2
My earliest memories of my mother were her nails. Hard and polished, she would staccato a rat-a-tatting rhythm on wood or metal surfaces. Rat-tat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat-tat.
Fingers curling, hard tips sounding sharp and fast; I learned the variations of her staccato early. The alterations were subtle, but meaningful; especially to a child. A change in sharpness might mean impatience, or worry. Broken rhythms meant her mind was brainstorming. A drawing scrape always meant she was toying with someone. An increase in pace might mean she was disappointed, or distracted.
Rat-tat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat-tat.
The sound could carry from the throne room all the way to the study where Iris gave me lessons in writing or reading — or into my play area, or into the parlor across the hall where I ate my meals. The meaning could change, but the sound was never safe.
The drumming nails were always the herald that eminent and decisive action circled the room; energy rising; swift change was nigh.
Fen was no longer partially shifted, but now in his human form. Even so, he ran faster than I could imagine, and I had a great imagination. I thought of Adian, and his speed on the hunt, and Fen felt as though he was moving twice as fast.
I shook this thought from my head. I wasn’t a child with a crush any longer. I was a queen with a realm of responsibilities. I could not be simply taken like this, no matter who he was.
“Stop,” I told him.
“Not yet,” he said, “but soon.”
“You need to stop now,” I commanded.
“That’s a good voice,” he said. “You use that voice on your pets? Or just villains like myself?”
“Is that what you’ve become? A villain?” I asked.
“I was a villain the last time we met, princess.”
“Queen,” I corrected him.
“Sure.”
“I’m not a princess any longer. I’m the Queen.”
He slowed, but only for a moment, and for the first time he looked me in the eye. “I’m sorry. Your mother was a good woman. A fine ruler as well.”
“You knew her? You were hardly around back then, always leaving as soon as you arrived.” It was true that the shifters lived long lives, some of the originals were still alive. Was he one of my mother’s men?
“True, I didn’t know her very well. I only knew what my mentor told me and what her reputation caused to circle around.” This kept my head from exploding with thoughts. “I checked on you from time to time to see how you were faring. She was well liked by her people. Respected. Many are not liked, or likable.”
The conversation stopped there. Not much to say, not much that needed saying. I was being kidnapped and whether he knew or liked or respected my mother, it didn’t change the fact. It was said that the Wolf of Destruction only showed his face when his was the last face one would see. Something like what people in the 21st Century would refer to as a cleaner. The Wolf of Destruction did was he was ordered to do, no questions asked. Killed who he was ordered to kill, no hesitation. Somehow, I didn’t feel like death was knocking at my door, but, who ever does?
My eyes picked up the look of fury again and Fen dropped his act of sympathy.
He turned to the green belts ran out from the walls, a stretch after the clear cut around the Keep. For safety purposes I had the undergrowth controlled for a kilometer in each of them. This was done by fencing a herd of pigs in an area for a week and then moving them. What the boars didn’t eat, they trampled and there wasn’t much a boar wouldn’t eat. Now, Fen was past that and running through the natural woodland, a forest to the west of the Keep. I’d like to say that I struggled in his grasp, but there’s not much struggling to be done at the speed we were going. He gripped me, carried me like I weighed nothing, his feet pummeling the ground beneath him. Away from my home. Away from a place where I was supposed to be untouchable.
My mother and grandmother both called our home the Fortress. It was designed and built for war - to keep our people safe. In times of strife the people would come inside the walls.
Homes could be rebuilt and had been several times. Things could be replaced. People could not. When a person died, all they knew, and all they would become was lost. We didn’t have hard-drives like those in the past to back our knowledge up.
I preferred to call our place a Keep, not a Fort or Fortress. Compared to my mother’s days, and my grandmother’s, my days were paradise. The paradise they fought for. The paradise they both died defending.
Looking at the mark on Fen’s neck, I saw just how wrong I was, how wrong they were. It took one wolf to parade right in and steal the queen. Wolf of Destruction or not, that shouldn’t have been the case.
“Is your name Fenrir? Are you the Wolf of Destruction?” I grunted out once Fen slowed down.
