She’d arrived the day after she’d been laughed off the phone, first by the initial cretins who’d taken her call, and then by the Captain. The Captain, the second-in-command who was supposed to be privy to her existence was clueless. He’d begun spouting idiotic remarks about scary bedtime stories for children and how she couldn’t possibly exist. If Cymbeline had a mind to, she would bet a fair amount of money that the Alphar himself was equally clueless regarding her role in his own society. Needless to say, the Captain’s firm disbelief pissed her off and resulted in an unfamiliar anger that had yet to abate. Acting rather radically, she decided to drop by The Mansion and surprise the Alphar.
No doubt he would have been delighted by the surprise, if his damn guards would do their jobs and find her. Hell, at this point she was not even trying to hide.
Cymbeline recognized that the unusual anger she felt and the bemusement brought on by the guards’ complacency had not come from a wise and tactical place, but from emotion, a facet of life she tried to avoid whenever possible. What was more, an odd feeling had crept into her chest over the past few months as her assignments had become increasingly asinine. It made her feel unsettled and agitated, a foreign emotion after years of training to be an indifferent soldier.
It had been drilled into her from a young age that emotions were weakness and would only get her killed. Her trainers had never forced the edict on her, but as she matured and accepted the nature of her lot as the Incendiary, she’d come to agree with them and began to tailor her outward emotions to her benefit, to school and control them. Irisi was the only person, at least since Cymbeline’s childhood, she had met who allowed her to let go and just…feel.
Knowing all this, and knowing it could result in a fatal breach of control over her emotions, Cymbeline still wanted to strike back at the Alphar who had forgotten her. It was time to introduce herself, and while the method she chose to make herself known did not guarantee a successful escape, she felt confident she would at least come face-to-face with someone of importance in the Were hierarchy.
Cimby jumped down from the tree and strolled along the road that would lead back to the front gate, caching the small bag of provisions she’d brought among the branches and hoping she’d have a chance to retrieve it later. She smiled and waved at the guards who had finally noticed her. They seemed perplexed by how she got there all of a sudden and what this random person was doing just taking a stroll along the gate. The guards began to question her, casually at first and offering help, but as she ignored them she sensed their anxiety and annoyance rising. They commanded she stop and tell them who she was, but Cymbeline just kept on ambling around the massive property, slowly making her way to the front, as if she had all the time in the world. She couldn’t even see The Mansion from where she was due to the grounds’ extensive reach. It was a very grand and appropriate stretch of land for the home of the Alphar. Were Headquarters, or simply The Mansion as it had been nicknamed, was like the White House for Were society but with a lot more lawn. Shifters appreciated lawns.
After approximately twenty minutes of leisurely walking she made it to the front gate. The guards there had of course been notified of her stroll around the property and three muscular, armed soldiers awaited her by the entrance checkpoint.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” She stopped ten feet from the head guard, tipping her head in greeting, and innocently lacing her fingers behind her back.
“This is private property, ma’am. Are you lost? Is there something I can do for you?” The head guard asked, wary but not combative. All the guards wore a simple uniform of gray T-shirts and black cargo pants. Easy to move in. Easy to fight in.
“Why yes, sir. There is something you can do for me.” She hooked her thumbs in her belt loops and walked a few steps closer. “I have an appointment to meet with the Alphar.”
“The Alphar does not have any appointments today, ma’am.” The plucky head guard confirmed this as an underling pushed a clipboard in front of his face so he could double check that fact.
She nodded her understanding. “Oh, well, he is a bit late for the appointment. Three years late in fact. I thought I’d take some of the pressure off him and come to see what was keeping him.” She leaned her body forward slightly and lowered her voice, as if she were telling a secret. “You know how these new diplomats have trouble juggling their busy schedules.” The men looked slightly frightened as she returned to her upright stance with a wink.
They stared at her, puzzled, before the head guard asked, “What is your name, ma’am?”
