The Leopard King

  “My apologies,” he said. “Everyone’s on edge.”

  “It’s understandable.”

  “Golgoth sympathizer!” a bear clan warrior shouted.

  “We should go.”

  Nodding, the prince followed him out of the throng. It still hadn’t sunk in. Beren’s dead? Dom didn’t even know who would rule in his place; the old bear had said something about his heir taking a vow of celibacy. I guess I need to talk to his second, assuming he survived. Once they got some distance away, the royal paused.

  “I lost two men in this attack, and it’s on my head. You see, I wasn’t entirely honest with you this morning. Though I have no concrete information about what’s happening, I have a guess. And I should have shared my speculation with you earlier. The fact that you saved me—for no tangible gain—entitles you to my candor and loyalty.”

  There was no safe spot where he could hold a conference, but he found an out-of-the-way corner near the wall, beyond the range of interested ears. If this turned out to be nothing, Dom would be pissed at the waste of time, as he had so much shit to do. Yet from Alastor’s sober mien, he wasn’t messing about.

  “Speak.”

  “I’m unsure how much you know about Golgoth internal politics?”

  “Not much. Can you give me the short version? It’s not that I’m disinterested in your culture, but…” He gestured at the weeping wounded in the park and the columns of smoke.

  “Yes, quite. Well, it tends to be vicious and competitive. Birth order doesn’t determine who will rule. My older brother has already done away with three of our siblings, and I rather suspect I was meant to die here as well. I wondered why he entrusted me with this… and now I have an answer. As he also thinks the Pax Protocols are a waste of paper, I suspect he’s also responsible for the raids in the north.”

  “What’s the asshole’s name?” Dom demanded.

  “Tycho. There were five of us, once. I’m the last. Two of my sisters and one brother have died on his road to the throne. He left me for last because he thought I’d be the easiest to defeat.”

  There was an element of pathos in this honesty. As Prince Alastor held Dom’s gaze, he realized he didn’t have a single doubt about what he was hearing. He made a snap judgment. “If you agree to tell me everything you know about your brother—assets, strategy, potential targets—I’ll offer you asylum until the war ends, one way or another.”

  “Many of my people will consider me a traitor if I ally with you,” Alastor said.

  “You think Tycho will let you live if you go back?”

  “Definitely not. I never wanted the throne, but it seems as if my only shot at survival is directly linked to taking it.”

  “Then gather your people. Send some discreet messages, and summon any soldiers loyal to you. This will be our staging ground.”

  “Your other allies probably won’t take this well.”

  “I’ll make it right with Raff and…” Hell, he didn’t even know the name of Beren’s heir. “Right now I need to find Lord Talfayen.”

  And Gavriel, he added silently. So help me, if the Eldritch had anything to do with this…

  “Understood.” Prince Alastor swept a regal bow, somehow elegant despite his torn, stained clothes and filthy face, which looked like Raff had rubbed it in the dirt.

  “Please excuse me, we’ll talk more later.”

  As he turned, the Noxblade he’d just been thinking about melted out of the crowd and tapped his arm. “This way. We don’t have long.”

  “Until what?”

  But Gavriel was running, weaving through the crowd with an adroitness Dom would be hard-pressed to match as a leopard. On human feet, it took all his endurance and speed to keep the Noxblade in sight. This wild chase led through the hold to a pile of rubble, and he pictured what used to be here. One of the lounges? But when he spotted Slay kneeling beside Lord Talfayen, half-buried in broken stones, it drove all other thoughts from his head.

  “Too soon… it was too soon,” the Eldritch leader wheezed. “Remember your promise.”

  Rage drowned all the questions as blood trickled from the Eldritch lord’s mouth. His torso was crushed. All Dom could think about was that this asshole was about to pass of his injuries, despite ordering Dalena’s death. It’ll take too long to change. I have to be the one to kill him, or this will never be over.

