by Chloe Cole
"Just listen." He unfurled the scroll and read:
You must return to Pinebrook at once. All of you, including the girl. We will meet in secret. Forces are at work you cannot possibly understand without my help. I have news about the king…A matter of lives and deaths.
The letter was signed with a scrawl and beneath it was a crudely drawn map and an X marking the spot in front of what looked like a small, stone water well.
I blinked, then glanced back up at Lucian. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, reeling from the news.
“I didn’t know if it was wise to tell anyone at all, to be frank,” he replied, his expression grim.
“I tend to agree, and am wondering why you did,” Gatlin shot back, his blue eyes alive with irritation.
“Wait a second. We need to be able to talk about things like this,” I began, rolling back on my heels to stand. “I don’t want secrets between us.”
“Some secrets are necessary. Lucian knew, just like all of us would, that you’d want to go because you would believe it could be a solution to our problem, but that’s out of the question,” Gatlin said emphatically.
"I agree,” Lucian said with a nod. At Gatlin’s satisfied grunt, he held up a hand. “I agree with both of you. I don’t think it’s wise to go, but I don’t want secrets either, and we make decisions as a group around here.” He shot his other two brothers a glance and raised his brows. “I vote that we keep moving. This smells like a big, fat trap to me. Anaya, Connor, and Michael, what say you?”
I glanced at Connor, feeling warm inside at Lucian’s words about not keeping secrets but cold with indecision over the choice we’d been faced with. Connor narrowed his eyes, then took the scroll from Lucian and read it back again.
“I’m sorry, brothers, but I think we should go. If she was for the king and was able to locate Anaya and Lucian with an eagle shifter, why didn’t she just turn them in? The creature could’ve led guards right to them. Instead, she sent a message to meet.”
“That was my thought as well. I don’t think she works for the king directly, but she could be trying to capture us for a ransom,” Lucian said thoughtfully. “I admit it, I don’t sense menace here, but I’m not one to trust easily.”
“How did she seem when you met her the first time?” I asked, aiming the question to Gatlin and Michael. “What was your sense of her?”
Gatlin shrugged. “I liked her, to be honest,” he admitted grudgingly.
Michael nodded his agreement.
“She was funny and kind and had a warmth about her. But still—” Gatlin said.
“She claims it's a matter of life and death,” I reminded them.
"Yeah," Gatlin looked from his brother to me, "the deaths she's talking about could be our own if we go back there. Like Lucian said, it could all be a set up for her to get her paws on the bounty on our heads."
I considered taking the scroll, if only to hide my eyes from all of them as they debated. Both sides made sense, but it was the mention of the king that had my mind churning.
More than my own fate, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was possible that this stranger could have information to topple Sebastian’s rule and save the rest of the girls in the harem from danger? If so, it seemed like a worthwhile risk, and out and out selfish not to at least try. Still, to trust the word of a woman I'd never met seemed more than stupid--it was downright idiotic.
The decisions weighed heavy on my heart as I tried to suss out fact from theory.
"It would have been a risk for her to contact us at all. If anyone found out she’d have been hung for treason…and still could be.” I scratched my head, ignoring the way my blunt waves pricked at my palms.
“Yes or no, Anaya?" Lucian asked firmly but not unkindly. “We’ve got to get moving.”
"I think..." I closed my eyes, breathing deep, trying to focus on my gut instead of my head. And when pressed, it gave a resounding answer that surprised me. "I think we should go. It's a risk, but if we can make a difference and save other lives, it'll be worth it. This was what we’d been hoping for. Information that would allow us to stop running and stand up and fight.”
Silently, we all turned to Michael.
"The tiebreaker," Gatlin said. "What'll it be?"
Michael frowned, looking from me to each of his brothers and back again. Then, after a long stretch of silence, he started to sign, his elegant hands sweeping through the air with singular precision.
Connor translated quickly. “If she has information on the king, it could mean our freedom. Anaya’s freedom.”
Gatlin let out a humorless laugh. “Or we’ll be leading her to her death.”
Michael rapped his hand on the stone between us and signed as Connor translated. "I still say we go. Too many lives are at stake. The rest of the harem, if he is truly killing them.”
"When you put it like that..." Gatlin sighed.
Lucian's jaw ticked. “He and Anaya are right. We need to take the risk or, even if we make it through this nightmare, none of us will ever get a good night’s sleep again if another one of the girls dies.”
My heart jumped into my throat, but I nodded. “Back toward the kingdom,” I murmured.
We quickly prepared and shifted into animal form before turning and heading north.
Back toward Ironhaven kingdom.
Back toward our enemy.
Back into the lion’s den.
Night was falling by the time we reached the outskirts of Pinebrook. We had shifted back to human form, rebound my breasts and dressed before beginning a slow but steady pace toward the village. The mood was pensive and I knew they were all as nervous as I was that we could be making a terrible mistake.
From the tree line, we peered at the lantern-lit, cobblestone streets before shooting each other a glance.
“So where do we go from here?"
Lucian reached in his bag for the scroll but only pulled it out a few inches and then tucked it back in his rucksack. "I know you feel more confident than Gatlin and I about this, but I still think we should take it slow. Do as we did in the last villages before we go rushing to the herbalist’s hut.”
