Page 12 of The Wolf Queen

“You’d have us plotting out the steps we take to go for a piss!” Axe roared, then shook his axe in the air. “Who’s with me?”

We all were.

The half-wolf form was the best of both human and wolf, making us faster, stronger, more vicious. My father’s men moved too slowly to counter us as we rushed the gates. At first they were in shock. Then, finally realising they were under attack, they ran for the gates to close them. But there were only two men on the actual gate. They saw my host, my pack, coming leaping towards them, and turned and ran to close the heavy wooden doors, but not before we got there. Our bodies slammed into the gates, shoving them wide, and that’s when it all fell apart.

My father’s knights performed well in battles which they were prepared for, but the keep gates were almost always kept open, allowing traders, workers and visitors to pass freely. The days of manning the walls to keep the Strelans out were long gone. In fact, my father had invited Strelans in, the last time they’d been here—the men who were now my mates. So while the knights’ instincts were good ones, going for the halberds that would’ve stabbed great holes in us while keeping us at arm’s length, the ensuing atmosphere of panic that accompanied our attack made a mess of their attempts at defence.

As a rule, knights don’t grab at weapons in order to provide a united front, but rather to heed that long ingrained instinct to protect themselves. I watched as some fought to grab a weapon before others, but even when they got one, they were swinging them at friend as much as foe. I saw blades flying through the air, women screaming, claws slicing, and that’s when I called for order.

“STOP!”

I felt like my father’s daughter in this sense alone: before that moment, he had been the only person that could get everyone in the keep to heed him.

And apparently I had inherited his gift.

My voice echoed through the courtyard, somehow getting louder, not softer, until everyone obeyed my directive.

“I am Darcy—”

You are nothing, was the thought that flickered through my mind.

“—daughter of the duke of Elverston—”

A man who tried his level best to end you, a father who never loved you.

“—queen of all of Strelae—”

Oh ho, and how well did that work out for the last queen? Whose sword willyousee the wrong end of?

“—and you will take a knee or face the edge of my sword!”

Well done…the Morrigan murmured, part of the poisonous chorus inside my mind.

The knights wanted to rebel, for everything in my statement was anathema to their worldview. In Grania, a duke’s daughter didn’t waltz in and bark orders. A woman didn’t assault the gates of the keep, sword in hand. She also didn’t consort with Strelan devils like my mates. And yet, one by one, down they went, all of them kneeling at my feet.

“Gods above…” Weyland murmured, shooting me a wary look, but I couldn’t spare him a moment of my attention. I held the minds of these men in the palm of my hand. But their minds were not naturally compliant and I felt them buck and jerk against my control.

I wasn't going to let go.

I couldn’t bargain or beg for help for my people. That wasn’t how it worked in Grania. My forebears had taken this land as if they had a right to it and then had kept on insisting until there was no one left to tell them no.

And I was going to do the very same thing.

My legs quivered, the muscle memory I’d built in training ready to spirit me away if I lost control, but I stayed firm. A mother will do terrible things to ensure the survival of her children, placing little value on her own life or the lives of others, if that’s what it takes to keep them safe. I felt the power of the Mother beating hard in my chest as I did what I had to do in order to provide for those who depended on me.

“You there,” I barked, gesturing at several knights. “Go and find my father,” I ordered. The men moved before I’d even finished my sentence, as if anticipating my wishes.

“Well, that was a depressingly short fight,” Weyland grumbled. “I was quite looking forward to the prospect of beating some of these fool tin-heads.”

“You’ll have plenty of time for that later, brother,” Dane said, his attention on me. “Darcy, can you turn these men like you did those at the garrison?”

I looked at him—my mate: the queenmaker, the power behind my bid for the throne—and he met my gaze without flinching. My brow furrowed as I turned to look at the men gathered in the courtyard.

Part of me didn’t want to. I knew some of these men personally. Men like Harold, who used to joke with me on the practice field. He was married; he had three children. Who knew what they’d think when they saw their father like this? But I summoned his beast anyway. Plate mail clattered on the ground as a wolf emerged from within the man’s armour. I heard the prayers of a young knight invoking the name of the battle god to keep him safe, before his feverish words became a yip and he emerged from his armour on four feet.

“Darcy…?” Grant was one of the foremost of my father’s knights and he stared up at me now with both wonder and fear. “Lass, we heard you were taken by the wa—”

Grant became a beautiful wolf with thick black fur. My eyes burned in my head as I stared at each man, heard their pleas and their curses, before I revealed their true selves to everyone.

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