(New and edited)
CHAPTER 30: A Kingdom's Legacy
"New Queen, I'm so delighted." Nicolai's eyes are directed forward, he ignores my words, standing, staring at the picture of his father standing over him, above him and stuck to a wall like someone to bow to, even in death. My sarcasm falls on deaf ears. His sister lingers in the corner, watching us both and not even he seems to realise it after Arthur was turned away by the council who seemed to inclined to give Martin his claim to a dead throne. This place didn't hold a ruling I would have expected, especially since their rumoured stories are left six feet under with the assumption that this place turned to dust years ago.
Nicolai stares up at him, "I use to hate this man. A cunning leader with prospects to fill a role under a crown and we were heirs to him. We were never children, never the objects of life and love, but the objects to fill the void he pursued years prior."
I blink at him, "I wouldn't go excusing your behaviour on the way you were raised. A bitch is always a bitch, no matter the stripes they redecorate to hide." I mutter, wishing for alcohol before I sense the movement, the presence of elementals in the corner of my mind. Colouring something otherworldly and calling it unique here.
Calling it something to bow to.
Martin lowers his head down, pursing his lips, he faces me, "You want an apology for forcing your hand?" Is he kidding? I raise a suspicious eyebrow at him, I wondered if the nanobots kicked in yet. Each time anger rivalled in him, they would shut it down faster than a virus infects an entire planet. Sorry, that's inaccurate, it would shut down faster than a light switch turns the light off. He's shrouded in darkness most of the time, those chemical weapons Kade had me inject into him was a type of mine-controlling technology.
Pity the wolf who bares the internal collar.
Not likely. Not when it's him who wears that collar.
I study him, "Oh, I want way more." I say, Athena studies us from the shadows and the elementals staying within their boundaries.
Martin stares at me, "What did you do?" He asks me, there's a crack in his voice, he's relaxed and he hates it.
"I played by my own rules. So, this should be bloody fun, my King. First, call for that bodily sister of yours to slither from the shadows and make her peace with dear older brother." I suggest, Martin' eyes move immediately to Athena's and on instinct, he steps in front of me protectively. I almost laugh. Damn those nano's were fucking brilliant.
Genius.
Athena steps forward, she heard every word, probably even put it on replay as she stares at me, "I want to speak with your mate." She initiates, gesturing to me in case there was another mate around here. See, Martin knew next to nothing about that, however, I did. And I wish terribly that I didn't, but who the hell gets to choose their date except the goddess herself, and even then.
Goddess, what a mystery.
Martin straightens, placating a gesture of calmness when he sniffs her aura like it had its own scent. He clenches his fists but moves on mindful command and I look back up to his father, suppressing the urge to wink and Koch the ugly painting for what it is, "I must comment on your antics."
Her words don't surprise me, "Comment away. I'm here for the assembly of an Order you and your younger brother object to and your look of terror when he announced my purpose of presence here was not unnoticed. You fed I may break under Nicolai's thumb. I would have." I shrug her way, being truthful now wouldn't cut my losses later. Unless they do and even then, I'm screwed either way. Might as well shed some entertainment here.
She narrows her eyes, shifting on her feet, the confidence before was wavering now and I was eating it up like a girl with candy before her. Only I wasn't staring at candy, I was staring at caution, at confusion, at a woman atoned for her sins once before and toned by the tarnishing colours of war. She had the paint clinging under her skin, like a curse. I could relate more than she would ever know, "I sense an undercurrent of power in you. I scented it before, I sense it now. You are something more than beast and man."
"Woman, sweetheart. Don't go getting sexist on me." I tsk her way.
She blanches, "You are too much like Arthur."
"No one is much like another, again, that's offensive." I wave her away, moving to face Elias who can't determine what he's staring at right now.
Athena growls under her breath, "Elders, you are breaching your jurisdiction here."
What is this? A bloody courtroom?
Elias clenches his jaw, "We hold more power than you, lycanthrope, on more accounts than your young life will ever care to know. We wish to speak with Celestine, privately. Your conversation may resume in due time." He tells her, cause talking like we live in the nineteenth century is the way to talk to the pretty bitch next to me.
She narrows her eyes at me, "Don't call me that."
