City of Steelburgh
Nine thousand eight hundred fifty werewolves resided in Steelburgh. Correction, eight thousand five hundred five lived there. One thousand three hundred forty-five were unaccounted-for. One hundred forty-five more missing Muraco than originally thought.
“Are you all right?”
Oriana’s hand slipped into his, but he could barely feel her comfort over the disbelief of driving through a city surrounded by a gleaming seventy-foot high, twenty-foot wide steel wall.
“I know it’s shocking. I tried to prepare you. From the way you can’t stop staring out the window and how cold your hand is, I didn’t do a very good job.”
He’d never seen a more modern-looking city. Only Irongarde compared, except no tower of glass-and-iron claimed the center of the city, looking down on the citizens. But steel buildings were everywhere—homes, businesses, even the damn roads were made of steel. No trees. No flowers. Just endless miles of metal.
Yeah, Oriana had told him about the city of metal and Muracos. The white werewolves were everywhere, going about their day until they’d caught a glimpse of Oriana’s black limo driving past. It never failed. They stopped, snarled, and pointed when they spotted the car. The Matriarch of Steelcross’s flag, a steel gray spiral sun, was mounted on the center of the roof, leaving no doubt who the vehicle belonged to and who was inside. Despite the gawking and growls, no one dared to attack a vehicle made of, what else, reinforced steel.
“I-I had no idea.”
“That’s because no one wants to know what the Matriarchy does with Muraco after they’re arrested. Black werewolves don’t want to support a policy that condones the government-sanctioned killing of werewolves, but they also don’t want Muracos returned to their communities. Out of sight, out of mind, works for most people.”
“I thought only humans lived in Steelburgh. Everyone thinks that.”
“Not everyone. Their families know, probably their friends too. But most Muraco loses one or both when they turn into a white werewolf. They’re too dangerous for us to integrate them back into normal society. In good conscience, we can’t ever permit them to leave here.”
“I know but . . .”
The car stopped in front of a wedged-shaped building. Located at the intersection of Redwell Avenue and Fifth Street, the thirty-story building was the tallest in the city and headquarters to the Steelburgh Crimson Guard.
Oriana had never lied to him. There were simply parts of being Matriarch of Steelcross she couldn’t share with him until they’d married. She was right. Even after learning the truth about Steelburgh, he hadn’t wanted to know. So, he’d avoided asking questions he didn’t want to know the answers to, but which Oriana would’ve given if he’d shown an interest.
He hadn’t, so she didn’t. Until over thirteen hundred Murcao had disappeared, he’d relished his bubble of ignorance.
Closing his eyes, he leaned back, letting his head fall against the leather upholstery. Oriana still held his hand, even as she told the driver through the comm system to, “Return us to security checkpoint one, Nahara. Thank you.”
The Crimson Guard, one of Oriana’s Harbingers of Terror, and personal driver, made a sharp U-turn. Oriana never minded the witch’s questionable driving skills, probably because she drove the same way—reckless and perpetually in a hurry.
Bad witch driver aside, Marrok knew why Oriana had opted for a scenic drive around the city. It was the same reason she’d taken him to Bronze Ward before she’d begun renovations. To understand, not simply to know on an intellectual level, one had to see. Not from a distance but as close as one could get and be safe while having the experience.
“By the time this is over, I’m going to have so much werewolf blood on my hands, I won’t be able to wash it all off. But I needed you to see for yourself, to know I’ve done my best to keep them safe. And to keep everyone safe from them.”
Oriana tugged her hand, but Marrok refused to let her go.
He opened his eyes, unsurprised to find Oriana staring at her open palm, as if Muraco blood already stained the deceptively delicate hand.
“Your mother made you her damn warden.”
“Someone has to rule Steelcross.”
“Then it should’ve been her.”
“It was her for years. This is all part of what it means to be Matriarch of Steelcross. Irongarde is a larger realm has all the Muraco-only prisons, while Steelcross has the one Muraco city. She has the more difficult job, Marrok, but I’m the one who screwed up.”
