I shook my head to clear those thoughts and focused on what he was saying.
“The queen and one heir already murdered this morning. If we don’t fill the void in our pack powers, we’ll no doubt find ourselves in the midst of another wolf-bear-shifter war. They’ll come in force. They’ve already sent assassins to try and stop this Summit, and rumor is they are amassing an army.”
The council was assuming, as I had done, that the attacks on us heirs had been from the bear shifters. Despite their human appearance and scent, there was no way they were humans, and that really limited the options.
Bears made sense. Throughout history, we had been more enemies than allies, and mostly only ever crossed paths during peace negotiations – which were almost always failures. Still, I’d heard news that their new king did things a little differently. I seriously doubted it. Brutal by nature, the bears were interested in power and nothing more. They had short tempers and were quick to anger, unlike wolves who respected strategy before striking. That’s why we were in the place of highest power. We thought before acting, unlike the big brutes who went screaming into battle and died for their hasty decisions. We also bested them through numbers. But Torine made a very good point. Without the energy of the queen tying all of us together, we were in a vulnerable position, and the bears were already taking advantage of that.
“Either one of you ladies want to concede to me?” Selene murmured, her voice confident. “It’s not worth your life, and we need to get this sorted straight away.”
Breanna and I exchanged a glance, and it was clear both of us had the same thought. No way in hell. We might as well spit on the queen’s grave. With a shake of our heads, we both turned back to the front. There was no point even replying. Selene had no honor and would never avenge the fallen. Over my dead body would she be queen.
And even if I had thought she would make a decent queen, the Summit didn’t work like that, you had no option to forfeit. We had been trained from birth for this. All of us would fight for our place, for our chance to rule. I would never let Selene just take the role. The queen’s energy filtered to every single pack member, and Selene’s cold heart would influence the wolves in the worst way.
With my hand resting against the thick fur of my familiar, I focused closely on Torine. He was now kicking off the initial Summit events. Once everything was officiated, the first challenge would begin. All of the council and pack members were turned to face us now. My Bronx pack, wearing red armbands, were close to the front, none of them willing to be far from me. My heart ached to not see all of my most trusted dominants there. But there was nothing I could do now but take down those responsible for killing my two guards at the vortex.
“We have three heirs who will compete for the honor of being queen: Arianna, from our beloved Red Queen’s lineage. Selene, from the Purple Hearts pack. And finally Breanna, from the ancient Yellow Wood pack.”
Another of the council stepped forward. He held a large flag in his hand that was a checkered four-way pattern, each section a color of the royal houses. “Let the Summit begin,” he shouted, and the crowd followed with shouts and howls. Even Finn beside me seemed to burst with newfound energy.
The three of us held our right hand out as Torine stepped out from his council area and crossed the dais. From a sheath at his side he took an ornate blade, one infused just slightly with a mix of silver and iron so our wounds would not heal quickly, and slashed across each of our palms.
I clenched my fist, ignoring the biting sting, and let my blood drip into the large ceremonial cup below us. From here it would overflow and run down and into the center of the mecca. The royal home was built above one of the largest reservoirs of mecca magic.
Our blood sacrifice was used to set the magic into motion. Once it started, there was no stopping the Summit until the coronation. The second the final heir’s blood filled the cup, it drained mysteriously, flowing into the mecca. Howls were still ringing out around us, and I could feel the tingles of magic on my skin as the energy beneath us responded to the stream of blood we were feeding into it.
My eyes fluttered as the power washed over and through me. I had always had a particularly close affinity to the magical mecca, which was odd since it was not shifter in origin. We were only its guardians, and had the responsibility to not let it fall into the control of those who would either abuse the power or destroy themselves – humans especially.
As the cut on my palm finally sealed itself, the blood sacrifice was complete. I stood taller, my body ready for whatever was going to be thrown at us. We had no idea of the events, they were randomly selected from thousands of options by the council. Which meant we could only hope it was a task we had an affinity for or had studied at some point in our life. Although we were all genetically ready to be queen, only the strongest, most cunning, and level headed would rule. This was how it had been done for hundreds of years. Of course, I’d never expected to be called. Queens generally lived a hundred or more years. But here I was.
Selene was the last heir in the purple line, so she had a lot of pressure on her. Their line had not been queen for a very long time. Devina had a three-year-old heir sister, and five retired heir cousins who were hard at work trying to produce more green heirs. So even though she was cut down before the Summit started, the royal green line would live on. It was drilled into us since birth that our duty was to be a strong alpha heir, to select an exceptional breeding partner, and try and produce more heirs. Just because we were heirs, though, did not mean we would automatically have children who would receive familiars. But we had the best chance.