Page 48 of The Wolf Queen

“A means to control and direct your power.” Her focus shifted to my mates and her eyes softened. “What your mates do for you. It was never just the queen. Her mates were never just good dynastic matches. We Maidens were never just her honour guard. All of us were supposed to work together, becoming the queen’s pack, helping support her rule—”

“And he helped unlock a power we weren’t aware the sword possessed,” Dane finished, quietly. He looked awfully pale, the blood on his face stark in contrast against his human features. “And lucky he did too.” He glanced back at the mess of naked men that had only minutes ago been Reavers. “We would never have been able to take down all of them.”

“But can they heal from this?” Gael asked, eyeing the men suspiciously. “Is this just a temporary thing?”

I got an answer from the Morrigan, but it was a dark and snickering response. I felt like she shifted within me, like a snake in her nest.

I gave them two souls and you took one of them,she said.I accept your tribute. Not enough blood for my tastes however…I turned my head to see ravens descending, picking over the bodies of the Reavers we’d slain and going to work to consume the tasty bits.

“I don’t think so,” I replied, then stared at my grandfather. “We don’t call ourselves wargen, but two-souled. I freed the second soul of those of your men that possessed it.”

“Yes.” He shot me a tired smile. “That is going to make for some awkward conversations when we return to the estate. The illusion that Granians and Strelans are two entirely separate peoples, no, two separatespecies—is pushed hard at the highest levels. But the reality is that there were few Granian women in the early days of colonisation.” His smile turned into a grimace. “Willingly or not, a lot of modern day Granians are the result of those unions. It will disturb many to find out just what that might mean.”

“I can’t worry about that now,” I said, frowning as I stared at the prince. He had good colour in his face and his chest rose and fell with slow gentle breaths. “Gael, can we heal him?”

“The prince will recover on his own,” he replied stiffly.

“Gael.” I turned my head to stare up at him.

He didn’t want this, I could see from the line forming between his brows and growing deeper with each second as I mutely pleaded with him. Perhaps Axe could carry the prince back, but if what we’d done had caused Bryson injury, I needed to rectify it.

“Fine. Undo his breastplate.”

The rest of my mates clustered closer, creating a strangely intimate space. It was only the caws of the ravens that reminded me of where we were. But it still felt too intimate as the prince was stripped of his defences. The breastplate was pulled off and the thick padded shirt underneath was unfastened enough so that when Gael grabbed my hand, we could slide our two hands under, placing them together on his bare chest.

“What do we do?” I asked, in a small voice.

“Same thing we always have,” Gael replied, giving my fingers a squeeze. “Will what’s wrong with him to heal. It’ll hurt and then—” He let out a sharp gasp and I could tell that he was feeling what I was—the power felt like it was being pulled from me, rather than me pushing it into Bryson. The sensation was so strong it took my breath away and Gael let out a wheezing gasp. Then the prince’s eyelids fluttered and blinked open.

For some moments, his attention was totally on me. As I looked down at him, I realised that Bryson’s eyes didn’t glow with quite the same unearthly gold light anymore. They were more a light brown or perhaps amber, a dull haze still hanging over them, even as he stared. He seemed to spend far too much time focussing on me, eyes flicking as he took in all the sharp angles of my face, just as I had done to his.

“Did it work?” His voice was croaky, and he started to cough. A waterskin was produced from somewhere and he took a grateful drink before peering between the legs of those standing around us to the road beyond. “It did, didn’t it?”

“What worked?” Dane was all business again, narrowing his eyes. “You obviously had some idea about what might happen. Ideas that should’ve been shared with us.”

“As you would share Darcy?” He shot my mate a dark look. “You snarl and posture the moment I get within ten feet of her.” Bryson rolled off me then, sitting up but not moving far away. I could see by the way his head hung that he was still exhausted. “I’ve read some books, found some ancient scrolls in the treasury.”

“Secrets that belong to our people,” Weyland snapped, “not yours.”

“But Eleanor carried them across the border with her,” Bryson replied. “Nordred obviously anticipated a future where that knowledge would be needed by Eleanor’s descendants.”

“So why didn’t he tell Darcy about any of this?” Axe asked. “He was at her side training her for basically her whole life.”

“Because I might not have been the one,” I replied, and at my words, everyone fell silent. I could hear the wind in the trees beneath the sounds of ravens, and my own sigh joined it. “He could’ve been spilling all the secrets that belonged to the queen of Strelae to a girl who would go off to marry one of the local lords and spend her life pushing out babies.” I saw my mother then, wondering how the proud young woman I saw had survived my father’s treatment of her.

“Or potentially giving the secrets to Granians to use against us,” Gael said, shooting Bryson a dark look. “You lied to get us to Aramathia. You lied about who you were. And now the future king of the country that exists on land it stole from mine has just learned how to wield the Sword of Destiny?”

“The first Granian king used to wear it into every negotiation he made with the new Strelan one,” Dane said. “He used to flaunt it in the faces of my forebears.”

“I can’t wield it.” Bryson held out a hand, as though expecting me to just hand my sword over. I looked at him, then shrugged and picked it up and placed the hilt in his grip. When he tightened his fingers, nothing happened. The sword seemed a little shinier than normal perhaps, but no flames of any colour flickered across the blade. It was just a length of finely honed steel, like any other sword. “I’m just like you. I can only augment Darcy’s strength with mine.”

“You’re nothing like us.” Weyland pulled me up and onto my feet, then tried to push me behind him, frowning when I resisted. He turned to me with a look of urgency. “He’s nothing, Darcy. He let his father sell you off to us for iron ore. He was nowhere to be found when your father was beating you. Darcy…”

His voice trailed away as I put my hand to his cheek, stroking that severe plane, and his eyes grew heavily hooded as I touched him, reminding me that I needed to do so much more often. When I traced the shape of his lip, rubbing off flakes of blood, he smiled, but his eyes still held a haunted look.

“He doesn’t know what it’s like to watch you walk through life, seeing you go from strength to strength, cheering you on at every step, even as your heart feels like it’s breaking, because you know what danger is coming. He doesn’t knowyou, Darcy. He just has some weird fucking idea in his head about what you are, but he doesn’t know.” He turned his head and pressed a kiss into my palm. “That you are mine, just like I am yours, forever. Until the stars fade and the sun falls into the sea and even then in the dark ruins of the world, I will continue to love you.”

I pressed my lips to his, realising as I did so that the gesture felt awkward and foreign; and that was not something I could accept. He was mine, that was correct. Each of my mates tugged at my soul, claiming a piece of me so thoroughly I could barely imagine letting anyone else in, but when I pulled apart from Weyland finally, I saw we had an audience.

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