“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You didn’t see them!” Carson pounded his fist on the table. “You didn’t see what they’re capable of!”
Julian sat in a chair in the corner of the room, holding his chest, his eyes glazed over.
Oh yeah.
He’d just felt his father die. He was now the high master of water. Fan-freakin’-tastic.
“Silence!” Justice bellowed the command, and in the subsequent stillness, Rage growled and stood.
Everyone remained quiet as they waited for the alpha king to speak.
“Nai’s here, and she has information for us.” He scanned the crowd, pausing on the redheaded lion. “Let her have the floor.”
Rage turned to me, and I gulped as I took in the faces of those present: Rage, his brothers, the new High Mage Council, the alpha of each wolf pack, including my dad, and the leaders of all of the shifters who’d accepted Rage’s invite to return to Shifter Island. There were even a few of the lower mages represented, Jakko being one of them. I nodded to the mage, remembering how he’d tried to kill the king last time I was here.
Probably the most important roomful of people ever.
No big deal.
I sucked in a deep breath and then nodded. “Many of you know me as the alpha heir of Crescent Clan, but I’m also the high mage of spirit and fated mate of the alpha king.” Yep, a total mouthful of titles meant to impress. “I’ve just returned from a spirit walk to High Mage Island where I spied on the blood mages. I saw their queen…” I swallowed back bile. “…kill Kian.”
My gaze flew to Julian, who just sank lower in his seat. There were gasps from around the room, but I held up my hands to stop any questions as I plowed on.
“There are probably five hundred of them in total. Their plan is to come here, to the mainland of Mageville, in three days. They’ll capture—” I forced another swallow to push back the horror crawling up my throat. “—as many blood slaves as possible. They’ll seal off the portal exit to the human world in Montana so we can’t escape. They want to rule us all.”
The room erupted into angry shouts. Rage pounded the table with his fist, and the force caused a crack to run the length of the dark wood. His eyes flicked to King Ozark in apology, but the king waved it off as if it were a daily occurrence.
“We’ll not stand idle and let the bloodsuckers take our land or our people, but shouting matches will do nothing to bring an end to this war,” Rage said. “Cool heads must prevail.”
There were several murmurs, but then the room quieted once more.
“Now,” Rage said, with a glance to Noble, who held a pen and pad of paper in his hands. “Let’s go around the room and give our ideascalmly.Stay focused on how to get our homes and land back so we can keep these evil ones from wiping out our people.”
The group took a collective breath.
Wow. Rage was a good leader, much better than me.
For the next two hours, we went around the room each of us throwing out different ideas while Noble wrote them down. We discussed selkie-led water attacks, hawk-led air attacks, and even a mage going through the portal to Montana to get a hold of black market human weapons to use against the blood mages.
Finally, it was my turn.
I looked around the table, all of us sittingtogetherfor the first time in centuries,workingtogetheron a common problem.
“I see a lot of strengths at this table.” I nodded to the selkie king. “Your people are unparalleled water navigators and strong warriors.” Then I nodded to the hawk leader: “And yours are no less formidable from the air.” Then I looked to the lion leader. “Your people are fearless hunters.” I let my gaze fall on my fellow high mages. “And you have elemental magic that could turn this entire world upside down.”
They all nodded, puffing their chests up with pride at my praise.
My gaze then found Jakko, standing behind King Ozark. “And the mages from Mageville are industrious and clever—and too often overlooked.”
Jakko’s eyes filled with tears and he gave me a nod.
“My point is,” I continued, holding my hand out to stop the murmurs, “it’s true there are a lot of blood mages, but if we worktogether, if we pull all the mages in from Mageville and train them too, we can take our land back. We will not only win; we’ll wipe out these monsters, once and for all.”
The table erupted into a chorus of cheers, and I looked over to see Rage grinning at me.‘You make one hell of a queen.’
I rolled my eyes.‘Just because I’m your mate doesn’t make me queen.’
‘I’ve already commissioned a crown. New decree, by order of the alpha king and ratified by the pack alphas, the wife of any king alpha is a queen,’Rage said with a wink.