“You can tell the Alphar the Incendiary is here to see him.”
They looked at her for half a beat, then towards each other before breaking down into low chuckles and snorts. They were trying to keep their dignity about them, but not hard enough. She’d expected this but it was still somewhat irritating. She was a trained assassin and could take this group of soldiers out without much effort. Not a bad thought actually…
“All right, lady,” the head guard said, dropping all formality and shooing her like some harmless pest. “You go run on home, now. The Alphar is a busy man.”
“Oh, I’m sure. I’m sure.” She nodded in sympathy and understanding once more. “But you see, as Incendiary—” They laughed again so she politely waited until they were finished. “I am allowed an audience with the new Alphar when he takes over the seat of power. I understand you wouldn’t be privy to this fact as you are menial task soldiers.”
“Okay, lady,” the head guard said angrily. It seemed as though his front-gate-guard status was a bit of a touchy subject. “We get it. You’re fuckin’ crazy. Now get outta here before I put you in a cell for the night.” He gestured in a shooing motion once again. She was going to break that hand.
“Ah. But you do not seem to get it— What was your name?”
“Robert,” he said with a sniff, bulging muscles tensing like a peacock fluffing its feathers.
Cymbeline subtly loosened her stance. “Robert, you are going to let me into that compound.”
Robert gripped his standard-issue tranquilizer gun and raised it to point at her. “Over my dead—”
“Don’t say it,” Cymbeline said with a quiet yet lethal smile. “You don’t want to dare me, do you?”
He snorted, glancing over at his laughing compadres with a cocky grin before turning back. “I dare you.”
Kerrick slowly walked the marbled hallways leading to his office, his barefooted tread audible to his ears but silent as the dead of night to those he passed. As a soldier in The Mansion, and later as Riddan’s Captain, Kerrick had always felt discomfited by the hard stone encasing The Mansion. Shifters need to be in wide-open spaces, free to run and feel the wind rustle through their fur or feathers, or scales and what have you. The hard walls and stain glass windows depicting ancient battles had given him the impression of a cold and beautifully untouchable prison. It was grand and immaculate to be sure, but only a heart of stone could thrive within it. The least nourishing environment possibly conceived for working shifters.
That was why the first major project Kerrick had undertaken upon gaining the Alphar power, the opening up of The Mansion hallways, donating of the stain glass windows to a shifter museum, and complete overhaul of the look and feel of a place meant to be a safe haven for lost Weres. He’d opened The Mansion doors for the first time in centuries to those in need, where previously you had to go through rounds of questioning and background checks to even come within one hundred yards of the Alphar’s territory. During the final years of Riddan’s rule, the only shifters who resided here were Riddan’s attendants and his soldiers. Now there were displaced families and solitary shifters too hurt or broken to remain in normal society. This was a place for them to heal at their own pace, or to find their strength once more.
Kerrick saw no point in throwing a shifter away, no matter how damaged they were from the harsh reality of
life. Riddan would have taken one look at some of the orphaned shifter-born adolescents now living at The Mansion and tossed them into the woods to fend for themselves. A fucking abominable act, the memory of the terrified faces he couldn’t save during his time as Captain often woke Kerrick in a pool of sweat and guilt. Riddan had been an insane monster near the end, and unfortunately it had been a madness that was unavoidable. He had only succumbed to the Alphar madness, an inherited psychosis that had taken its place hanging over Kerrick’s head the second he’d become an Alphar.
The only stable Alphars in existence, and stability was a subjective view, were those with mates. Kerrick would never dare to hope for a mate, for while she would be his saving grace, she would also be placed in constant danger purely by association. The thought soured his previously calm mood, which soured further as his phone pinged an incoming text message. The possibility of a shifter finding his mate was rare, the possibility of an Alphar finding his mate was almost nonexistent. Of the current Alphar powers in the world, only two were mated.
His phone pinged again.
