Rik

Looking at my former queen made every nerve in my body stand up at full alert. Every alpha instinct I possessed screamed at me to shift, grab Keisha by the throat, and beat her into a bloody pulp against her own throne until she was dead.

So my queen would be safe.

Because if anything happened to Shara, my fate would be much worse than Llewellyn Isador’s had been.

Keisha looked at me, and it felt like she ripped all the skin off my body. “You’ve managed to turn my young sib into a fine alpha specimen. Tell you what. You give him to me, and you can keep the rest of my sibs free and clear. I’ll settle the blood debt with the Triune. In fact, I’ll throw in Vega. She can take over your alpha’s spot.” Her tone sharpened, her lip curling with disgust. “Evidently, she’s already intoxicated on your power. She’s of no further use to me.”

In her lioness form, Vega slunk closer to me, though Tlacel bit a chunk out of her hide for getting too close. She might have submitted to Shara’s power, but she sure as fuck wasn’t Blood. She wasn’t one of us.

I knew Shara loved me without question. But I couldn’t help the fear worming through my mind that maybe she would take Keisha up on her offer. If it meant Shara would live, and we had no other alternative, I would do it. Without question.

:No. Never. I’ll kill us all before I allow you to fall into her hands.:

“I don’t know,” Shara said aloud, her tone suggesting she might take Keisha up on her offer. “I’ve heard that alphas don’t fare too well in your court.”

“True. But none have been quite as hardy as Alrik looks to be. He’s got giant blood in him. I think he’ll hold up just fine.”

“Why do you want him?”

“To have a child,” Keisha replied quickly, but her words didn’t ring true. For the first time, she seemed nervous. She reached up and twirled a tendril of hair around her finger and laughed, but it sounded forced and heavy. “What I’ve always wanted.”

“But you already know how to have a child,” Shara said. “You know how my mother had me.”

Keisha shuddered delicately. “As if I would lie with a monster. Even to have a child.”

“But you would become a far worse monster? That doesn’t make sense.”

Keisha jerked upright, and a sly smile spread across her face.

Not good. Not good at all.

“Where’s Ezra Skye, by the way?” She said casually. “Did you not bring him?”

“He’s here.” Shara shrugged but allowed her lips to tighten with irritation. “He’s always wandering off by himself.”

Keisha nodded, a smile flickering on her lips. She stood and raised her voice to her people. “You’re all dismissed. When we settle on a blood price, I’ll call you back for a formal presentation.”

She stepped down off the dais and came closer to Shara. A growl rumbled from my chest before I could stop it.

Unfortunately, Keisha seemed to like that sound a great deal. She ran her gaze over me and it was all I could do not to shudder with revulsion. “You’d best come with me, Shara. I have something to show you. It seems that your wandering Blood has gotten himself into a bit of trouble.”

Dread churned in my stomach. I’d been so focused on Shara, that I hadn’t paid any attention to Ezra’s bond. I reached for him…

But felt nothing. Just a blank spot where her grumpy bear was supposed to be.

Shara’s jaws clenched but she didn’t say a word as we followed after Keisha. I felt her reaching for him, too, her rising worry for him. If he was in pain, we couldn’t feel it. Surely, he would have shouted or alerted us for help if he’d been captured.

“This is my consiliarius, Madeline Skye. She’ll be my witness to the Triune that I’m satisfied with the terms of our arrangement.”

“My consiliarius, Gina Isador.” Shara hesitated a moment, and then asked, “you’re not bringing any of your Blood? Aren’t you afraid we’ll try to kill you and walk out of here without a second glance?”

“Gina used to work for… her.” Keisha’s voice roughened, as if she was trying to say Shara’s mother’s name, but couldn’t, which pissed her off. “I’m sure she’s told you that the Triune will be most displeased if something happens to me before we can resolve this debt. Even if you’re foolish enough to try and kill me in my own nest, surrounded by more than a thousand sibs, you won’t be able to escape a Triune death sentence. Who knows. Marne has a twisted sense of humor. I wouldn’t put it past her to command Guillaume de Payne to do the deed himself.”

We walked down a hallway that I didn’t recognize. I’d never been important enough in House Skye to warrant ever seeing the queen’s personal areas. Daire and I had eventually shared an apartment on the fifth floor. One step up from the public leased areas. A true indication of how low in House Skye we were.

When we came to another elevator, this one a small service elevator that wouldn’t hold more than a couple of us at a time, Shara balked. “Where are we going?”

