Chapter One #2
I had a lot of ground to cover. The Grand Palace of the Two Kingdoms was as enormous as it was elegant to accommodate the hundreds of officials, courtiers, guards, and staff it housed.
Today I barely registered the soaring columns buttressing the ceiling, the statues of my Sidhe ancestors, or the embroidered hangings that added warmth to marble walls.
Portraits of past Galatyn kings and queens hung in between, watching me with painted, judgmental eyes.
All ancestors of mine, for what little that mattered.
She mattered.
Without you, she will die today, the sword hissed. Kill the assassin. Kill him now.
I damn near broke into a run, but if anyone saw the Wolf Prince sprinting as if his ass were on fire, people would panic.
Driven by the sword’s impatience, I soon reached the library’s thick oak double doors.
Carvings of kings, queens, courtiers, and warriors crowded the left door, while a gold-inlaid image of Cachamwri himself took up the right.
The carving was beautifully done -- huge and scaled, the god’s great horned head surrounded by wisps of silver smoke, ruby eyes shining through the mist. The artist had depicted him speaking to the very first Galatyn, who’d helped the dragon escape a Dark One cell.
The two had wreaked bloody vengeance on the demonic aliens who’d conquered Immortal Earth.
Cachamwri had drunk the aliens’ life force like wine -- and become a god in the process.
Before I could knock, my werewolf hearing picked up my mother’s voice through the thick wood. “King Bloodhoof’s been in the ‘shrooms again if he thinks we’ll ignore this stunt.”
“Oh, he knows what exactly our reaction will be,” my father replied, his tone dry. “The bastard wants a war. And he’s going to get one at this rate.”
Bloodhoof must have staged yet another raid on the kingdom’s border. The centaur probably knew about Goran’s brewing rebellion and hoped to take advantage of it. As Breath spat another warning billow of green sparks, I knocked on the massive oak slab.
“Dearg?” Mom called.
“Oh, hell, he’s got Dragon’s Breath,” Dad told her. He must have felt the weapon’s power through the closed door. “Come in, boy. What fresh hell is Cachamwri plunging you into now?”
At my touch, the door swung wide. King Ll?r stood at his desk, stacks of parchment littering its surface.
He was every inch the Sidhe king -- tall and broad-shouldered, muscular in his jeweled black doublet, hose, and boots.
His blond hair hung straight and smooth to his hips, and his pale Galatyn eyes glittered with opalescent sparks of magic in the perfect contours of his angular, handsome face.
He was almost two millennia old --he’d been king for most of it -- but he looked no older than I did.
Mom hurried to meet me. Queen or not, Diana Galatyn looked human, all delicate beauty in a blue velvet Sidhe court gown, sapphires and diamonds glinting here and there among the intricate silver embroidery edging its bodice and hem.
Her hair was as long as my father’s and as black as my own, though she’d gathered it into a sloppy bun on top of her head, baring her round ears and spilling dark curls around her cheeks.
Her wolf-pale eyes looked huge in her ageless face, and her full lips drew into a tight frown as she cupped my face in a delicate hand.
She too, looked no older than I did, thanks to Cachamwri’s gift of immortality -- her reward for helping save the Two Kingdoms from my vicious uncle thirty-two years ago.
You’d never think such a fragile-looking woman could turn into seven feet of fangs, claws, and coal black fur, immune to magic and deadly as hell. “You’re in pain.” Mom frowned, concerned.
I shrugged. “Just the usual post-vision migraine.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, hell, what did you See?”
My father frowned, his gaze sliding down to the swirling green sparks surrounding my sword.
He knew a bad sign when he saw one. “Couldn’t have been good if Cachamwri gave you Dragon’s Breath.
” Dad had never liked my being the dragon god’s Blade.
He’d lost ten children and four wives to my murderous uncle.
Deep down, he wanted to wrap me in the magical equivalent of bubble wrap.
Instead, my father started teaching me to fight -- with bare hands, magic, and blades -- when I was shorter than my sword.
Then I’d come into my werewolf magic, and the dragon god had demanded my service.
Dad studied my face, sparks of magic swimming in his irises. “What exactly is your mission?”
“Apparently I’m supposed to serve as bodyguard to some green-haired police officer in Summerwood.” Summerwood was a magic-based colony on the mortal version of Earth. I had no idea how that worked, considering magic didn’t exist in that universe at all.
The king raised a brow. “A green-haired cop?”
“Yes, sir. In the vision, she died in some very brutal ways.” In between making sweet, exquisitely passionate love to me, though I had no intention of telling my parents that.