In any case, Kerrick was too busy to think about mates. Hell, he was too busy even to have a moment of peace for himself. Stabilizing the North American shifter society after having devolved into chaos under Riddan’s toxic rule was a full-time job. And now there was the Vryks to consider.
Fifteen minutes ago he’d ended a teleconference meeting with one of the local pack alphas, claiming that Vryks had been seen loitering near his lands. Kerrick had needed to talk the alpha down, insisting that the first move was not to be made by the Weres. He had no problem with preparing for a strike and setting up the proper defenses, but he refused to be the Alphar that chose to go to war with the Vryks because his people were too hot headed to control their tempers. War would be the last and final option for Kerrick. He’d learned too damn much about unnecessary life loss under Riddan’s leadership. If anything, he learned how not to lead under Riddan. He chuckled bitterly as he came to a stop at one of the new open archways he’d had installed in place of the windows.
Kerrick basked in the rare, quiet moment when his blasted phone’s ringtone ricocheted across the hallway like an annoying flea. He held back a harsh curse, just needing a second when there weren’t five thousand issues or crises needing to be taken care of, and that only he could make the final decision on. It was even worse today as Rhiannon was off property attempting to negotiate with Mara’s Vryk ambassador, Carter, and not handling any of the incoming issues. Kerrick could handle some phone calls without Rhiannon, at least that was what he liked telling himself as the urge to crush the phone battled with his more rational proclivities.
In all honesty, even if Rhi had been present, his phone would still have been ringing nonstop. When Rhiannon was away on business, he would normally inundate her phone with annoyed text messages regarding the various issues that came up. But his cousin was a hard-working Lieutenant, and the land ownership issue she’d been tirelessly hammering out with the local Vryk clan was too important for her to reschedule, the consequences too severe if it didn’t go as planned. So far they’d been lucky each side hadn’t overstepped their boundaries, the mounting tension almost palpable for the packs nearest in location to Mara’s compound. He could handle a few irritating phone calls if it meant Rhiannon and Carter could come up with an understanding both Kerrick and Mara could agree on.
Nevertheless, Kerrick imagined turning his phone off and shirking his responsibilities for a run in the woods. With a heavy-hearted yet determined grunt, he pressed the green button and lifted the phone to his ear.
“Yes?”
“Alphar, we have a situation at the front gate.”
He stood at attention, looking beyond the archway and casting out his senses to detect any outward threats. Had the Vryks finally snapped their leashes and made a move? Kerrick didn’t jump to conclusion, however, as counting the front gate guards’ recent dubious history, he had his doubts this call held an actual matter of concern. “If this is about where I want produce deliveries again, I will come out there and unman you.”
“No, sir. It’s not. I swear.” The guard cleared his throat. “There’s a woman.”
“A woman?” He couldn’t help the growl that accompanied the question. A minute of peace, just one bloody minute. He finally understood why his mentor Grace became so annoyed when someone would interrupt her personal time.
The guard wisely ignored the growl. “Sir, she’s walking around the compound gate. She just appeared out of nowhere. We think she’s heading towards the front gate. She’s…to be frank, sir, she’s a bit off.”
“She’s human?” They couldn’t handle a single woman without his help? He needed new guards.
“No, sir. I smell Wolf.” Kerrick heard muffled shouting in the background. “She’s almost at the front gate now, sir, Robert is going to speak with her. Maybe she’s lost. What do you think, sir?”
“She is just one Wolf. Are you telling me my entire guard is incapable of handling one female Werewolf? Just because you think she’s off?” Kerrick rubbed his forehead, trying to ease the tension headache he felt coming on.
“No, sir,” the guard said nervously. But whether it was from Kerrick’s annoyed growl or the “off” woman, he didn’t know. “We’ll handle it, sir.”
