Huntress Read online

  “I’m not going to allow His Royal Majesty of Illinois to kill you, however satisfying it might be to watch you be ripped limb from limb so you won’t bother anyone ever again. No, I’m going to do something far worse. I’m going to ruin you, Mr. Dansen. Everything you have ever built will be torn down, and I will give His Majesty the pleasure of exposing your every crime to the public. You’ll get a trial, and it’ll even be a fair one, overseen by truth seers to ensure you’ll never see the light of day ever again. Your conspirators will pay a similar price. I’ve already ordered for them to be apprehended and imprisoned for their crimes. Within twenty-four hours, you will be remembered as nothing more than a filthy, disgusting excuse of a human, one who preyed on little girls to enjoy their terror. But, you won’t escape this room unscathed.”

  King Jacques circled his desk and sat, and his grim smile chilled me. “Your Majesty, Mr. Averett, please give him a taste of what it is like to be truly afraid.”

  “Oh, no. The best person for that would be my son,” my father announced, crossing the room towards me, pausing long enough to snarl at the man who’d caused Eva so much anguish. “Evangeline, with your leave?”

  My wife released me. “Do I get to hit him, too?”

  “If he as much as lifts a hand against Kel, you may do whatever you feel is necessary to eliminate the threat,” my father promised. “Try to leave something for me when you’re finished.”

  With Eva’s blessing, my father took hold of my arm, gave a nod, and induced my transformation.

  The instant Dansen spotted me, wings spread, tail fanned and whistling my intent to spur a few years off his life, he screamed. My father got out of my way, and I hopped forward, flapping my wings and slashing my talons in Dansen’s direction.

  The man scrambled backwards to escape me and bumped into my great-grandpa, who roared his displeasure and, with a single swipe of his paw, batted the old man in my direction. Dansen hit the ground hard, and I pecked at him, grabbing his hair in my beak and yanking on it.

  While I didn’t count incoherent screaming and flailing his arms as a threat towards me, Eva dove into the fray, shunted me aside, and went for his throat. Her first blow caught him in the cheek, and she struggled to get a hold on him. Had she been thinking, she would’ve taken him out within a few breaths, but her fury had come back in full force.

  She just wanted to hit him.

  Heaving a sigh, my father grabbed Eva by her waist, stood straight, and pulled her off while she spewed more profanities than I’d ever heard come out of her mouth at one time. She strained to reach Dansen, howling threats, curses, and promises of violence the instant she got her hands on him.

  “Easy, Eva. Kel’s fine. That was incoherent terror, not an actual attempt to hurt him.”

  Eva struggled, slashing her hands at the target of her fury. “He almost died because of this fucking waste of air!”

  “He’s right there, safe and sound,” my father promised. “However much I’d like to kill him, too, what your new family has in mind is far worse than a quick out. I know you’re upset. I am, too. But you need to let this go.”

  We all did, but it didn’t stop me from darting in and spurring the bastard’s face for daring to hurt Eva as he had, forcing her to run, inflicting terror on her so intense she hopped from kingdom to kingdom seeking asylum so she wouldn’t become his victim.

  My grant-grandpa grabbed me in his huge paws and lifted me off while I squealed my protests.

  “And now there’s blood in my carpet,” King Jacques complained. “Thank you, Mr. Averett.”

  Meredith stepped away from her post behind King Jacques, shook her head, and sighed. “What happened to not shifting, Your Highness?”

  I gobbled more protests at the head of my detail, wishing I could tell her she’d stood still and watched the entire squabble without lifting a finger.

  Meredith grunted, lifted her hand to her ear, and said, “There’s a gentleman in the king’s office requiring immediate arrest and minor medical care.”

  Her order brought several of the Nevada RPS, who hauled Dansen to his feet and dragged him from the room, droplets of blood staining the pale carpet in his wake.

  “Well, that was an entertaining end to the day,” King Jacques declared, rising from his chair. “I think this calls for a stiff drink and celebration, don’t you? As soon as my sister and her husband are apprehended, notify me immediately,” he ordered his RPS agents, who seemed as resigned to the situation as my agent.

  With my target gone, I waddled to my father, who still held Eva captive, and pecked his shins and battered him with my wings until he let her go. She straightened, dusting herself off. “You should’ve let me beat him for a while longer.”

  “If I let you two beat on him a little longer, the RPS would’ve been carrying him out of here in a body bag. Be grateful we have sufficient evidence of psychological strain to cover why you’d both go after an old man. In good news, in the worst-case scenario, provoked assault is a minor fine.” My father nudged me with his shoe. “Time to get you back to your suite and shifted back. While you, lucky little brat you are, shifted with your clothes, I expect you’ll want some private time with your wife. You both need a chance to relax before someone gets hurt because you’re both on short fuses and ready to blow.”

  As I had no problems with spending some time alone with Eva, I headed for the door at my fastest run and waited in the hall for the slow-poke predators to catch up.

  Eva’s biological parents evaded arrest for a full forty-eight hours, and to encourage the public to aid in their capture, King Jacques went to the public with the entire story, beginning from Eva’s flight from her family to the day she’d met me, although some of the details remained private. Montana contributed to Nevada’s efforts, releasing parts of my medical file with my blessings. Eva’s contribution also went public.

  And, protecting my family’s dirty little secret, while our status as a life bonded pair was shared, the media spun it in ways only the media could. Rather than a consequence of my talent, Eva’s selfless donation of her bone marrow took the blame for our bond. Specialists confirmed what I’d heard, and it bothered me how painful the procedure had been for her, too.