It's my turn to blanch, "Your abilities?"
"Come see me when Elias is done being a salty, narcissistic vermin from the cold." She mutters, brushing away from me and I watch her go in amazement.
"You should shield your thoughts around the Royals." Elias warns, stepping forward, I'm tempted to slap him hard across the face, but instead look at the elder who shouldn't even bother to hold a hood to cover his impudent face and all else. I eye him like the predator I know I am. He pulls his hands up and removes the hood, causing Elias to stare at him in shock.
Alastair stares me down, "What did you do to the animal?" He questions me.
"I was getting tired of being used, so I made him my bitch instead of being yours." I point out.
His anger doesn't show, I can't even be sure it's there. Elias stares between us, "What the hell is going on here? Your majesty, it is dangerous for you to be showing your face."
"It isn't, no one else is around and the midget in next to you has been withholding vital information. However, that is not my place to say. Plans will have to change since she has chosen a path that does not require her to be a submissive bitch to the lycanthrope king." Yeah, no shit, ice-arsehole.
His eyes penetrate mine in a manner that holds age, I thought he was legendary, I thought he had power. Power comes with loyalty and respect, he has one, he does not hold the other. Two guesses which is which.
Elias stares at me, "What secrets do you hold?" He demands.
I glance at him, "You use to be a professor everyone lives up to. Now you're just a pain in my arse and the man you serve, is just as torrentially disappointing as Nicolai Darkling himself. When will men understand? You are nothing without a woman." I spit at the both of them, turning on my heel as Elias follows and so does the ancient ice man with no sense of brain power other than strategy and manipulation...and one other thing...war.
Let's see how powerful the battlefield is when his opposing king is a puppet to me now.
Doesn't anyone know that the Queen is the most important piece.
"Where do you think you're going?" I hear beside me and Athena steps out of a library, holding a book on elementals and I refrain from stuttering as I know she knows now. She could sense it. Her power is stronger than even Martin's. I'm surprised she let Arthur take the reins.
"Who says I did?" She asks me, moving forward and directing me to a room balanced with training gear on the side and protective mats surrounding the place. She used a fingerprint to lock the doors, before gesturing me toward the middle.
"I hoped you weren't his puppet."
"Please stop using my words, reading my mind."
"It comes naturally for us hybrids. Have you not heard of us, my dear?" She asks me, I shake my head, opening the detailed book of drawings, creatures and casts and designs of beings I had never even known existed. Was she my key to learning my past or was this book a beginning of something else?
"Martin is what you call him. Instead of Nicolai. Loved ones give nicknames." She tells me, probably just to spite me.
"I'm not his mate."
She just studies me, "You cannot fully tap into your magic unless you are in the right environment. Something that should have just been common sense to you, but some brains work slower than others. Follow me, fire wielder." Oh, I like that nickname.
"You have some lava around here?" I ask, raising a brow.
"Fire, yes." She mutters, side-glancing me, I notice the freckles running along the smoothness of her nose. Her skin looking tanner now than it did in the light of a stuffy throne room made just to show who's authority holds more value.
"That room is precisely for that. Well done, you used one brain cell. Let's try more once you step into the simulation that should help enhance your abilities. It's truly too bad you weren't a water wielder, you're missing out on heaven's hills, instead I must venture to the devil's house just to appease your bloody aura." She's not British, she's just happily mocking me. I wonder if she'll still be capable of doing that when I light a fire under her arse. Guards watch her move, while I'm more ignore than a moth in the world.
Harsh.
"They are attracted to power." She murmurs.
Bitch.
She smiles to herself now, moving into a room of humid air, I still when I stare up at the room with a temple in the middle, filled with lava stones. Eliciting the flames that were more alluring than mountains of green and the peacefulness of nature like I use to think as a child, when I wanted an escape.
She moves towards the edge of it, "Get in the middle, sit there, close your eyes and focus." She instructs.
I stare at it, before moving hesitantly towards it, "Who are you? You said hybrid."
She stares at me, "Get in the temple, child."
"Who. Are. You?"
"Do as I say, or I'll open your mind and read out your fears, your darkest secrets and I'll watch it be your entire downfall."