“Keep me updated.” Kerrick ended the call and continued on to his office, thinking he’d need to hire and train an entire new team of guards for the outer perimeter if they flubbed any further inquiries. When he first took the position of Alphar, he’d been eager to implement radical changes for the betterment of shifter society in North America. Now he spent the majority of his time handling little irritants his staff should have been capable of dealing with. The problem was a consistent one, but he couldn’t take his anger out on them too harshly. They were all relatively new recruits whose formative years had been spent under the rule of an insane Alphar.
The stability of the Alphar affected the stability of the territory and those who held leadership positions within it. The leaders of his new soldiers’ packs had been corrupted by the poisoned power filtering down from their Alphar. The men and women come to serve Kerrick had no true role model. They’d only known discord and lies. Yet another issue he was facing across the continent, one he looked upon with equal severity as the Vryk incursion, destabilized and ill-guided youth.
He strolled into his office and shut the door with closed eyes. Solitude and quiet at last, at least that was what he’d hoped for.
“Alphar!” Fuck my life. “Kerrick, the front gate just called me talking about—”
“Some woman walking around the outer gates. Yes, I know.” He grabbed the nearest item, a small metal garbage can, and twisted it into a misshapen mass of prongs and metal, imagining it as the pounding headache beating at his skull. Kerrick released the warped metal, satisfied by the echoing clang as it fell to the ground.
Aaron was his right-hand man. The man he would trust above all others. He was also the man who was about to push him over the edge and into insanity if he didn’t get his big ass out of the room and give Kerrick that one minute of peace and quiet. Just one fucking minute!
“Leave, Aaron,” Kerrick said as he settled at his desk, keeping his tone level but tolerating no argument. There was a stack of papers needing to be signed off on that was reaching close to ten inches high. He needed to hire someone else to do all this, paperwork and red tape was not his forte. His strength was interacting with his people, even though he wanted to be far away from everyone at the moment.
Aaron lifted his meaty hands in surrender, recognizing the mood Kerrick was in, and turned to leave. His long black braid trailed down his back in quiet contrast to the custom designer suit he wore. The man couldn’t decide whether to embrace his charming business savvy or his wild, animalistic nature, so he’d found a balance between the two. Aaron’s phone rang the moment he placed his hand on
the door handle.
“It’s the front gate again,” Aaron said, seeing the caller ID.
“Just answer it,” Kerrick growled, slamming his fist on the table in an attempt to control his annoyance. The past month had put him on edge. There were Vryks taunting him just beyond the boundary of his land, Mara refused to negotiate any terms Rhiannon brought to Carter, his people were not yet stabilized after three years of detoxing from Riddan’s poisonous influence, and his staff couldn’t handle a damn lone Wolf. Kerrick felt his Beast rising, the teeth and claws of every past and present Were species fighting for control over his body, tempting him to give in to the power and make the people of his territory into slaves. This was the madness Riddan had succumbed to but only after hundreds of years as Alphar. Kerrick would not give in after just over three years. He pushed the power down, knowing if he didn’t excise control over the power it could spiral and injure those he loved most.
Kerrick took a deep breath, centering his mind and allowing the power to merge and roll like the ever-moving sea within him. He would not suffocate this power he’d been born to inherit, but he would not be mastered by it.
Aaron put the call on speakerphone, bringing Kerrick’s attention outward once more.
“Captain, sir!” A soldier’s voice rang out. “She’s— Ah!” The sound of the phone crashing to the ground echoed through Kerrick’s office.
Kerrick stood from his desk upon hearing the sounds of tranq guns firing and the muffled shouts of his guards in distress. He leaped across the desk and pulled Aaron through the door, the situation much more dire than he’d originally thought, cursing himself for not taking the threat more seriously. Perhaps the woman had been wired with explosives. Perhaps she was one of the rare Mage Weres, capable of wielding magic and controlling the elements. The possibilities for what this woman was and what kind of threat she presented to his people were endless.
To Mate an Assassin: The Lost Alphars Series, Book 1 Page 3