  In the time we waited, Eva had been given a room of her own in the palace, I’d been relocated to it by the grizzly, who treated it like a scenario right down to tapping the back of my head to get me to play dead. The first tap had shocked me into staring at him. The second, a little more insistent, had reminded me it was a scenario move, and the third had annoyed me into going for his throat.

  He’d smacked me around more enthusiastically until he’d knocked the breath out of me before grabbing my foot and dragging me across the palace.

  Watching Eva go for the bear’s throat would be one of my favorite memories for the rest of my life.

  “Do you think that’s it?” Eva asked, returning me to the present, which involved a lot of waiting, most of our time spent on the couch watching the news or in bed without sleeping a wink. I wasn’t sure what King Jacques and my family were up to, but we hadn’t been invited. Guards at the door, under orders to lock us in her room until they were finished, ensured our good behavior.

  “It better be. I’m not sure what else we can do to put an end to it. The mercenary outfit’s out of Illinois. They aren’t in Nevada as far as we can tell, and if they’re wise, they’ll lay low. With your parents behind bars for more crimes than I care to count, as far as I’m concerned, this mess is over. We just need to worry about preventing Queen Mackenzie from turning our wedding into a complete zoo.”

  As I already knew there’d be horses involved in some fashion, it would be a zoo, although I hoped Eva would like the surprises I had in store for her. Add in the various predators in my family, and I expected pure chaos.

  “Do you think King Jacques is going to fight Montana for the right to meddle with our wedding plans?”

  “It’s okay to call him your uncle or your father. W
hichever you’re comfortable with. One of your new uncles is also a king, and you’ll find he’s pretty relaxed about titles.”

  “South Dakota?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Her Majesty of South Dakota wade knee-deep in cow shit, too?”

  “I believe so. The entire family had to work hard to get by, although their situation changed once my aunt married.”

  “Huh. That could be entertaining. Does your aunt bristle as much as your mother?”

  “If you join forces with my grandmother, I think you’ll find new and interesting ways to drive my relatives to the brink of insanity.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “My grandmother specializes in relocations.”

  Eva grinned. “Think she’d help plan our escape from stress-test hell?”

  “I think she’d be delighted to assist our efforts to escape from the RPS and get in some serious rest and relaxation before we’re cruelly forced to attend to our duties as the future monarchs of Illinois.”

  “Paperwork, children, or both?”

  “Probably both,” I admitted. “Children seem to be one of the early consequences of being royal. But there’s a lot of paperwork.”

  “Does my percentage of paperwork go down as the number of children go up?”

  Did it? As children hadn’t been part of the equation before, I hadn’t thought about it. “There must be some sort of mathematical equation that determines how much paperwork the mother of my children has to do, which is directly related to the number and age of our children.”

  “Despite my tendency to curse whenever the fuck I want, I do like children. I just...”

  “You just didn’t want them with a sick old pervert.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m no longer sick, I’m definitely not old, but I’m probably tamely perverted.”

  She smirked, an expression I loved almost as much as her tendency to curse when stressed, annoyed, or desiring space. “We’ll have to work on that, Your Highness, but don’t worry. I think I can work with you. It might take a lifetime to train you, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy it even more than you do.”

  I got up, made sure the door was locked, engaged the deadbolt, and considered jamming a chair against the door to ensure we weren’t disturbed. “Then let’s begin, shall we?”

  About the Author

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  RJ Blain suffers from a Moleskine journal obsession, a pen fixation, and a terrible tendency to pun without warning.

  * * *

  When she isn't playing pretend, she likes to think she's a cartographer and a sumi-e painter.

  * * *

  In her spare time, she daydreams about being a spy. Should that fail, her contingency plan involves tying her best of enemies to spinning wheels and quoting James Bond villains until she is satisfied.

  * * *

  RJ also writes as Susan Copperfield and Trillian Anderson.

  If you enjoy using bookbub, you can follow RJ and her alter ego Susan there.

  http://thesneakykittycritic.com

  Also by Susan Copperfield

  Null and Void

  The Captive King

  A Guiding Light (April 2018)

  Huntress (July 2018)

  By RJ Blain: Magical Romantic Comedies (with a body count)

  Playing with Fire

  Hoofin’ It

  Hearth, Home, and Havoc (Novella)

  Whatever for Hire

  Serial Killer Princess

  Last but not Leashed (Novella)

  Fowl Play (Novella)

  No Kitten Around (Late 2018)

  Saddle Up (2019)

  Grave Humor (May 2019)

  Dragon Her Heels (Late 2019)

  From Witch & Wolf World

  Series: Witch & Wolf

  Inquisitor

  Winter Wolf

  Blood Diamond

  Silver Bullet

  * * *

  Series: Wolf Hunt

  Wolf Hunt (2018)

  Wild Wolf (2019)

  The Edge of Midnight (2020)

  * * *

  Series: Nature of the Beast

  Pack Justice

  Dual Nature (TBD)

  * * *

  Series: Balancing the Scales

  Karma

  License to Kill (TBD)

  * * *

  Standalones

  Beneath a Blood Moon

  Shadowed Flame

  * * *

  Tales of the Winter Wolf

  (Short Story/Novella Collections)

  Omnibus - Volumes One-Five

  Volume Six (Aftermath to Winter Wolf.)

  Other Stories by RJ Blain

  Jesse Alexander Novels

  Water Viper

  Steel Heart (late 2018)

  * * *

  Requiem for the Rift King (Epic Fantasy)

  Storm Without End

  Storm Surge

  The Tides of War (TBD)