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

by Lidiya Foxglove

  He didn’t answer, but just left, so…I assumed she did not.

  Flor pulled the hood off my head as they were leaving. Now we got a look at each other. I knew how I must look--a moderately handsome, generally unassuming guy who could have any girl I wanted, as long as she had acne, glasses and a sketchbook with some erotic drawings of anime boys.

  “I’m not brothel material whatsoever," I said. “As I think you can see.”

  “You’ve never been to a brothel, have you?”

  Flor, meanwhile, looked like a guy who carried a razor blade around and not for box cutting, listened to music with a lot of screaming, and probably had an on-again off-again girlfriend or boyfriend who kept coming back no matter how much of a dick he was. He had the hair of a cooler musician than me and crazy eyes.

  And he's a bird. His scent wasn't masked, and he had that delicate bone structure.

  I'd never met a bird that scared the shit out of me before.

  "Not a brothel," he said. He smiled, and wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. "A fighting ring. And you're just in time."

  "Fighting? I'm not...a fighter. Clearly."

  "We have a fighting class just for that," Flor said. "And I think it's the most exciting to watch. You're a wolf. About time you learned to fight, don't you think? What a waste of teeth and claws to tinker on a banjo."

  "I can make jokes about the banjo because I play one, but I'd rather you didn't," I said.

  Should I be making jokes to the guy who intended to make me jump into a fighting ring? Maybe not, but humor was the last defense of the useless.

  I told Dad I should have stayed here, learned to fight, to protect Frankie...and now I'm about to die thinking it.

  "Landon has a greenhorn he's sending over tonight," Flor said. "No fighting experience at all, just like you. It starts in an hour, but we'll save the two of you for second to last. The audience loves a greenhorn fight. Total betting wild card. Anyway, we need time for the drugs to work." He snapped his fingers and some big bouncer dudes came right over from the door like they'd been waiting for their own chance to manhandle me.

  "Wait a fucking minute!" I cried. "Are you sure you don't just want the ransom? My parents will pay good money. I'm not a fighter."

  "Yes, I heard you the first time," Flor said. "Your parents probably would pay more than I'll make on you before you die or are injured and taken out of rotation. That's true. But you're a wolf, and this world will never be kind to you. You have a chance, right now, to learn to fight and if you find your inner fire, then you'll never be in this position again. Besides…that’s no fun for me.”

  I didn't like the guy, and I didn't want to learn to fight like this. But there was a weird understanding between us in that moment. I didn't really want Dad to bail me out. I'd never felt right about abandoning my friends, my family and my neighborhood.

  Flor's wicked grin broadened. "Do your best tonight," he said, before waving me off and leaving me in tougher hands.

  I didn't fight them as much anymore. No point in that now. This fight was happening. I saw no escape. Maybe I'd win. Maybe I'd win the next one too. And when Frankie saw me again, she'd be all, You’ve…changed, Ian…

  As I was thinking of Frankie’s gloves stroking my muscles, a needle jabbed my arm.

  "Wait--I don't need drugs," I said.

  The guy guffawed. "I think you do. This will melt your fear away and give you energy. Without it, I expect Banjo Boy will be crying for mama in two minutes flat."

  "I'm really a guitar player, actually. I shouldn’t have said that stuff before. I get more stupid when I’m nervous. The banjo is something I'm just...." Never mind.

  "While that's working its magic, have a little whiskey. What's your name, kid?" He put a shot glass in my hand.

  "Ian."

  "Ian. Yeah, you look like an Ian."

  "And what's your name? Rex? Jax? Beef?”

  "Marcus. It's good whiskey, isn't it?"

  I held out the glass. "Yeah."

  He topped me off.

  I was starting to turn either very brave or very optimistic. Must be the drugs. I started thinking maybe I could win this fight and these guys wouldn't laugh at me so much anymore. Never mind that I had just been purchased in a financial transaction and the ramifications of that were probably a problem for me, now and in the future.

  "It's starting," Flor said after a bit, and I realized the dull pounding music had ceased through the walls. "If you want to come watch."

