Chapter Three

 

“With all due respect, Your Excellency, sending our trackers to gather intel on the Jaguars may be perceived as an act of aggression,” Jacques, Savannah’s most-trusted advisor, not to mention godfather, advised.

“Drop the ‘Your Excellency’ crap, Uncle Jack. It’s just us,” the Queen sighed. “You know I can’t stand all the pomp and circumstance.” Rising from her seat at the head of the long, thin conference table, Savannah walked to the window, wishing she could call forth her lioness and run free for a week or two. “And I know you’re right,” she tried to control her temper. “But those bastards struck first.”

Turning and holding up her hand, as she continued talking, her words grew heavy with fury. “And please do not try to tell me that we have no concrete proof they were the ones who set the fire on the south side of the Pride Lands.” She stepped forward. “I saw the tracks with my own eyes and caught the scent.” Savannah’s fist clenched at her sides. “It wasn’t enough to destroy a large section of the grazing land for the cattle, but the bastards actually marked their territory.”

Narrowing her gaze, she growled through gritted teeth, “And you think it right that I dine with their Prince?” Unable to control her anger, Savannah took a menacing step forward, feeling her canines lengthening as she snarled, “I cannot and I will not.”

“But Savannah, please see reason,” Jack implored, finally dropping the formal façade he presented to everyone outside the royal family. “Tensions have been high with the jags since before you were born. Your fath…”

Refusing to listen to another story of how her father would’ve handled the situation, Savannah stalked out the door, down the hall and straight out into the hot, dry air, heading straight for her sister, Makayla’s house. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be the great leader that her father, Rex, was, hadn’t been striving to lead their people since the day he’d died, it was that she couldn’t bear to relive the pain of losing them again. It didn’t matter that they had died all those years before, it was still like a knife to her heart every time they crossed her mind.

Guilt, pure and simple, there was no other explanation. Sure, all her sisters, uncles, aunties, cousins, even Jacques, had told her it wasn’t her fault, but Savannah would never forget fighting with her mother over having to be the only one of her sisters to attend a formal dinner and ignoring her father’s calls as she ran out of the house. At that moment, the young lioness hadn’t cared about formal dinners or meeting the delegation from Africa or anything to do with being the oldest daughter of the Lion King. No, all she cared about was running with her friends and breaking all the rules.

“What an idiot I was,” she scoffed to herself. “If only…”

Memories, like an old home movie, ran through her mind. Visions of Savannah and her friends, young shifters at the time, hiding out in the dense cover on the jungle side of the Pride Lands, without a care in the world, wiling away as the days, whizzed by like leaves in the wind.

“What do you want to do tonight?” Millie, Savannah’s best friend and a wolf in her animal form, asked. “We could watch movies at my house. Mom and Dad will be at the fancy dinner at your house.” Winking, she added, “Guess you’re not going, huh?”

“No way,” Savannah snorted, remembering the horrible fight she’d just had with her mother. “You’re not gonna catch me wearing some itchy, frilly dress and playing nice with the lions from only the Goddess knows where, parading around as the Heir to the Throne, pfft. No more of that crap for me. Angelica can take my place. She’s only two years younger.”

“Must be rough being a Princess,” Jamie, the coolest boy in her class and a real asshole to boot, mocked. “Living in a damned mansion, getting everything you want.” Tossing a grape above his head and catching it between his teeth, he snickered, “Real tough there, Vannah.”

Savannah hated that nickname, almost as much as she despised Jamie and his friends. They were boneheaded jocks, all different species and breeds of shifters with more muscles than brains, living in their own world where ignorance was bliss.

Refusing to jump at the bait, Savannah ignored the boys, turning towards Millie, Jane and Annie. “Let’s just make it a girls’ night. Going to your house sounds great.” Plastering on a smile, she went on, “Then I won’t even be in this Goddess-forsaken place, and my parents will have no say over what I do.”

All the girls agreed and standing in unison, got up, leaving the boys yelling after them. Giggling as they ran through the trees, free as birds, planning their evening, the girls raced straight into Millie’s empty house, grabbed all the junk food they could carry and headed to the living room.

