Atticus had already been true-dead.
“Shiloh!” the queen said sharply. “What happened?”
Shiloh blinked, her skin clammy, razors scraping, scraping, scraping inside her. They could see she was having control issues. Shiloh said, “The werewolf bitch. I saw her. She made the wolves attack me.”
“She spoke?” The queen leaned forward.
Some insane werewolf bitches lost language. “No. Whistled. Pointed. Atticus came to help. Five turned on him at once.” She stopped, the queen’s stare holding her. “I killed a wolf and got to my feet. Atticus was…” She fought vamping out. Fought the burrowing pain. Even Koun’s scent didn’t calm her now. “True-dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Jane said again. “I know you two were close.”
Sharing jokes. Sharing donors. Sharing everything and moving to being more. Heading to being lovers. “I don’t remember anything else.”
The wolf-woman’s eyes had held nothing but rage and psychosis. The razors and bloodlust in Shiloh were part of that.
Jane said. “You killed two more werewolves. According to the tracks, three badly injured wolves and the werewolf-human bitch left the site together. You secured three wolf heads, carried as much of Atticus as you could find, and crawled into a cave. You were comatose and feverish when the rescue party found you.” Jane glanced at Koun. “You did a number on him before he could subdue you. He was impressed.”
“I’m sorry,” Shiloh said.
Koun gave that almost smile again.
The queen continued. “Werewolf prions shouldn’t be able to survive in a vampire, but you’re a young vamp, and a witch. A witch-vamp-werewolf is a…singularity.”
Singularity, hell. She was dangerous. A ravening beast lived inside her. “I should still be chained in a scion room.”
Jane chuckled, though amusement never reached her eyes. Her tea sloshed over the Count. She put the mug down and wiped her fingers.
Shiloh wondered if the woman ever smiled like a human. Happy.
Eli wiped the outside of the Count mug and poured the queen more tea.
“Another night in a cell,” Jane said, “and your aunts would skin me and pin my pelt on the door. My Beast is too pretty to die.”
Shiloh laughed, but it was high-pitched, off-kilter. She finished the coffee and poured another. A servant entered, replaced the empty carafe, and withdrew. Before she realized she was speaking, Shiloh said, “I’m going after the males and the bitch-queen.”
Jane’s eyebrows rose. She lifted the Count mug. “Would you care to restate that?”
“With your permission, I’m going after the males and thewerewolfbitch-queen.”
“Thanks for the clarification. And no. We forbid it.” The royalwe. A pronouncement.
This had just become an official tea, not that Shiloh cared. “They did this to me,” she snarled, her lips curling. Her fangs tried to snap down. She clenched her teeth and, for one hard second, fought the need to vamp out and attack, the razors scraping, the insanity making the room spin. She wanted action, violence. She said, “I want the bitch’s head on a pike.”
“While we approve of vengeance,no.” The queen propped her elbows on her chair arms, her tea mug fully hiding her mouth. “Because they bit my scion—you—and killed Atticus, the males you killed each had a fifty K bounty. You earned one hundred fifty thousand dollars. You’re injured, so you’re done. Three other scions want the bounty on the remaining wolves.”
“They’ll need me to track and identify the wolves.”
“Why?”
“We’ve been through a full moon since I was attacked. What if the bitch made more? I’ve smelled the three who attacked us.” Shiloh drew on the scent of Koun and repositioned, mirroring the queen’s posture. Forcing calm. Negotiating. Hiding the raging wolf slavering inside her. “The werewolf bitch directed the attack. That makes her—what’s the word? Responsible, but more?”
The queen said, “Culpable.” Without looking away, she asked, “Koun, your evaluation?”
The queen’s executioner turned icy eyes to Shiloh. Ancient Celtic tattoos swirled blue above his collar. “She smells, looks, and acts sane, my lady. Shiloh has skills most undead do not. When her aunts evaluated her magic this past week, they found it to be rusty but functional. She can make amulets preloaded with witch workings. Though she knowswyrdworkings by heart, she has never attempted them. She passed Eli’s remedial paramilitary course and is capable of working with a team.”
More slowly, his voice sliding like silk across skin, he said, “She killed three werewolves single-handedly. She gave me a black eye. She has untried physical gifts that indicate she is faster and stronger than she allows us to see.”
A black eye?Shiloh’s eyes darted to his face.