“To the basement. You should leave your Blood here, or at least make them shift back.” Keisha stepped into the elevator and turned around to face us with a shrug. “Ezra is your Blood now. If you don’t come with me, he’ll die. It’s as simple as that. If you don’t care, you can wait here, and I’ll be back shortly. But I assure you, I have something to show you that’s most relevant to your interests.”

:I don’t like it,: I growled in our bond.

Shara sighed back, though outwardly, she didn’t make a sound. :I know. But what choice do we have? I have to find him.:

She kissed each of her shifted Blood on their heads. “Wait for me here.”

Daire wound around her, almost knocking her down on top of him in his furious determination to stay with her.

“No, Daire. I want you to stay here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She untangled herself and took my hand. Gina and Madeline stepped onto the elevator, and then Shara and I joined them, though with my size, it was a tight fit. I hoped to goddess that Keisha had made the formal claim to the Triune. If she was lying about it…

Then we were headed straight into a trap and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do about it.

Ezra

I woke up with a start, unable to remember falling asleep. I had no memory of where I was. What I’d been doing. Who the fuck I even was.

I tasted blood. Not mine. There was a foulness in the blood that made me scrub my tongue on my sleeve. Something rancid had crawled into my mouth and died. That was some fucking nasty shit.

What the fuck happened?

I sat up and rubbed my eyes, trying to see. It was pitch black and I couldn’t see a fucking thing. My head throbbed like a giant icepick was drilling into my temple. It hurt badly enough that I reached up and felt for a wound, but there wasn’t any blood. I held my head as I slowly turned around, trying to sense anything. A way out. A hint of light. A breath of wind.

Something glittered in the darkness. It wasn’t bright, exactly, but it moved, and I could barely make out a shadow in the darkness.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” something whispered back.

Something that wasn’t human. Though I wasn’t human, either. I couldn’t remember what I was, exactly, but that sharp, metallic shriek wasn’t a voice.

“Wanna play?”

I scooted backward, trying to move quietly, but the glinting darkness came closer.

“Play with me, bear.”

Even while my brain was screaming to get the fuck out of here, something about the voice registered as truth. I was a bear. A grizzly bear, in fact. And my furry ass was getting the fuck out of here.

I surged to my feet and broke into a run, only to slam into an invisible wall. I fell with a shout, my wrist throbbing. My head tried to explode. I tasted blood again, but this time it was my own. Panting, I reached out and felt… nothing. But I couldn’t push my hand through, either.

Some kind of blood circle. It had to be. Only instead of keeping things out…

It was keeping me in.

Sweat poured off me, ripe with the sink of fear. I was fucking trapped with something that wanted to fucking play, that had a voice like a knife sliding down sheet metal.

Voices echoed in the distance and memory crashed into me. I recognized that voice. Shara. My queen. I was hers. She would get me the fuck out of here.

“Shara!”

“Ezra? What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“Get me the fuck out of here! There’s something in here. Something that’s not… right.”

Lights flickered on, but they were blue in tone, rather than yellow. I saw my queen and alpha coming toward me, and fuck me sideways, I almost started to blubber like a baby. I didn’t know why I was so fucking scared. Every hair on my body stood up quivering with alarm, and I was a fucking bear. I had a lot of fucking hair.

I did not want to turn around and see whatever thing had spoken to me. But it was like rubbernecking a fatal car accident.

I couldn’t not turn around.

Then I wanted to laugh, because it was just a girl. A young girl, maybe ten or twelve years old. She had bright pink ribbons braided into her hair and wore a matching frilly dress. Her skin looked a bit… sickly. She looked almost green, though that was probably the blue light turning her skin a strange color. She had a stuffed toy in her lap, but I couldn’t make out its shape.

“Mama!”

I glanced back toward Shara and my mouth fell open. Keisha Skye was with her.

We were fucked. So fucked. I couldn’t even begin to describe the many ways we were fucked.

“Hello, babydoll,” Keisha replied. “Are you being a good girl today?”

“Stop,” I barked out. “There’s some kind of blood circle here. It trapped me. I can’t get out.”

Shara jerked to a halt. She scanned the area, and I had the feeling that she was using her power to search out the trap, but I couldn’t sense it. In fact, I couldn’t feel her bond at all. I was alone in my head for the first time in forever. I couldn’t feel Daire either.

Yep. Fucked. Royally.