Marrok wanted to hold Oriana, to comfort her the way she’d tried to soothe him earlier. He hadn’t been receptive then, and he doubted she would be now. So he listened without judging, interrupting, or trying to fix a problem he didn’t fully comprehend.
Oriana pointed out the window and to the steel wall. “How do you feel being in here?”
“Like a werewolf in a gilded cage. The city is beautiful in a sterile, morbid kind of way. It’s depressing and, if I ever ended up here, I’d want to jump from the Crimson Guard building and kill myself.”
Not hyperbole. He couldn’t imagine spending the rest of his life locked away, his mind and body imprisoned.
“That’s happened. But werewolves are damn strong, so falling from thirty feet didn’t kill them, although, with as much pain as they were in, they regretted the ill-planned suicide attempt. The collars aren’t effective on Muraco.”
“That’s not true, is it? You can increase the dose of magic emitted from the collars, can’t you?”
“Sure, if we want to fry their brains.” Oriana shifted sideways in the seat, her long coat parting enough for him to see her black-and-red Crimson Hunter body armor underneath. “I don’t need historical documents to know Grandmother wasn’t the only matriarch to perform experiments. The spells we use for Rage Disrupters are so specific to the genetic coding of werewolves it had to have taken years to perfect them. Think about it, Marrok. Imagine what had to have happened back then. Do you think werewolves volunteered to be test subjects? Or that witches got it right the first time or even the fiftieth?”
“I can’t see either happening. That is so messed up.”
“You do have a tendency toward understatements. The bottom line is that the slightest altercation in the spells will outright kill werewolves, turn their brains to mush, or invalidate the spells. I told you years ago that witches were the true monsters, but you didn’t believe me. You wondered why I didn’t step down from the post of Crimson Hunter when I became Matriarch, and again when I was pregnant with Keira. Do you understand now?”
Marrok thought he did. “Kalinda combined the two positions?”
“She’s always wanted me to become Matriarch of Steelcross. It’s what I’ve been trained to do my entire life. At the same time, Mother wants to keep me under her thumb for as long as she can. If I’m also Crimson Hunter, she can command me to do her will, and I must obey. When I’m acting in that role, we’re not equals.”
Well, shit. Marrok tossed around several responses, but all of them included words like “bitch,” “mercenary,” and “manipulative.” None of which he could say about his mother-in-law that wouldn’t end with Oriana defending her mother and them in a pointless argument because, dammit, Kalinda was a manipulative, mercenary bitch. Worse, she knew it and didn’t care.
Avoiding the impulse to retroactively protect his wife against a mother she’d never see through clear eyes, Marrok latched onto another thought. “You talk about me and understatements. What about you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Steelburgh is new and shiny, an old city brought back to life the same way you want to revive Bronze Ward. But this city was your first project, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, I told you—”
“You told me you watched over the city because it was within the larger Steelcross Realm, not that this was your brainchild the same way a collar-free Janus Nether was your idea.”
He smiled at his wife, proud of
the work she’d done on behalf of werewolves, even Muracos who, without this city, would still be languishing in either Moonblight Penitentiary or Dogscar Correctional Facility. Marrok didn’t know what criteria Oriana had used to select the inhabitants of Steelburgh or the capacity of the city, not that either mattered to their current conversation.
Oriana had told him to define the title of Cyrus of Steelcross as he liked. He’d been reluctant to do more than accompany her to meetings and to offer his thoughts when asked, which she’d begun to do with more frequency. Yet, he’d initiated none of those actions, he realized. Oriana had been subtly encouraging him to take an active role and interest in Steelcross affairs.
“Yes, they were all my ideas, but I didn’t anticipate the backlash. Mother trusted me to be Matriarch and Crimson Hunter, but I let her down.”
“How? What do you mean by backlash?”
Red streaked hair fell over Oriana’s face, her head dipping as if in prayer. Sighing, she breathed deeply, pushed hair out of eyes suddenly gone wet.