“You still ask a lot of questions, princess,” he said. The rumble in his voice did exactly what it shouldn’t. Don’t be mistaken. It was a dangerous rumble. The kind only men who looked like Fen, who were as fearless and as ruthless as Fen, could vocalize. The kind of rumble that made panties wet with the moisture of need.
I swallowed hard. My voice would not let on that I was anything but perturbed by him taking me like this.
“You said asking too many questions would get me in trouble someday,” I recalled. “So far, you’ve been wrong.”
“No,” he corrected. “I said not asking the right questions would get you in trouble someday, and you still don’t ask the right ones.”
“What should I be asking?”
“Well,” he said, “you might at least be curious about why I would risk my life to fetch you, and why bother doing it this way, when you would have come willingly.”
“Come willingly. You really think highly of yourself, don’t you?”
His eyebrows dipped and the smirk on his face widened. The distance between us faced an opposite fate. With too eager steps, Fen was no longer at arm’s length. We were now as close as two people could get without touching. When Fen spoke, his words felt as though they were being whispered against my lips.
“You think highly of me. And isn’t that the only thing that matters, princess.”
My anger was still too high to allow him to be right about anything at the moment, but before I could reply, he had me in his arms again. His body dipped and mine followed. When I looked up, my eyes caught several motions of weighted strings swinging. Focusing on one, I found it was a glass bobble, swinging toward a rock face. I heard the clink of others breaking, and then Fen leapt sideways again to resume going West.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, trying to look back over his shoulder.
“Scent traps,” he answered.
“What?”
“Scent traps. Ammonia, Liquorish oil, alcohol, perfumes. Stink bombs. With the wind blowing in from the east he’ll be inside before he’s aware enough to dodge the area, and it will burn his nose, and eyes.”
“Who?” I asked, panicked.
“Your tiger,” he answered. “I didn’t expect him to be so fast, but I’m not surprised.”
“No!” I screamed, struggling uselessly in his arms.
“Calm down. He’ll be fine in an hour or so. Well, by morning for sure.”
Again, he leaped north, and slash-triggered another scent trap. This time he continued north without changing back to west. At this point, furious didn’t begin to explain how I felt.
“Two?” I roared, incensed. “Are you fucking serious! You can’t do this.” Had my feet been on the ground, I might have stomped like a goddamn child.
“One would just piss him off.” He grinned. I might have found it cute if I wasn’t so angry. My hands fought for freedom, my body tried to twist, to turn, to grant me freedom. But Fen was stronger. Even if he were holding me between his pinky and his thumb, I doubt I’d have had a chance to wiggly myself free.
Then he set off another.
“Fucking, STOP IT!” I groaned. “How many are you going to put him through?! He’s not going to stop!” I cried.
He changed back to moving west, triggered another then changed back to north. Adian wouldn’t stop. He’d go through hell and back to get to me. But right now, it was a waste of pain he was putting himself through. Fen wasn’t going to hurt me. At least I didn’t think so. But Adian, running after me like this, enduring all the traps Fen set up, he’d be injured.
“Fucking stop it, Fen!” I bellowed.
To my surprise, he stopped.
I didn’t know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or to punch him. When in doubt do the thing that saves your life, not the thing that saves your ego. I didn’t follow sound advice. My fists met Fen’s face before I sucked in my next breath.
He didn’t move. Didn’t budge. Didn’t flinch.
“Don’t do that again,” he warned.
I balled my hands into fists again. To be honest, I had no intentions of hitting him, but I needed to make a point.
“Would you rather I killed him?” Fen asked, his voice calm, even understanding.
From behind us I heard a roar of frustration, and anger, that could only be Adian. No other voice carried with such distinctive sound.
“You are a villain,” I snarled. “I can’t believe I was so naive about you.”
“You were twelve,” he said. “It was natural to have a crush.”
I couldn’t articulate words, I was so furious. My hand flew up on its own and slashed his face with my nails.
“I warned you, princess,” he growled, then leaped into the air. Then we were falling. Falling much further than we should. Falling much faster than a human can survive. I stopped attacking and looked, then screamed as we fell off the cliff toward the shoreline.