Amazon Queen

by Lori Devoti

  She glanced back at the door. “That was an issue. Of those who agreed we should meet with the sons and learn more about them, we were split on what to do with male children. None of us wanted to return to maiming or killing, but some wanted to keep the boys and raise them with their sisters. Some felt only Amazons could or should be raised as Amazons.”

  “So even in your splinter group you couldn’t agree.” The revelation reminded me why having a certain element of sheep could be good. If everyone was trying to lead the flock, the flock had no solid direction in which to go.

  “Which side were you on?” I asked.

  “Turn over to the sons,” she replied.

  A bit of tension left my body. In this, at least, she was the same.

  “But . . . ” She grimaced. “I’d never spent this much time with a child I meant to give away before.”

  A nerve near my mouth jerked. She’d never spent much time with a child period, at least certainly not me.

  “The longer I care for him the more I think . . . ” She held up a hand. “But right now that isn’t the issue. What about you, Zery? What side are you on? Do you plan to kill your brother?”

  Did I? I had decided I didn’t right after I found the dog, before I faced off against Thea, before I tossed away a lifetime of work and establishing myself as a leading queen, one who might someday herself be looked at for a position on the high council.

  How ironic was it that now I knew my mother was involved I wished desperately I could stand on the opposite side? I toyed with the idea for a second. The temptation to tell her I was against her was tantalizing. She’d always had the power; now was my chance to change that.

  But I couldn’t.

  “No. I don’t,” I replied.

  Her eyes rounded, telling me I’d surprised her as much today as she had surprised me. That at least brought some reward.

  “I questioned the council’s order and a new queen has been appointed to my camp.” The words were like sand in my mouth.

  Her eyes were wary. “You’re here to . . . ?”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. Why was I here, really? To help? To lead some kind of heroic battle for what was right? Or just because I had nowhere else to go?

  I stared past her, lost and unsure. I’d never been unsure. Right and wrong had always been clear. My world had always been black and white. How did it become so gray?

  “The gym is open.” Mel appeared around the corner. She must have come down the front steps. I couldn’t see them from my current position. So I didn’t know how long she had been standing there, hidden, listening.

  She had her red Wisconsin Badgers cap on along with a white V-necked tee, denim shorts, and hiking boots. Even with the snake bracelet both she and her mother wore, she looked very human, not in the least bit threatening.

  She cocked her head, her gaze shooting past my mother and on to me. “Mandy said the self-defense group was back and looking to rent space. How many are with you?”

  I gestured to Bern, who had been standing quietly by the side door that led outside. “Plus two more, hearth-keepers.”

  Surprise flickered behind Mel’s hazel eyes, but she didn’t comment on my lack of companions, or the fact that hearth-keepers wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice in a battle, unless it was a cook-off.

  At least, that is what I had thought just a week ago. Recently I’d seen a side to Lao I’d never realized a hearth-keeper possessed. Maybe Tess had more to offer too.

  Mel nodded. “Plenty of room if you don’t mind sharing.” She tilted her head toward my mother. “Your mom is staying there too.” She zeroed in on Bern, who had taken up position by the side door that led outside. “Let’s find the others and get you settled.”

  She walked past me on the way to the door. I wrapped my fingers around her bicep. “Thanks.”

  A hardness shone from her eyes. “Don’t thank me. I haven’t said how long you can stay yet.” Then she kept moving. Bern followed and in thirty seconds I was alone with my mother again.

  I stared at the woman who had given birth to me. Then I moved to follow my friend. My mother’s voice stopped me. “If you don’t say why you’re here, she won’t let you stay long.”

  I turned back. “You and Mel get close?”

  She lifted one side of her mouth in an imitation of a smile, then gestured with her head toward the workout room where we had left the baby. “We have something in common.”

  Of course, they both had sons from a son. Mel was looking for hers. She’d only found out about her grandmother’s deception last fall. She’d been looking for him, or as far as I knew she had. I hadn’t heard that she had found him yet—and I was fairly certain I would have. Even in the unplugged world of the Amazons, that kind of news would have made it back to me.

