“We came for you.”
Her head whipped around at that, silky purplish black hair swishing around her slender shoulders. A smile he doubted she meant to be sexy despite the fact it was curved her full lips. “If you came here to take me back to Imortia and gain Fairuza’s favor, I’m afraid to tell you you’ve just completed a suicide mission.”
“I didn’t come here to return you to her.” Addix stood, stepping in front of her. “I came to ask you to help us kill her before she kills us. All of us. Me, you, my people, and your wolves.”
TWO
Zaira studied the man before her. He still looked as good as she remembered. Smooth, light chocolate skin, a shadow of black hair crowning his head, golden toffee Asian eyes and firm, soft lips she still remembered the feel of despite the amount of time that had passed since he’d branded her as his so long ago and doomed her forever.
The man who now held the spirit of a unicorn inside him. How could she trust a word he said? Unicorns were the purest creatures in existence and only the beholder of the blackest of hearts could ever harm one. As much as she’d loved animals, she’d never even thought of approaching a unicorn, let alone possess its spirit.
But how could she doubt his story when it was the same as hers? Although she had the power to capture a spirit, she hadn’t taken the white wolf inside her. Fairuza had punished her to a life of knowing she held a beautiful animal’s spirit captive inside her, a life of fearing for the race of werewolves that had started because of her.
It made sense that if Addix had betrayed her, slept with another woman despite being Fairuza’s consort, she would punish him in a fashion just as cruel, if not more vicious than the way she’d punished her.
“You don’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone.” She met his gaze. “You think telling me that Fairuza is going to kill my children is going to scare me into taking your side with no reservations? I’ve lived under that threat since the moment she cast me out of Imortia. That threat was the last thing she said to me. I wake up every day and fall asleep every night with those words echoing in my head.”
“Then join me and help me end the threat.”
“How are we supposed to do that? I can’t even get into Imortia and she’s not stupid enough to fall for it if we try to lure her anywhere else. Besides, I have to protect my children from the danger here.”
“I can get you back into Imortia. Your precious wolves will be safe forever once Fairuza is dealt with. All you’re doing now is waiting for her to pull the trigger and snuff out their lives.”
“Is that the way you think it will happen?” Zaira looked down at the wolf pack, imagining them just dying instantly in one large mass. No rhyme, no reason. Just instant, senseless death.
He stood at her side to follow her gaze. “I know enough to know the danger is not here. It’s back in Imortia. To protect them, you must go there.”
“No, the danger is definitely here.” Zaira stepped away and walked a few paces before turning to face him, needing the physical distance. He smelled too good, sparking a memory of young love and foolishness best left pushed into the back of her mind and buried. Her wolves needed her full attention. “Two threats are here. The first threat is that we will simply die out. For many years now, more males have been born than females, and fertility problems plagued the packs. I’ve worked my magic, bringing soul mates together in order to increase chances of offspring, but the males still outnumber the females.”
“Interesting.” Addix’s brow arched in thought.
Zaira frowned at the interruption, then continued to the more pressing matter. “The real danger here is because of the hunters trying to kill my wolves. Attacks have grown more frequent and far more deadly. I’ve brought all of my packs together here so our numbers are greater the next time the hunters come for us.”
“All this worry about humans? From this realm?” Addix chuckled. “Even normal wolves can rip a human apart, and what is this ‘we’ business? Humans can’t kill you.”
Zaira closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, calming herself before responding. “First, I can be killed with silver just like any other wereanimal. Second, I may otherwise be immortal, but my children are not. They are nowhere near as powerful as you and I. Third, the hunters are smart. They know how to track us and they know to shoot us with silver. Fourth, I say ‘we’ because my wolves are my children. They are my family. If they die, I have no reason to live. The hunters have been closing in. I will not leave my children to fight alone.”
Addix looked over at her, brow furrowed in confusion before returning his gaze to the realm beneath them where their people remained. “So Fairuza cursed your wolves with mortality as well?”
“As well?”
“None of the people with me are immortal. It was part of their punishment. Fairuza took their immortality away. I, of course, kept mine. Death would be much too kind for someone cursed with a unicorn spirit.”
“She really wanted you to pay for eternity.”
He made a sound deep in his throat, too rough to be a laugh. “I paid every day I had to serve as her consort. I thought there could be no greater punishment, but I had no clue what she was capable of. I would have never betrayed her.” His eyes heated as his gaze rolled slowly over Zaira’s body so intimately parts that hadn’t felt anything in decades tingled with electricity. “Ironic though. No matter how much I hate what she did due to it, I don’t regret the act itself.”
Zaira crossed her arms, aware of the sudden tightening of her nipples. Damned if she’d let him see it. “Well, I wish I could say the same but I have regretted that act every single day since it happened. Had I known you were the queen’s consort, it wouldn’t have happened. Funny how that little detail never came up.”
“You didn’t ask.” He gave a one shouldered shrug.
“One wouldn’t think a queen’s consort would have outside relationships,” she snarled.
“One wouldn’t, would they?” He turned away, looking down at their people. “You really think the danger here is more imminent than the threat Fairuza made to kill them all?”
