4. Diana
CHAPTER 4
Diana
M av’s words chased me for the rest of the day, biting at me, reminding me that I had a duty to my people above all else. The same way my father’s words had driven me out of the keep decades before, when I’d found Maverick being chased by the demon.
Earlier that same day, my father had told me I had to take a mate—not the first time, but it was the first time he’d stung me with the fact that I was shirking my duty if I didn’t.
By not marrying, I was courting danger. By not having an heir I was leaving our people with an uncertainty that could drive fear into them.
No matter how much I tried to fool myself into thinking otherwise, many of my people were stuck in the dark ages. They felt that a kingdom without a king was weaker. That the lack of an alpha male in the keep was an invitation for trouble—and as far as those people were concerned that was exactly what had happened. A queen in charge had allowed Malach and his demons to the front door.
I hated that Mav and Lycan were somehow saying the same thing—that I needed a mate at my side. And that now I could see that Lycan had been right. Despite all I’d done to protect and lead my people, I was never considered on the same level as my father or his predecessors. No matter that I’d had Lycan’s blessing to become queen.
No matter that I’d nearly died to become a werewolf. Not that they knew the lengths I went to in order to be one of them. No one except Lycan, Evangeline, and her maid knew what I’d been before. A few others, like Lochlan as well, held my secret close. But only those I could trust with my life.
Which is how I ended up hiding in my room. Hiding from my own people, on a night I should have been able to run free.
Maybe even the last night…not that my wolf was clawing to get out as she had in the past. My wolf…my girl was so quiet it was if she was already gone and my heart cracked further.
“I hate this.”
I leaned on the edge of the dresser across from my bed. My room had always been my sanctuary but now it was becoming that, less and less. Trapped by the walls, trapped by decisions that hadn’t been my own, trapped even by the shard.
I closed my eyes, but it wasn’t Mav I saw behind my lids chastising me, offering me something I didn’t want.
No, it was the curve of Raven’s mouth that drew me closer as he smirked, the faint hint of fangs promising pleasure beyond anything else. Promising a safety in his arms, I’d not found anywhere else.
My eyes flew open, and I gasped as my body clenched.
“Fuck you.” I snarled the words even as I ached for his touch. Ached to have him do as he wished with me. Ached to just have him hold me close and let me lower my guard for a moment.
I struggled to breathe, my body remembering clearly just how good Raven was at reading me, at meeting my physical needs before I even whispered a moan. I clutched the wooden dresser edge, cracking the wood as I focused on my breathing.
In and out, nice and slow. Keep it smooth….
Like his cock sliding into me, nice and slow…“Fuck!” I flipped the dresser, and spun, my heart pounding, out of control, sweat sliding down between my breasts as if I’d been running.
How the hell did I get past this need for him? I had the meeting with the other leaders, and I needed to be focused on the task at hand, not so fucking horny that I couldn’t walk straight. And the blood moon was only making it worse…at least that was what I wanted to blame it on.
A knock on the door. “Frostbite?”
Of course it would be him. “Go away!”
“I heard something crash, are you okay?”
I was not okay. And it was his fault…I could punish him for it. Make him beg at my knees, making him ache the way I was aching, without release. I sucked in a breath. No, this was not a game I could win and yet I wanted to lie to myself that I could win it, that I could let him in and have him pleasure me as I’d done before and nothing else.
Frostbite. Lie to me, just for tonight.
He’d said that to me, in the oasis. When things had been different, before he’d taken what was possibly the most important decision of my life from me. When we’d just been two souls, and not a forbidden pair.
He hadn’t left the door, just like every other night. He stood there. Quiet. There was no pressure to let him in…he never even knocked until tonight.
Shaking, I put my hands over my face, feeling tears prick at my eyes. Desire and fear, need and want were all tangled up.
I was being torn into pieces by my blood, my heart, and my mind. None were in alignment. And I didn’t know how to change it—how to bring any of them together.
I’d moved without truly realizing it, standing on my side of the door, only the wooden planks between us.
His breathing was ragged, but I couldn’t hear his heartbeat. No, I could feel it through the bond.
I wasn’t the only one suffering.
I leaned my head against the door, struggling to find the right words. Lie to him, I had to lie to him and maybe then he’d go.
