, tense, his fingers flexing. Then he reached out and touched me, ran his fingers up my arm, gripped my bicep. “Nothing will stop me. Nothing. You’ll wear the Granian king’s guts for garters if that’s what you need, I promise.”

“Darcy.” Dane was the one who was always controlled, contained, so the emotion throbbing in his voice made my head whip around. “You’ve done so much, sacrificed so much…” His brow creased and his eyes began to shine with unshed tears. “You’ve lost so much and… you don’t have to do this.”

“I do,” I whispered, without pause for thought.

“No, lass, you don’t.” He looked around us, reconnecting with the real world, the bigger world that never allowed us to stay in our own little reality for too long. “My father raised me for just this role. I can take this burden from you. I put it on your shoulders initially because I recognised you as queen the moment I saw you; but I never asked you if that’s what you wanted.” His focus shifted back to me. “I’m asking that now. Someone needs to do the job, but it doesn’t have to be you. I can…” His voice broke. “You haven’t claimed me yet. You can reject the bond. I can step up and—”

“No.” I shook my head, able to see it all now, the good and the bad. Dane had locked himself away, back at the citadel, moving pieces of paper around to make sure we were safe, and that distance would grow and grow if he took on the role of king. He’d force himself to do it, not be able to stop for even a second, lest one person be harmed by his inactivity. “No.”

Trailing my hands down Axe’s chest and pulling away from Gael, I turned to Dane then moved closer to him, unable to stop that feeling of tension when I went to touch him. Because, if I had encased myself in a hard shell, he’d built a whole castle around himself. One full of ramparts and arrow slits, traps and drawbridges. Despite all his efforts at keeping himself set apart, his breath came out in noisy gasps when I slid my hand up his arm. Strelans clasp forearms by way of greeting, but this didn’t feel friendly. The word was too mild, insipid to describe this. As my palm swivelled up the taut mass of his arm, his hand latched around mine, gripping it tight and using it to yank me closer. He lifted our joined hands, to dust his lips across my knuckles in a courtly gesture, then drew my hand to rest above his heart.

“You’ll always be my queen,” he told me. “No matter what you do or where you go. And I will do anything to serve you, including taking any task you can’t bear and ensuring it’s done. I am yours, Darcy.” Those intense blue eyes willed me to see it, to understand him, and I was filled with the need to assure him that I did, lifting my other hand to cup his cheek. “Whatever it fucking takes to keep you safe, I’ll do it, even if the whole world has to burn to make it so.” He nodded then. “Give me that freedom. Let your dog off his leash and send him hurtling towards your enemy, because I will crush your enemies and then bring their bleeding heads back to lay at your feet.”

“That’s it,” Selene said. “That’s the kind of energy we need.” She turned then to Ayla, tipping the Maiden’s chin up to meet her eyes and brushing a thumb across her bottom lip. “Ready, love?” Ayla’s eyes shone. “Take a deep breath, then.”

Ayla did as she was told, her eyes falling closed as she filled her lungs. As I watched, I understood again what I had learned sparring on the training ground as well as when fighting in earnest. There was a big difference between a warrior and a soldier. Where one was preoccupied by his individual performance on the battlefield, the other lent his strength to support a greater collective effort. That wasn’t to say that warriors couldn’t also make great soldiers, but that surrender of ego, that’s what I witnessed right then. Because as Ayla let a breath out, her wolf came forward.

Her slender form became thick with muscle, her hair was replaced by fur and her face transformed, until we saw the wolf, not the woman, her eyes burning blue when they opened.

“I won’t deprive you ofyourtarget,” Selene told me, nodding instead to a straggly-looking practice dummy that had been hastily erected for her purpose. It looked more like a scarecrow than anything, and then quickly became no more than kindling as Ayla smashed through it with outstretched claws. “The stupid Granians thought we possessed some kind of mind control when they first met us on the battlefield, but that’s not what this is. I don’t command Ayla, but mesh with her, guide her.” Her brows creased slightly. “Through the bond I can feel what she wants—what her nature dictates—and right now she wants to smash every one of those dummies, because each time she does she feels a rush of pleasure. It shoves aside the fear and worry and the pain and replaces it with something much more.”

Selene smiled then.

“A pleasure that comes from striking back, from taking what’s ours, from having strength, but…” I watched Ayla-wolf pull back, her whole muscles quivering as she stood before a dummy, the lean of her body making clear what she wanted to do. But she didn’t. Selene didn’t strain, didn’t enforce anything, just stared at her colleague… no… her mate. And between them they worked out what to do.

Ayla shifted through a series of poses, striking the air with startling speed, raking her claws, slamming her feet down on top of invisible enemies. She became a whirling dervish, spinning through a strange kind of battle fever, but one she couldn’t get lost in. Selene was there, calm, a centre upon which Ayla could depend to reel her back in if she got too caught up, something that finally happened as the Maiden paused, panting. When she leaned forward, putting her hands on her knees, Ayla the woman was back.

Selene turned, ready to teach me. But I realised that I knew. The others hissed as a blue flame prickled across my skin, except for Gael who looked at me and nodded. Then he shook himself, just like an animal shaking off the sensation of being collared, and I felt that release as he let go of the man and allowed the beast to come forward.

It was a relief for him, for all of my mates. I felt it. We’d kept to skin scrupulously since the loss of Snowmere, almost as if the other soul that lived inside us was somehow tainted by defeat. But no longer. Their minds connected with mine without conscious effort, seeking this.

A purpose, a way forward, a means to reach out and grab the future that each one of us dreamed of, right when it felt like it’d been torn from our grip. I fed into that, pouring in my own hopes and dreams and each one of them lumbered forward, buoyed by a common energy.

What would the knights of Grania do against this? I wondered, almost idly. Each one of my mates were no longer men, giving themselves over to the heat that burned inside them. Berserk, that’s what we had called it when I was growing up, both venerating and reviling the mindless beast state. But there was nothing mindless about this at all. And I finally realised what Nordred had been trying to teach me my whole life.

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