“You didn’t pay attention to the date on Solange’s report. You listened to what she said, her suppositions, but you were annoyed by then and didn’t pay close enough attention to the date she’d included in her report.”
Frowning, Marrok tried to recall the date. He’d seen it, but his mind had focused on the more important details of the report and what they could mean for his wife. At the time, the only numbers that had mattered were the ones that told him how many unmonitored Muracos were on the loose. He attempted to conjure a visual memory but couldn’t. All Marrok could see was Oriana’s tear-filled eyes, which he didn’t understand.
“Oriana why are you cr—”
“July 3, 2240.”
“What?”
“That’s the date the disrupters went offline. July 3, 2240.”
“But that’s the date of our anniversary.” He tried to piece everything together, not liking the puzzle forming in his mind.
Oriana removed her coat. The red from her body armor nearly the same shade as the streaks in her hair. “Do you want to know how over thirteen hundred Muraco escaped Steelburgh?”
After seeing the walled-off city, he had no idea how they had.
“The same way we entered.”
Magic filled the car, a familiar whip going around his waist, connecting him to the source of the magic—Oriana. Marrok’s stomach clenched, but the sensation didn’t have him puking up his breakfast.
He braced for a hard impact, one hand on the door handle, the other clutching Oriana to him. But the teeth-rattling, spine-tingling jolt never came. Opening eyes he hadn’t known he’d closed, Marrok looked at Oriana and then to the window behind her.
When they’d stopped in front of a smooth, unified wall, no door, gate, or obvious entry point, Marrok had cast a questioning look at Oriana. Then she’d given him a couple of minutes to prepare for the jump. This time, she’d given him none.
“Where are we?”
“Elio Desert.”
Okay, yeah, he could see the barren landscape, the pink hue of the sand breathtaking. But Steelcross didn’t have any deserts, but the full-human territory of Perilune Rille did. Oriana’s Whisperers of Echoes magic had taken them from the Southern Hemisphere to the Eastern, all in a single, only slightly nauseating, jump.
“Why are we here?”
“Because the only way the Muraco could’ve escaped from Steelburgh and had their disrupters removed was with help from witches. Not just any witches but Crimson Guards.”
“Your guards are loyal. They wouldn’t betray you or the Matriarchy. Why would they?” As soon as the last sentence slipped past his lips, he regretted the naïve question.
Backlash, she’d said. Janus Nether. Steelburgh. Bronze Ward. Cyrus of Steelcross.
Snap, snap, snap, snap, all the pieces fit together. Each was a canvas portrait painted with brush strokes of care and a palette of good intentions but hung in the homes of people who preferred reading to artwork. The change unasked-for, jarring, and unwanted.
“Oriana, I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t owe me an apology. Even if I hadn’t met and married you, I would’ve made the same decisions, been the same kind of matriarch, and challenged the status quo. My choices, Marrok.”
She was telling him to allow her the dignity of her actions, no matter the unanticipated results. He would, not because she’d left him no option but to agree, but because she wouldn’t be the witch he loved and married without her fierce heart.
Nahara’s dulcet voice cut through the silence. “They’ve arrived, Matriarch. Do you wish for me to stay in the car with Cyrus Marrok?”
“I’m not staying in the car,” he yelled. As loud as Marrok had been, no doubt Nahara heard him through the closed partition and without the use of the comm system. “We’re not arguing about this. The windows may be tinted but I sure as hell can see out. There’s at least fifteen Crimson Guards out there.”
“Nineteen guards, one healer, and two data technicians.” She grabbed his hand. “Are you sure?”
“That I want to stand by your side? Hell, yes, I’m sure.”
“No, not that. It’s just. Well, I’m Crimson Hunter.”
“I know.”
“You really don’t, but fine. Let’s go.”
Marrok reached across Oriana, opening the door for her like the gentleman she rarely gave him a chance to be. The woman had to do everything herself, including confronting twenty-two witches.
He followed her out of the limo, Nahara also exiting. The sun shone bright overhead, air thick, temperature uncomfortably high. The region, heat, and sun’s rays sapped the strength of werewolves but bolstered the magic of witches.
