by SM Reine
Marion laughed. “No. It’s not my sister.”
“You must be relieved.”
Relieved wasn’t a strong enough word for it. Learning that her deity half-sister was out to get her would have been a much bigger problem than the one posed by Deirdre Tombs. “It’s confusing, as I said. Have you ever heard of a creature with the body of a person and the head of a goat?”
“I haven’t, but you might have a way to figure it out.” A sly smile crept across his lips. “If you were to lobby for votes, your first stop would be Rylie Gresham, wouldn’t it?”
“I hadn’t thought that far.”
“She’ll have computers with access to the OPA databases. Everything that they know can be searched through that. I’m certain that they’ve seen people with goat heads, if anyone has.”
It wasn’t a terrible idea, though it did have one major flaw. “I don’t know Rylie well enough to trust her with this information. Until I know who the goat-woman is and what, exactly, she did to me… I still don’t know who’s connected.” She twined her fingers through Konig’s. “You’re the only one I can trust with this information.”
His eyes warmed at that, and he squeezed her hand tightly.
The words he spoke next weren’t as warm. “Then don’t tell her about it. Just use her computer.” He brushed a kiss over her cheek, barely touching the corner of her lips. And then he went to Nori and Violet to help grow more trees for their wedding.
Gods. Marion’s wedding. She was going to be married within days, and she was going to have to spend that time running around lobbying for votes.
To think Violet had told her those would be the happiest days of her life.
“The ceremony will occur here,” Violet said, lifting both hands in tandem. A new tree rose between the twin waterfalls. “You’ll stand here, and Marion will stand there.” Another gesture, and the icy floor turned to grass budding with flowers. “What do you think?”
It had been so long since she’d asked for Konig’s opinion that he didn’t realize she’d spoken to him. He was distracted by watching Marion glide out of the hall, a slender form whose gown was a crimson mirror of her chestnut hair. Marion was beautiful enough to be sidhe, but so much more special.
A god. She’d brought a god into their partnership.
Konig had hoped she would, of course. But before her memory loss, she had repeatedly refused to use her privileges as the Voice of God with anything related to Konig.
No longer.
The doctor Marion liked to pal around with was one of the gods, so her value had just increased exponentially. Impressive, considering that she was already priceless.
“What do you think?” His mother asked the question louder the second time.
“Hmm?”
“Oh, darling.” Violet cupped his cheek in her hand, blank eyes warming with genuine affection. “Transfixed by your bride, are you?” Even Violet, who had never been fond of Marion, appreciated what she perceived as desire between the two of them.
“She’s quite a prize,” Konig said.
Nori didn’t look at either of them. “I like the waterfalls,” she said, bustling around the new tree with a strand of witchlights. They’d be twined through all the branches to provide an unearthly glow to the ceremony.
“I didn’t ask you.” Violet turned back to her work on the hall. “I shouldn’t bother asking my boy, either. Boys never care about these things. You’ve much more important things to consider.” She cast loops of magic toward the roof, peppering it with blossoms of starlight.
“More important than my wedding?” Konig asked.
“Actually, we do have some important court business to talk about, if the queen doesn’t need us anymore,” Nori said. She tucked the last of the witchlights among the tree branches.
Violet dismissed them with another flick of her fingers. “Attend to the court.”
As if Konig needed her permission.
Much as it rankled to leave his mother in charge of anything, he really didn’t care about how things looked during the ceremony. And as long as she was busy with decorations, she wouldn’t be sitting on the throne. The woman was practically dancing on the bones of the Winter Queen.
Nori kept her head bowed as she led Konig from the hall, back toward the king’s bedroom. The hall was so much chillier that Konig couldn’t help but suck in a breath. He kept forgetting where they were.
But his blood burned hot enough to keep him warm.
As soon as the doors to the wedding venue swung shut behind him, he caught Nori’s wrist. “Court business?” he murmured, pulling her to his chest.
Spots of pink touched her cheeks. “Very important court business.”
Konig’s fingers glided up her ribcage. “Tell me all about it.”
“It’s Ymir,” Nori said.
That chilled his desire. “Again? Damn. Where is he?”
“I had him brought to our room by the Raven Knights.” Nori ducked her head, but not before Konig saw her flushing even brighter with embarrassment. “Your room.”
It was an easy slip to make. Nori had been spending more nights in his bed than anywhere else. The succor of her half-angel flesh was the only thing keeping Konig sane while he waited for Marion’s frigidity to thaw.
Two of the Raven Knights were guarding the door to the king’s bedroom. Konig made a mental note to have more assigned on that hall. With Arawn throwing Hounds at their doorstep, nothing was more important than ensuring Konig’s safety.
He was only days away from being king. Days. Konig would not let an uppity demon interfere with that.
Ymir waited inside the room, watched by yet another pair of Raven Knights wearing warm furred coats. The frost giant wore a t-shirt and jeans instead. Ymir seemed to find temperatures in the palace summer-like.
The child was munching on a candy bar—not his first, judging by the many wrappers around him. He looked as content as he ever did these days.
Every scrap of momentary contentment vanished when Konig strode into the room.
