Dark Queen (Jane Yellowrock #12)

I drove by my house and spotted a PsyLED car out front, a tiny sticker on the back window the only clue. I slowed and rolled down the window, taking a sniff of the car, expecting to scent Rick. I got Ayatas instead. Dang.

I drove on past, thinking about the unfriendly werewolves loose in New Orleans and making pacts with gangs. About Ziggy and the friendly werewolves. About the Sangre Duello and the emperor, who I had ignored for hours as I dealt with were problems. Titus Flavius Vespasianus had been a powerful Roman general who became the Roman emperor. As a human, he and his human second in command, Tiberius Julius Alexander, besieged and conquered the city of Jerusalem. Inside the besieged walls were the Jewish, Christian, and Mithran defenders. The siege ended with the sacking of the city, the destruction of the temple, and the enslavement of what pitiful humans remained alive inside the walls. Titus returned home and gained the throne, ruling Rome for two years before he was turned by his vampire concubine, a woman captured from the fall of Jerusalem. He became the undisputed ruler of the Roman Empire and the European Mithrans. He had ruled for two thousand years. Technically, Leo owed him fealty. The legal challenge of Sangre Duello meant Leo was aiming to behead the king in personal combat. But Titus had been fighting with a sword for hundreds of years longer than Leo. To win, Leo would have to cheat. Fortunately he was pretty good at that.



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Miles away from the city, my weapons and shoes left behind in the SUV, my feet in flops against the mud, I stepped along the path to the bayou, conscious of the tracks of raccoon, dog, deer, turkey, and boar, and evidence of hog destruction, all around me. Wild hogs used their tusks to dig up edibles and left the signs behind. A single wild hog could destroy large swaths of otherwise useful habitat. Beast had killed a boar once and had been badly injured from the experience, but that only increased her desire to hunt and kill another one. This one was in heat, and her musky odor seemed to have settled across the ground all along the path, into the foliage all around, even into the mud itself, obscuring the scents of the other prey and predators.

Hunt boar. Or alligator, she thought. Hunt and kill and eat. I hunger.

You’re always hungry.

Yes.

I found the low-hanging branch of a scrub tree and stripped, wrapping an extra pair of flops, my shorts, shirt, and throwaway burner cell tightly in a zippy in my gobag, which I secured around my neck. Adjusted the gold nugget and Puma concolor tooth on the doubled gold chain necklace. I sat on the low branch and rocked my feet back and forth, securing my flops in the mud to give me a balanced tripod perch on two feet and my backside. I relaxed. Closed my eyes. Sought the Gray Between of my magics.

Skinwalkers weren’t traditionally moon-called, like were-creatures, but the time of day and phase of the moon did make a difference. It was easier to shift on the three days of the full moon. Easier to shift at night, and harder to shift in the daytime—unless I was dying and a shift meant survival. And the shifting wasn’t a balanced thing. It was a peculiar effect of my skinwalker magics that while I could shift from human shape to Beast in daylight, I was unable to shift back to human until night. I wondered if Ayatas had that problem. The thought pushed the Gray Between away from me.

I admitted that I was feeling weird. Different. Emotionally different from my normal. Because of the man who claimed to be my brother. Who had been at my house just now. And I had run away from him.

Coward, Beast thought at me. Must make peace with littermate.

It was the same word she used to describe Eli and Alex. I asked her, Littermate. Like from the same parents or littermate in the same way the Youngers are?

Beast didn’t answer. Dang cat. But that might be why I wasn’t ready to face him, to make peace with him, yet. I wasn’t sure he was the man he said he was.

Coward, Beast thought again.

I blew out a hard breath and turned my thoughts inward. This time I gripped the Puma concolor fang on the gold chain and sank into the genetic structure stored there. This time the gray magics rose. This time I slid sideways into the magical forces, studying the new Vitruvian shape of my energies. They looked stable, like an illustration on a wall in a nuclear reactor.

Beast, ever impatient, reached out and extended her claws. Pricked the magics. The shift took me. Pain, pain, pain. I grunted breaths as my back arched and whipped forward, throwing me to the mud. And then I was lost to the shift.



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? ? ?

Beast sat on Jane’s shoes, front paws in mud, sniffing, pulling in air over scent sacs in roof of mouth. It was good to be puma form. It was good to be in hunting territory. But it was also bad. Jane had seen prints in mud on track. Jane had smelled hog in heat. Jane had not looked beside track, in green plants. Where hunter had paced. Where hunter had followed deer, days past. Hunter on Beast’s territory. Jane had not smelled scent of trespasser.

Jane still slept. Beast did not know yet what to tell Jane.

Beast leaped into low tree and climbed high. Perched and scented. Hunter was werecat. Three werecats. One was female lion; one her lion mate. One was black wereleopard. Werecats had been on Beast’s hunting grounds. Werecats had pissed and shat, leaving spoor. Werecats had scratched on trees to sharpen claws. Werecats had left Beast and Jane messages on Beast’s own territory.

Asad and Nantale and Kem-cat had chased Beast’s deer but had not killed them. There was no scent of blood or death on air and no buzzards circled over old kill. Asad and Nantale had sharpened claws on trees and pissed on ground where Beast had pissed. Asad and Nantale had left message to say they knew where and when Beast hunted. To say their claws were long and could have killed Beast or Beast’s prey. It was threat, but it was weak like watered blood.

Weak because hunt on Jane’s land had occurred before Jane/Beast had hurt Kem-cat. Before Jane had torn claws through Asad’s plans and left them dead and ruined.

Kem-cat had wanted to be more than beta to Jane. Had wanted to kill Jane. Kem was now house kitten, mouser cat. Tamed to Rick’s hand. Threat that was no threat. Rick had pride to mate with and to protect like African lion. Kem was threat no more. Rick was Beast’s beta.

Asad and Nantale were humans in cat skin. If they challenged Beast, Beast would kill them. Beast thought about ways to kill lions. Must fight one at a time to win. Or grindy might fight and kill them.

Beast had much to think on but was hungry. Leaped to ground, landing silently. Pawpawpaw to pile of scat on ground. Beast bent and drew in scent, what Jane called flehmen, pulling air over scent sacs in mouth. Kem had smelled healthy and full of male hormones. Also of anger and hunger and frustration and longing.

Kem was tamed. But Kem had access to witches. If Kemnebi did not stay tamed, if Kem-cat came back, Beast would kill him too. Kill him and leave his body to rot and to feed buzzards. Jane might not like this, but Jane was asleep and Beast would not share territory. Beast turned away from spoor and leaped into trees, moving from branch to branch toward water.

Beast hunted alligator from trees, along water that coiled like snake. Leaping limb to limb. Silent. Beast found sleeping alligator, stretched out on bank of water, half-buried in mud. Alligator was longer than Jane body. Alligator was longer than Beast body and tail. Female alligator was big. Beast hungered after shift. Needed food. Beast territory had been invaded. Beast needed to kill. Beast needed to fight. Wanted to fight and kill and eat.

Gathered paws close beneath body. Slowed breathing. Stared at place on back of alligator neck, just below head/skull. Place where spine joined head.

Beast dropped.