“Smart.”
“Unicorns are known for their wisdom.” He shrugged. “The unicorn has made me a far more strategic fighter.”
“So you and Lana already had that little routine worked out?”
“No. Lana was in the right place at the right time. She doesn’t usually eat her victims, but her victims usually don’t have machine guns. In truth, she rarely shifts into her animal form.”
Zaira thought about this. “So you hadn’t known she’d take the shooter out? What was your plan?”
“I wouldn’t say it was a plan, too spur of the moment,” he explained, “but I was going to use the man’s shocked state against him. I was going to walk right up to the hunter and ram my horn into his chest.”
Zaira gasped as hot tears flooded her eyes.
“What is it?” Addix frowned down at her. “Is the goal of war not to kill the enemy?”
“War?” Tears dripped down Zaira’s cheek. “How can you even speak of war with the beautiful spirit of a unicorn inside you? Unicorns do not kill, they don’t ram their horns through the chests of men. How could you use that poor unicorn’s body to do something so repulsive to its nature?”
“What do you even know of unicorns?” Addix’s voice came out as a growl. “I’ve melded with the spirit of the unicorn killed to punish me. I know more about their nature than you ever will.”
“So unicorns are vicious killers now?”
“Vicious? No. Vengeful? There’s not a creature on earth, on any realm, that isn’t vengeful. And of all you know about unicorns, you know this. They are all about justice.”
“So you expect me to believe that the unicorn spirit you hold inside you actually wants to help you kill?”
“Sometimes that is the only way justice is served. And as I said, I’ve melded with the unicorn, just as you melded with the wolf spirit inside you. In Imortia, you would have never harmed a fly. Thanks to the wolf inside you, I know that isn’t true now. Do you hate the wolf for changing you?”
“How can I? It’s not the wolf’s fault.”
“And it isn’t my fault I now carry a unicorn spirit. The unicorn knows that. It knows who to blame. I’d be really appreciative if you’d recognize the real enemy here as well.”
He walked away, headed toward the Weres cleaning up the carnage in the clearing. Six feet away, he stopped and turned toward her. “Good call shifting back to human.”
Guilt rolled through her, nausea trailing in its wake. “You noticed?”
“That the hunter had just been waiting for the legendary white wolf to show? Yes, I noticed. I don’t know why you fear your own people knowing you, the real you, but your true form is the one they need to lead them. The wolf will get them killed.”
“How did he know I would appear? How did he know anything about me?”
“How do you think?”
“Fairuza. Somehow Fairuza is giving the hunters information.”
Addix nodded. “Now you see why it’s important we don’t prolong killing her.”
SIX
“Did you see the way she fried those hunters in one sweep? It doesn’t get any more bad-ass than that!” Mercury grabbed the hands of another body and pulled it to the growing pile in the center of the clearing.
“Somebody’s got a crush.” Jason laughed, lugging another corpse to the pile.
Rico growled.
“I’m just saying, it was pretty awesome.”
“One good deed doesn’t make her a saint,” Rico grumbled, kicking the head of the hunter he’d just dumped onto the pile before turning to retrieve another body.
“Kicking your ass doesn’t make her a sworn enemy,” Mercury responded, tired of his partner’s disdain.
“She didn’t kick my ass! And she’s a dragon. It’s not like it was a fair fight.”
“Enough, both of you.”
They turned to see Jason glaring at them.
“Rico, you don’t like the dragon shifter and that’s fine. You don’t have to. Mercury, you think she’s the greatest thing since free porn. That’s fine, too. She’s not a part of our pack. She’s not a wolf. We’re going to help The White Wolf and then these people will be gone. The two of you will still be my enforcers and I’m not going to listen to you bitch at each other every damn day so squash this shit.”
Mercury looked at his fellow enforcer and nodded. Rico held out his hand and he clasped it.
“Bros before hos,” Rico said, grinning.
“Yeah,” Mercury agreed, half-heartedly. He’d never liked the saying, but they were already on the pack leader’s bad side, never a good place to be, so he let it go. And a spark of anger flared in his chest at the thought of Merta being lumped into the ho category. He didn’t know her, but the name still pissed him off. The woman had saved his life. He owed her respect.
“Good, now that you ladies have kissed and made up, let’s get this mess taken care of,” Jason ordered. “I want to know what those two are planning.”
Mercury followed his pack leader’s gaze to where the unicorn shifter and the White Wolf stood at the edge of the clearing, speaking.
“Damn, she’s fine,” Rico commented. “Why do you think she’s never shown her human form before?”
“Maybe she knew pervs like you would be drooling,” Jason suggested. “Get back to work.”
Mercury picked up something in Jason’s tone, a wave of disgust that matched his own. Yes, the White Wolf, or Zaira, was incredibly attractive. Breathtaking, even, but thinking of her the way one might think of any other attractive woman seemed wrong.
“What are you thinking so hard about?”
He looked up to see Jason grabbing the ankles of the man whose wrists he’d just raised from the ground. The pack leader eyed him curiously.