“I have company,” I said, the three words bitter on my tongue. If he thought there was another male here then…
He huffed, and I realized he was laughing. “Sure you do.”
He was laughing at me. That rage that had been so quiet woke up like a beast lunging at prey, tangling itself around my desire and it made me do something stupid.
I jerked the door open, grabbed him by the collar as he stumbled in, his stunning eyes wide as I pulled my dagger before he’d fully stepped into the room. Spinning with him still caught with my one hand, I kicked the door closed behind me, rattling it on the frame.
“Fuck you, Raven!” I had the dagger at his throat, pressing the wickedly sharp blade hard enough that a thin line of blood appeared and trickled down his neck. “You are a thorn in my side!”
He didn’t yell at me; he didn’t even try to get away. “Would slitting my throat make you happy? If so, then do it.” He leaned into the knife, parting his flesh further. “I would die if that would please you, Frostbite.”
My eyes traced the blood as it slid down to his collarbone, and then lower, into his shirt.
I couldn’t help the hitch in my breath at the thought of following that line across the plains and valleys of his chest and then lower, lower…just like the dream. Just like all the dreams.
His fingers wrapped slowly around my wrist and pushed it just as slowly away. “What do you want, Frostbite?”
“Stop it. My eyes aren’t even blue anymore.” I couldn’t look away from him, the smell of his blood, the smell of Raven consuming every fiber of my ability to think straight.
“No. But you still have the power of a winter storm in you, don’t you? Your eyes could glow red, and I’d still call you Frostbite.” He drew me toward him, slowly, inch by inch. “You could still cause a man to curl up and die for wanting you, and being frozen out.”
And like a moth to a flame, I went with his pressure.
He dragged my hand up his chest, across the slick blood and around to the back of his neck. I dug my fingers into the strands of his hair, silken threads whispering against my skin.
Our bodies were flush to one another, his heat, the smell of him, the pressure of his cock pressing against my belly…I shuddered, my mind blank except for what I was feeling.
I should say something to stop this, I knew I should. I was furious with him, so fucking angry about…about what? I did a slow blink, as if I were dreaming. Was that it? Was this another one of the dreams that felt so real?
A part of me knew without a doubt that this was real, but that other part that ached for him whispered that I could pretend that it was a dream. I could lie to myself this time.
Lies and shadows, they’d always been there between us and I leaned on them to make this okay.
His breath was warm against my cheek, but he didn’t press his lips to my skin. “Tell me what you want, Frostbite. I will serve you however you demand. Do you…” He seemed to steel himself. “Do you want me to leave the Territories?”
The question was ridiculous. “So, I can suffer alone? No. You can suffer through whatever this is right along with me.”
I felt him smile as he pressed his cheek to mine. “I would suffer anything to stay close to you, my queen.”
We slid toward each other at the same time, our mouths coming into contact, the heat and taste of him branding me like a fire whiskey, drowning out any good senses I had left.
One of his hands swept up under the back of my shirt, settling against the curve. His other hand dipped lower, catching me under the thigh and lifting me up so that I was against him.
He ground his hips against me and I wrapped my legs around his waist, clamping my aching center to him. Moon goddess, this was what I wanted, I wanted to get thrown to the bed and fucked until I lost consciousness, to come so hard that I saw stars and struggled to remember my name.
To escape the weight of the world for a few hours, the weight of a crown and a path that was impossible to decipher.
A boom against the door shattered my fantasy like a bucket of ice water. “Diana, will you speak with me? Please?”
Raven held my gaze for a long moment, nostrils still flaring with desire. But Mav was right outside the door, and as irritated as I was at him for our last meeting, he’d just saved me from making a mistake I couldn’t afford to make.
Struggling to breathe, I dropped to my feet and stumbled away from Raven. Then, I pointed at the window, motioning for him to go.
“Go,” I hissed. Everything I’d been trying to forget rushed back to me.
Whispers of a potential coup were making their way through the territory. Civil unrest called now, when the whole world was on the brink of collapse. An internal battle would only make the job we had ahead of us more difficult. The consequences of a taboo tryst between Raven and I was too high a price to pay. No matter what I wanted.
Taboo? But are you still a werewolf?
That voice sounded a great deal like the shard.
Raven’s eyebrows shot up, then he gave me a slow bow from the waist and was gone, out the window as if he’d never been here.
