“Get out of here,” Charlotte hisses at me. I hiss back as Mace strides out of his office, straightening his suit. I nod at him before heading towards the dining room. It’s opulent, with Charlotte and the housekeeper giving their best show of wealth. The money Mace made on the sale of his daughter not once, but twice via Xander and then The Collector, on full view here. Golden chandeliers, a long dining table with place settings for twenty. Crystal goblets, silverware, and best of all: a new golden Naga crest adorning the mantel above the fireplace.
Gathering my shadows about me, I sink into the corner of the dining room where I’ll get a full view of everything. After some fuss and bother, our esteemed guests are greeted then guided in, one by one, flutes of green iced tea in their hands.
Ablo Obon arrives first in his limousine, the black feline king regal in his sweeping patterned robes. The queen of the aviansis up next, Irma Goldwing, with a scrunched-up nose and severe black business dress. Queen Lunissa breezes out of her car with her usual faint smile and multicoloured gauze skirts.
So, everyone except the dragon and marine orders are represented. Xander’s mother didn’t reply to our invitation, of course, as she remains in her treasure haze over Drakos Estate. The usual marine candidate is, of course,tied upat the moment, thanks to Katerina’s lusty greed. They are seated at Mace’s dining table, served canapés and a light lunch before Mace sets his napkin aside.
“Your big announcement,” Ablo says, clasping his fists at the table. “Surely you have wooed us enough, Mace.”
The serpent king smiles thinly at them all. “My big announcement,” he says gravely, “is that?—”
Irma, the slightest of the group, is the first to succumb, her entire body going stiff, her eyes going wide as she comes to a realisation. As if she feels my fangs sinking deep. Her own healing will try to fight the venom, so we dosed her the hardest and she’ll have to be dosed regularly from now on. The wolf queen’s mouth opens in shock before she too goes still as stone. Petrified within her human body. Ablo jumps up from the table before stumbling backwards in horror.
“Is that,” Mace repeats, “I am taking over.”
“What have you done?” Ablo clutches his chest and gasps.
I throw my shadows away. Emerging from the corner of the room into full view, I give the feline regent a little wave. He goes ashen. “Basilisk venom paralyses the victim upon penetration, eventually killing them,” Mace drones as if giving a eulogy. “However, when consumed in micro-doses, it puts the victim in a suggestible state. As such, when consumed in larger doses, it can put a beast in a catatonic state. You can still hear, see, and feel everything…but you cannot move except to breathe and blink. In a few moments, you also won’t be able to makeyour own thoughts. Effectively…” Mace takes a deep, satisfying breath. “You are now mine.”
“The others will not accept this.” Ablo fights my venom, but his speech is strained. “They will rise against you. The tigers?—”
“Naturally,” Mace says. “Tiberius Clawson will take care of the tigers. As for the rest—this is why we will make a statement.” Charlotte returns to the room with a camera and tripod. “One by one, the big houses fall,” Mace continues his sermon. “And the world will remember those beasts fell bymyhand. A superior species.”
Whosehand? Because it couldn’t possibly bemy venomthat did it? “Thesuperior species,” I agree.
Mace does not turn away from the scene. “You know what to do next, General.”
I bow low and change honorific for dramatic effect. “With pleasure, YourMajesty.”
Chapter 5
Aurelia
There must be something about shifting into a dragon that gives a girl the audacity of a cis-gendered white man.
An old version of me might have exploded into a thousand pieces or shut herself in a cavern under the school. It’s funny because I know those options are still there. They’re just not appealing anymore.
Back in my pack’s suite, I pace up and down the length of the sitting room where my best friend dramatically recounts the morning’s events. “Andthen,” Minnie pipes, holding a whiteboard marker between her fingers like it’s a cigarette. “She goes, ‘I did notmisspeak, Mr Rufus.’”
“I did not misspeak!” Stacey shrieks, holding her own face in both hands. “Holy shit!” Eugene gives a cock-a-doodle-doo of agreement.
“Anyway,” Minnie says, tapping her marker against the full-size whiteboard Marduk levitated before the dining table ten minutes ago. “We need an action plan for the rescue.” In the middle, she’s written: OPERATION CROCO-DOWNFALL. “Step one is to see how we go about breaking the spell on this regina-swap thing The Collector has managed. We’ve contacted ourhyena witch friends for a consult,” Minnie says, putting a large tick against her first point. “Where are we on that, love?”
Marduk clears his throat and straightens from his dining room chair. “The Dabu clan will be here in an hour.”
“Great,” I say, nodding my thanks at the tiger. “Anything that can be made, can be un-made, right?”
But as it turns out, the making of spells is more complicated than I thought. When Hyacinth Dabu and her two mates arrive, grim-faced and sombre, we explain exactly what happened down to the sprinkling of my powdered bone. At that part, the room starts shaking again, the pain in my leg shooting down anew. I rub my thigh, channelling my power down into it instead of around.
Hyacinth sighs as she regards me, her brown face the picture of concern. “The matriarch of our order is both manipulative and precise. I’ve always known she was powerful, but this is something no one has ever seen.”
My stomach turns. “So what? New spells are invented all the time. We have the formula. In it must be the solution.”
But Hyacinth gives me a knowing look. “This isn’t serpent magic, Lia. There is no writing in venom; there’s no code. Hyena magic has always been…mysterious. Full of myths and legends and old wives’ tales.”
“And bone powder,” I mutter in disgust.
“But,” Hyacinth says, meeting my eye, “there has always been one foolproof way to undo a spell.”