  There was no thought of mercy in him as he grabbed Gavriel and shook him hard. “Your blade, I know you have one. Give it to me. Now.”

  Once he had it, he blasted past Slay and stared down at Talfayen’s broken form with as much hate as he’d felt in his life. In one vicious slash, he opened the bastard’s throat and watched as he bled out.

  Finally, Dalena can rest. And I can let her go.

  21.

  The rescue effort went on for hours.

  Pru paced the medical tent as the team removed the metal spear in her dad’s side. With proper treatment, he recovered quickly, and soon he just had bloody clothes as a terrible souvenir of their ordeal. Young pride mates weren’t so lucky, and two Latents had been killed in the explosion. Heavy-hearted, she aided where she could, but somewhere around noon, she staggered. Lightheaded, she finally yielded to her body’s demands for food and a moment of rest. The pride had a camp kitchen open by then with vast pots of soup bubbling away to ward off the bitter chill. She drank hers in three gulps and then hurried off to continue working.

  But she paused when she spotted her father lending a hand despite his healing injury. “Have you eaten, Dad?”

  “I have more sense than you,” her father muttered.

  Just then, Magda called her name from across the park, so Pru waved to him and moved to join the security chief. It was a relief to find her hale and whole. “You need me?”

  “Has Dom found you yet? He’s half-crazed at this point.”

  She shook her head. “I haven’t seen him, but somebody told me he was all right. If you run into him before I do, let him know I’m hanging in there.”

  “No problem,” the security chief said. “But that’s not why I flagged you down.”

  “What’s up? Apart from the obvious.”

  “I’m sorry,” was all the other woman said.

  Since Magda wasn’t known for screwing around, Pru followed her without question. Most of the health center was still intact, and Sheyla was doing the best she could, along with half the nursing staff and a room full of volunteers. The only other physician was stationed at the medical tent, taking care of triage.

  But Mags didn’t turn toward the ward. Instead, she led Pru to rooms that were ominously drafty and cold. Here, part of the wall had collapsed, letting in the winter air, but when she saw the rows on rows of bodies covered in white sheets, she understood that the temperature didn’t matter. Actually the cold was probably for the best.

  “How many have we lost so far?”

  “I don’t have a number. You can count the victims here, but there are a great many more waiting to be dug out of the rubble. We may lose others to hypothermia as night falls.”

  “Are any of the visiting dignitaries willing to pitch in?”

  Magda nodded. “There’s a Noxblade already leading a rescue crew.”

  “Gavriel?” she guessed.

  “How’d you know?” The other woman cocked a brow in surprise.

  “Just a hunch. Anything else?”

  “Most of the bears are grieving hard, but I’m working on them. Raff’s got his men helping, but many of them want to march out and cut their losses.”

  “I can understand that. Update on the rest of the Eldritch?”

  “Bad rumors afoot. I caught a whisper that their leader died in the attack, but so far his body hasn’t turned up. It’s also strange that their group seems to have split into two factions, the one helping us on recovery and the one trying to locate Talfayen.”

  Thanks. You made it easy for us to ID the traitors.

  “If there’s nothing else,” she started to sa
y, but the cloud in Magda’s expression stopped her. “What?”

  The security chief walked over to the nearest body. “I wish there was something I could say to make this easier. Just know that I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  Then she unveiled the familiar faces one by one. Cousin Naveen. Uncle Chaz. Cousin Caroleth and her mate, Perry. No. This isn’t possible. They couldn’t all be lying so pale and still, the wounds still fresh on their stiffening bodies. They were all shifters—with accelerated healing—so none of them died easy. They’d all suffered sudden, catastrophic injuries, too severe for their metabolisms to save them. The Animari weren’t invincible, just tougher than most.

  Pru dropped to her knees as the strength drained from her legs. Thoughts whirled so fast they made her sick, and the questions tried to fight free of her mouth like word vomit, until she choked on it. Magda touched her shoulder, and it took all her self-control not to savage the woman’s hand with her teeth. Not because it was her fault, because she was here.

