Andromeda's Reign

by K. S. Haigwood

  “After a few days Emily finally left Julian’s side to go into town alone. I used chloroform to abduct her safely. Like I said before, I didn’t intend to harm her in any way. I just wanted to lure him to me so that I could kill him, and I knew I couldn’t get through his pack to him without getting killed. It was too large. Slade and I didn’t stand a chance against so many. Before returning to the place Slade and I were hiding with Emily, I left a letter with a local priest and told him to deliver it to my cousin ASAP. In the letter, I’d told Julian to meet me the following day and, if he came alone, he could have her back. I didn’t know Julian and Emily would only have eight hours before they both collapsed, and it turned out, they only had four hours after that before one of them died.”

  Ace’s eyes glossed over and he put a hand to his mouth as his big body began to violently shake. After a few seconds, he sucked in a breath and rubbed at his eyes. “Emily died, and it was my fault. I thought then that I had given her too much chloroform to keep her knocked out, because after twelve hours she started bleeding from her nose, eyes and ears. Even in her sleep, she was screaming.” A sob racked up Ace’s throat, and he bent forward and buried his face in his hands. “She was screaming for him, Andra. I didn’t know what to do to save her, so we just left her there after she stopped breathing.” He sniffled and lifted his head. Tears ran down his cheeks as he looked back through the screen at Mena. “I know you didn’t want our bond to be broken, but if Clay and his siblings can save your life, I don’t have a choice but to agree to it. You can hate me for killing Julian’s family. You can hate me for killing Emily. But please don’t hate me for saving you. If you make it through this and I don’t, know that loving you is the best thing that has ever happened to me. You are the only thing I would die for—”

  Ace’s eyes grew wide, and it was a moment before he spoke again. “I feel you.” His wide eyes moved up. “I feel her, Slade. She’s so scared. Oh God! Please help—” A tortured cry ripped its way out of his mouth, and then his body jerked and spasmed against the couch cushions.

  “No!” Mena gasped. She lurched forward, grabbing the sides of the laptop screen with trembling hands, her heart pounding in her chest so hard that she could feel each thundering beat throughout her entire body.

  “Ace!” Slade shouted, and then Ace disappeared from the video. There were some rushed movements where the screen flashed bright then dim then light again, as if Slade was running with the phone, and then all went black. Slade’s heavy breathing and constant swearing were the only things that let Mena know the video was still recording. “Ace, wake up, man.” Slapping sounds. “Wake up!”

  Someone groaned, and after Ace spoke, she realized it had been him. “Where am I?”

  “You’re on the couch,” Slade said. “You, uh—you had an episode or something. Want to get back to the video?”

  Ace grunted. “God, I have a killer headache. I haven’t had a headache in over sixty years. What the hell happened? Wait… what? What video?”

  “The one you were making for Andra, dude. Don’t you remember?”

  “Who the fuck is Andra?” He groaned again. “Ugh… I don’t feel so good. I think I’m going to go lie down for a while.”

  “Whoa… easy, buddy,” Slade said. “Maybe you should just sleep here for a little while.” Mena heard some shuffling noises, and then something that sounded like soft snoring. “Shit,” Slade said, and then exhaled a weighted breath.

  Soft thumps came through the laptop’s speakers, but Mena couldn’t make out what they were, and then a voice she hadn’t heard before said in a rush, “Did it work?” She realized that person must have just run into the room.

  “You’ve screwed up enough, but unfortunately, yes, it did work,” Slade said. “Get the hell out of here, Clay. He’s going to kill you when he finds out what you and Phoenix did.”

  “I’m sorry, Slade—”

  “Get out!”

  “I’m not leaving until I know he’s okay,” Clay said.

  “Fine, then just get out of my sight before I kill you myself.”

  A full thirty seconds of video passed in silence, and then there was light on the screen again. Slade’s face appeared, looking totally exhausted. “I am so fucking sorry, Andra.”