“Diana?”
Gathering myself, I went to the door and opened it a crack. “What do you want, Mav?”
“Are you okay?” His mismatched eyes were narrowed. “I know I might have overstepped earlier, but I’m worried for you. Have you given any thought to what I said?”
My ire flashed. “You mean about needing to find a mate so that my own people would believe me capable? Because apparently, I’m not capable if I don’t have a dick dangling between my legs in some form or another?”
I yanked the door open wide and he moved as if to step inside. Only I’d yanked it wide so I could slam it well and good.
“Fuck!” Maverick bellowed as the door connected with his shoulder. I didn’t care.
“Go away, Maverick!” I yelled. “I am trying to sleep!”
Only sleep was the last thing on my mind. The fire in me was burning hot, relit by Raven’s touch, much as I hated to admit it. Something about him gave me the…what was it, energy? Desire? Some combination of the two seemed to always be tied to him.
I didn’t want to call it what I truly suspected it was…he gave me strength in a way I didn’t understand.
I went to the window. The massive full moon was tinged with colors that shouldn’t have existed. Green, purple, and red…if there was ever a full moon to see if my wolf was truly gone, this was it.
“Are you still with me?” I whispered to my wolf, and thought maybe…was there a distant wolf’s call? Or was I hearing things I wanted to hear?
Before I changed my mind, I leapt to the edge of the window and peered at the drop. If Raven could do it, so could I.
I let go, and in a breath had landed in a crouch at the base of the keep. I took off running toward the forest. There were parts that my people avoided—like the river boundary between us and the angels.
The place I’d first found Maverick.
I cranked on the speed and struggled not to gasp at just how fast I was moving. Faster than I’d ever been as a werewolf, which only fanned the flames of my rage hotter. The wind whipped around me, dragging my hair out behind me in a streamer.
Howls erupted—my people, my friends, the clan leaders—they were unleashing their own wolves, escaping the confines of propriety for a night. Being the wolves that they were—wolves that would never be stripped from them.
I tipped back my head to howl but only a strangled scream escaped me. I pumped my arms and legs faster, as if I could escape the truth.
You already knew your wolf was gone. Again, it felt like the shard whispering to me.
“Shut up,” I sobbed the words, gasping on them as if they’d choke me.
Even if it was true, just that smallest part of me had hope that there was a way back. That my wolf would be strong enough to hang on a little longer, that I’d be able to turn back into a werewolf once the war was done, the Veil healed and then…then what?
Raven gone.
My people, led by someone else.
Outcast because of what I’d had to do. Because I’d turned back into a vampire…a reality only a few people even knew. I had to hang on long enough to see them through the battles ahead. That had to be my goal.
Movement ahead and to my left drew my eye to a small clearing. A small deer with her head bent to drink from the river. The pulse in her beating a rhythm I could not ignore, and a desire I could not deny. That’s when I felt it. The thrill of the hunt. But it wasn’t from my wolf…it was me, and the bloodlust of a vampire I’d been denying.
She never saw me, was never afraid because there was no chance to be afraid. I leapt across the river and tackled her to the ground, my fangs sinking into her neck and stilling her as I drank deeply.
The blood was a hot rush of energy—heady relief flowed through my body, lighting every nerve-ending as I pulsed with a vitality, I hadn’t felt in…well, ever.
This. This was what I’d been missing. If I was going to survive the shard and this fucking mess I was in, I had to feed.
Like a vampire.
The crack of a twig was the only warning I had before a massive wolf slammed into me in a tangle of gnashing teeth and slashing claws.
We flipped over backwards, the limp deer tangled between us. I ended up in a crouch, on all fours, pulse pounding with adrenaline and fresh blood.
The wolf was a deep brown with a white blaze on its head and muzzle. One of the Barrach clan.
“Halt,” I snarled. “I am your queen, don’t you dare?—”
He leapt, ignoring my command.
As if I were no longer his alpha. No longer queen.
Fury and pain shot through me as I caught him by the neck and tossed him aside, sending him through a group of saplings and into the river.
“Enough!”
But it was only a moment or two before he shook himself and rose, turning back toward me, his lips curling up over his teeth.
He wouldn’t listen. Because there was no longer a connection between me and my people. My wolf was gone. And I?
I was going to die here if I didn’t fight back.