Huntress Read online

  “I’m afraid not, Your Highness, but I have suggested you directly help with the recruitment of your future agents.”

  Would a woman like the huntress be interested in a job in the RPS? Hunting the hunters was something women like her might appreciate. It’d be more of a challenge than hunting a white turkey through the forest—and a great deal more frustrating. I smiled at the thought. “I think you need a raise, Christian.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness. The sentiment is appreciated.”

  Without a way to prevent or delay the inevitable, I strode to the SUV, climbed inside, and braced for the onslaught of fatherly concern.

  Sometimes, I hated cats. As I’d been warned, my father clung to me, determined to invade my personal space. Turkeys didn’t have the intimidating warning growls the rest of my family enjoyed, so I borrowed from my great-grandpa.

  When growling didn’t work, I went for his throat.

  The resulting brawl required all four RPS agents to break up. Before they separated us, I managed to blacken my father’s eye and split his lip, taking advantage of his unwillingness to add to my collection of bruises.

  “Really, Your Majesty? Could you avoid provoking His Highness? I don’t want to explain to Her Majesty you found the limit of your son’s patience,” Christian complained, cramming between us to keep the fight from resuming. “Her Majesty should be arriving at the castle soon. Convincing her not to worry will be difficult enough. Once those bruises you’ve earned show, she’ll have a turn with all of us.”

  “But I didn’t do anything,” my father protested.

  “You annoyed him and invaded his personal space after he clearly stated he didn’t want to be pounced by a lynx. That’s you. Please remain on your side of the vehicle. Should you fail to comply, Your Majesty, you will be sedated.”

  “You didn’t bring any tranquilizers,” my father crowed triumphantly.

  “I was planning on using my fist to sedate you, Your Majesty.”

  When Christian issued threats, he meant them, and I had no doubt it would escalate into a lynx-vs-human battle to unconsciousness if I let them start a fight. Christian would win, my father would whine, and I’d have to deal with them both annoying me for weeks. “Please stop.”

  “It’s your choice. If you stay on your side of the vehicle, we won’t have to fight, Your Majesty.”

  “Fine.” My father crossed his arms and grunted. “Be that way.”

  “Thank you. Please leave His Highness alone until he takes a nap. As long as you don’t wake him, I don’t care what you do.”

  “Thanks, Christian,” I muttered, worried what my father would do if I made the mistake of closing my eyes.

  “I recommend against falling asleep, Your Highness.”

  I sighed. “Please just get us to the castle without any accidents, Christian. Please. I’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

  I clung to consciousness, determined to avoid more of my father’s affection. When I wasn’t coughing or sneezing, I mimicked his growls, which did a good job of destroying my voice. I could still speak, but I sounded like I’d done significant damage to my throat as a result.

  “I’m impressed,” my father announced. “We haven’t even made it home yet and your voice is gone. Just go to sleep already.”

  I shook my head.

  “You’re going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Please leave him alone, Your Majesty,” Christian grumbled. “Do not make me pull over and deal with you.”

  “He was supposed to take a nap!”

  “Your Majesty, he’s no longer an infant. He’s not going to take a nap.”

  “Infants don’t nap really, either,” my father admitted. “It’s a trap—they’re just waiting for the adults to nap to carry out their ruthless schemes.”

  “Your Majesty, will you please relax? He’s obviously doing fine. He comes home with a cold every year. You should be grateful he called instead of hitchhiking back to the castle again.”

  “I am grateful.”

  “Then act like it. Give him the next thirty minutes of quiet before he’s mobbed.”

  “Fine.”

  My father lasted almost ten minutes before asking, “Did you get that woman’s number before she beat you?”

  “No, Dad,” I croaked. “Please shut up.”

  “But it’s a matter of utmost importance. She could be your one and only.”

  “Your Majesty, would you please leave him alone?”

  “If he wanted me to leave him alone, he wouldn’t have left home!” my father howled.