  When the video ended, the still image of Ace popped up on the screen. With a pounding heart, Mena clicked the triangle again.

  Chapter 60

  Tuesday, February 24th 2015 5:38 p.m. CST

  Montgomery, Alabama

  Phoenix

  Phoenix impatiently waited in the driver’s seat of his Escalade for the last rays of daylight to disappear over the horizon, his thumbs tapping the steering wheel to the sound of Roel’s heavy heart beats in his ears from the seat beside him.

  The first six hours and fifteen minutes that Mena hadn’t answered his text messages or calls had been long and painful, but these last three minutes of sitting in her driveway, waiting for the sun to go down, so that he could leave the safety of the heavily tinted vehicle and close the distance it would take to get her back in his arms was downright excruciating and felt like days, instead of a mere one-hundred and eighty seconds.

  “Let’s go,” Roel said, and Phoenix held his hand up to stop him from opening the door.

  “Twelve more seconds, Roel. It wouldn’t kill me, but it would still sting like a bitch.”

  Roel sighed. “I fear that pain would be nothing compared to what she is about to do to you.”

  “Touché,” Phoenix muttered, and then he grabbed the door handle and swung the door wide, not bothering to close it as he rushed to get to Mena’s front door. He vaguely heard the vehicle doors of all seventy-eight of Mena’s pack closing behind him. They had all heard that Mena had found out the truth. Some were here to support him, but most were only here to get their own punishment for keeping something so important from their Alpha.

  Phoenix lifted his fist and knocked on the door, and then Brad pushed the doorbell immediately after. Phoenix cut his eyes over at him and shook his head.

  “What?” Brad said.

  “She hates the doorbell, dumbass,” Heath said. “Don’t you think she’s already mad at us enough?”

  “I can’t believe we let you talk us into lying to her,” Heather chided Phoenix.

  Without responding to her, Phoenix raised his hand and knocked harder. Still no answer, but he knew she was inside; he could hear her heartbeat and the music she was listening to. Maybe they were all overreacting. She could be busy packing and just hadn’t bothered looking at her phone for the last six and a half hours.

  Yeah right.

  Sighing heavily, Phoenix put his hand on the doorknob and turned it.

  “Looks like maybe she was expecting us,” Brad said.

  “You think?” Roel huffed as he pushed the door open and walked in ahead of Phoenix. “You’re not going in first, vampire. She’ll be mad at us, but she may want to kill you. I was the one who told you to go to Vegas and get her back, so this is partly my fault.”

  “You didn’t tell him to make up a big, fat lie and tell all of us that it was best Mena not know the truth,” Tracy said.

  “Zip it, Tracy,” Roel snapped. “It’s done, okay? He screwed up. Just drop it.”

  Phoenix glanced around the foyer and into the living room. “Mena?” Music was coming from the east side of the house, so he took a step in that direction.

  Roel put his arm out to stop him. “Not a good idea, man. Hear what she’s listening to?”

  Phoenix nodded. He’d recognized the song before Roel opened the door. It was ‘Her Fool’, the song Trey Thatcher had recorded on the last Salacious Limerick album before his accident. So, she knew everything, or at least who Ace was before. “I need to go first,” Phoenix said. “Come if you like, but don’t try and defend me. Mena is your Alpha, and I am the one who screwed up everything. I’ll make sure she knows that.”

  “Damn,” Jess muttered, “I didn’t realize I would be attending a master v
ampire’s funeral this evening. I should have dressed better.”

  Phoenix walked through the living room and took a left down the hall, toward the sound of Ace’s soft singing. The only door on the left was open, but the lights were off. As the room came into his view, he saw Mena sitting behind a large desk, her expressionless face illuminated by the light of a laptop screen.

  Without taking his eyes off her, he felt the wall to his right and flipped the light switch. Mena didn’t acknowledge his presence. “Mena?”

  “You may leave,” Mena said. “I have nothing to say to you, Phoenix. Now or ever again. Tell my pack they can come in. I do have some things to say to them.”