  "Don't piss yourself," Marcus said, laughing as he untied my hands.

  We walked out onto a small balcony with only room to stand and a cast iron handrail sloppily painted green. From here, I had an overview of a ring marked off with some partitions. It wasn't elevated or padded. The crowd was pressing in close to the fight and already yelling at the competitors. If things got wild, the crowd would go down with the competitors.

  Two scruffy, older wolves were circling each other, sizing each other up and growling. I wasn't sure which was more tense, the wolves or the bloodthirsty crowd. An announcer was playing it up even more.

  "This is the first time Shredder and Blaze have encountered each other since last November, where Blaze tore off half of Shredder's ear, so I'm sure Shredder is hoping to return the favor tonight. But he's been struggling all year in these matchups, getting knocked down by Golden in a fight uptown...on the other hand--oh! Shredder goes for the first move, trying to get his teeth around Blaze's scruff, but Blaze just dodges it... That was a close one! And he goes in again! Shredder wants revenge for that ear!"

  Pretty soon the two wolves had descended into a blur of flying fur and snarling, frothing mouths full of teeth that didn't hold back.

  It hardly seemed real to me. I couldn't comprehend that I would have to do the same in a few minutes. But I wasn't afraid. My heart was beating faster and faster and Cooley’s Reel, a fast-paced fiddle tune, was playing in my head faster and faster. I started having a sort of daydream that I was playing along with the fight and my fingers were moving so fast that Eddie Van Halen would weep while some heavenly fiddler was rollicking along.

  "You're up after the next," Marcus said, as I realized Shredder had actually won and was holding up Blaze's ear in his jaws while a guy hastily mopped some blood up off the floor. "So let's get you backstage, get you transformed. We don't want this crowd to see you like this. Don't ruin the mystique."

  "I like having two ears," I said. I wasn't really afraid of the rest, I just kept thinking that I needed to look cool when I saw Frankie again.

  "So win the fight," Marcus said.

  Flor was waiting for me backstage. He actually made me more nervous than Marcus. There was something in his eyes that spiked my defenses. Like he thought he actually did own me. A bird owning a wolf. I couldn't let that continue.

  "All right, you're going to change and then you'll pass through those doors and go right to the ring,” Flor said. “Your opponent will be waiting. I got a brief look at him in his human form and he looks more freaked out than you do, so if you keep it together, you'll be fine. The one rule here is, do not change under any circumstances. The audience wants to see wolves fight, and that's why they come and why they bet, and you break the spell if suddenly they're looking at a skinny nerd in jeans and a t-shirt."

  I was feeling very exploited. But still no fear, just adrenaline. "Got it." I didn't get to wolf out much. My body was ready for it, eager for it.

  I shifted, stretched a little to feel out the changed shape of my muscle and bones, and headed for the doors as Flor opened them for me. Some guitar rock was playing over the speakers as I entered the ring, the concrete floor cold on my paws and hard enough to crack a skull. My opponent had entered just before me, a smaller gray wolf with a darker muzzle. He already looked cornered before we'd begun, shivering against the partition.

  "Come on, Smoke, don't let me down here," a guy was saying over him. “You gotta fight for your dinner."

  "You can take him,
Thrash," Flor said to me.

  I snorted. Thrash? We didn’t talk about fighter names. Not that any of them sounded very creative.

  But I could take him. Yeah, I believed that I could. This was exactly the sort of thing Dad never wanted me to do, which of course meant a part of me really wanted to do it.

  A referee--who, judging by the last fight, didn't do much of anything--counted down from three and declared, “Fight!"

  It was happening very fast. The crowd was immediately screaming at us to do something.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, we've got ourselves two newbs here right off the street. Who is the alpha and who is the beta? Or...maybe they're both betas."

  I was looking at Smoke, watching him shiver, and thinking I needed to make the first move. How? What did I aim for?

  I was determined to be the alpha here.

  I paced to his side and he turned, growling softly at me.

  "Go! Go! Get him!" the crowd was getting anxious quickly, their energy so intense that it was making me feel like I was in a dream.