Ymir bolted to his feet. A strangled groan caught in the boy’s chest.
“You’re right,” Konig said. “This is urgent.” The frost giant shouldn’t have been able to vocalize through the force of Konig’s magic in his chest. Such groans meant he was shaking the magic again. It wouldn’t be long before he was outright talking.
And once he started talking, Ymir would tell Marion that it hadn’t been Leliel who killed the refugees.
“Come here,” Konig said with all the kindness he could muster. He sat the boy on the couch and took the spot beside him.
Ymir managed to say something that sounded like, “No.”
Konig swirled fresh magic around Ymir—stronger this time. The child didn’t make another sound.
“There,” Konig said, patting him on the back. “This won’t be necessary soon, I promise. I just need to be sure that you don’t go around spreading confusing lies about the attack you saw from an angel. I’ve got a very important day coming up, after all.”
Marion had only agreed to give Konig another chance because she thought the angels were a threat. If she heard Ymir’s side of things—and if she found out that Konig had lied to her—then their wedding would be wrecked.
“Why don’t you find somewhere for the boy to play that’s safer?” Konig asked the Raven Knights. “There are a lot of holes in this part of the palace. Take him down deep and make sure he can have fun where he won’t get hurt.”
Ymir was still shaking his head when they led him out of the room.
Konig and Nori were alone.
“That was close,” she said. “I think he was trying to find Marion to talk to her earlier.”
“It won’t be a problem.” Konig drew the half-angel into his lap, settling back to allow her to sit comfortably atop him. Nori wasn’t as beautiful as Marion, but at least she had many things in common with Konig. Like priorities. And a fondness for sex that Marion used to have, back when she�
��d been herself.
He allowed her to kiss him for a moment before drawing back. “This will have to wait, pet. I need you to do another kind of favor for me.”
“If it involves Violet, I’m not sure she’ll tolerate my presence much longer.”
“Then you’ll be happy to know this involves leaving Niflheimr.” He slid his hand into her furs, seeking the contact of warm woman-flesh against his fingertips. “I need you to dig up everything you can find on Deirdre Tombs. We need leverage against her in case our other bid for votes fails.”
“No problem.” Nori shook her furs to the floor to expose her lean body. Even if she wasn’t a particularly beautiful half-angel, she was still very much a half-angel, and that meant the statuesque elegance that came with it. “But what if there’s nothing to dig up?”
Assassination was on the table. “I will not lose my title,” Konig said, kissing Nori’s throat. “And the wedding will happen.”
Marion used the magic mirror in the throne room to arrange her hair while it was still reflective. Most likely it was sacrilege to use such a rare artifact for purposes of vanity, but it wasn’t like she could make business calls rumpled from traveling between planes.
A figure appeared behind her in the reflection.
“Your Highness? Do you have a moment?”
She turned to greet Morrighan, one of the sidhe refugees. “Of course I do.” For the people whose families she’d failed to protect, she had infinite time.
Morrighan approached the throne hesitantly. She was one of the gentry but shone with enough blue light that she would have needed to work to conceal her magical nature. “I was a witch who specialized in wards before Genesis. As a result, my sidhe talent is likewise ward specialization, and I’ve been feeling disruptions in Niflheimr for weeks.”
“Yes, I understand that the wards are failing,” Marion said. “Please don’t worry yourself about them. We have a plan.”
“That’s not what I mean. Someone seems to be testing the wards regularly to see if they’re still up, like calling a phone to see if anyone answers and then immediately hanging up.”
Prickles spread down the back of Marion’s neck. “Can you tell who?”
“It’s strong,” Morrighan said. “Other than that, I don’t know.”
It must have been Arawn—or perhaps even someone from the American Gaean Commission waiting for a chance to invade over the darknet.
The information didn’t change anything. They still needed to repair the wards as quickly as possible.
Marion would see if she could double the number of Raven Knights on the castle in the meantime.
“Thank you for warning me,” she said. “How have you been faring?”
Morrighan gave her a blank look. “How do you think?”
“Yes, I suppose that’s a foolish question.” Marion swallowed down apologies that would have been hollow. No words could return to Morrighan what had been lost.
“Rhiannon’s all I have left now,” Morrighan said. “The court doesn’t even look how it used to anymore.” She gazed at the Onyx Queen’s nymph tapestries with obvious loathing.
“I thought you came from Leiptr.”
“I fled to the forests after the civil war to survive. Anyone who didn’t leave Niflheimr died.”
But she had once attended court with the Winter Queen. Now she really had Marion’s attention. “Do you know anything of the darknet servers?”
“That was Hardwick territory,” Morrighan said. “They didn’t let anyone else interfere with it.”
“Hardwick?”
“Pierce and Jaycee Hardwick, two of the queen’s dearest advisors. They were secretive types. I knew that they were running the darknet from the Winter Court, but not from where. Nobody but them had access.”
“Tell me, Morrighan,” Marion said, “if someone were to search for the servers, where would you start?”
