Monster Queen Rising (Spring Equinox Mates #3)

1. Chapter 1

Chapter one

Jen

I can't stop shaking. Harek's chest is warm against my cheek, but my body hasn't figured out we're safe yet.

Harek has me in his lap. He pulled me there the second Dean put the truck in gear. He didn't ask. One minute I was beside him. The next I was against his chest with his arm around my back. I've been here ever since.

The bench seat is not made for it. He doesn’t care. He is six foot three of muscle wedged sideways against the door so I fit. His thumb is moving slow on my cheekbone. His other hand is flat between my shoulder blades. He runs warm and I love that he chases the cold away.

I press my face harder into his chest. He bends his head. His mouth is against my hair. He breathes against the top of my head and the patch on my sternum burns with the same heat it has carried since the cold-storage room.

An hour ago my body sprouted horns.

Horns. Actual obsidian horns. I've worked animal control for six and a half years. I've been bitten by a feral cat, and a Chihuahua–the littlest ones are always the meanest.

I've never had horns.

Just a few weeks ago I knew exactly what safe looked like. A one-bedroom apartment. A city truck. Eight-hour shifts.

Now I'm in the back of a truck driving away from a burning building with six mates in the convoy, and somewhere ahead of us a woman named Madison Hollens has a child growing inside her.

All I can feel is cold.

Harek's hand on my back presses down.

"Drink," he says. His mouth is still against my hair.

When he speaks the small tusks at the corners of his mouth catch the dashboard light. Ivory. Curved. Smaller than Crull's. I lean into him.

He has a water bottle where I can reach it without sitting up. I drink. The water is cold. My stomach decides it is going to keep it. I drink the whole thing. He takes the empty and tucks it in the door pocket.

"Thanks."

He nods against the top of my head.

In the front, Dean is driving and Thaw is in the passenger seat with the earpiece in. Dean has the lights off and the highway in front of us is empty at this hour. Thaw is listening to the Syndicate band, has been since we hit the on-ramp. He has not said a word.

Fen is still holding my hand.

He hasn't let go since Site Theresa. He hasn't spoken either. He is sitting against the door with his back to the metal and the dark eyes on my face.

Ever since he dropped to his knees on the white tile and I lifted his chin with two still-clawed fingers and told him to stay, the thread has never gone quiet.

"He is loud," Harek says.

"I know. He’s loud inside me too."

I burrow deeper into Harek. His arm tightens.

I close my eyes against his chest.

In the front seat the earpiece against Thaw's ear chatters.

He lifts a hand. Dean's grip on the wheel changes. Harek's thumb stops on my cheek.

Thaw listens.

He does not speak. He does not move. Ten seconds. Twenty. The patterning at the line of his throat is bright.

The earpiece goes quiet.

He looks at his hand on his knee for a second. Then he turns half around in the passenger seat.

"They diverted the Hollens transport. They're not taking her to the cabin lab." The patterning at Thaw's throat is bright. "They're taking her to Camille."

Camille.

The word goes straight through me.

Camille is the fast one. The one Reyes wouldn't look at Thaw to explain — the cascade that takes a 6-week accelerated gestation protocol and burns it down to four days, start to delivery. Four days, and then they cut the baby out of Madison and Madison doesn't matter to them after that.

They've decided.

The clock's already running.

Somewhere ahead of us a woman I've never met is strapped into a transport with only days before her body stops being useful to them.

The number sits in my chest like a second heartbeat, off from the first.

And the voice rises.

I don't summon it.

My rage does.

It pushes against my throat, hungry to become command. I lock my teeth together and shove it back down, refusing to let it out.

It stays there.

Pressing.

Waiting.

"Four days," I whisper.

My own voice. Barely.

Harek's arm comes tight around me. The third thread floods warm—his relief.

In the front, Thaw turns.

He doesn't ask if I'm all right.

His gaze moves over me the way he studies a tree line before leading us into it—slow, careful, taking in what everyone else misses. Something eases in the truck when he nods once. Dean's hands loosen on the wheel. Harek finally lets out the breath he'd been holding.

"You stopped the Queen-voice."

"Yes."

"How?"

"I don't know." I shake my head once. "I just... did."

He watches that answer settle across my face.

"Good."

I wait.

"Jen, it doesn't own you."

His eyes stay on mine another second, making sure the shaking is really easing and not just buried deeper.

Then he gives one small nod.

"All right."

The words land like a decision he's making for both of us.

"Listen to me."

I do.

"Camille is mine."

Just that.

"Getting us in is mine. Getting us out is mine."

Something in my chest loosens before I can stop it.

"You don't carry this one."

I blink.

"Your job is to stay with us. Let us do ours."

My throat tightens.

"Let us have you."

It's not permission he's asking for.

It's the burden he's asking me to hand over.

Something inside me finally gives.

The shaking eases, just enough to notice. For the first time since Madison's name came out of Vance's mouth, I don't feel like I'm holding the entire world together with my bare hands.

I trust him.

I trust all of them.

For a minute, I let them carry me.

"Okay," I whisper.

Thaw grunts, turns back toward the windshield, and settles his earpiece into place.

Harek presses another bottle of water into my hand. I drink without sitting up.

Across the cab, Fen's fingers tighten around mine.

That's all. Just the grip, once, hard, then steady. The thread goes warm where it's been loud all night.

I squeeze back.