“So you could see it through your own.”
I leaned forward. “From the time I could walk till I was fifteen years old, every memory I have is about you. If I wasn’t studying about you, your children, and your kingdom, I was training to kill you or hiding from you. I was never afraid of monsters in my closet or under my bed. I was afraid you would find me. The entire purpose of my existence was so I could one day murder you.”
“Here I am. You have a sword. Why don’t you use it?”
I met his gaze. There was no point in lying. “Because I’m done living my life according to Voron’s expectations. I don’t know you. I know only what I was told. If you threaten Curran or anyone else I love, if you try to destroy this city, I’ll do everything in my power to kill you, no matter how futile it is. But I won’t do it because a dead man told me so.”
He leaned back and laughed softly. “You truly are my daughter.”
“That’s not a compliment.”
He smiled at me the way one would smile at a talented but naive child. I pictured kicking him in the head. I’d die a second later, but it would be so satisfying.
“Shall we bargain for the future of the city you love?” he asked.
“That is why you came here, isn’t it?”
He rubbed his hands, his eyes bright. He looked . . . happy. “Very well. Do you know what you did?”
“I’ve blocked your claim on Atlanta and claimed it instead.”
“Anyone crossing into Atlanta now will feel the borders of your territory. They won’t necessarily know the territory is yours, which will give you the element of surprise. A territory claimed is a challenge. It will be answered, if not by me, then by others.”
“I realize that.”
“For my part, I can’t allow you to remain in a position of visible power. You and I are invaders in this land. Our magic wasn’t born here.” Roland nodded to Curran. “Your magic was. Somewhere back in the mists of time your ancestors made a pact with a creature of this land. The blood might have been diluted through generations and mixed with that of the newcomers, but not enough to matter. You pose a threat.”
“Which is why you’ve been trying to destroy the Pack,” Curran said.
“To be fair, I haven’t really tried,” Roland said.
“The rakshasas,” I said.
“They were more of a nuisance than a real threat. They sought an alliance with me. I found them annoying, so I gave them a target as a condition of the alliance. They failed as brilliantly as I had expected.”
“And my aunt?”
My father leaned forward. “Eahrratim.” He said her name with grief as if something of great beauty had been lost forever. “Your aunt didn’t want to wake up. She did in spite of herself and when she rose, she was a mere shadow of herself. She didn’t like this new world. She was going through the motions of living, but she couldn’t permit herself to give up on life. We were taught from the earliest age that life is precious. Death must truly mean something. I wish you could’ve seen her at the height of her power. She was a force. Erra wanted something to do. I told her of the Pack. She thought it over for a few weeks and one day she told me she would go and see if she could find anything of amusement in Atlanta. She must’ve been so thrilled to have found you, her niece, in this distant age. You look like her.”
“I know,” I said. I had looked so much like her, it was eerie. Except she was more. Larger, stronger, faster, with magic that made whatever I could do pathetic. Killing her was the hardest thing I had ever done and it took both Curran and me to do it. I nearly lost Curran because of her. He’d spent eleven days in a coma.
“She could pass the torch and finally let go. There is no shame in being killed by one of your own bloodline. The night before you fought, she called me.” His eyes clouded. “She wanted to talk about the Water Gardens. In the palace where we grew up, there had been water gardens, acres and acres of shallow water, crossed by narrow pathways. It was a beautiful place, of sand and warm water, where flowers bloomed and small fishes darted back and forth. We used to splash through it for hours. My fondest memories had been born there. I knew when she spoke of it, I wouldn’t see her again. I felt the moment she surrendered her life and then I understood that you were still alive. She was the City Eater. You must’ve realized her death came too easily.”
I nearly choked.
Roland sighed. “I suppose we should return to the business at hand. You can’t fight me. I can sear the walls of this Keep until they melt with everyone inside it. In a day, everything you’ve built and everyone you serve will be gone. The city will do nothing about it, for such is the nature of human prejudice.”
“He won’t do it,” I told Curran. “When he decides to do away with us, he’ll do something elaborate, like send us magic seeds, which will sprout beautiful flowers with poisonous pollen. The pollen will root through our veins, we’ll die in agony, but our corpses will be covered in gorgeous blooms. If he’s feeling like making a statement, the flowers will drip blood just for fun.”
Roland smiled. “Death should have a terrible beauty to it, don’t you think?”
“What is it you want from us?” I asked.
“I want to know you. You are precious to me, as your mother was before you. But I can’t let you lead the Pack.” He looked at Curran. “You alone are enough of a threat. The two of you together at the helm of that many shapeshifters is too clear a statement for me to ignore. You’ll be seen as actively opposing me.”
“And?” Curran asked.
Roland looked at me. “I want you to leave the Pack.”
My heartbeat sped up. Curran would never walk away from the Pack. He was the Beast Lord. He’d hammered it together; he gave it laws and structure, he lived and breathed it. The shapeshifters were his people. If I stayed with him, I would be Consort, even if I refused to have anything to do with the Pack. It would never work and my father knew it. The only way I could step down would be to leave Curran.
