Black Queen: Stray: Fated Mates Paranormal Shifter Romance (Shifters Among Us Book 1)

by Lidiya Foxglove

  Celtic jam 7-9

  Today’s Special:

  Lamb shank with grilled leeks & mash

  Soup:

  Curry Sausage

  Seasonal Beer:

  Deer’s Revenge Spiced Autumn Ale (Local)

  I drew in a deep breath of meat and potatoes and the grainy smell of beer. Some of Ian’s friends were playing tonight, tuning up instruments. His guitar was parked to the side of the cramped stage, and people of all ages were jamming the booths for a weekend night. It was all so nice and normal, and it gave me one of those strange moments of awareness that lots of shifters had pretty good lives here. They didn’t even need a savior. Maybe it would only make things worse if the prophecy came true. Prophecies. How dumb anyway, right?

  “How did the job go?” Ian asked, leading me to his booth. He already had a few appetizers ordered. “I already ate my fill, by the way, so have at it.”

  “I need this so badly right now, you don’t even know.”

  I needed the sight of him too. The dimples in his cheeks when he was grinning, which was most of the time. The way he was leaning on the table, looking ready to just hang out with me and only me for a minute. The way his brown hair kept flopping across his forehead and he would push it back, again and again. I pondered how guys couldn’t just put on a hairband or some barrettes when their hair got too long, and snickered at the thought of putting one of my old pink barrettes with the two lovebirds in his hair. Then I thought of running my own hand through his hair and felt embarrassed. Get a grip, Frankie. You just killed some dudes.

  You killed Angus Maclaine.

  I still couldn’t process this idea.

  “Eat up,” he said. “You’re too skinny. I feel proud when I get to feed you.”

  I shoved a bacon-laden potato skin in my mouth even as I dredged a mozzarella stick through marinara at the same time. “I’m glad, because I’m about to shovel everything in my face with as much politeness as the fat kid from Charley and the Chocolate Factory.”

  “Rough day?”

  “Um…the job. The job was weird.”

  “Weird? At least you’re all in one piece.”

  “Yep. I try my best to stay that way.”

  “I worry about you a little, sometimes,” he admitted.

  “I’m okay.” My toes squeezed in my shoes, containing all my nervous energy. He worries about me?

  “I mean…I should be doing your job.”

  “You’re a wolf,” I said. “You couldn’t do my job.”

  “You know what I mean, though. He’s trying to give us a better life, my dad, but then he takes advantage of orphans and strays.”

  “You’ve gotten perceptive as you become an old man,” I said cheekily. “But…” I shrugged. “He taught me to fight, or at least, Troy and Stella did. He makes sure I have what I need. It’s better than going to a cat cafe. It’s not like he owes me anything. What is he supposed to do? He’s smart to want you to have a better life, and I would do the same damn thing in his shoes. I was just a kid on the street.”

  “Such a badass,” he teased. “Walking the mean streets.”

  “Well, I do. I don’t want to grow up to be a pushover.”

  He looked at me for an overly long second. I think he was trying to decide if this was an act or if I really was tough. I couldn’t have answered that either.

  “Garrett’s waving at me. I’m gonna play,” he said.

  “So I’m gonna watch.”

  “Deal.”

  Ian had always loved music. Both of his parents were perplexed because neither of them seemed to have an artistic bone in their bodies. He often called himself the adopted child, jokingly. He looked just like his mom. Otherwise, he didn’t match the rest of his family. I guess that can happen when you’re the first person in your family to head off to an elite boarding school in New England.

  Roy and Lacey didn’t seem like they knew whether to be proud of Ian, or horribly embarrassed by him. On one hand, I’m sure they saw what I saw, and what anyone with half a brain would see. Their son was clearly the superior member of the family. He was well-spoken, considerate, and interesting, while they were none of the above.

  On the other hand, they sent him to school hoping he’d become an engineer or a biologist or a lawyer, and instead he came home with a guitar. His grades were good. Aunt Lacey was proud of that. But if you talked to him, it was clear that he used his history classes for song ideas and his science classes to spin ideas for a sci-fi novel he was thinking about writing.