  Fucking unfair, yeah.

  Somehow she got out, “Aunt Glynnis? What about Joss? My cousins, Jilly and Jase?”

  They’re orphans now.

  “Your aunt was injured, but she came through surgery and she’s healing well. I haven’t heard anything of Joss. Jilly is fine, but Jase…”

  “Just tell me.”

  “He was pinned beneath some fallen wreckage. It seems probable that if he survives, there will be permanent spinal damage.”

  That news shattered her determination to be strong. In that freezing makeshift morgue, Pru drew her knees to her chest and sobbed. She had no idea how long she cried, but eventually, a warm hand settled on her shoulder. Dom’s smell roused her first, as she’d recognize her mate anywhere. He hauled her upright and into his arms, a hold so tight it hurt in all the best ways. Over and over, he ran his hands down her body as if conducting a tactile inspection because his eyes couldn’t be trusted.

  “You’re all right,” he whispered. “You’re safe.”

  It took forever to gasp an answer. “But… so many people aren’t.”

  Belatedly, he seemed to recognize the family members she was mourning, and he cupped her face in his hands. “What can I do?”

  “Just find the bastard who did this.”

  “It’s definitely at the top of my list.” Dom lifted her face and kissed her tears away, each brush of his lips exquisitely tender.

  Pru didn’t even notice when Magda slipped off, and she let Dom guide her away from the dead with minimal protest. It wasn’t like her presence would bring them back again. Pain washed over her in waves, striking hard so that she couldn’t breathe. At those moments, Dom half-supported her, like he had nowhere more important to be.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “Don’t be. I need to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Keeping a level head. Staying safe. If I lost you…”

  You’d replace me, she thought. Anyone who isn’t Dalena is interchangeable, as long as it’s for the good of the pride. The bitterness of that thought surprised her, and Pru did her best to quell it. It’s not his fault. That’s grief talking.

  When she didn’t respond, he appeared to gather himself enough to continue. “Well, let’s just say you’re my whole world, now.”

  Wistful, she lifted her gaze to his and wished that were true and he wasn’t just saying it because he’d caught her weeping like a lost soul. At this point he’d probably say anything to cheer her up.

  “How’s Slay?” Immediately after, she wished she hadn’t asked, because his citrine eyes wavered and dropped away from hers.

  “Fine.” Dom’s tone became brusque. “You just saw Mags. I don’t know if you heard, but we lost Beren and Talfayen today. I also learned something critical from Prince Alastor.”

  Reeling from all that info, Pru tried to process the fact that the old bear was gone. “Oh no. Have you spoken with his second?”

  “So far, nobody’s located him. We don’t know if he survived the attack or left the hold in the confusion.”

  “Talfayen?”

  “Fatally wounded.” Her mate’s eyes gleamed with an icy light as he added softly, “Some might even call what I did a mercy killing.”

  Her heart skipped. “You…”

  Then she remembered. Because of Dalena. Gavriel had sworn that Talfayen put his nephew up to the murder and he’d brought the audio file as proof. Pru hesitated, trying not to shiver over the idea of murdering Talfayen in cold blood. Part of her understood and rejoiced that it was over. Next time she went to the columbarium, she could give her best friend answers and light some candles in hopes her spirit found peace.

  Shit. If the memorial center is still standing.

  But she also feared for Dom’s soul, the cost of such a merciless retaliation.

  Her silence seemed to put him on edge. His words tumbled out fast, one after another. “There never would have been a trial. What court would even have jurisdiction?”

  For a moment, she imagined the Eldritch lying helpless, and she couldn’t find it in her heart to agree, so she asked, “What did you learn from the prince?”

  “That we must fight his brother, Tycho.”

  Hours after Dom found Pru, he couldn’t stop thinking of how broken she’d seemed, couldn’t stop wondering if there was a path he could’ve taken that wouldn’t have ended with her family decimated. I just had breakfast with them. Just spent an hour with her uncle telling me about their ancestry.