“I guess I’m wondering the same thing Rico is,” he admitted, “just not for the same reason. I mean, all these years. Why not show her human form to us? Why always stay in the shadows? Hell, we didn’t even know her name or where she came from. Where we came from.”
“I’m sure she had her reasons.”
“If these people hadn’t come, would we have ever known her name? What she really looked like?”
Jason shrugged as much as a man helping to carry a dead body could shrug. “Honestly, would it matter? She’s always been The White Wolf. She’s always going to be The White Wolf.”
“And who the hell is that, really? Who and what the hell are we?”
“There’s a lot of talk going around. A lot of questions.”
Zaira didn’t bother turning to see the man standing at the balcony doors. She’d know the voice anywhere. Fairuza’s voice was not the only one to haunt her dreams for so many years. “I can thank you for that, too.”
“Too?” He sounded amused. “Everything bad in your life is because of me, huh? I did not create the woman who has made your life this living hell. We are both victims of the same monster.”
“Fairuza had no reason to hate me until you came along.” She stepped away from the seeing mirror she’d been perusing when he’d stepped onto her bedroom balcony and faced him. “How did you enter my realm? I have wards in place.”
“Even your wards can’t keep out a unicorn,” he answered coolly as he stepped into her room, his broad shoulders blocking out the eternal moonlight of her realm. “And you’re wrong about Fairuza. She hated you long before I came into the picture. She has feared you since the day you were born.”
At this, Zaira laughed. “I’m expected to believe that? Fairuza has ruled over Imortia for centuries. A baby couldn’t scare her.”
“Not just a baby. You. You were no average baby. You cast your first spell in infancy.”
“What?” She tried to laugh, but couldn’t produce the sound. “How would that even be possible? And how would I have not known? Someone would have told me.”
“No they wouldn’t, not if they cared about you.” Addix’s gaze lowered to the floor as he hid his hands in his pants pockets.
“What does that mean?”
“Your mother had an extremely hard pregnancy with you,” he explained. “You drained her daily to the point she couldn’t leave her bed. Healers were constantly brought in to help replenish the energy and mana you sucked out of her. They couldn’t restore it fully. No Imortian had ever had those difficulties during pregnancy.”
“I stole her magic?” Zaira frowned.
“You nearly killed her, drained her dry.” Addix sucked on his bottom lip, seeming to consider how to phrase what he was about to say. When he spoke, his eyes reflected compassion. “She was so weak during the birth, and the healers had to keep infusing her with life-saving energy so the birth wasn’t a normal one. There was a lot of pain, and a lot of … complications. By the time you were brought into the world, she was in such horrible shape, the healers couldn’t do anything.”
Tears ran down Zaira’s cheeks although she knew it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.
“She asked for you, even though her pain was excruciating. They gave you to her and you rested your tiny hand over her heart and it glowed. She quit crying, quit trembling, and smiled. She thanked you, and then she faded away, free of pain.”
“You sick bastard,” Zaira growled. “My mother died in battle.”
“That’s the story you were told.”
Zaira shook her head and stepped back. She needed distance to keep from clawing Addix’s heart out. Hell, if he continued with this story, she might need to be caged. “You’re telling me I killed my mother.”
“I’m not saying that. I’m saying you were so powerful it took everything she had to bring you into this world, and in her final moments, when she was overcome with pain, you took her pain away. She thanked you for it.”
Zaira lunged.
She called upon her wolf, but the animal’s spirit stayed caged. Knowing Addix was preventing her shift, her anger intensified. She improvised, beating his massive chest with her fists, snarling, even in human form.
He grunted a few times as her fists found purchase, but made no other sound as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight to his body.
Warmth spread through Zaira’s center, starting in the area of her heart and spreading out, and she grew sluggish, her jabs slowed. “What are you doing?” she asked, recognizing the foreign feeling as an effect of magic.
“Comforting you,” Addix answered softly as he continued to hold her tight. “I’m sorry I can’t take it all away, but I’ll do my best.”
She started to slide down his body, completely spent, and felt herself being lifted.
“I hate you.”
“I’ll protect you anyway,” he promised as she faded away, wrapped in the cocoon of his power.
SEVEN
She woke in her bed to find Addix standing at her balcony doors, staring out into the night. He’d said cruel things to her, provoked her, and when she lashed out, he tried to take away her pain and watched over her. The irony wasn’t lost on her.
“You did something magical, lessened my emotional distress.”
“No, I only held you when you needed to be held.” He commented, his back to her.
“Why did you do that?”
“It was never my intent to hurt you.”
“Is that why you didn’t fight me after I attacked you?”
“You are not my enemy, Zaira, and despite what you may think, I have never been yours. I never meant to cause you any harm. Then, or now.”
She thought about that. “Then why tell me such a horrible story?”
“Because you needed to know the truth, to understand there is only one enemy to you. There has always been only one enemy. Your focus needs to be on ending her, and it’ll be easier to do that if you stop trying to push me out.” He turned around to face her. “No one knows you like I do. No one understands what you’ve been put through, or why, like I do.”
“And why is that?” Zaira sat up and swung her legs over the side of her bed. “Why do you know about my mother? How do you have that knowledge?”