“Torn apart, gutted, crushed. I never got a good look at whoever was killing her. Seemed to be someone -- or something -- different every time. Which suggests alternative futures, because nobody dies more than once.”
Dad grunted. “‘Green-haired officer’ sounds like Iona Anann. I met her when she was a child. She’s a demigoddess and Maeve’s granddaughter.” He paused thoughtfully. “Now she’s Summerwood’s police chief.”
I stared at him, brows lifting as I processed that revelation.
Sidhe nobles gossip like mortals, and I had indeed heard rumors about the Mother of Fairies’ grandchild.
“You sure about that? A demigoddess should have more than enough power to protect herself.” But come to think of it…
“I thought it was strange Cachamwri would take such a keen interest in a police officer, Sidhe or not.”
“Maybe something’s keeping her from accessing her powers,” my mother suggested. “Like the way Ansgar blocked Ll?r’s access to magic back in the day.”
“Could be.” My hand fell absently to my sword, fingers caressing the dragon’s warm green head. The roiling boil of the sword’s bloodlust bubbled up. Kill the killers, kill them, save her, the sword chanted. They must die. Now now now!
I couldn’t ignore that much longer. “I have to go. Cachamwri wants me in Summerwood in” -- I paused, mentally calculating --”the next fifteen minutes.”
Mom frowned. “You’ll keep us posted? Because I’m fully capable of showing up wolfed out if someone gives you a hard time.”
I grinned. “I’ll give you frequent calls. But I do have some information on another problem we’re going to need to handle.” I shrugged out of the messenger pouch with the documents my spies had obtained and handed it to my father.
He opened the pouch and pulled out the top document. Blond brows climbed. “Goran? Again? Didn’t he learn his lesson the first time?”
“Apparently not. I’ve got several informants among his people who’ve fed me the details. You’ll find everything in the report -- allies, troop strength, and battle plans.”
“Battle plans?” my father asked in a mild tone that meant he was mad as hell. Someone was going to die, second cousin or not.
“Which is why I intended to take care of him myself, but Cachamwri has other plans.”
“Don’t worry about Goran. I’ve been handling snakes like him since Atlantis sank.” He grimaced. “Though I’d have thought you’d killed enough of his witless followers to put the fear of Cachamwri into the rest.”
I snorted, shifting my booted feet as the sword poured more goading energy into my leg. I was starting to feel like a horse whose rider’s spurs drew blood. “No one ever claimed Goran was bright.”
“You’d better gate before that thing catches your hose on fire,” my mother put in, curling her lip at the sword. Her teeth looked like they were sharpening into fangs. Dad wasn’t the only one wrestling his temper. “Cachamwri’s getting impatient.”
“And be careful,” my father added, worry in his eyes.
“Iona’s incredibly powerful. If the dragon god thinks she needs your protection, she’s up against something nasty.
Even with Dragon’s Breath, you’re going to have your hands full.
” He paused. “One more thing. Maeve is the goddess of both fertility and war. Siobhan -- who is her daughter and Iona’s mother -- is a goddess of madness.
If Iona inherited either of those power sets… ”
I stared at him, taken aback.
Mom said what I was thinking. “That’s a hell of a combo.”
“Yeah, but it makes sense,” I said slowly. “Love and war can make you crazy.”
Dad snorted. “That they can. You’ve been the Blade long enough to know the strength of a god’s influence. Don’t let her magic sweep you into doing something unwise. Guard yourself.”
“Don’t worry. I know which thoughts and emotions are mine and which aren’t. I won’t get carried away.”
“See that you don’t.” But Mom didn’t look comforted as she wrapped me in a hug smelling of velvet, forest, and fur.
“Keep us posted,” Dad said, stepping in for his own hug when Mom released me.
“And let me know if you need help,” she added. “I’ll be there five minutes later, ready to turn bad guys into werewolf kibble.”
“So will I,” Dad agreed. “And I’ll bring the army.”
I smiled, though I trusted his soldiers about as much as his scheming nobles. King Ll?r’s men were loyal to him without question, but I wasn’t my father. Open enemies I could handle, but Dad’s “loyal courtiers” had a taste for daggers and unwary backs.
“Dearg, you need to change,” Mom said. “You don’t want them thinking you’re an extra.”
I eyed her, confused. “Extra what?”
She grinned. “Summerwood is the Hollywood of fantasy films, dear -- and you look like you’re about to sneak into Mordor.”
“‘Well, one does not simply walk into Mordor.’”
My father frowned. “Where the Egg is Mordor?” He must have missed that particular movie night.