Sometime just before sunrise, Savannah awoke from a sound sleep, her lioness growling and her heart pounding like a bass drum. Realizing it was a knock at the door that woke her, the lioness got up from where she’d fallen asleep on the floor and padded to the foyer.

Opening the door, she yawned, “What are you doing here, Uncle Jack? Has mom sent you to talk some sense into me?”

The scent of sadness and anguish swamped her as his voice cracked, “You need to come home, Princess.” He cleared his throat. “There’s been an… an…”

Refusing to relive any more maudlin memories, Savannah knocked on the door before going in and calling out, “It’s just me, Mack.”

“Hey, You,” her youngest sister chuckled. “I’m in the kitchen making cookies. Get on back here and taste my newest creation.”

Feeling better just being away from Royal Hall, the Queen followed the scrumptious aroma of homemade baked goods and grinned, “I would love to.”

Looking up as Savannah walked into the kitchen, Makayla shook her head, “Damn Sis, you look like something the cat dragged in.” Wiping her hands, she added with a wink, “Uncle Jack making you do your job again?”

“Yeah,” Savannah snorted. “Something like that.” Grabbing the biggest peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-cranberry cookie on the plate, she moaned as the best flavor she ever tasted burst onto her tongue, nodding as her sister beamed, “You like?”

“Hell yeah, I like. I admit I was worried about the cranberries, but now that I taste it, these babies are fabulous,” the Queen answered, still chewing while grabbing for another cookie. “You got any milk? I really need some with these babies.”

Taking a gallon from the fridge and getting a glass from the cupboard, Mack filled it with the cold white liquid before handing it to Savannah and leaving the carton on the bar. Standing with her hand on her hip as the other leaned against the kitchen counter, the youngest of the Royal family ordered, “Now, spill. What’s got you so down?”

“Nothing.” Savannah shook her head. Setting her empty glass on the counter, refusing to look up at her sister, she reluctantly sighed, “Jack doesn’t want me to send the Scouts out to gather information on the jaguars. He says that if they get caught, it will be seen as an act of aggression.”

Leaning her elbows on the counter, Makayla drew figure eights in some leftover flour as she quietly asked, “Are you doing it because you think they’re up to something or because you’re still trying to prove that they…”

“Don’t say it,” Savannah growled.

“I am gonna say it because you need to hear it.” Mack stood up, slammed her fists on her hips and spat, “Are you still trying to prove that they are the ones who put the poison in Mom and Dad’s food?”

Glaring at her little sister, Savannah asserted, “I know they did it, Mack. Deep down to the bottom of my soul, I am sure beyond all doubt that those mangy, flea-ridden balls of useless fur killed our parents, and they would have killed me too if I’d been there.”

“Savannah, you have to let this go. It was so long ago. There was no proof the jags had been anywhere near our lands. They couldn’t have done it.” Mack came around the counter and put her arm around the Queen. “Even Uncle Jack went out looking for tracks, traces, anything to bring the killers to justice, and he found nothing.”

“I know. I was there,” Savannah grumbled. “And I’ve tried to let it go, but I can’t. Not when I would stake my crown that they are to blame.”

Dropping her hand and taking a seat next to Savannah, Mack tapped her fingernails on the granite countertop as she said, “Okay, you do what you have to do. You’re the Queen and Goddess knows I trust you with my life, just like every other lion in this Pride.” She took a cookie and after biting into it quickly changed the subject. “Onto other news, how did the meeting with the matchmaker go?”

Turning in her seat so quickly she almost hit the floor, Savannah gasped, “How did you know about that?”

Chuckling with a mouth full of cookie, Mack smiled and winked, “Oh, I happen to have bribed Tessa with two dozen oatmeal-raisin-chocolate-chip-orange cookies and a dozen blueberry muffins.”

“What a little brat. Just wait until I see her again.”

Savannah shook her head then burst out laughing as Mack added, “She says she’s praying to all the gods that you end up with a dragon.”

Now, wouldn’t that just be my luck…