  Screw it. I wound up, stole Christian’s idea, and sedated Illinois’s king with my fist. If I was executed, I’d consider it a mercy. My father slumped, his belt preventing him from falling off the seat. I shook out my hand and grunted my satisfaction.

  The RPS agents gawked at me, and Christian pulled over so he could join in. “What the hell have you been doing all spring to learn how to punch like that?”

  I hated my life sometimes. Instead of answering, I glared at him.

  Christian held his hands up. “I tried to stop him.”

  I sighed. “Please take us home before he wakes up, Christian.”

  Much to my surprise, the RPS agent obeyed.

  My great-grandpa waited at the front doors of the castle, a hulking brute of a man who enjoyed tricking the world into believing he was an old teddy bear. I knew better, but I valued my life so never said anything.

  “Kiddo,” he growled, opening my door. Stopping, he peered inside, his gaze focusing on my unconscious father. “I’m sure there’s a reason for that.”

  I nodded.

  “What is the reason?”

  “Please forgive His Highness, sir. His throat’s bothering him, and he’s pretty hoarse from arguing with His Majesty, who insisted on being annoying.”

  “Well, he is a cat. Continue.”

  “His Highness sedated His Majesty with his fist. Good, single hit. I’m sure he’ll be fine, but I can take him to the royal physician if you’d like.”

  “Leave the brat, he deserved it. I’ll drag him to his wife and let her knock some more sense into him. Good job, kiddo. What’s wrong with you this year beyond your usual cold?”

  “He got beaten by a woman,” Christian announced.

  “That sounds promising. Where is she now?”

  “He refuses to tell us anything about her, sir.”

  “Harass him until he does, bring her here, and we’ll lock them in the dungeon together for a while. We haven’t tried that tactic yet.”

  I wished I could get away with sedating my grizzly of a great-grandpa, but he’d laugh at my attempts and toss me into the nearest stream until I cooled my temper.

  “I have the feeling he’s making plans of his own, sir. I’ve never heard His Highness sound so offended over anything before. Perhaps we should let him try his new method before we interfere.”

  My great-grandpa patted my head. “Good kiddo. You run on in and go to your room. Get cleaned up. I told your mother and the rest of the family to give you some space. If you’re not feeling well enough to drag yourself home, you don’t need to deal with unnecessary fussing tonight.”

  “Who are you and what have you done with my great-grandpa?” I demanded.

  “I’ve been doing some thinking, and I had an idea about how to help you find your perfect woman.”

  I should’ve known. “Maybe I’ve already found her.”

  “And she beat you up?”

  I shrugged.

  “You’re the damndest stubborn kiddo this castle’s ever seen. March to your room and get some rest. I had someone take some soup up for you. Try not to throw it up.”

  As arguing would earn me more bruises, I replied, “Yes, sir.”

  Obeying the cranky grizzly didn’t count as running away, although I had to fight my initial instinct to hurry to get out of his reach. The trick to dealing with predators involved avoiding a
cting like prey. I could do that. In the wild, few sane predators toyed with an overgrown turkey. It didn’t take them long to figure out I liked to aim for the eyes and used every dirty trick in the book to survive.

  Too bad my tricks didn’t work on my family.

  After a spring of living outdoors, nothing beat soaking in my tub while sipping chicken noodle soup from a mug. I cranked the jets to maximum power, not caring if they added to my bruises. The warm water eased my bone-deep aches, which helped me see the bright side of things. Even better, the cut from the huntress’s arrow had stopped bleeding, and if any of the orange stain remained, I couldn’t tell due to the bruising beginning to show. I’d annoy the royal physicians with my current state, but as long as the bruises continued to darken, I’d be able to avoid unwanted scrutiny.

  It was one thing for me to earn a beating from a woman, but it was another entirely if her talents were brought into the picture. The protective side of my family of hard-headed predators came out when they felt I couldn’t defend myself. As I had no confirmed talents outside of the family curse, when it came to magic, I was a liability.