  Last time he left, Roy said, “I raised a fucking nerd.”

  I didn’t see Ian as a nerd. I saw him as passionate about something he loved, and I envied him. He seemed happy. Seeing him was pure and refreshing like water. What would it be like to feel happy like that? I wanted to take that feeling and wrap myself in it.

  I was blushing again. It didn’t hurt that he was so cute. Boyish with his dimples and wrinkled clothes, but he did track and field at school and I knew he had a nice fit body. When he came home for summers it was hard not to stare at legs that seemed longer and fitter every year of high school.

  For a band of guys in their teens and twenties, Ian and his friends were pretty good, or maybe I just had no idea what good was, but the crowd was enjoying it. The Celtic reels and jigs were all upbeat, music for stomping and dancing, and although I only heard them when Ian was home, I was starting to know a few words. I sang along when I didn’t have a mouth full of cheese stick.

  Ian’s friend Garrett was older and had a mature, low voice. Ian’s voice was more clear and pure, but it was definitely a man’s voice now. When I used to hear him sing, he sounded sweet and insubstantial, but he was sounding like an adult now.

  The guys did a few ballads and then the musicians switched up a little. The Celtic jam at O’Malley’s was attended by about twelve regular players and whoever else those people knew who might blow in for a night; it was somewhere between an open mike night, an open jam and a dedicated performance.

  Ian came back to our booth and ordered coffee.

  “So how’s Vermont?” I asked.

  “It’s great. I hope you can go there someday. No, I shouldn’t say it like that. You definitely will be able to go there when you’re older, and you should. Burlington has a shifter heritage festival that just happened.”

  I sighed. “I was born in Boston. I hear it’s better north of here. But it’s hard to even imagine.”

  “It’s real,” he said. “And you don’t even have to be Mormon.”

  “Hee. Your mom just chewed one out a couple months ago.”

  The one state that was fully part of the US but where shifters were still almost entirely free was Utah, thanks to a group of bird shifters who joined the Mormon church early on. Sometimes, no matter where you lived, you’d get a bird shifter on a bicycle coming through the neighborhood. They were all nice, but we did joke about it.

  Desiree, a thirtysomething hipster chick with dyed red hair and a haunting voice, was singing a mournful ballad about the death of the “bonny witch of Bray”, and my ears suddenly pricked to the line, “And when the three queens rise again, the weary witch will rest, like all the shifters in their graves, the lonely dispossessed…for when the queens take up their swords, to take revenge they may, I’ll know that there is justice for the bonny witch of Bray…”

  “It got somber in here,” Ian said.

  “Yeah. Sad song.” My hands were tight around my coffee mug.

  “Your people are known for their sad songs,” he said, with a little smile. Ian was Italian on his dad’s side, French and Jewish on his mom’s side, while I had the most Irish name imaginable—Frances Mary Flanagan. But I was disconnected from any kind of family history since my mom died so young. Ian said he read that memories are in your DNA whether you knew your family or not.

  “Do you think all that stuff about the prophecy is real?” I asked.

  His eyes narrowed with amusement. “I think it’s highly unlikely
anyone’s going to save us. We’ll have to save ourselves.”

  “But if, like, they did appear, do you think they actually could help all the shifters?”

  “I wouldn’t envy them. It’d be a hell of a job. I mean…how could three people possibly fix all this? What would that look like?”

  He wasn’t making me feel any better. “I guess you can be pragmatic because you have a future anyway. You don’t have to dream about anyone coming to save us.”

  What was I saying? It was almost like I wanted to believe the shifter queens were real and that things could really change.

  “You don’t need to put your hopes in some fairy tale,” Ian said. “You’re smart enough to figure out something for yourself. I believe that.” He paused. “Save your money. Try to do something besides working for Dad.”

  “I’m thirteen,” I said dryly. “But I’ll talk to my broker.”

  “Thirteen,” he said. “Shit. I mean. I knew that, but…I forget how young you are when you’ve got such a mouth on you.”

