56. Cleaning House
56
CLEANING HOUSE
*Raven*
Escurians and people from Dun’s Crossing celebrate all around me, but I only have eyes for a bloodstained, silver wolf on the other side of the river. I shove through the crowd, desperate to touch him and know that he’s safe. That we all are.
King Gavin is dead!
Kieran seems to have the same idea. He charges back into the corpse-choked river, and when we meet in the middle, he shifts. He crushes me in an embrace, and his lips collide with mine, both of us hungry with relief. The water swallows us up to my neck, his chest, and it’s not like anyone would be looking in the middle of this chaos, but I love knowing that his body is all mine. The moon-shaped mating bite on his pale skin declares to the world that the Goddess Herself blessed our love, and no one will tear us apart.
Finally, when I think I’m going to pass out if I don’t take a breath, I pull back. Kieran stares down at me, his blue eyes glowing.
“I love you,” he says, “my queen.”
That startles a laugh out of me. With King Gavin dead, Kieran is Alpha, and we’re married, so….
“I’m Luna of Dun’s Crossing!” I laugh again.
“And the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” Kieran dips me into another kiss.
“Wait.” I push his chest until he releases me. “You just killed your father. Are you really happy to just celebrate?”
His triumphant expression crumples for a split second, a shift no one who didn’t grow up with him would notice. “I… don’t know. I can’t imagine a world without him in it.” He shakes his head. “But I have to because I know that’s the only world where we get any peace.”
I cup his cheek. “You don’t have to know everything right now. We’ve got time.”
His smile brightens again. “Time. What a wonderful word.”
“This is all very cute ,” Anwen says to us through the mind-link, “ but you don’t think Father left the whole palace unguarded, do you? You have to finish what you started.”
Kieran squeezes me. “He’s got a terrible habit of being right. We’ll party for days when the palace is ours.”
I kiss his cheek. “And get started on that big family.”
He laughs.
* * *
My footfalls blend with the massive pack of wolves I’m running with, and for the first time in my whole life, so does my coat. Dun’s Crossing still outnumbers us, but I’m far from the only black pelt in the crowd. I howl for the sheer joy of hearing my own voice as we approach the palace.
Other wolves take up the call. Escurians, those of Dun’s Crossing who support Kieran, Mother. Father, Kieran himself, who shoulders me teasingly. We were never planning on a stealth approach anyway.
As we get within range, crossbow bolts begin flying through the trees. As expected.
‘Split!’ Kieran calls.
Just like we planned, most of the army keeps charging forward, bobbing and weaving so the archers can’t land a shot, and those of us who know the castle peel off–all the Solbergs, and Kieran’s friends, me. Father, and because she refused to be separated from him, Mother. Low and fast, we dart for a secret tunnel that will let us right into the palace proper.
After a few moments of running, the sounds of crossbows still humming in the air, Kieran skids to a stop and shifts. Mother and Father politely avert their eyes. He depresses one light-colored brick at the base of the castle, and a doorway’s worth of them start to fade out.
Then fade back in. Then out again.
“Fucking Wordsworth,” Kieran mutters.
I huff a wolfish laugh. The court magician is yet another thing to get rid of once this palace is ours.
Finally, the bricks settle into a half-dissolved position, leaving a narrow gap for us to shimmy through. Kieran rolls his eyes and shifts back into a wolf. I nudge Mother and Father, and we head inside one after the other.
I was never allowed in these tunnels before, but I’d like to see Queen Rowena stop me now!
We pound up a set of stairs built between wolf and human strides and explode into the throne room. Queen Rowena, sitting on her throne, screams. A few other nobles in the room scatter back.
“King Gavin is dead!” Kieran roars. “ I killed him. By right of blood and right of combat, the throne of Dun’s Crossing is mine!”
“Th-that can’t be.” Rowena looks from Kieran to me, frantic. “She’s a witch! She ensorcelled you into doing this, believing this.”
‘She is our daughter ,’ Father declares. ‘ Crown princess of Escuro, Raven Blake.’ His Alpha blood allows her to hear him.
‘And my mate ,’ Kieran says. ‘ My wife.’
“No!” Rowena wails. I brace for pain.
But she only crumples to her knees, weeping. Lucias and Whyte shift then start dragging her toward the dungeon.
Suddenly, everything clicks into place. She tortured me for years, made me feel less than dirt. But she didn’t do that to her husband, her children, anyone else in her life. Because I was the only one she had enough power over. I couldn’t even begin to challenge her. She was a weak, scared woman who took out her anger about that on a weaker, more scared child.
I snap at her heels. I may never be the person I would’ve been without her in my life, but she doesn’t frighten me anymore.
“They’re lying!” Nessa steps out of the crowd with her hands on her hips. “Tell them, Kieran-Wieran. We’re mates.”
Without Rowena here, I have nothing to lose, no one to fear. I shift and stare Nessa down.
“Say that to my face.” I raise my hands, and dozens of mice scamper out of the walls to swarm around my ankles.
She pales. “Um—”
“Exactly.” I look at the crowd of people who didn’t blink at my years of torture. “Now, I’m going to give you two options. You can shut the fuck up about me, my family, and my mate, or”—I look at Kieran. Even without a mind-link, he’s ready to open the door for me. I nod—“you can get the fuck out!”
I conjure a roaring wind, targeted in a single column and blast Nessa. She tumbles ass-over-teakettle through the door Kieran just pulled open and lands far enough away that I can’t hear her complaints, but I can see she decided to skip underwear today.
Nervous laughter fills the throne room, but I feel incredible. Nothing can stop me today. I’ll never have to hide in this castle—
My stomach twists, and I vomit on the stones at my feet.