  Since I’d first shifted during a family camping trip and developed a reputation for running off and doing exactly what I wanted unsupervised, it’d been trivial to keep my secret a secret. I’d shifted while taking a nap in a tree, which made it easy to flap to freedom, leaving my clothes for my family to find.

  I’d spent most of my first spring in the wild attempting to come to terms with my new shape. My first summer officially cursed, I’d sulked whenever I thought no one had been watching.

  My first shift had sealed my fate as the heir of Illinois, and my family had been thrilled.

  Every year since, they’d searched for me, and I’d evaded them because they looked for a predator’s scent marker when they needed to search for prey instead. As a turkey, my scent changed so much I couldn’t be identified, but I hadn’t understood that for a few years until my human nose had grown more sensitive.

  Now I could scent my family members before they otherwise made their presence known, a useful trait for someone who didn’t want found.

  Someone knocked at my bathroom door, and I muttered a curse over my loss of privacy. “What is it?”

  My voice sounded worse than terrible, and I hoped it dissuaded my visitor from bothering me.

  “You all right?” my mother asked.

  Nope, nothing on Earth would dissuade my mother, so giving in to the inevitable would save me a headache. Hopefully, she’d lose interest and leave sooner than later. I doubted it. “I’m enjoying my bath. Everything’s fine.”

  “You’re not dying?”

  I was related to unforgivably lovable idiots. “No, Mother. I’m not dying.”

  “Are you taking a bubble bath so I can come in?”

  I was the fool for hoping there’d be any privacy or restraint in my family of predators who often lost their clothes when they shifted. My mother had seen so many naked men in her life she’d become desensitized to nudity. Unlike my father, uncles, and every other Averett male, I refused to start flashing unsuspecting castle employees post-shift. Groaning, I reached for my bottle of shampoo and dumped some in. “Are you going to bring me more soup?”

  “I can.”

  Soup would make her invasion worthwhile, and bubbles would defend my modesty sufficiently against the saner of my parents. I figured she’d put up with fourteen hours of labor to bring me into the world, so if she wanted to see my bruised chest, I could deal with it. “You bring me soup, I’ll make bubbles, but you’re the only one allowed in.”

  “Your grandma—”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “No.”

  My mother huffed. “Fine. She’ll see you in the morning, then.”

  “I can work with in the morning.”

  “I’ll be back soon with your soup.”

  Knowing my mother, she’d probably stolen a slow cooker from the kitchen and had set it up in my bedroom so I’d have a ready supply. If she hadn’t, she’d yell at the poor cooks until she was confident I wouldn’t starve. After she conquered the kitchen, I pitied the physician she’d corner. Every sneeze would trigger a wave of parental concern until I contemplated asking someone to dose my mother with something to calm her down.

  Several minutes later, she knocked, let herself in, and set a steaming mug on the ledge beside me. I marveled at how such a tiny woman could handle a man like my father—or have children at all. According to her, I’d just about killed her with my big, egotistical head.

  I’d never figured out how a newborn could be egotistical, but I’d learned not to question my mother about such things.

  She narrowed her eyes, her attention fixed on my shoulders and upper chest. “You look like you were on the losing end of a bad brawl.”

  “True enough,” I acknowledged. “No matter what any idiots tell you, I fully intend on dealing with the woman responsible personally.”

  “Dare I ask?”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Are you going to do something I’m going to regret?”

  “Not intentionally.”

  My mother grunted and sat on the tub’s ledge. “Very well. How was your spring?”

  Most of my favored words to describe my spring would result in my mouth being washed out with soap, so I replied, “Annoying.”

  “I’m sorry, baby. Are all those bruises from this woman you tangoed with?”

  “Not all of them. The hail contributed.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m surprised Great-Grandpa let you in here.” One day, I would sock the traitor grizzly in the nose for selling me out so soon.