  Phoenix swallowed. “Please, allow me to speak. I need you to understand—”

  “It wasn’t entirely his fault, Mena,” Roel said, stepping into the room beside Phoenix. “Ace is a murderer. You don’t know what he did. Phoenix was only trying to—”

  Mena glanced up from the laptop for the first time, with a hint of fury in her eyes. “Close your mouth, Roel. That is a direct order.”

  Roel turned and punched the wall beside him, and then just leaned his forehead against his arm as he let out a strangled cry through a clenched jaw.

  “If you damaged that wall in any way, you will fix it this weekend,” Mena said. “The house has already been sold.”

  Phoenix glanced at the wall, noticing that there was a fist-sized impression in the sheetrock. He would help Roel fix it if Mena allowed him to after this. It was clear her Beta wanted to say more, but the restriction the direct order had over him prevented it from happening. “Let me handle this, Roel,” Phoenix said, and then his head whipped around as Mena stood from the chair.

  “You will handle nothing,” she said in a calm voice as she walked around to the front of the desk and leaned against it, crossing her arms over her chest. “Step aside so the rest of my pack can enter the room.”

  Inhaling deeply, Phoenix kept his eyes on Mena as he moved to the right, out from in front of the doorway. The people of Mena’s pack began to file in slowly.

  When the room was crowded with standing bodies, Mena turned the laptop around. Phoenix swore silently when he saw the image of Ace Keller on the screen, with a triangle below it. The bastard had made her a video. Mena walked to an entertainment system and hit a button, shutting off the music and sending silence into the room.

  “Since the vampire refuses to leave, he can stay and watch the video and hear what I have to tell all of you. Just so there is no hearsay and someone telling you wrong information, I will be the one to clear everything up. I am aware that not all of you had a hand in what went down in Las Vegas, but all of you knew about it and kept it from me. Therefore, you will all receive the same punishment. I have been informed by Slade, Ace’s Beta, that the Shift is coming up soon. Slade and I have actually been talking quite a bit today. I’ve learned a lot. As it turns out, Ace and I are mated and I am still Alpha over his pride. For those of you who don’t know what that means—because I didn’t—we are married.” Phoenix sucked in a sharp breath, but Mena didn’t even act like she heard him. The rest of the people in the room were silent and staring at their Alpha in horror. “Now, I have no idea how all of this is going to turn out, since I don’t even remember my so-called-husband, but I am issuing two punishments, one that will be enforced immediately. The other will be enforced as soon as we get moved to our new location.

  A cold sweat broke out across Phoenix’s brow and he took a step forward. “Mena, please… may we talk in private?”

  She ignored his request. “As you all must realize by now, I am deeply disappointed in all of you for keeping something like that from me. I vowed as your Alpha to protect you from anything, and I expected the same from you. You let me down, and that saddens me. I have taken the time today to reflect on everything I’ve learned, and I have thought, in great detail, of what I want your punishments to be. The first is you will never talk to or help the master vampire, Phoenix Mahoney, again. Ever. The alliance we had with him and his clan is revoked and is now void.”

  “No.” The whisper left Phoenix’s mouth as the blood began to rush through his veins. He fell to his knees and let out a tortured cry as Mena continued with her speech, as if he wasn’t in the room at all and his world ending before all their shocked eyes.

  “The second punishment is that when we move, we will all be living together… in the same house. I will begin looking for one large enough to accommodate everyone as soon as I find out which territory we are moving to. This is also a direct order and there will be no negotiations about either punishment.” Out of Phoenix’s periphery, he saw Heath raise his hand in the air. Mena nodded. “Go ahead, Heath.”

  “How long will we be expected to live together?” Heath said.

  “Indefinitely,” Mena replied. “Our pack is a family and we are damn well going to start acting like it.” She walked to the laptop. “Roel, I don’t know where you got your information that Ace is a murderer. Maybe you should have gotten both sides of the story before you started rumors and decided to lie to your Alpha. I should demote you. I’m still undecided on that. Will someone get the lights? The video will be easier to see if the room is dark.”