  My mother was still watching me, waiting.

  I let out a frustrated grunt. “My camp turned against me, all but the three I mentioned. I’m not sure what that means, where that leaves me.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean, ‘where that leaves you?’ Where could it leave you?”

  “I lost my position of queen. It was stripped from me.”

  She shook her head like I’d said something she couldn’t quite believe. “Says who? And what made you queen anyway?”

  “The council . . . or . . . ” Thea had said it. There was a possibility she was lying. Confused, I pressed my fingers to my forehead.

  “What council? I’m on the council and no one asked my opinion.”

  “But you left.”

  “Did I? That’s news to me.”

  “You had to; the council voted to kill the . . . your baby. And you haven’t . . . he’s still—” The conversation was uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable.

  She walked toward me, her face grim. “I’m still an Amazon, I’m still a warrior, and I’m still on the high council. Do you honestly think I’d walk away from any of that? What about you, daughter? What are you?”

  Dana walking into the room with a baby in each arm gave me a good exit point. I left the basement through the side door without answering.

  Darkness had fallen while I was having my mother/daughter chat, but Mel’s outdoor lights had clicked on. I got as far as the walkway between the main building and the old gym/cafeteria where we would be staying before being stopped by another surprise.

  Jack.

  He was leaning against the door that opened into the old cafeteria part of the building, right across the walk from the outside stairwell I’d just climbed up, out of the main building’s basement.

  I thought about walking past him, but didn’t. I knew he wouldn’t let me easily and I was tired of fighting—something I’d never imagined I’d be.

  I stopped in front of him, my arms crossed over my chest.

  “You left,” he said.

  He’d been there. He’d seen me. I didn’t have to tell him what had happened.

  “I wasn’t sure you would.”

  I shrugged. My mother’s words were still ringing in my ears: What about you, daughter? What are you?

  Jack seemed to sense what I was thinking . . . feeling . . . He pushed himself away from the wall and into my space. “What’s wrong with you?” His eyes were hard and dark, filled with fire.

  I stared back at him knowing my own were dead. My fire had gone out. I didn’t know if I could ever get it back.

  He leaned even closer, until his nose almost touched mine. “Don’t tell me I was right the first time. Don’t tell me, you are just a sheep.”

  When I didn’t reply, he cursed. His hands opened and closed at his sides. I could tell he wanted to grapple something . . . me, I guessed.

  I watched dispassionately. The Amazons didn’t want me. I wasn’t queen. I had no pony in this race.

  When he spun back, I could see the wolverine inside him staring out at me. “I get through to you and you give up? Is that it?” He took a step back toward me, back in my space, but this time he went further. He pushed me again
st the building.

  With one hand on each of my shoulders he held me there, pinned to the wooden siding.

  “So, tell me. One little slap of reality and you fold up? Give up? Is all your fight gone? Exactly how far down did you let them beat you?”

  He spit the words out, ugly and harsh.

  “If you’re that easy to defeat, I guess they were right. You aren’t a queen.” He bent his elbows and propelled himself away from me.

  I let him get as far as the walk before I picked up a cantaloupe-sized stone that doubled as a doorstop and flung it at his head.

  Chapter 14

  He spun so quickly, I didn’t see the movement, but I saw him duck, saw his hand shoot above his head, and I saw his grin when he caught the cannonball of rock in his bare hand. “The queen is back.”

  I didn’t share his joviality. I jumped and kicked, aiming for his head. He dropped the rock and plowed forward, his head going between my legs. With me straddling his shoulder, he stood. Momentum sent me falling backward. I would have tumbled to the ground except he held me by one calf. I dangled with my back to his, my hair brushing the ground.

  I cursed, then used every bit of abdominal strength I had to pull myself back up. I grabbed him by the hair and jerked, then dropped my weight forward. I landed palms down in a handstand that I quickly converted to a flip. Four feet away, I faced him.