  “I drew the short straw to give you the latest news, and I refused to tell you if I had to wait until tomorrow. I won. It’s about Gail.”

  I scowled at the mention of my ex. “What about her?”

  “She’s cancelled her wedding and is telling everyone leaving you was the worst mistake she’s made in her life. She wants to make things right with you, and she’s not shy about working the court to get you. To be fair, she’s also cancelling her wedding because she learned her new man was cheating on her with her sister.”

  After several years of freedom from my ex, she was still haunting me. I questioned why I’d returned home. “No. Just no. I don’t want to deal with Gail. No, no, no.”

  “You’re fond of that word tonight.”

  “I thought ‘over my dead body’ was a little rude as an opener.”

  “I take it I’m correct to assume that you’re against any ideas involving her visiting you?”

  “I’m going to drink my soup and hope you poisoned it. That would be preferred.”

  My mother arched a brow at me. “Some believe she’d be a good queen.”

  My mother was one of those some, and I believed she needed a trip to the royal physician more than I did to have her head examined. I took a sip of soup. Unfortunately, my soup seemed free of poison, and I survived several sips without incident. “Pass.”

  “Are you sure?”

  What did I need to do to convince the world I wanted nothing to do with Gail? “Mother, my brother and sisters call me Rose because I was too complicated for Gail, and the only good news is I don’t stink. I don’t care what people think. The answer is no. I don’t love her, I won’t love her, and frankly, I’m completely unsurprised Donald cheated on her. She would’ve seen the writing on that wall if she’d ever paid attention to any of the court gossip floating around. I lost count of the number of women Donald cheated on before he had graduated from high school. Why would anyone believe he’d change after graduation?”

  “Are you sure? You might fall in love with her.”

  “I’m moving to the next phase of this conversation. Over my dead body, Mom. She left me because of grass is greener syndrome. Anyway, our family’s talent is not one she’ll ever approve of. I’m not stupid. I’ll never love her because I’ll never be able to trust he
r.”

  “Drink your soup and rest your voice, Kelvin. I’ll tell your brother and sisters they’ll face the mean old grizzly if they keep calling you Rose. If you’re not interested in Gail, you’re not interested. Since we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s start going over what you’ve missed.”

  My mother was definitely up to something, and it involved Gail. Arguing with her wouldn’t do any good, so I drank my soup as ordered and waited.

  “You’ve been invited to New York to meet with a princess.”

  Somehow, I’d returned home to hell. “Please, no,” I whispered.

  My mother chuckled. “It’s not what you think. Princess Abigail of North Dakota is touring the Royal States, and she expressed interest in visiting potentially, but she wanted to meet with you first. I told her you’re always sick this time of year due to complications with the family talent, but she was welcome to come stay with us for a while. As such, she’ll be in residence for the next two months, and she’ll be arriving next week. As you seem to have no interest in your former girlfriend, I thought it might be entertaining if Gail served as lady-in-waiting to Princess Abigail. Princess Abigail isn’t looking for a husband right now, not after the troubles her family has faced, but she is looking for alliances and friends. You do friends with other royalty quite well. You liked Princess Abigail growing up, too.”

  “Could you not invite Gail to the castle, Mother? I have no objection to Princess Abigail staying here, but my ex? You may as well bring me a gallon of turpentine. Or arsenic. All her being here will do is spread more rumors that I’m stuck on her. I’m not.” My throat itched with the need to cough, and I drank more of my soup to suppress it.

  “You used to tolerate her.”

  “I’ll never love her. As such, there’s zero point in keeping her around and pretending something is going to happen when something isn’t going to happen.”

  “Your father used to hate me. I changed his mind.”

  “You’re a crazy cat lady who figured out you could have your own on-demand lynx. First, he didn’t hate you. He was playing hard to get to entice you, the crazy cat lady, to pick him, the cat. That’s what cats do.”