“So you’re saying we pile into the pub and hope they don't recognize us?" Gatlin asked with a frown.
“Maybe not pile in,” Connor replied, “but I agree that it's a good idea to head into a pub and see what the locals are like. If this is a town that's as disloyal to the king as the ones we visited last, odds are this herbalist will be too. If the king just had some men here searching, the town will be abuzz with gossip and it can’t hurt to hear it. If there’s something fishy, I think it will give us a chance to smell it and if I’ve got to fight, I’d rather take my chances against a bunch of drunk villagers than the king’s trained soldiers that could be waiting to ambush us at the home of the herbalist.”
Michael nodded his agreement.
“I have to admit, I’ve been surprised so far to find that people are so quick to admit their distaste for our ruler,” I added. “Up north of the kingdom in the farming towns and villages near my home, that was definitely not the case. If there was discontent, people were much less vocal about it.”
“I think that’s because he doesn’t bother with you up north much so there’s less to dislike him for,” Connor replied, his tone matter of fact. “Every quarter, he sends an emissary to collect your taxes. Sure, you can bitch about that, but then you don’t see hide nor hair of him or his ilk until the following quarter. You’re even spared all the other gossip and bickering about politics. Down here where the towns are larger and have a mix of the common folk as well as wealthy merchants, the royals are much more active. More often you see a man’s face and hear his politics, the more strife. Makes sense they’re louder in their discontent.”
“Agree,” Gatlin said with a clipped nod. “And the voices have been rising more and more each year. After the Great Sick, his rules made a strange type of sense. Many clung to them in hopes that if everyone followed alon
g, we could heal as a people and avoid something as awful happening in the future. But the further away from it we get, the more arbitrary and self-serving his laws seem. Our own start to talk and then other shifters want to flex their muscles. It makes sense to me.” Gatlin scrubbed a hand over his stubbled chin and shrugged. “If you think it’s prudent, we can go test the lay of the land, but we can't walk in all five of us. There are images everywhere, now.” He thumbed the print hanging from the nearest tree.
“With Anaya in them and her long auburn hair. Notice we’re not on any of these.” Lucian gestured to several more like the first. “It’s like he doesn’t care about finding us and is focusing solely on her, which is puzzling. If it makes you feel better, we’ll split up like before. You, Anaya, and Michael can head in first," Lucian said. "Then me and Connor can hang back and join you in a while. We'll stay for a pint and see what we can see. If we get nowhere, we’ll leave and find the herbalist. What do you say, Anaya?"
He turned to me and I looked back at him with wide eyes. “All right.”
The others murmured their agreement and, together, Michael, Gatlin, and I strolled toward the center of town where a squat, stone building sat, the scent of hearty onion stew and dark, rich ale pouring from the windows. The smoke from the hearth was streaming out the chimney and I breathed deep, hoping to god there was a table near the fire because suddenly I was shaking like a leaf.
As it happened, we got lucky. Taking the seat nearest the little fireplace, I settled in, staying silent as Gatlin ordered us each a pint from a passing barmaid. Gatlin seemed to be focused on listening to those around us as I held my hands up to the flames, trying not to draw attention to myself.
A moment later, the barmaid returned, unceremoniously dropping off three pints as she shouted to the table of men behind us, laughing at something they'd said to her.
In the opposite corner, a little band of men with drums and lutes were setting up and I studied each of them in turn beneath my lashes, taking in their clothes and demeanor to see if there was any indication that they might be soldiers in disguise.
"I was wondering the same thing,” Gatlin murmured, noticing the object of my focus, “but it's these ones I'm interested in." He made a motion to indicate the table behind us as more chatter filled the air. “They’re talking about their homes and mates, mostly. But the devil is in the details and I don’t like how they carry themselves. Alert and seemingly guarded even though they’re drinking among friends.”
I lifted my arms high overhead as if I was about to yawn and took a surreptitious look over my shoulder.
He was right. They might not be the king’s soldiers but they certainly looked the part. All very fit and sitting so straight and proper. Until one of them let out a loud belch and a fart at the same time and the rest dissolved into belly laughs.
“Jasper sends his compliments to the chef, Bertha,” one of them called to the barmaid. They all laughed even harder and suddenly I wondered if we were just too high strung and being paranoid. Looking for trouble when there was none.
We were still seated, quietly drinking our pints, when the tavern door opened and Lucian loped inside, Connor at his heels. The two took seats at the bar a good fifteen feet from us.
Silently, I swigged a sip of my ale and tried to focus again on the task at hand, tuning into the conversations swirling around me.
"I ought to be king," one of the men was saying.
"You'd be a terrible king," his friend said.
"Not for the power. God, no. I mean for the women."
“Ah well, you’re in luck,” one of the man’s companions replied. “According to the guard that came yesterday, you’re in the same boat as the king this week. Women run away from you all the time."
The men laughed and I took another slug of my ale, trying to ignore the sudden guilty rush of heat at their mention of me. To them, I was a young boy. They had no idea I was the girl who’d run to avoid Sebastian’s clutches and the sooner I convinced myself of that, the more natural I’d appear.