“I’d start by going back ten years and asking the Hardwicks. You’d never find the servers without them.” Morrighan turned to leave the throne room, the glow of the magic mirror reflecting off her shiny brown hair. “You could always investigate their bedrooms, though.”
Marion wanted to follow her and ask for more information, but the mirror’s glow intensified. She was being connected with the shapeshifter sanctuary. Her time to give a neglected refugee attention had passed because it was time for business.
It was always time for business.
Once Marion came to terms with the fact that her life didn’t belong to her, she would be a much happier woman.
6
The next day, Nori took Marion to the designated arrival point outside the werewolf sanctuary’s wards, which was near the top of the waterfall. From that vantage point, Marion could see everything: the jagged lines of the valley carved into the Appalachians, forest so dense that it must have been eternal night under the canopy, the lake frothing gold with reflected sunlight.
At the nadir of the valley sprawled the sanctuary’s cottages ringing a humble downtown unlike any other in North America. It was the only settlement that exclusively housed preternaturals—and more than ninety-eight percent of them shapeshifters. Eighty percent of those were werewolves, like the Alpha and her mate.
For every summer when Marion had been a child, there had also been one half-angel mage who lived there. According to her journals, she used to play with the Alpha’s kids for days on end.
“Ringing any bells?” Nori asked.
Marion was forced to say, “Not really.”
An escort of shifters emerged from the forest. They resembled mundane wolves because they had four legs, fur, and lupine faces. But their sheer size would have given them away as something different. Something wrong. None of them was smaller than a very sturdy pony. The biggest of them could have fit a draft horse inside his belly.
They ringed around the half-angels and golden eyes pinned Marion.
“Maybe I should stay,” Nori whispered.
“That won’t be necessary.” Marion squeezed her cousin’s hand. “You’ll get in touch if Violet has questions about the wedding?” They’d made a new statuette that allowed them to communicate from different planes. Using the equivalent of a magical telephone was more convenient than summoning Nori every time Marion needed to say something.
“Yeah, I can call you,” Nori said. “If you really want me to go.”
“I do.” Marion would have an easier time sneaking around the sanctuary if she was alone.
Nori vanished into the ley lines, and Marion followed her escorts into the valley. The sanctuary was so small that there were no cars, and most shifters could travel faster on steep terrain on four legs anyway. But that left Marion trudging down steep trails into the cleft between mountains on foot. She thanked the gods—Seth in particular, with some amusement—that she’d thought to wear pants rather than one of her lovely-but-ridiculous dresses. She’d never have been able to make it down the slope on heels.
The path weaved in and out of trees, concealing the village for minutes at a time. The roar of the waterfall never left them completely, but it quieted by the time they’d walked for almost an hour. They emerged in a grassy field filled with frolicking shifter children.
A few of the bigger pups stopped to stare when Marion passed. She wondered how many of them she should have known.
Then the Academy appeared at the end of the road.
It was the tallest structure in the village, and the only one protected by tall fencing topped by spikes. The rest of the village was a socialist’s dream of communal living. Only the school where they housed the preternatural community’s treasured youth lived under higher security.
The gates were closed when Marion and the shifters finally stopped outside of them. Two names were picked out atop the arch in iron scrollwork: Gresham and Wilder. The sight of the second name made Marion’s stomach flip.
Someone must have been watching the security cameras because the gate swung open as soon as Marion a
pproached. Nothing but lawn separated her from the gabled roofs and sprawling brick-walled wings of the Academy, and she waited for familiarity to set in.
Nothing struck except a faint sense of dread.
A man that Marion didn’t know was waiting on the front steps. He had skin the color of a latte and hard eyes—eyes that were not shifter gold, she was surprised to see. As soon as she hit the bottom of the steps with the wolves at her side, he spun and marched into the Academy silently.
She followed. The wolves didn’t.
“I’m here to see Rylie,” she said.
“I know.” His voice was so deep that it ached painfully within her chest.
This strange man took Marion to a room left of the entrance. He pushed her inside and shut the door.
Marion found herself in a tearoom with eleven people: ten shifters in their human forms ringing the walls, and a lone middle-aged woman on a sofa at the center of the office.
Rylie Gresham.
“Please, sit,” Rylie said.
There was tea on the table between them.
Guards ringing the room.
This wasn’t a social visit.
Marion sat slowly, even though she felt very strange being so stiff, so formal. She had described Rylie in her journals as “like my mom, except not as horrible as Ariane.” Marion had written that when she was eleven. Eleven. Teenage rebellion against her birth mother had struck early.
Not against Rylie, though. Marion and Dana had grown up alongside Rylie’s multitude of children. They’d spent every summer at the werewolf sanctuary. Marion had even attended the Academy for a year, though she’d done it more as a way to indulge Rylie’s wish that Marion would have formal education, not because she’d felt she needed it.
Now Rylie was treating her like a political guest, bringing out the good china and having their visit supervised. They were even holding the meeting at the Academy itself, which had the only formal meeting rooms in the entire sanctuary.
“How can I help you?” Rylie looked maternal, if not quite unassuming, in her nude-colored skirt suit. Her voice was pitched low, her hair brushed out straight, her vibrant golden eyes intent.