  But he didn’t have the leisure to obsess over personal matters, not when there were actual holes in the walls his grandfather had built to keep the pride safe, and he couldn’t see to shoring them up until the last victim was pulled from the wreckage. Still such a long way to go. As the bodies piled up, he had people matching faces with names, but some of the victims were unrecognizable. Eventually they might be reduced to DNA testing, but he didn’t have the equipment for that in the hold.

  “Sir, we have vehicles at a thousand meters and closing fast.” The sentry who made the report looked like he hadn’t eaten or slept in days.

  Dom didn’t show even a fraction of the alarm flickering through him. “I’ll take care of it. Take a break now, that’s an order.”

  As he ran for the gate, he got on the radio and barked orders. “Get eyes on the breach points, however you can manage it. We may be looking at an incursion.”

  They didn’t have men to spare for guarding all the gaps, but everyone should be on high alert until he figured out who these new arrivals were. Dom went up onto the wall for a better view, and he watched the snow flying from the rapid approach of seven vehicles running in a tight, armed convoy. The way things had been going, it wouldn’t surprise him if they rammed the gates, but as they drew closer, he recognized the build: square lines, matte camo paint job.

  “Those look like bear clan reinforcements,” he called to the sentry. “But let’s wait for confirmation, just to be certain.”

  The fleet parked outside, sending a message about the group’s intentions, then a mountain of a man clambered out of the lead Rover. He wore a full beard and flowing brown locks that looked as if they had never been cut, bound away from his face in a leather tie. Even at this distance, there was enough of a resemblance to the old bear that Dom tentatively identified him as Beren’s heir. At a gesture, the rest of the men fell in behind him. None of them dressed like the other bear guards in the hold, however. Instead of uniforms, they wore heavy gray greatcoats of leather and sheepskin and leggings tucked into heavy boots.

  “Open the gates,” he shouted.

  Running the stairs at top speed, he managed to get there in time to greet the new arrivals. At least the fires are out. But he didn’t look forward to giving this man the bad news. As the bear party arrived, Dom stretched his neck to make eye contact. That means he’s two meters tall, if not more. The width of this man’s shoulders was intimidating, broad as a sequoia compared to the other bear warriors, and
Beren hadn’t been small.

  “I received a distress call from my uncle’s second,” the great bear rumbled.

  When he put out a hand, Dom took it, and the other man crunched his knuckles in a grip that was probably meant to be firm, not punishing. “Dominic Asher, master of Ash Valley. I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

  “Callum McRae. You didn’t blow up your own hold, so I don’t hold you accountable.”

  That’s a relief.

  If the old bear had been all bluster, there was an iron composure about his heir. Dom had the feeling Callum would crush anyone who wronged his people, slowly and methodically. Stepping back, he waved the group into the plaza, and once the forty men cleared the gate, he signaled for the sentries to lock it down. That might be pointless since there were so many breaches in the wall, but it wouldn’t help to drop their defenses even in disarray.

  “I suspect you want to see your uncle?”

  “That’s where we’ll start,” the other man said grimly.

  Then Callum turned to his men. “Find the bear survivors first. Afterward, render aid wherever possible.”

  “To everyone?” The bear warrior who spoke sounded as if he’d been asked to complete a particularly distasteful mission.

  “Yes, everyone. Our kindness and compassion must extend beyond the order, beyond our clan. We’ve spent too long apart, and look at the result.”

  That’s right. Beren said something about his heir taking a vow of celibacy. So these bears are from… a monastic order?

  His gaze must’ve contained an undeniable question because Callum sighed. “The Order of Saint Casimir, at your service.”

  “Thank you for coming. If things hadn’t been so chaotic, I’d have notified you myself.”

  “I understand. Please… may I see Uncle Beren now?”

  “This way.”