Witches in red-and-black armor stood in a semicircle, remnants of Whisperers of Echoes magic leeching away, a multi-pronged whip retreating to its source.
Solange, Captain of the Crimson Guard, strolled away from the group to stand between Oriana and Nahara.
Marrok positioned himself to Oriana’s left, his focus on the group of witches no more than thirty feet in front of him. They neither seemed shocked nor angry at having Solange rip them away from wherever they were or had been doing and dropping them in the middle of Elio Desert.
Removing his coat, socks, and shoes, Marrok tossed them onto the backseat of the car. He then proceeded to undress, every witch’s eyes on him except for the three to his right. If Oriana didn’t know what he’d meant when he’d said he’d stand by her side, his quick shift clued her in.
“What is this?” a tall, slim witch asked, her blonde hair cut short except for long bangs that covered one of her hazel eyes. “Are you planning on permitting your consort to attack us?”
Oriana stepped forward.
Marrok was tempted to do the same. He didn’t know what it took to push past the magic constraints of his collar and disrupter, but he’d find the strength to make it happen, if those witches attacked Oriana.
A gentle hand settled on his arm, far enough away from his sharp claws to avoid an accidental cut.
Her gaze never leaving Oriana, Solange leaned in close and whispered, “As Crimson Hunter, she’s duty bound to clean her own house. As Matriarch, she cannot allow a flagrant challenge to her rules to go unpunished. No one is above the law, Marrok, not even the witches sworn to uphold them.”
Marrok inclined his head to Solange. Just as there were practices and protocols unique to werewolves, the same was true for witches. If Solange and Nahara could stay on the sidelines without interfering, so could Marrok.
Maybe.
Oriana didn’t respond to the blonde’s ridiculous question. Besides being insulting to Marrok, as if he were a trained dog Oriana commanded, the question implied the Matriarch of Steelcross was incapable of handling the situation herself.
“You should’ve come to me, Abelone.”
Oriana dug the tip of her right foot into the unmarred sand. While he couldn’t see his wife’s face, no doubt she bit her lower lip—a
telltale sign of her anxiety. Was this the price Oriana had to pay for thinking life for witches and werewolves could be different, for envisioning a future where werewolves were more valued than feared, witches more egalitarian than controlling, and families more cohesive than splintered? If so, would she view the cost a worthy payment for a vision yet reached but a dream she’d still fight to achieve, or would she succumb to self-doubt, her sun eclipsed by others uninspired moon?
“Any of you could’ve come to me. Instead, you lied, violating my trust and faith.”
“You wouldn’t have listened.”
“No, Abelone. You say that, but you know it’s not true.” The foot digging into the sand stopped, Oriana’s body going still. “Unless you all think me a tyrant, then what Abelone said is bullshit. You didn’t speak with me about your discontent, not because I’m closed-minded but because it’s easier to fear and rail against change than it is to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work of rebuilding. Yes, that means making mistakes. But look at us.” She swung her hand in Marrok’s direction. “We make our men wear collars, and they submit because we’re all convinced there’s no better way to live and be safe. We’ve stopped trying to find a solution. Hell, maybe witches never tried because why fix a broken system that entitles us to so much, but condemns them to so little?”
“They don’t deserve your sympathy, Matriarch.”
Marrok recognized a handful of the Crimson Guards, not that he knew their names, and he didn’t know the healer and data technician at all. Perhaps the blonde, Abelone, was the leader of the group because no one else spoke.
“They’re in collars for a reason. We can’t trust them because they can’t trust themselves not to hurt us. The Muracos will remind everyone who and what werewolves truly are.”
Abelone pointed to Marrok, face red more from disdain for werewolves than from the sun beating down on them.
The way she threw her arms up at him, he thought the witch would turn her arms into deadly metal weapons. Apparently, so did Solange and Nahara because they stepped in front of him.
The physical threat never manifested, though, but Abelone had more to say.
Promise Forever: Fairy Tales with a Modern Twist Page 45
