4
She wasn’t a princess anymore. She was a queen. Her eyes were bright green. Her hair darker, more golden, but still blond. Taller now. No longer the lanky thin girl I rescued from the raiders that day, fourteen years ago. Now she was difficult not to stare at. Fire in her veins, the fire of her mother, and grand dame. Not a shifter, however. Just as her mother. Though she was born from shifter mating, she wasn’t born with the mark. The black spot on her back that would have faded in a few days, but remain unmistakable.
Of all the ways to describe Myriana, the one that fit the most was breathtaking. I came with my only intention being to point out the threat so close to her home. But I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that when I left, I’d leave with a lot more than I bargained for.
Myriana remained quiet on the way back to her Keep. My position was behind her. Watching her back. And consequently, watching the motion of her ass as it swayed from side to side. I’d like to say it wasn’t a bad sight to have forced upon me during the journey. But that wouldn’t be the truth.
Whatever feelings gathered in the lower region of my body were feelings that Myriana would never be able or willing to put to rest. Feelings I wasn’t sure I wanted her to put to rest. The truth was, wolf of destruction or not, I was a man to be feared. A beast to be dreaded.
That’s not to say I was the only danger.
Myriana, in all her human innocence, had the makings of a woman who could ruin me. I was well versed on measures of breaking bones. And she, whether she knew it or not, was well versed on measures of breaking hearts.
She already had three shifters under her belt. She kept them loyal, tamed their beasts, loved them relentlessly and in turn, had every fraction of their hearts reserved for herself.
I’d never dealt with matters of the heart. Never thought I’d see the day that someone looked as distraught for me as Myriana did when she thought I was injured beyond repair. And no matter how tough, the human part of me wanted to know just how much more I could mean to her.
I picked her up, cradling her in my arms, despite the fact that I knew her feet could carry her perfectly fine. There was no opposition on her end, which made sense. I was returning her to her home, keeping my promise to deliver her back safely. Instead of shying from my embrace, she leaned into my chest, stealing some of my warmth and replacing it with her own. I walked slower then. Counting the moments I could hold her like this. Wanting to do much more than hold her, but knowing better.
“Princess,” I whispered, just as we approached the opening that would lead us back to her Keep.
She brushed her hair away from her face and with innocent eyes, looked up at me. “Fen,” she whispered. There was no mistaking the desperation in her voice.
“You do not belong to me,” I warned. “Just as much as I do not belong to you.”
The rise and fall of her throat indicated that she was swallowing whatever sentiments she’d considered setting free.
“What is it, princess?”
“I’d belong to you, if the law allowed it,” she whispered. “In a heartbeat. Without pause, or hesitation.”
My motions were not my own in that moment. As the final words left her lips, I found my mouth against hers, crushing hard as though it was her very soul I was after.
Her tongue darted out, hints of cinnamon dancing against my palate. I wanted more. More than this. More than now. More than I deserved.
My cock tightened in my pants and I growled at her, tasting the only part of her that she allowed me to, but knowing it would never be enough. I was lost in that kiss. So, lost in fact that I didn’t know what was happening until I tasted the copper tang of blood. My eyes flew open to see a smile perched on Myriana’s face. She pulled back from me, my lip still tight between her teeth. When she let go, she swept her finger delicately against her lips, removing the blood she’d drawn from me and licked her finger clean.
“You hurt me, I hurt you. This is the only warning you’ll get.”
Myriana’s warning was noted, but that didn’t mean it would be a promise kept.
I kept her cradled in my arms until we were at the gate where I set her down, the gates already opening for her, and Adian stepping out.
“I leave you here, princess,” I said, looking down to her.
Before she could answer, Adian said with a curt tone, “Queen.” He added to this a threatening throat growl.
He was intimidated, and he had all right to be. If the time ever came where I belonged to Myriana, I wasn’t sure how many of them would stick around. I wasn’t sure I’d want any of them to stick around. Which is exactly why this wouldn’t work, because she’d choose them ten times over before choosing me.
I kept my eyes on Adian, but my voice in the direction of Myriana. “Tigers are admittedly stronger than wolves, and faster, but you never see a wolf performing in a circus.”
She put her hand against Adian’s chest, “Stop. Go inside. I’ll be there in a moment.”
With his eyes on me, Adian gripped Myriana by the wrist and whisked her forward so that she was chest to chest with him. I could almost hear the hitch in her breath and being so close to him. What was also not mistakable was the fire in my gut that burned every shade of envy as he covered her lips with his, sucking her bottom lip like it belonged to him and only to him.
“You borrowed her by force this one time, but don’t make that mistake again,” Adian warned as he turned on his heel.