“The one good thing that came from being Fairuza’s consort is knowledge. She kept a diary. I knew something was deeply wrong with her, that there was something cold and twisted inside her. So I read it.” He shrugged. “You may frown on that but I do not regret doing it. I learned a lot from it. In fact, it was the greatest tragedy I’ve ever read.”
“And the story of my birth was in the diary?”
“Your birth, the real deaths of your parents, how she hated and feared you. Yes. It was all in there.”
Real deaths. Plural. It took Zaira a moment to breathe again. “How did my father really die?”
“Do you really want to know?” Addix asked, dark eyes solemn.
“Of course not, but I should know. The nature of my father’s death shouldn’t be a lie. It seems like a dishonor.”
Addix nodded. “He did die in battle, but not with invading forces. Fairuza wanted to control you. She wanted you and your father to live at the palace where she could keep you constantly under watch. He refused, not wanting to leave the home he’d shared with his wife, the home you were conceived in. I imagine he also had an inkling that something wasn’t right with Fairuza’s fixation with you.”
“She had my father killed?”
“She killed him herself. That was the battle he died in.”
“A battle over me.”
“Yes.”
“And you know this to be true?”
“To my knowledge, the only time Fairuza has ever been honest has been when writing in that diary.”
Zaira stood, nausea rolling through her stomach. “So you read this diary, knew what she was capable of, what she’d already done, and yet you were her consort? You slept with her? What does that make you?”
“Evil, had I actually done what you’re accusing me of,” Addix answered in a low growl. “I was not that woman’s consort by choice.”
“What? How could you not be her consort by choice? Consorts take a vow. Despite how powerful she is, she couldn’t force a vow out of someone.”
“No, she couldn’t, and it pissed her off to no end.” Addix glanced away, back toward the moonlit sky. “She saw me, wanted me, and therefore took me. I didn’t appreciate it, and I refused to submit to her.”
“You never actually took the vow?”
“No, and I never slept with her.” He returned his gaze to Zaira. “I didn’t tell you I was her consort because I wasn’t, not really. It was a title slapped on me like shackles.”
“Still, you didn’t think I should know about your connection to her? You didn’t think enough of my safety to let me know what I was getting into?”
“And I’ve regretted that. Not what I did, I’ll never regret that, but that you suffered because of it. I didn’t think she’d find out.”
“You knew she hated me, was afraid of me, and you didn’t think she’d be watching me?”
“I was watching you!” Addix yelled before taking a deep breath, calming himself. “I was the one assigned to watch you, to report your daily activities. I thought as long as I gave her false information she would never know my feelings for you.”
“Oh is that what you had for me?” Zaira laughed. “Feelings?”
“What do you think I had?” His eyes glittered with anger. “If I’d just been looking for someone to sleep with, I had Fairuza. I wanted you, Zaira, because I cared for you. I was willing to face her wrath if she found out I was seeing someone, but I swear I never thought you’d get caught in the crossfire.”
Zaira stood before him, studying him. The man she’d loved and hated, missed and regretted, worried about and wished she’d never met. She wanted to believe in him, to forgive him, to … love him? Yes, to love him. She wanted to love again, to feel that magic that could only be created from the heart.
But with great love came great pain, and she had already had more than her fill of that.
“I’m not here for selfish reasons,” Addix said, breaking
into her thoughts. “I wouldn’t have bothered you unless absolutely necessary. I know you feel betrayed. I get that. I hate it, but I get it. We need you. Imortia needs you. There are still good people trapped there under Fairuza’s rule.”
“And you think I can save them?”
“I know you can.”
“And you want my help because of the people of Imortia? To save them?” She studied the man before her. She’d fallen for him because he’d been alone like her. No family, other than a younger sister he cared for. “Is your sister still there?”
Addix’s eyes grew cold as he clenched his jaw, nostrils flared. “I don’t speak of her.”
That raised an alarm. “Why? What happened?”
“You have your family tragedy and I have mine,” he answered, and stepped over to the table she’d been sitting at when he’d arrived. He looked down into the seeing mirror.
Zaira rose from the bed and walked over to him, placed her hand on his shoulder. He quickly shrugged her off.
“What were you looking at when I came here tonight?”
She thought about pushing him, forcing him to tell her about his sister, but bit her tongue. He loved his sister. If something happened that he wouldn’t, or couldn’t talk about, forcing it out of him would be cruel. She’d blamed him all these years for her banishment, had entertained thoughts of revenge, but she wouldn’t want to cause him this kind of harm. She knew all too well the pain that came with family.
She straightened her shoulders, forced herself to get over his rebuke, and stood next to him. With a swirl of her hand over the seeing mirror, an image came to life. Her wolves. Their homes. The community they’d established.
“You watch over them constantly like this?”
“Yes.”
“What else do you do? All this time? Surely you’ve had a mate, a family, a life?”
“They are my life.”
He looked at her and she could see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to figure her out.
“Do you have someone?”
“Someone?” She arched an eyebrow in question.
Moonlit Majesty Page 4