  Flor moved into my line of sight behind Smoke and gave a small nod toward his rear right flank. Maybe he was weak or open there. I couldn't tell. Tension and aggression wound tighter and tighter in me. The music sounded harsh bouncing off the big, uncarpeted room under all the shouts. "Come on already!"

  The coil inside me couldn't wind any more. I lunged, aiming for the back leg where Flor had pointed. I opened my jaws and bit his leg.

  Now he had to fight back. He pulled his leg out of my teeth, and I let him go, shocked by the taste of his blood. Had I meant to go that far? He tried to do the same to me, but I quickly moved to skirt away from him, running behind him now that he had moved away from the partition a little. Hands swept out from the crowd to touch my fur as I got close to them.

  "Get him, wolfie!" a young blonde screeched in my ears, hanging over the barrier. "My money's on you!"

  I jumped on him and bit his scruff. The crowd seemed to go wild at this move. Smoke tried to whirl back around to face me and I stayed behind him. We were driven into circles like we were chasing each other's tails and then he tried to attack me.

  He nipped my leg. The pain was slight but I wasn’t used to feeling any pain. My claws scratched against the floor as I scrambled back, hesitating only briefly before I attacked him more forcefully. By now I could tell by the way he moved that he was really hesitant and would probably freak out if I just went for it.

  On the other hand, he might be thinking the same thing about me.

  My ribs heaved as I had moved so quickly, and the room was feeling very hot.

  “Get him, Thrash!” “Thrash!” “Go!”

  This was reminding me very much of a really energized musical performance, except with blood and pain. But I felt nothing but adrenaline. I went for it. Face to face now, and I tried to bite him anywhere I could.

  There--got him by the scruff again. I really held on this time, pulling him down to the ground, baring his stomach. I got atop him and held him down with my paws on his chest and my teeth still pinning his neck to the floor.

  "One...two...three! That's a victory for Thrash!"

  "Fucking yes! Happy birthday to me!" the blonde girl screamed as others in the crowd also cheered and some cursed at Smoke.

  Smoke limped to the exit of the ring, where his—let’s say coach—started immediately chewing him out and smacked his head with a notebook.

  Watching that, I didn't feel quite as good about what I'd done, but then Flor waved me to him with a small, twisted smile that I guessed was as good as his smiles ever got.

  "Good job," he said. "Wasn't much of an opponent, but I see a real fighter in you nevertheless. You didn't get so much as a scratch, did you?"

  I shook my head. A scratch, maybe. But barely.

  "C'mon back and change."

  When I changed back, some kid immediately handed me a water bottle while Marcus patted my back. "Getting thrown right into a fight isn't easy. You did a fantastic job."

  "I don't want my fighting name to be 'Thrash'."

  "But you do want a fighting name." Flor was still giving me that smile.

  I downed the water. "The truth is, I'm looking for someone and I really need to find her. And I have a family and they'll be looking for me. I know I only won because the other guy was frozen in terror."

  "You won because you have something in you that wanted to win," Flor said. "But even if you didn't, I still paid money for you, and you're on my turf. You can make it easy on yourself...or you can make it hard."

  "C'mon, man. I'm looking for my girl."

  "You do good work for me? I find your girl no problem. Try to cut and run? Well, you'd better get that right the first time, if you’re going to do it. Or else no one will ever see you again. You're not in Istara anymore. This is your life, and I'm a good man to follow...as long as you do follow.” He glanced at Marcus and Marcus clamped a band around my neck. “There are people far more dangerous here.”

  I broke into an immediate sweat. This was one of those bands that keeps a shifter from transforming. If I tried, it would choke me.

  "Do you follow?" Flor asked.

  "Yeah, sure," I said, not hiding that I was pissed off.

  "Welcome to my world, Thrash."

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Frankie

  Tap tap.

  I screamed as a fingertip rapped the window right behind my head.

  Viktor was looking in at us.

  "What?" Waylon said, taking out his knife.

  "Viktor found me! President Castella! He’s right out the window!"

  "Drive!" Waylon said.

  "I think we already established that I don't know how to drive!"

  "Move." He climbed over me and put himself in the driver's seat.