“Yes.” Zaira pondered over his response to her comment, but decided it wasn’t worth pursuing before securing her wolves. They were her greatest priority. “In fact, I think this is part of her revenge.”
“How so?”
“She wants me to suffer for eternity just as she wants for you to. You care only for yourself so she gave you the unicorn spirit. With me, she knew of my love for wolves, of family. She said she was giving me my own people to rule so I’d learn what it was like to be in her role, but she was just giving me another family to lose. She knew I would care more for them than myself and that the rest of my life would be miserable due to constantly wondering when it would happen. What moment will I lose my family? That question is whispered in my mind with every breath I take.”
Her eyes burned with unshed tears. Dammit. She blinked them back, refusing to appear weak before the man who’d caused her to be in this situation. After a prolonged moment of silence, she glanced his way to see him watching her, his eyes clouded with a myriad of emotions.
He blinked, clearing the clouds, and turned his gaze away again. “So why do you think these hunters are part of her revenge?”
“Because she doesn’t want the death of my children to be fast. First, she did something, worked some magic to curse them with fertility problems and more males being born than females. And I think she sends the hunters. She’d rather kill my children off slowly, so many at a time, so that I’m always watching over them, always worrying. I don’t think she’d ever kill them off in one big mass killing. Not when she can prolong my pain doing it the way she’s been doing it all these years.”
He nodded, seeming to find the logic in her theory. “And if she is sending the hunters, do you think you have a chance at beating them forever?”
“I’ve been doing this for hundreds of years. We’ll continue to or I’ll die try
ing.”
“And you know for sure an attack is coming soon?”
“Very.”
“How can you be sure?”
She simply arched a perfectly crescent shaped eyebrow at him.
He laughed. “Magic. Of course. You were always powerful. That’s why Fairuza hated you so much.”
“Oh, is that why?” she asked dryly, not bothering to point out his part in her banishment again. “Look. As I’ve clearly explained, I have urgent business here. I can’t come with you to Imortia, even if you supposedly have a way to get me in. Now, please kindly remove your band of shapeshifters from my pack’s realm and be on your way.”
“I don’t think so.”
Zaira growled low in her throat. “Don’t bring out the wolf in me.”
He grinned. “The one I shut down not that long ago?”
“How did you do that?” It had never happened before. To her knowledge, it wasn’t even possible for someone else to make a Were shift back into human form without their consent.
“It’s part of my abilities. Unicorns, despite being magical themselves, have a way of nulling other magic. I can, in a sense, remove a Were’s beast. It hurts like hell so I don’t do it unless necessary.” He looked at her curiously. “It didn’t seem to hurt you, but I imagine that’s because you’re so powerful. Honestly, I only intended to remove Merta’s dragon. You got caught in the crossfire.”
Zaira thought about this, remembering the incident. “You healed the dragon shifter by touching her with your horn.”
“Hence why unicorn horns are so valuable. One of the reasons, anyway.” He turned to face her fully, eyes full of arrogance. “One of the reasons why you need me.”
Now it was her turn to laugh. “I need you? Your dragon almost roasted my children.”
“My dragon can roast your enemies.”
Now that sounded good. Zaira considered it. “You’re saying you’ll fight at our side?”
“Why not? We’re all Weres here.” He nodded his head toward the others in the realm beneath them. “Did you not notice that the majority of my people are female? Maybe your males will also find some good, fertile mates. My people have been imprisoned most of their lives, thrown in prison at a very young age after refusing to bow to Fairuza. Most of them lost their families, as did you. You know what that’s like. They’ve spent their lives fighting to survive. A little romance, or even just mating, would probably do them some good.”
As good as that sounded, Zaira couldn’t overlook the obvious. “They aren’t wolves. Can they even produce offspring? And if they do, what monsters will they create?”
“Like I said, my people are not immortal. Many down there are offspring of Weres originally created by Fairuza. Those original Weres are long gone. Weres don’t have to be the same species to mate. So far, I’ve never heard of a hybrid species so you don’t have to worry about monsters. For example, if you and I mated, our child would either be a wolf or a unicorn. Not both.”
He was a wolf. Zaira swallowed hard, pain slicing through her heart.
“So what do you say? We help you defeat the hunters here, maybe even help create some new pack members in the process, and then you help me end Fairuza’s rule?”
Zaira shook her head, bringing herself back to the present, to her children who still lived. Whose protection she still could provide. “It’s tempting but there are a lot of issues to consider. I’m not sure my wolves will welcome non-wolves into the pack, or even how these other Weres would blend in. I don’t even want to think of what would happen if someone in that realm saw a dragon.”
“Earth is known for its crazy UFO-spotters,” Addix commented with a wink. They both knew those UFO-spotters weren’t so crazy. “My people know better than to shift shape in the open in a realm unused to it, and there’s a fifty-fifty chance offspring would be wolves. Besides, you’re their queen. Is the decision not yours?”
Zaira’s jaw clenched reflexively. “Fairuza may have given me my own race to rule, but I am not her. I watch over my children and protect them, but I do not control them.”