  Phoenix shot to his feet and ran to her just as the room darkened. The light from dusk coming through the single window in the room made her seem even colder. She wasn’t going to listen to him at all, he realized. She had to. He couldn’t let her go, not like this. She had changed so much in ten hours. Power and authority were beautiful on her, but he hated how she had finally acquired it. He grabbed her hands, but she jerked them away. He swallowed as he stared into her steely gaze. “Don’t do this, Mena. I’m begging you not to. I was wrong to lie to you. I didn’t want you knowing about him. The bond made the feelings you had for him a lie. It made you forget the feelings you had for me. I had to do something. Can’t you see that? I love you, Mena. Think about this longer. Take all the time you need. Just please don’t shut me out of your life and the lives of your pack. They are my family, too,” he pleaded as the second lot of tears he had ever cried in his life leaked from his eyes and slid down his face.

  With no emotion showing in her expression, she set her jaw and lifted her chin. “Nobody will ever make my choices for me again. This is Andromeda’s reign, and I am going to own it. Get out of my house and do not attempt to contact me ever again.”

  He drew in a ragged breath and shook his head. “No.”

  Mena turned her head. “Brad, Heath, get him off my property. Use physical force if necessary. That’s a direct order.”

  Phoenix threw up his hands and backed away from her. “I’m going, Mena, but this isn’t over.”

  She nodded. “Oh, yes, it’s over. We are very much over.”

  Chapter 61

  Saturday, May 2nd 2015 6:26 p.m. CST

  St. Louis, Missouri

  Ace

  As I struggled with tying the black tie, and regretting not opting for the bowtie option that was already tied and just clipped together around my neck, I saw Slade’s tall form lean against the jamb of the bathroom door through the reflection in the mirror. His tuxedo was the twin brother of mine, though I filled out the one I wore more in the shoulders. It was a good thing the tux was specially tailored to fit.

  “You nervous or something?” Slade said.

  “No,” I snapped. “Why would I be nervous? It’s just a party with a bunch of shifters who think they’re better than everyone else. Not my scene. You know I hate these things.”

  “At least they put us up in the Four Seasons, instead of the Motel 8.” Slade frowned as he walked into the bathroom with me, and I let my hands drop, knowing he would make me do it anyway. “Here. Let me do that. You’re putting creases in the damn thing.”

  I waited for him to say something about the new faces that would be showing up this Shift, one woman in particular, but it never came out of his mouth. I guess he already knew what my response would be if he said any
thing about her.

  We’d gotten into a heated argument when he and Sinna arrived back from Montgomery back in February. I hadn’t agreed with him going there to tell her everything she didn’t know, and he hadn’t agreed that I hadn’t agreed with him. In the end, we agreed not to agree and went our separate ways, never to speak of it again.

  I had been so pissed off that I’d immediately deleted her number and any number that related to her from my phone. I knew that if I had it, it would only take one more sleepless night for me to actually use it. She knew about me now. That changed everything.

  “Be still,” Slade said. “And stop slouching. You want this to be straight, don’t you?”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass if it’s straight. It’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone.”

  Slade’s humor-filled eyes glanced up at me, already knowing that I was lying. He’d been talking to her over the last two months. In fact, he’d been talking to her a lot, and he hadn’t been discreet about it, either. Several times he called her when it was just the two of us on the short drive to a casino or party or when there were only a few of us sitting around the living room watching TV. He never bothered to leave the room or talk, laugh and flirt with her quietly, either. I was beginning to think he only did it to piss me off and make me jealous. But why would I be jealous? I didn’t remember one single thing about her. All I had was the one picture and the dreams of her.

  “There. It’s perfect. The limo will be here in five. Are you ready?”

  I nodded as I grabbed my wallet and cell phone then slipped them into the inside pocket in my tuxedo jacket. “Are Sinna, Karma, Kai and Hollis ready?”