  "Wait!" I screeched. "Don't you think...we should talk to him or something...before you just flat out kill us in a car accident?"

  "He wants you," Waylon said. "And I'm not letting him have my queen." He turned on the car and hit the gas, turning out of the parking spot onto the road. I had no idea in hell how he knew there wasn't a car in front of him or any traffic on the road. Or maybe he didn’t know.

  I wasn't sticking around to ask. I flung open the door and leapt out.

  "Frankie! Fuck." Waylon gave up on his own stupidity and slammed the brakes.

  "This has gotten more interesting," Viktor said. “I wanted Mina, but you're not Mina, are you?"

  "No, I'm not."

  "You're one of the other queens, aren't you?"

  "I don't even know what you're talking about."

  Waylon got out of the car and Viktor looked at him. "And who are you?"

  "Waylon Silver."

  "Silver. Your father was the smuggler who moved to the west coast. Profiting off pain and suffering from coast to coast."

  Waylon's hand found my waist and slipped around it protectively. I couldn't decide if I liked that just now, considering the circumstances. "Frankie is my girlfriend," he said. "We're just cruising around. She got in a little trouble earlier trying to crash a party," I said.

  "Ms. Merryweather was trying to trick you into thinking I was Mina, is that it?" I laughed. "I guess so you would waste your time on me and not her. And it looks like it worked."

  "I don't think you two are a couple," Viktor said.

  "I don't care what you think," Waylon said.

  "Let me say this. If you are one of the shifter queens, then like Mina, your identity will soon be discovered. The stars are nearly in position, and powerful people like myself will want to get ahold of you. Many of them will be here, among the humans. What do you think the US government would do with you? The top Hunters? Silicon Valley billionaires? Name anyone. The shifter queens are a threat or a boon to them. You'll need protection. When it comes to shifter-kind, I have the resources you'll need and a motive to protect you. I also know what you're meant to do and how to find your consorts."

  "Whatever you're talking about
sounds pretty intense," Waylon said. "So Mina is 'queen'? Of what? Is she supposed to do something important?" He sounded perfectly natural, like he really didn't have a clue. I was glad he was filling space. I felt pretty overwhelmed by my own curiosity.

  Stars? Consorts?

  Viktor sighed impatiently. "I do respect the attempt," he said. Then he pointed behind him. "I must insist you both come back to my place."

  "No thanks," Waylon said.

  Viktor looked at me and a shudder of complete terror went through me. I don't know how he made me feel even more intimidated than I would be if he'd pulled a gun on me.

  "There are too many things we need to talk about," he said.

  "I'm waiting for a friend here," Waylon said, as he felt the incredible tension in me.

  "Leave a note with the car. He can join you."

  "This is some disgusting magic to use on a fellow shifter," Waylon said, after a heavy pause. "I know you're commanding her."

  "You have some resistance," Viktor said. "You may be her consort. Still, if you want to stay, go ahead. I don't need to talk to you as much as her."

  "He is not my consort," I said, trying to resist whatever spell Waylon was sensing Viktor using on me.

  Was he using a spell? Was that what this was?

  Viktor is much more dangerous than Waylon so I should still stick with Waylon, my intuition said, but then I met Viktor's eyes and the thought seemed to whisk out of my head. Yeah, well, Viktor is rich and powerful and he can actually help me. Waylon is an asshole and also a nobody.

  "I do need to know...what being a queen really means," I said. "I'll go with you."

  "Frankie!" Waylon hissed. "He's manipulating you."

  "And you're not?" I shook my head. "Sorry. I guess you'll have to keep working on that whole plan to take revenge on me."

  Viktor started to lead the way and I turned to follow, but I couldn't shake off Waylon's grip. And maybe a part of me didn’t want to. He shifted his hand to my arm. His hand felt so strong and steady.

  "I'm going with you," Waylon said. "I'll send Ansel a message. You can't get rid of me."

  Viktor smiled at us, and he seemed completely relaxed, especially now that he had me--not that he had ever seemed to doubt it. "Well," he said, "that might be more true than you realize...if you are what I suspect you are."