Addix frowned at this, seeming confused by the prospect, but soon a small smile crept onto his lips. “Interesting. So what’s your plan? A mass vote?”
“I’ll speak to my pack leaders. As if they haven’t had enough of a shock today.”
“You really think seeing a dragon shifter was that shocking? Surely you’ve told them of Imortia and all the creatures that inhabit it.”
“No.” Zaira sighed. “Before today they’ve never known much of me other than the fact they are protected by a white wolf. This was the first they’ve even seen my human form.”
“Seriously? Why?”
She penetrated Addix with what she hoped was a glare promising of death. “To tell them where I came from and how they were created through me would include telling them of Fairuza’s promise to kill them all. No one is to tell them that. Understood?”
Addix nodded reluctantly. “Fine, but you have to explain me and my people somehow.”
“Yes, I do. Funny how your presence always causes me trouble.” She raised her hand and the air around them rippled, forming a portal between realms.
THREE
She’d decided to hold a meeting with the pack leaders, and then let them tell their respective packs the news. She hadn’t planned on there being pack leaders when she’d been banished and started this race, but it had happened naturally. Every Were held a bit of wolf spirit inside, and the instincts and characteristics of that wolf lived in them all.
She admired the men before her though. Yes, there had been bad leaders in the past, leaders who let the power go to their head and caused more wrong than right. She’d worked her magic and aided the wolves in removing those bad wolves from the pack, and from the realm altogether. For the most part, the men who became pack leaders were of high moral character. Strong, brave, caring, and loyal.
“I know you must have many questions.”
Jason spoke for the quartet. “The pack is confused and anxious.”
“I can understand. That is why I’ve brought you. They won’t be confused for much longer.”
Jason nodded, and the other three pack leaders, Samuel, James, and Joel, followed suit.
“First, I know you must be curious as to who these strangers are and how they are able to shift form into animals you’ve never seen.”
“And how this one knew your name, even when we did not,” Joel, ever the suspicious one, added.
Zaira nodded, hating the look in the pack leader’s eyes. She knew him well enough to know what he was thinking. Could they still trust her? Who had her loyalty? The pack leader was big on loyalty, and so was she, which is why they knew so little about her. She did it for their protection, and she did it out of fear. She kept the truth about the curse hanging over all of them to herself. Their lives would be sad and hollow if they lived every moment knowing death of the entire Were race could happen within a blink of an eye. It was bad enough she ate, breathed, and slept fear of death. She wouldn’t be so cruel as to allow them to do so as well.
“This is Addix. He and I are old … acquaintances.” She ignored the heat of Addix’s hard gaze as it burned into the side of her face. She wouldn’t romanticize their relationship, not when he’d been the queen’s consort and had led her to her banishment. The brief moment she’d confused with love was nothing but an illusion and she wouldn’t make it out to be anything more than it was; a mistake.
“We come from a different realm, where the majority of our people are immortal. Yes, that includes the two of us. Immortal does not mean we can’t be killed, it just means it’s a hell of a lot harder to kill us and keep us dead. When I … left that realm I started a pack here. You are one of many generations stemmed from that pack.”
“And the unicorn?” Samuel asked, sizing Addix up.
“And the dragon,” James added. “How many different creatures are these things?”
Addix stepped forward
, a low growl rumbling in his throat. Zaira held out her arm, hand to his chest, holding him back. “Interesting. I didn’t think unicorns growled,” she quipped, in effort to relieve the tension now making the air thick.
“Unicorns, no. That part is all me.”
She swallowed hard, an image from long ago flickering through her mind. She quickly tamped it down. Everything she’d done with him had led to disaster. It was best to forget about it entirely.
“Addix and his people are shifters in the form of animals found in Imortia, the realm we came from. I’ll remind you that you do not like when humans think of you as monsters and ask you not to treat Addix or his people in the same way you despise.”
The pack leaders lowered their heads in shame, realizing what they’d done by thinking of the other shifters as some kind of creatures. They were shifters, and held part of their beasts inside, but they were still just as much a person as any non-shifter out there, in any realm.
“Especially since he has come to offer his aid to us.”
This got the men’s attention. Each pack leader raised his head, eyeing Addix in an entirely different way. She saw the thoughts through their eyes. How great a fighter was he? Were his intentions true? What skills did he and his people have? Would they help or hinder?
“Addix and his people are going to fight at our side, helping protect and defend us against the hunters. Imortians are powerful, highly skilled warriors and will be a great asset to us. Loyalty will not be a problem as he needs my help in return.”
“You are leaving us?” Jason’s eyes heated in anger as he glared at the man who would be responsible if she did.
“I will need to assist Addix and his people in a battle of his own so I will be with them for a time, but you know I am always with you no matter where I am. I weave throughout different realms so I am always near. That will not change.”
“You can’t protect yourself properly in battle with them if you are keeping tabs on us,” Joel said. “Even you, in all your power, can not be fully in two places at one time. In battle, you must be focused on where the danger is.”
Moonlit Majesty Page 2