When he was out of sight, Myriana spun around to face me. She shook her head. “That was uncalled for.”
I nodded, “True.” But jealousy makes people do ugly things and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel at least a little scorned.
“That kiss was also uncalled for. Doesn’t mean it didn’t feel right.” She drew her finger across her lip, removing some of the sheen Adian had put there. She damn well knew what kiss I was talking about, but that action coupled with the smirk on her face made me know that playing with Myriana could very well be the equivalent of playing with fire.
“You might kiss like the devil, Fenrir,” she growled, “but I have three men who rival you in all elements.”
I smiled then. Knowing that if I wasn’t careful, I’d be tempted to prove to her just what she was missing. “I’ll see you around, princess,” I said, my back already to her. “Or perhaps not.”
She took a deep breath as though the weight of a mountain rested on her chest. “Where are you going?” she asked. It took me a moment to answer and I watched as impatience grew in her eyes. “Fen?”
“Where else? To find answers. To see if other landings have happened. To do what I always do,” I told her.
“Always?” she asked. “It’s duty then? Duty for the wolf of destruction?”
“That’s not my title,” I told her.
“No?”
“No. Never was.”
She stared into my eyes, searching, and I stared into hers…falling “You’ll return?”
“If you ask nicely.”
She didn’t bite the bait. Her expression as stoic as before, she asked, “when?”
I didn’t bullshit her either. I wanted her to expect me. Whether it took an hour or a hundred years, I wanted her to miss me. “When I can. Plus, you don’t want me to stick around, princess,” I teased.
Her eyebrows raised, challenging me for an answer.
“Can I be blunt with you?” My eyes locked with hers and she didn’t shy away from the intensity of my gaze.
“If you must,” she answered easily. I was about to disrupt this ease and I enjoyed every second of knowing she wouldn’t be able to make a guess at what I was about to say.
“If I stick around, I’ll be tempted to fuck you. And…” I stepped closer, so close that not even a breath had the chance of escaping between us. “If I fuck you, you won’t be able to perform your duties as queen with the vigor you need to combat what is going on. If I fuck you, you’ll be moaning long after the last orgasm has ripped through you. You’ll be sore. Sore and yet, still desperate for more.”
Her heart practically slammed against her chest, so loud I could feel the vibrations against my eardrums. And below, the scent of desire wafted to my nostrils - sweet and seductive, tempting me to stay. Tempting me to soak my fingers in her slit. To taste her until there was nothing left to taste. But there were more important matters at hand. Sex was and will always be a deficit.
I didn’t wait for Myriana to slap a cunning answer back at me. Instead, I turned and left. One of her pets would take care of her, certainly. The thought of it didn’t please me. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Seeing her there, in that kingdom, with those men, it brought out the animal in me. There was nothing, absolutely nothing I wanted more than to rip her from their paws. To keep her for myself. Make her my pet. I couldn’t do that. Not because I wasn’t capable, but because I was only part animal. Logic sat high on the shelf of things that reminded me how to behave in this world.
I trotted on, careful of my steps. Careful of my surroundings. I was growing more and more tired by the minute. I could only afford a few hours of sleep.
Unlike her mother, Myriana chose to create the green belts at three points around her keep. This was a mistake. The world wasn’t safe, and to pretend it was, didn’t make it safer. Choosing the one on the south-west side, I settled down into a place where the trees were close together, and in moments I slept.
Dreams were rare things for me, and this nap felt empty of them as well, but only a few hours passed before I woke with the moon high, stars bright, and the sound of someone walking quietly across the fallen pine needles.
A human, or a youngling might have mistaken the sound for the passing wind coming in from the east. Mistakes like that left dead bodies behind them. Whoever the stalking person was, he was good. Clever. Moving across the ground like a ghost; near invisible. Which confused me, because he smelled of zombie.
We called them zombies, because it was the only name we had. They were not the story type zombies from the old days. Not undead. They weren’t dead either. They were living deformities, with animal minds. There is mention of a disease called leprosy in medical volumes. Advanced stages of this fit the zombie descriptions, though it was clear their condition wasn’t leprosy. Their minds were ravaged as well. I cracked enough of their skulls to know their brains were diminished; shrunken. They had only the savage mind. His scent was zombie, a dark tainted smell of disease, but his movements were not. There wasn’t the common drag to his step. No hesitation or wasted motion.
The thing’s speed was troublesome as well; faster than a human, but not quite shifter, yet using the same controlled motions. If this truly was a type of zombie I had not encountered before, its level of menace exceeded all others.