  The grin was back.

  I growled, and he rushed me.

  He was fast, preternaturally fast. I was too, but nothing compared him. I tried, but was unable to move out of his path. He slammed into me, knocking me onto the ground.

  His full body weight pressing me into the earth, he stared down at me. “If we work together, you can get everything you want.”

  My heart pounded against my breastbone. “You think?” I asked.

  He dipped his face lower, so his lips barely brushed mine. “I know.”

  I didn’t move; my mind was whirling. My training said to toss him off, to wipe the wearisome smile off his face, but another part of me, a part I’d forgotten existed, couldn’t move, not without doing something that would give away thoughts I didn’t want to be having, shouldn’t be having.

  He was a son. Whether I thought killing Amazon infant sons was wrong or not, I didn’t approve of what my mother had done, and I didn’t want to follow in her footsteps.

  His lips brushed mine again, and I caught a whiff of the scent I’d noticed that first time in the woods, earthy and masculine, dangerous and alluring. And this time it was very alluring. There was no denying it.

  When his lips brushed mine a third time, I leaned up and captured his mouth with mine.

  Adrenaline rushed through me. He tasted of mint, not the fake taste of toothpaste, but the real zing of mint grown wild in the woods. His chin was covered in stubble. It rasped over my skin, hurt and excited me at the same time.

  His hand moved from the ground beside me to my arms. His hands, the same hands that had grabbed me so roughly before, softened.

  I softened too, pressure releasing from me like air from a deflating beach ball. Then as his hands roamed past my arms onto my stomach, pushed up the thin tee I wore, new pressure began to build.

  “Excuse us.” Two older women wearing stretchy shorts and knee socks stumbled to a stop beside us. At least I assumed they were older, based on their shoes and clothing from the waist down. From my angle on the ground that was all I could see.

  Their feet, clad in some kind of practical-looking thick-soled tennis shoes, shuffled to the side. Probably two of Bubbe’s clients.

  “Should we . . . ?” one asked.

  The other made some kind of hushing noise, then, “Never mind us. We’ll be going on our way. Just act like you never saw us.”

  The other argued, but only briefly and so low I couldn’t truly make out the words, not that I wanted to. I was completely and totally humiliated—not because I’d been caught acting like an animal in heat by humans, but that I’d been playing the role with the son at all.

  I shoved him off me and scrambled to my feet.

  He stayed on the ground, watching me, his expression unreadable and his body language relaxed—as if lying sprawled out blocking the sidewalk and the entrances to two buildings was perfectly normal. I spun with every intention of stalking off. A whisper of movement told me he’d stood, but not in time to stop him from grabbing me around the waist.

  “You’re shy. Who knew?”

  I threw back my elbow, aiming for his gut. With a laugh, he stepped to the side, his arm slipping from my body as he did.

  I got maybe ten feet, even with the front of Mel’s main building, before the blast sounded. The ground moved, or seemed to. A tremor traveled from the earth into my feet and up my legs. And the noise . . . a blast that made me want to clap my hands over my ears . . . there was no mistaking it, not after living through the explosion of Jack’s cabin.

  Something had blown.

  I took off in a run around the front of Mel’s shop, praying as I did that the blast hadn’t been inside the structure, that Mel, her family . . . my family . . . were safe.

  Smoke billowed from the other side of Mel’s shop—outside her shop. I kept moving, dashing over the sidewalk and onto the grass. Before I rounded the second corner I caught sight of the fire . . . a line of holly bushes that separated Mel’s property from her neighbor’s was blazing.

  Heat crackled and smoke tore at my lungs, but I plowed ahead. On the side of the building was a spigot with a hose. Unable to think of any better plan at the moment, I followed the example of the idiot humans I’d seen outside Jack’s cabin and turned the tiny stream of water onto the bushes.