“In return, I’ll let you keep your claimed territory,” Roland said. “And your city.”
“Not good enough,” Curran said.
He was actually thinking about it. It made sense. We would avoid a bloody war. We could keep so many lives safe . . .
“Very well, let’s put a number on it. I promise to take no direct action personally, nor instruct my people to take any action against anyone within the territory my daughter has claimed, for the next hundred years. Should any of my people challenge you, they would do so without my permission and incur my wrath. I will, however, keep the installation of the People in Atlanta and their business will proceed as usual.”
My mind started working. “I want more. I want you to promise that neither you nor your people acting on your orders will ever harm Curran or Julie, in my territory or outside of it.”
“I’m being rather generous. It’s already a good trade,” Roland said to me. “You wish to protect your people. I’m the biggest threat you face. Eliminate me as a danger. If you refuse, blossom of my heart, I will come to Atlanta and I will bring fire and ruin to it. I will purge the Keep the way I purged Omaha.”
The earthquakes of Omaha had killed thousands. But they had always been viewed as a freak cataclysm brought on by a flare, a massive magic wave.
“You . . . ?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“There was a Native power that chose to oppose me,” Roland said. “I didn’t strike the first blow. I merely retaliated. Is that disturbing to you?”
“Yes.”
“You will understand eventually. No challenge, no matter how insignificant, can be left unanswered. Even a cry in the wilderness must be acknowledged, because someone might have heard it.” Roland smiled. “I’m fortunate you survived. It will be so interesting to watch you grow. We have nothing but time on our hands.”
“You’re telling me to give up the man I love,” I said.
“I can’t say I approve of your choice. He’s power
ful, but also paranoid and xenophobic. He will be difficult to bend.”
“Oh that’s rich,” Curran said.
I unclenched my teeth. “I can go years without worrying if you approve of me. And I have no interest in bending him. I like him the way he is. You have no right to comment on my relationships.”
“I’m your father. That’s the great privilege of parenthood; we can comment on whatever we want.”
“I don’t want you to be my father.”
“Of course you do,” Roland said. “You want to be loved, just like all of us want to be loved by our parents. Don’t you want to know about your mother? What she was like? About our family?”
“Our family consists of monsters.”
“Yes. But we are great and powerful monsters. Love demands sacrifices. When you love something, the way you love your people, Blossom, you must pay for it. Besides, I’m not forcing you to leave him, only the position of power that comes with him.”
“How exactly does this get around me challenging you?”
“You claimed a territory. I made you step down in retaliation. This demonstrates to those who are watching that I have power over you and our relationship is much more complex than the simple rebellion of you against me.”
“You are incredibly powerful,” I told him. “But I’m your daughter. If you hurt Curran or Julie, I will hunt you. I will dedicate every waking moment of my life to killing you, and I will succeed. Maybe not now. Maybe in another century or two. But I will never give up. Your powers work half of the time, when the magic is up. My sword works always. Promise me, Father. Promise it.”
Roland looked at Curran. “So be it. But this is the last concession I’m willing to make.”
“We have a deal,” Curran said. My heart broke into small jagged pieces.
Roland smiled again. “I always gave my children what I thought they wanted. Usually they wanted power. I am giving you what you need instead. Consider it an early wedding gift.”
There wouldn’t be a wedding. The Beast Lord and the Pack were one and the same. Even if we tried to make it work, we’d fail. The Pack would pull and pressure him to spend time at the Keep, where I couldn’t be, while I would pull and pressure him to stay with me.
Roland rose. “The two of you have some choices to make. I shall leave you to it. Oh, and I would like to be invited to the wedding.”
“No,” Curran and I said at the same time.
Roland paused by the door, his face wise, his eyes timeless. “I’ve often asked myself why I could never raise my children to be the people I envisioned them being. I believe it was because they were with me. Power corrupts, it is true, but none succumb to its rot as readily as the young. You don’t see it this way, but what I am giving you now is a blessing. You will understand in time.”
He put his hand on the door handle. “Almost forgot. Teleportation by water requires an incantation and the ignorance or agreement of the one being teleported. Aar natale.”
The words clicked in my mind, their meaning clear. “Interrupt?”
My father nodded. “That’s all you have to say to stop a teleportation incantation.”
He walked out.
If I stayed with Curran, Atlanta would burn and the Pack would die. I could do nothing to stop it.
“Fighting him will be difficult,” Curran said.
“Yes.” Understatement of the year.
“Do you like being the Consort?” he asked.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
He came over, crouched by me, and took my hands into his. “Kate, do you like being the Consort?”
I couldn’t ask him to give up the Pack for me. But I couldn’t lie to him either. “No. I never wanted to be the Consort. I just wanted you.”
“Then problem solved. Barabas!” Curran called.
The door opened and Barabas stepped inside, his face puzzled. “I just saw a man leave. I’ve been at the guard station since we got here. I’m positive he didn’t come in. Unless I’m insane, none of us let him in.”
“I want you to release a general announcement to the Pack,” Curran said.
“Should I get a pen and paper?”
“No, it will be short.”
“I’m ready,” Barabas said.