  “Maybe someday I’ll take over for your dad,” I said. “You’re not going to be doing it.”

  “It doesn’t have to be a legacy business,” Ian said. “Just let it die. All he does is spy on people and scam them anyway.”

  By the time we were leaving, the restaurant was emptying out. Ian shrugged on his coat and then looked at my thin long-sleeved shirt. “You need a coat?”

  “No. I run pretty hot.”

  “So says the girl hopping around and rubbing her hands.” He handed me his scarf instead. “It did get cold once the sun went down.”

  We walked home together, of course, since we lived in the same house.

  “Roy’s giving me my own apartment,” I said.

  “Is that legal?” Ian said.

  “It’s not like I’ll be alone. He’ll probably give me the place next to Stella’s. It probably isn’t that different from boarding school.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be glad not to share with the Emster anymore.” Ian’s attitude toward his sister was mostly annoyed, unless she was in trouble, and then he’d do anything for her. It was an endearing quality about him. I knew he’d be an awesome boyfriend.

  I nodded.

  We were walking right on that borderline time of night, when “good” people hurried home to avoid the nocturnal types. Shifters could see very well in the dark, so the city was active 24 hours a day, but all of the more upright citizens conducted business in human forms during human hours. By the time you hit midnight, the streets were prowled by shifters in animal form. I was already seeing a few of them, and you wouldn’t see that by day. Some shifters preferred to live their lives like animals, hunting smaller prey and even raiding trash cans. They took pride in distancing themselves from human standards and morals. A lot of them were also addicts of some kind. Psychologists said it was a way of coping with the traumas of shifter life. But it didn’t really matter what psychologists said because few of us could afford them.

  “When I used to come home I didn’t notice how different it is here,” Ian said. “It’s like every time I come back I’m more…conscious.”

  “It’s not so bad here.”

  “But…it actually is.” He frowned. “Really.”

  It rubbed me the wrong way. I wanted to know that it was bad. Or maybe I didn’t. Either way, I wasn’t going to Vermont anytime soon. “Well, I guess you’re just spoiled,” I said.

  “I’m not denying it.” He patted my head. “Hey. I just want you to hope for something that can actually happen.”

  Unlike the prophecy, huh? “Okay.”

  When we got home, Uncle Roy was on the phone and he was watching the door.

  “Hey!” he said. “What the hell happened over there, Frankie?”

  I felt a chill go through me. Good god, I was so busy crushing my face off over Ian, I’d almost entirely forgotten about Waylon.

  Every lie I’d ever told in the past and felt bad about, I didn’t feel bad about now. That was just practice for a time when I absolutely had to lie. “Okay, well, what happened is that I got to the warehouse and Waylon was raving drunk.”

  “And no sign of Angus?”

  “No sign of Angus.”

  “Angus Maclaine?” Ian froze in the middle of taking off his coat. “Dad, you sent Frankie to a hunter?”

  Roy waved off his concern. “Bobby says Waylon just staggered in the door with no memory and he can’t see, his leg is bleeding, and he barely made it out of there alive. You didn’t stop and help him?”

  “I was scared! He was acting so weird! I was afraid he’d hurt me!”

  Roy looked like he wanted to tell me I was being a baby and we protected our own, but then just as quickly thought, Ehhh, it’s just Waylon Silver, so fuck it. “Bobby, if your son can’t control his drinking that isn’t my girl’s problem,” he said into the phone, holding it away from his face like he already expected yelling in return. It was moments like these that made me not hate Roy. “You should just be glad your boy didn’t get killed by Angus.”

  He’s actually alive because of me, I thought. But no credit for that.

  “Anyway, you thought Waylon was just out drinking and you were right. I didn’t send her there to intervene. Just to check on him. She’s a spy. She’s little. If Waylon raped her or something there would be hell to pay.”

  “Waylon might as well be dead!” Bobby shouted back. I could hear him shouting through the phone. “He’s blind as a bat and he can’t remember a thing. How the fuck did that happen? He went blind from drinking too much? He’s always been fine! And Waylon would never rape anybody!”