  Yells came from the front yard. The occupants of Mel’s shop and home flowed out. In seconds the tiny side yard was filled with bodies. Bern moved into view, a blanket in her arms. She held it up for me to douse with the hose, then marched into what looked like the middle of the flames. Jack was there too, but he stood apart. He seemed almost unaware of the chaos that had broken out around him. His brow was furrowed and his gaze was on the ground.

  Thinking he’d lost it under the pressure, I ignored him.

  Overhead, a window flew up, and Mel yelled to watch out. Water began to shoot from the open window like a hole had been punched in a dam. The water coming from my hose sputtered and stopped.

  I dropped it and stared, amazed at my friend’s skill. Beside me, Bubbe stomped into view. She held her hands above her head. The spray of water became less diverse, like it was flowing through an invisible channel the old priestess held somewhere above her head. Working to direct Mel’s flood onto the trees, she twisted in place like a human water sprinkler except slow and flinging hundreds of gallons of water with each jerk of her body.

  The water combined with the fire, creating clouds of steam that clung to us all. My hair fell to my shoulders in heavy clumps and my shirt stuck to my skin.

  The rest of the group fared no better. Mandy’s and Cheryl’s faces seemed to melt as their makeup ran down their cheeks. And even the men who’d been awaiting tattoos seemed to have wilted and weakened. But we all continued doing what we could, throwing dirt and stamping on falling sparks.

  All except Jack.

  Suddenly, he looked up . . . at me. Some kind of realization glowed in his eyes, and without saying a word he dashed around the back of the building.

  I pushed a sad-looking Mandy out of my way and followed.

  I heard Jack’s growl—the unnatural sound of a wolverine pissed off to the point of exploding. I didn’t know until I turned the second corner, taking me back to the sidewalk that ran between Mel’s shop and the gym, that he was still in his human form.

  Almost directly under one of Mel’s giant floodlights, he stood, legs apart, hands at his sides but his fingers spread, stiff. Anger radiated from him.

  When I came up beside him, I saw why.

  Babies, two of them tucked into their little plastic seats, sat on the ground where only minutes
earlier I’d lain beneath Jack. Beside them were the two women who had walked up on us—I recognized their shoes and shorts. And in their hands were guns—handguns, ugly black squared-off looking things.

  “No reason for anyone to get hurt. Just stay where you are,” one called. Her voice was steady, as was the gun in her hand. Her eyes shifted in her face, looking from Jack to me, to someone I couldn’t see, hidden in the stairwell.

  There was movement, a blond head appeared. My mother. Of course. She placed her fingers on the concrete top of the stairwell.

  I knew her plan. I jumped forward, drawing the attention of the two armed women.

  The gun clicked. My heart skipped, but I dropped and rolled forward. The gun exploded and I landed back on my feet, still ten feet from the women. One of them grabbed a baby carrier, the other froze. I could see the panic in her eyes, could see the gun shaking in her hand.

  I relaxed; she’d panicked. We’d won.

  But as her gaze darted over me, she raised the gun again. Her friend, the carrier’s handle slipped over one arm, did the same. Two pairs of eyes, two guns, both pointed at me.

  I froze, determined to drop at the first twitch of their fingers, determined to outmaneuver not one but two bullets.

  Behind me my mother screamed, a war cry—anger, hate, and determination flying from her lungs.

  The women jerked. The guns moved and then exploded. The women’s faces pulled as they stared down at the guns in their hands, then back up at me, shocked. I turned, moving as if through water, slow and surreal. My mother stood on top of the stairwell, her arms out and her mouth open.

  I’d never seen her look so fierce, so full of strength and power. I realized in that split second how much I loved her, how much I needed her now that I’d lost everything else.

  Then the bullets hit and nothing happened. She didn’t move; her face didn’t change. Nothing. For a split second I thought she was safe . . .

  Then she took a step back. Two round splotches of blood grew on her chest and her gaze shot to me. Surprise and hurt, not physical pain, but loss. My lips parted; I took a step toward her.