“We’re going to have a meeting in the library room,” I said.
Both bear and wolf guards looked confused, as it was not a normal meeting room, but all had the intelligence not to question me. I wasn’t as brutal as the Red Queen had been, but I was no pushover either. It was a thing every alpha learned the hard way – you had to be tough on wolves or they would rip you to pieces. I had no problem being tough. I was the queen alpha now, the alpha of every wolf in existence.
Traversing the halls, our guards trailing us, I was glad there were no others in the vicinity. Panic tended to ensue if Kade was spotted in our territory. When we reached the room, I opened the door, turning back to the guards.
“Wait for us here. Don’t let anyone in.”
Kade’s two turned to him briefly and he nodded, letting them know to follow my orders. The king and I stepped inside then and he closed the heavy wooden door behind us. I crossed into the room, which had been set up as a sitting-library room – not the Red Queen’s personal library where she had been killed, but a similar room on a much smaller scale. Kade was silent, examining his surroundings, before he started waving his hands before him.
“What are you doing?” I asked, perplexed.
He lowered his arms, turning to focus on me completely. “I can see the mecca in here, stronger than anywhere else I’ve been.”
His gift was amazing. I could feel the mecca, and utilize the energy, but he could see the actual lines of power and manipulate them. It gave him a strength and control that I lacked.
“I’m going to show you right now, but remember, I’m trusting you with this, Kade. If you break that trust, I’ll kill you.”
My words rang true. If he did turn against me, I would kill him.
He gave me a nod. “I would expect nothing less, and you know you can trust me.”
Sucking in deeply, I reached out and pulled the book down. As the secret door swung open, Kade’s eyes met mine. “This is going to be interesting,” he said with a grin.
I gave him my best mysterious one-eyebrow-raised look. “Not scared are you, bear?” I asked, before stepping inside and leaving him to make the decision.
His footsteps were silent as he followed me, but I knew he was there. The energy of the mecca was strong, almost suffocating on this side of the secret chamber. Whoever had designed this hiding place had definitely spelled the walls around it. This much mecca would make even alpha wolves sick if it wasn’t contained.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Kade towered over me, glancing over my head so he could see the stone clearly in the middle of the room. “I’ve never seen a mecca stone of that size.”
The stone’s purplish hue washed over his darkly tanned features. It was about four feet tall and two wide. It sparkled and shone with mesmerizing depth; the pull was great enough that I always feared if I stared into it too deeply I’d be lost in its depths forever.
Swallowing through my thick throat, I forced myself to focus on Kade. “The Red Queen always hinted that she had something powerful as a weapon,” I said, trying not to turn back and stare again. ”But none of us realized what it was.”
I was really the red queen now, but no one called me that. It had been the former leader’s title, and after her reign of over a hundred years, shifters weren’t going to break the habit anytime soon. Which was fine by me. Rumor was they were referring to me as Queen Alpha. I like that much better than the traditional title of Red Queen.
“Your father was the king before you, right?” I was learning about bear hierarchy, mostly from bits and pieces Kade let slip.
I’d been taught to fear and hate the bear shifters who held two of the five boroughs of New York City. That was all, just fear and hate. None of their history or traditions. To the best of my knowledge, their crown was inherited, not earned as ours was.
Kade was focused on the stone, his answer slow to come. “Yes, the crown remains in the royal bloodline. Only the males receive a familiar, and are strong enough to rule, so even if daughters are born to the king, they’ll never be a leader. My brother Kian was older than me, and should have been king. But he disappeared many years ago, so when my father was killed, it was up to me to take the crown.”
It was kind of odd that bears appeared to be the direct opposites of wolves. In our royal lineage, only female wolf shifters could be queen; we were the only ones to get familiars. In the bears it was only males. Odd.
Right now, Finn, my huge white wolf familiar, and Nix, Kade’s eagle, were off fae hunting, making sure no more of those hideous erchos were hiding in Central Park. Both of them were on high alert, and since familiars were extremely hard to kill, they thought they were the best first line of defense.
It calmed my mind to know I could check in on Finn at any time. Our mental link was strong and thrumming within me. I knew Kade felt the same way about his Nix. It was a bond that could not be replicated.
“How did your father die?” I asked, hoping this wasn’t too painful for him.
Kade had been king for a couple of years, and while this was not a long time in the few hundred years we could live, he already held the respect of his people. He was a just leader, I could tell.
“I remember the queen tolling the bells and informing us that King Roland had fallen and that the bears were vulnerable, but that she would honor the peace accords. It was a hunting accident, right?”
He focused fully on me then, some of the awe from the mecca fading out of his masculine features. The power within us was so much more potent this close to the stone, our connection back in full force. I actually took a step closer to him, unable to stand my ground. Kade was all of my woodcutter fantasies rolled up in one package – dark brown, bordering-on-black hair, tousled, thick, and shiny across his forehead; neatly trimmed beard against his throat and around his full lips, showcasing a slight dimple in his cheek. His height topped out near seven feet, and that package was finished off with broad shoulders and heavy muscles. He was huge, and his bear even bigger.