  “I don’t know what your ‘fine’ kid might do when he’s drunk! Fine. Take him to the hospital. I don’t know what he’s on right now, but he’ll be all right in the morning.”

  He hung up.

  “He has no memory and he can’t see,” Roy said. “What the hell was he drinking, bathtub gin? I’m sorry, Frankie. That isn’t your fault.”

  “Thanks. I did feel bad for leaving him there. But…he’s…” Guilt gnawed at me. When I saw Waylon, not only was he sober, but he fought so well that I couldn’t help but admire him. But his sight would probably come back soon. That wasn’t supposed to be one of the shifter queen’s powers…was it?

  What do I really know?

  You’re not a shifter queen. No, no, no. Don’t even go there.

  “Dad, you were going to send Frankie to a hunter?” Ian repeated, louder than before. “She could be killed!”

  “Any of us could be killed. But Frankie is tough as nails. She’s careful. She won’t be killed. Anyway, I had a feeling Angus wouldn’t be there and he wasn’t. But we did Bobby a favor, and when he stops feeling pissy about it, he’ll know that. I owed him one.”

  “You owed him one. Not Frankie.” Ian’s jaw was tense. My heart thrummed. “I’m not going back to school. If there’s dirty work to be doing, I should do it.”

  “What!” Aunt Lacey screamed from the other room.

  “We have worked hard to keep you out of this world,” Roy said. “And now you’re soft. Frankie won’t get killed, but you will get yourself killed. I want you to be soft! I want you to enjoy yourself. I have no doubt Waylon will take over for his father, but he’s also a fourteen-year-old drunken asshole! You will go back to school if I have to put you in a straitjacket and shove you into the cargo hold of that plane.”

  Ian looked pissed as he breathed in deeply and then shot back, “I’m not soft.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “I don’t want to just be packed off to some dream world while you’re taking advantage of other people’s kids. If you kill Frankie, I will kill you if it’s the only violent act I ever commit.”

  “Frankie, go home,” Roy said, thrusting keys at me. “This is a family thing.” He looked at me like I would get out, or be shoved out. I shot a worried look at Ian and he said,

  “It’s fine. Go. I’ll figure this out.”

  I ste
pped outside, with this reminder that I was not really a part of their family. And I don’t want to be, because the last thing I want is to be Ian’s sister…

  I clenched the keys in my hand, more relieved than anything. As long as Waylon didn’t remember what happened today, I was safe.

  Chapter Three

  Frankie

  Brooklyn Heights, Istara, 2018

  On the subway, on my way to Coney Island, I read the letter from Ian twice through.

  Just getting settled in here in Munich. My apartment is tiny but the view is pretty and it gets a lot of sun. You’d like it, if you were a house cat. Europe is definitely a little more progressive than America on the surface but there’s a streak of Medieval terror, like, “the wolf is here, bar ye the castle!” (I don’t know how they would talk, I’m not a linguistics major.)

  Just between us, because I think you’re the only one who can understand how I can be a little unhappy living what I know is a lucky break of a life, it’s strange to be here in a land of music while I’m studying law. Admittedly, it’s not “my” music. In fact, I don’t really know my classical for shit, unless it’s appeared in a movie, but I’m going to drink it in on the side. Some of my friends and I took a little field trip to Salzburg (on the German-Austrian border) to see the birthplace of Mozart. Box of chocolates enclosed. They’re famous there.

  This letter already sounds pretentious. Honestly, I wish you were here. You’d appreciate some of this even more than I would. I feel like an ass talking about Germany while Dad’s keeping you there doing the jobs I should be doing. Even though I know you’re going to insist you can handle it.

  My replies were pretty short, but he kept sending me longer emails than I sent him. Of course, he had stuff to talk about and I didn’t.

  Mostly, I was just happy that he hadn’t stayed here. I knew I’d never convince him that he was on the right path, but I was grateful that Uncle Roy forced him to keep going to school, and then to university, and then to get a master’s degree. I wanted him to be safe. I wanted him to have a good life. He would always be my teenage crush. But our worlds were different, and I didn’t want him in this one.