"I wouldn't mind being one of those tutors, though, mind you," he went on. "They have it easy. Take the girl and give her away, then get a fresh batch. What better job is there?"
"Tavern wench," the barmaid cut in with a snort. "It's a living dream to wait on the likes of you lot."
"Oh, don't you complain, Bertha. You're in love with us all."
"Yeah, I'm positively falling over with lust." She rolled her eyes. "Now, are you going to keep drinking or have you finally had enough that you can go home and look your wives in the eye?"
"Another round then," one of the men chuckled, and as Bertha walked away he gave her a slap on her wide behind.
She hardly seemed to notice and I hid behind my pint as I shot Michael and Gatlin both a glance. Didn’t seem overly loyal to the king, at any rate.
Gatlin and Michael each gave me the nod, as if agreeing.
Redirecting my gaze, I found Lucian and Connor across the bar again and then stopped short as a girl my own age giggled at whatever Connor had said. She was in a corset so tight that it was a miracle her own breasts hadn’t put out one of her eyes. I rolled my eyes as I watched her stroke his arm and ask a question close to his ear.
Connor met my gaze from across the room and I downed my ale in one, determined not to let myself get jealous the way I had with Lucian and the peddler at the market. The men in my life were gorgeous, well-built and charming to boot. Women were going to want them and I was going to have to come terms with that.
As I talked myself down, a cheer went up around me and the band burst to life, singing a song I'd never heard before:
Our mighty king sits on his throne, a master with his skin sword,
That didn’t stop one o’ his wenches from getting ruddy bored,
He throws balls and feasts and parties for only royalty,
But if he were half as good with axes as he was at spending our taxes he’d have loads more loyalty…
Gatlin shot me a look from the corner of his eye and I nodded slowly.
This was exactly what we’d been waiting for. So maybe we still couldn’t be certain of this herbalist’s motives. At least now we had a little more confidence that this wasn’t some trick to entrap us, because the people of Pinebrook? Clearly thought our king was a bit of a joke, and my escape had only added fuel to that fire.
Maybe that was why he was so anxious to get me back.
Silently, the others finished their mugs of ale and we gathered up our things, strolling easily from the pub as if we had nowhere important to be.
But inside, my heart was racing as I thought of the words on that scroll.
What if the information the herbalist had was potentially damning enough to rally the masses and stage a coup? That meant there was a chance—albeit a small one—that we could stand up and fight instead of running. After hiding and traipsing across the countryside in fear, the lion inside me roared in triumph at the thought.
Chapter 7
When we left the pub, we waited around the corner for Connor and Lucian, but it didn’t take long for them to join us. We all stood in silence for a few minutes, waiting to see if anyone came out after us, but it seemed like the coast was clear.
“Pretty anti-Du Monde here,” Gatlin observed, “so that’s a plus.”
Lucian dug into his bag and produced the map. It was easy enough to follow now that we were on the main road but, when we did, we wound up standing in front of a well in the far eastern corner of the town.
“Was this where she was when you met her?” I asked.
Michael shook his head.
“No, she had an apothecary stall at the market," Gatlin explained.
Silently, we stood for a long moment, contemplating our next move. I looked past the village where the tall trees darkened the road with their shadows. Lanterns still lit the trunks where the posters of my face were plastered and I focused in on the light brown parchment.
That was when I saw her
staring back at me. Beautiful and majestic with a coat so silvery it made the moon look dim. She slinked out from behind a tree and chuffed, jerking her head to encourage us to follow her.
We all exchanged glances and followed her silently in human form, cautiously peering through the thick darkness of the forest to see what lay ahead.
Not that we should have bothered. After we'd traveled a kilometer or so deeper into the woods, the dim light of lanterns glowed against the ground. They hung from the branches of trees and littered the ground. A few were attached to the trunks of the trees themselves and all around us, it felt like fairies were floating with little dots of light, leading our way.
Michael and Lucian circled our group slowly, sniffing the air, peering around into the depths of the forest, but they didn’t stop us.
At the head of all of it was the white lioness, who led us to a clearing with a thatched hut in the center lit by more lanterns hanging overhead. She slinked inside and Lucian held a hand out for us to stop. We clearly weren't going to follow her until or unless we knew it was safe, and if it wasn't?
It would be a whole lot easier to shift in the space of the forest. We stood there restlessly for a minute, as I debated whether or not to go to the door, but then I heard a rustling sound come from inside.
"Shy, hmm?" The creaky voice of a woman echoed to us from the dim space where the house's rickety door remained open.
None of us responded and a moment later, a tall and slender woman stepped out. She was old, but younger than her voice portrayed and despite the lines in her face—or maybe in part because of them—she was beautiful. There was a glow and a light around her that couldn't be denied. She wore a red silk robe with sleeves so long and flowing that they trailed behind her as she walked. In her silvery hair, matching red jewels glittered in the candlelight. Her soft, knowing smile, though, was the thing that caught my attention most. There was the wisdom of the ages in that smile. As if she understood how hard it had been for us to come here…And as if she knew so much more than that.
