***
I woke, lying on my side, on Bruiser’s fancy rug beside my bed. My face was on his pillow, my body swaddled in blankets. Bruiser was behind me, cradling me. I had been here long enough for someone to wipe the tears and the snot off my face.
Exhaustion weighed me down like lead in my veins. Breathing hurt. Bruiser stroked my hair—which felt different, but I couldn’t say why—and down along my shoulder. He knew I was awake. My tears started all over again.
When I could talk I asked, “Eli? Did he shoot Grandmother?”
“No, my love. She got away.”
“Aya?”
“He is well.” Bruiser kissed my fingertips.
“Storm? Derek?”
Gently, he said, “Gone.” When I didn’t open my eyes, he added, “Derek’s body has been taken by honor guard to the funeral home. His men have gone to tell his mother that her son is gone. Storm was collected by Pearl, Opal, and Soul. I understand that they are taking her to the rift and placing her into it so that her energies can return through it.”
“Adan?”
“Vanished when Opal and Pearl attacked.”
“Why?” I meant why did Adan kill Derek, and Bruiser seemed to know that.
“We think he’s the one who stole Derek from HQ. We think it was a test of the security system, someone to question, and a challenge.”
Someone to questionmeant torture. Derek had been tortured. “Find Adan. Find who he’s working with at HQ. Start with Raisin. She smelled wrong.” The next part came out as a growl that vibrated in my chest. “They’re mine.”
Bruiser breathed a soft laugh. “I never doubted that, My Queen and my love.”
I was so tired my bones and joints ached. It even hurt to breathe. “Imma take a little nap right here. Wake me when y’all figure out who my enemies are at HQ.”
Bruiser kissed me on the cheek, and I felt pelt between my skin and his lips, and the soft scrape of beard. He muscled upright to a knee and toes, his arms on either side of me.
“I failed,” I whispered into the air between us.
Bruiser rose to his feet. “You did not fail. We did not know the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses and so could not adequately prepare. Now we know, and you will make the Mithran world quake with fear. Youarethe Dark Queen.Le breloquehas chosen you.” With those words, he left the room, shutting the door silently.
I was left with the reverberation of his words and the memory of Derek. Dead. Storm. Dead. The humans the sniper had killed. Silently I cried myself to sleep.
***
Like a vampire, I woke at dusk. I was pretty sure it was the foundation-rattling snore that woke me. Apparently when I have a muzzle and sleep on my back, I’m noisy. I was utterly certain that the boys would tease me unmercifully, but that thought vanished as the memories washed through me.
Derek. Derek was dead. Storm was dead.I was going to war, starting in HQ.
I tossed the blankets and sheets into the corner because they were covered in cat hair and dried filth. I stripped and showered. Only when I was clean and my pelt rubbed half dry did I look at myself in the mirror. I was... interesting.
I had a full golden pelt all over, except from under my chin, my boobs, belly, and along the inside of my thighs. Some parts that had hair as a human were bare. Weird looking. Somehow I had put on thirty pounds of much needed muscle. I was cat-faced, full nose and muzzle, fangs that would do an ancient vampire proud. Claws that terrified even me. I flexed them out. My finger claws were huge and sharp enough to rip armor. I’d have to be careful, or I might hurt myself. I had shoulders like a linebacker. Thighs of solid muscle. Calves that were so well defined it was as if this new body had been chiseled from stone. Or concrete and roadway.
I had a cat face, cat ears sitting high and taller than usual, with unusual tufts at the end, like a caracal cat. My long hair was gone, a fact I had realized when I showered. That was strange. It was now short and kinda mane-like, almost like an African lion, but running down my back to my waist and black as tar. I reached up and tried to get a claw underle breloque. I cut my forehead. That sucker wasn’t coming off, and my head was bruised from sleeping with it on. Which was a totally unimportant and, considering the loss of two of my friends, irreverent thought. I let my claws resheathe and studied myself again. I was terrifying. In a way that I had never viewed myself, in a way that only another monster would view me, I was dangerous. I wasfearsome.
When my enemies saw me, they’d poo their pants.
“Okay. Time for war.” I blow-dried my pelt, which took way longer than I liked, and dressed in the scarlet armor. But no boots because my paw-feet and claws were bigger than before. I extruded the claws on my toes. Yeah, they’d eat through the boots, even the specially made expandable combat boots. But the paw pads were tougher than usual, so I’d go barefoot.
I weaponed up. Every weapon I had, including thenewer Benelli spine rig and its shotgun, which someone had retrieved from the SUV and put on my bed while I showered. I had put on enough mass that I had to loosen the rigs. I made sure I had my lucky gold nugget in place and put on the titanium gorget, layering the gold and citrine over it. It matched the crown.
I had never been pretty. But by all that was holy, I was badder than bad.