The thing’s direction toward the castle suggested a specific target. A group could be an attack, a single attacker, suggested assassination or at the very least, a mission of purpose.
As I came up behind it my ears strained to hear others out in the blackness. If they were coming down the greenbelts, I would have no chance of hearing them; not these phantoms.
A thought crossed my mind; more of an instinct, really. I straightened up and walked normally. At the time it was only ten feet ahead. Feeling a branch beneath my right foot as I strode, I allowed my weight to snap it.
Nothing. No pause, no turn of the head, it made no sign it heard anything. An infant would have heard that noise. Surely, even the animal mind of a zombie would have wanted to investigate; with possible food so close.
Unsure of what I just discovered, I pounced and took its spine. The thing fell. Checking its skull, I found it was a zombie… clearly. While the body was in fair shape the signs were all there.
Looking around, I decided to make a circuit of the walls, just in case there were others of this one’s ilk. After finding no others, I came back and took the body away, and buried it, but made a mark so I could find it later, if need be.
It would have been nice if the doctors could have looked at it, but the high risk of spreading the infection kept me from bringing it into Myriana’s walls. That, and the panic which would ensue.
Looking back toward the Keep, and then to the sky, my decision to return to the shore felt more pressing than ever. Something was happening. Something which should not be happening. Were the zombies gaining intelligence? Thinking about my own kind, evolutionary change felt possible.
Shifters began as enhanced humans with animal-like traits after whatever science was used to create us: longer ears, more pronounced noses, heavier brows, and more hair. Shifting wasn’t possible. You were what you were at first. Longer lives and a stronger immune system allowed some of those first ones to survive even now. Those born from them were different. Shifting came first. A Shifter still had traits but not so pronounced, until they became enraged or terrified and then they changed to show much greater traits. They were stronger and faster as well.
The next generation were more human looking but had greater strength and speed in that form. The alteration was also more pronounced. Species was easy to determine now. That was only three generations. We were on five generations, perhaps six now, depending on how you measured them.
The fall was chaos. People had other things on their mind than what day or year it was. A few slipped by. According to the Queens of the Realms it was about one-hundred and thirty-two years after the fall. At least, that’s the name of this year; 132 Realm Age.
Shifters killed zombies whenever we came across them. We’re immune to the virus. They say that’s why we were created, but I doubt that myself. I think we were weapons, like the virus was supposed to be. That it was a happy accident which created my kind at about the same time. Another happy accident that the humans didn’t put us on the hunting list as well. Desperation apparently breeds acceptance.
Queen Myriana’s mother believed that the virus was created through experimentation with immortality. The queens back then were well informed. They used shortwave radios to talk with each other. Electric power came from all manner of contraptions -mainly solar and wind for charging batteries, but there were other means as well. A hundred kilometers east of here they used humans to ride bicycles which powered generators. Today, we don’t have half the technology they enjoyed.
Perhaps this idea of experimentation with immortality was the origin concept, but from my own reading it seemed just about everything touched by the government back then had applications for war. Something like a virus that traveled through the air, and altered the DNA of humans, felt like a weapon to me.
Reaching the cliff above the watercraft that brought zombies to shore, I gazed out into the vast ocean, wondering where they came from. It felt unlikely that they had been drifting all this time, and then washed to shore in such a perfect formation. All three at the same time? On the same tide? Five meters apart?
No.
No way, no how.
I didn’t know much about boats or watercrafts since I was not from the Water Tribe - not sure they knew much about them either. However, from the size and shape of these things, I couldn’t imagine them coming from far away. How far could they go? Probably a bitch to navigate as well. So, where? Where did these things come from?
And why here? What was important about here? Well, for starters, Myriana. But why her? Random selection? Something to gain? Vengeance? Envy? I didn’t know the answer and didn’t have the necessary amount of information to make an educated guess and so I went back to searching.
With the tide out, the watercrafts were high and dry on the sand. I couldn’t get myself to believe that the zombies I tracked from here were the ones who operated those boats. The idea felt absurd. Which was why I didn’t want to go down there for a closer look at them. The people who did operate them, might come back. These boats would be good resources, certainly. What interested me most about them, was their condition. The gray paint looked fresh.
Leaning my back against a tree, I set myself to wait. With the tide going as low as it was, I noted that those who operated the boats, could have jumped over the side, and walked down the coastline. Their tracks, however, would have been razed away by now.
I sat back with all intentions of figuring this thing out in my head. Not just what the zombies were up to, but why I was here in the first place. Duty? Obligation? To be a hero? To be her hero? The longer I sat, the more difficult it proved to keep my thoughts from wandering to Myriana. The fact that her scent clung to my shirt didn’t help the case.