Curran looked at me. “Effective tomorrow, we are retired. Jim has our blessing.”
What?
Barabas opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
“Take your time,” Curran said.
“You what?”
“We are stepping down,” Curran said.
“You can’t!”
“We just did.”
“But—”
“We’ll talk about the details in the morning.”
“But what do I tell them?”
Curran sighed. “Which them?”
“Them!” Barabas waved his arms. “Everybody.”
“Tell them we quit. Thank you, Barabas. That will be all.”
Barabas blinked several times, turned around, and left the room. The door behind him closed.
“You’re leaving the Pack?” I couldn’t believe it.
“No, we are leaving. Together. It’s freedom, Kate. Freedom from paperwork, freedom from sorting through petitions. We can have a day off whenever we want. We can have sex whenever we want. You can run Cutting Edge, I’ll help you apprehend bunnycats, we can go to Julie’s plays or whatever the hell she does, without having to make excuses . . .”
I put my hand on his lips. “But you’re the Beast Lord.”
He kissed my fingers and took my hand off his mouth. “I haven’t liked being the Beast Lord for a while now. I built all this so my family—so you—would be protected. Then I almost had to kill my own Council so that I could leave to save my mate. In the end, Roland just walked past all of my defenses. Screw this. I’m done with it. This is the best way to protect you and Julie for now.”
“You created all of this. I can’t ask you to give up your life for me.”
He smiled. “I know. You did it for me. You moved into the Keep with me. My turn.”
Words came running out of me, one over the other. “You realize that my father won’t leave us alone? He can’t help himself. He meddles. He won’t attack us directly. Instead, he’ll find some ancient god with an axe to grind and suggest to him that Atlanta might be a nice place to put down roots, just so he can watch us take him down. Didn’t you see him? He was so happy I passed his little test. He’s already thinking of ways he can manipulate and use me and you.”
“That’s fine,” Curran said. “He’ll meddle with us instead of the Pack and we’ll deal with it. The real question is, will you still love me if I’m not Beast Lord?”
I put my arms around him. “Of course I’ll still love you, you stupid idiot. The Beast Lord is an arrogant jerk. I never wanted him. I only wanted Curran.”
“Stay with me,” he said.
“Always,” I told him.
EPILOGUE
“I LIKE THIS one,” Julie announced.
I surveyed the three-story house. Solid, with thick walls and grates over the windows, it was built post-Shift from hard brown stone. Curran tilted his head. The announcement of our retirement had hit the Pack first thing in the morning and spawned a shit storm of enormous proportions. We were supposed to be attending an emergency Pack Council session, except the three of us sneaked out of the Keep instead. We had breakfast at a small mom-and-pop joint and then stopped by a Pack real estate office. Once Nina, the real estate agent, a red-haired woman in her forties, regained her ability to speak, she sprang into action. This was the third house we had seen and I really liked it. It sat by itself on a five-acre lot on the outskirts of Atlanta, only three miles from Cutting Edge. Peach trees grew in the back, but the house itself sat in the middle of what would be a grassy lawn in the spring. Julie circled around and reported the presence of a pool in the backyard.
“All of this used to be office buildings.” Nina waved her arm at the street. “Once it w
as cleared, they decided to subdivide it into five-acre lots. You have neighbors on the left and on the right, but across from you there’s only about a hundred yards of trees and then Lake Smallish. Pool and stables for six mounts are in the back. This is a relatively safe area as far as northern Atlanta goes.”
“Safe isn’t a problem,” Curran said. “I’ll make it safe.”
“It’s only half an hour from my school,” Julie said. “That cuts my commute in half.”
“You might have to ride a horse,” I told her. “Jezebel won’t be able to take you back and forth anymore.” Jezebel worked for the Pack and we were severing ties.
Julie’s eyes lit up. “Can I ride Hugh’s horse?”
“I’ll think about it,” Curran said.
I thought she’d be upset about leaving the Keep. Instead, she’d shrugged and announced that as long as she could go to the same school, she didn’t care.
“Shall we go in?” Nina unlocked the door.
Julie went inside.
“It’s kind of big,” I said.
Curran grinned. I tapped him on the arm.
“That’s good. Plenty of privacy.”
“Can we afford this?” I asked Curran. It had to cost an arm and a leg.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m loaded.”
“Well, aren’t we smug, Your Furriness.”
“Technically, you can’t call me that anymore.”
“I’ll call you whatever I like.”
We stepped inside. Sand-colored tile lined the floor. The house was bright and open. Light streamed through the windows. The air smelled like freshly baked cookies. Here we go. It felt so comfortable here. And the office was less than twenty minutes away by horse. It was like it was tailor made for us.
“Four thousand square feet. Open floor plan,” Nina rattled off. “Tile on the first floor, hardwood on the two top floors. Beautiful windows throughout, state-of-the-art grates with high silver content . . .”
We followed her into the kitchen. It was almost as big as my old apartment. A platter of cookies waited for us on the counter with a small white note.
“The cookies are a nice touch,” Curran said.
Nina paused. “I didn’t do that. I had no idea I was going to show this one today.”