SWNOVELS Queens and Monsters: Chapter 41
“It’s not just their number. It’s their unpredictability,” Saoirse said. I sat at a table with my grandmother, Bethany, and her sister Belynda. It was late at the House of Nala. Candlelight glowed off our wine glasses and classical music played softly in the background.
Belynda had a deck of tarot cards in her hands and had been lying them down in different combinations as the night passed. “Newly turned Dregs are instinctive. Emotional. Sometimes dangerous. It can make them easy to defeat or impossible.” She frowned at the cards in front of her.
“A second-generation Dreg is somewhere between a turned human and a naturally born samhain. They have a lifetime of skills, training as members of the army but are still prone to wilder emotions,” Bethany said.
“And of course,” Saoirse continued, “there’s bloodlust.”
“That I’m familiar with.” Unfortunately. “I had no control over anything I did when I Awakened.”
“Exactly,” Bethany said. “If the fighting triggers any bloodlust…it could be catastrophic.”
Belynda continued to frown at the cards. “I don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what?” her sister asked, peering at the cards. “What are they saying?”
“Nothing,” she whispered, then looked up. “At first I thought the Plane was being cryptic. Playing her games with me. But nothing makes sense. The cards seem to have no idea what happens next in the timeline.”
All the women around me became uneasy. I reached out to the Plane. The shimmering darkness that used to be a speck in the distance now completely bisected the Plane. There was nothing past it that I could see or feel. “It’s here.”
Saoirse nodded, her eyes wide and the color draining from her cheeks. “I have a very bad feeling that this war with the House of Axl is a hell of a lot more than a disagreement about the future of the samhain.”
“What do you mean?” Bethany asked as she pulled her hands back and folded them in her lap.
“Every time I reach out to the House…I feel nothing. It’s as if it isn’t even there. But,” she licked her lips and glanced at me, “I feel echoes in the timeline. They’re bad. I worry something happened after they poisoned Rhysa. Maybe poisoning her was just the beginning.”
I felt uneasy. I always thought going to war would be something that filled me with certainty. Conviction. Knowledge that I was fighting for something so important I was willing to die for it.
But I didn’t feel that way. I had too many questions. Doubts floated through my mind and body like ghosts in a haunted mansion. We were rushing. Things didn’t add up.
“You look confused,” Gigi said as she handed me a mug of tea. The steam made her look hazy for a moment. We stood in the kitchen at the House of Wren.
“I am confused. Or at the very least I have questions.”
“About tomorrow?” She sipped from a blue mug, her hair in a lazy braid over her left shoulder, and a matching blue robe wrapped tight around her body.
“We don’t have enough information. We have no idea what’s happened inside the House of Axl since I left. Lou could be in danger. Mary and Helena could be dead. Antyne could be secretly lining his army up to destroy us all.” I huffed because the frustration inside me needed a way out. “It’s reckless to proceed without doing some sort of reconnaissance.”
Gigi sipped some more, then nibbled on a cracker, all while her eyes remained unfocused in thought. “Maybe it’s simply because it’s all new to you. We’ve had one eye on this fight for most of our rather long lives.”
That was certainly a possibility. I gave myself a moment to ponder it but ultimately discarded it. “If I could just spend five minutes inside the Axl mansion I could get us so many answers.”
“Isn’t it invisible right now?
“To the Plane. Yes. Not the naked eye.” Not sure why that distinction felt important. “Traygen sent a drone.”
My best friend chewed on her lower lip, not looking at me. “Dray will never allow it. Not just because he’s protective of you in particular, but because he’s protective of all of us. It’s too dangerous.”
I bristled at the words “allow it”. “I don’t need his permission. He’s not my overlord.” Or father, or big brother, or husband. He claimed no ownership over me. Even if we did marry I’d never give anyone that kind of power. Bedroom dynamics were completely different from life dynamics.
“No. But he is, essentially, our general. And we serve his army. Going against his orders could jeopardize us all.”
Damnit. That was a decent point. One I didn’t like at all.
“What if…” Gigi drawled, setting her mostly empty mug aside and starting to pace the kitchen, “we compare it to the plot of Crows at Midnight, the sixth Mysteries, Mayhem, and Murder novel.”
She had my full attention. “Go on.” Crows at Midnight had a complicated three-part mystery with an inside job.
“Lady Violet used her connections to place herself inside the syndicate while Ronan took the gang to the shipyard, drawing the attention to them.”
I followed her now. “Allowing Lady Violet to grab Agnes and escape!” Of course it turned out that Agnes had a completely different plan that ruined everything, but it didn’t change the fact that Lady Violet was able to get in and out of the syndicate effortlessly.
“Dray isn’t unreasonable. Our sole mission is to resolve this war as quickly and painlessly as possible. If we can convince him this will save lives, he’ll listen.”
Ah, but that was the problem. “Maybe he’s reasonable with you, Gigi. And I know he loves you fiercely, but unfortunately Fate has more control over Dray than reason.” There was no way I could imagine that Dray would willingly agree to a plan that involved me going anywhere near the House of Axl without him by my side.
Gigi’s lips twisted in the opposite direction as some thought distracted her before she blinked and came back into focus. “It’s true I’m not as familiar with Fated Mates as I probably should be and am still getting used to how strongly it affects those involved.” She shook herself from head to toe and let out a sharp breath. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this and will probably regret this as soon as I say it out loud but…we lie to Dray.”
Lie. To Dray? Gigi really was acting differently these days. “How?”
“We’ll tell him you’re with Bo, Leena, and Kris. He’ll feel relieved you’re taken care of and won’t distract him. He probably has plans to keep you in the rear guard anyway.”
“But I won’t be?”
She shook her head slowly. “I’ll have Leena convince him there’s a contingent of the Dreg Army doing reconnaissance near the gate. He’ll see it as an opportunity to gain an advantage and attack.”
Like Ronan in Crows at Midnight. “Wait. What do you mean convince him?”
Gigi waved my concern away like it was an annoying mosquito. “She can make anyone see anything. She’ll just tickle his mind. Maybe a few of them to make it convincing.”
“And why would she do this?” One sister betraying her brother I could buy, but two?
Gigi bristled. Probably frustrated I had so many questions. “Because she’s as worried as you are and has been advocating to let you go ahead. Dray isn’t listening to any of us.”
That was an interesting detail to learn. Leena was on my side, huh? Enough that the three of us were willing to go against Dray’s wishes.
“Look,” Gigi said, “we all respect Dray. He’s been raised and trained for this day. I don’t question his role as the head of our House. But…he’s being driven by love. I genuinely believe he’d make different choices if he wasn’t brainwashed by Fate to keep you safe at all costs.”
So it wasn’t a coup so much as a…a…an ass covering. “But what happens when there’s no Dreg Army to fight?”
Gigi’s eyes glistened and I was starting to learn that was a very dangerous thing. “There’s a human phrase: if you build it, they will come. If there’s anything I knew about Dregs and bloodlust, it’s that it takes almost nothing to draw them out. They are completely incapable of overriding their instincts once they’re triggered. So…I’ll toss some meat over the fence before we begin.”
Oh no. No. No… “I’m going alone, Gigi.”
Her smile matched her eyes–cunning and pleased with herself. “Then you’re not going either. There’s only one way this plan works. We shift inside the Axl gates and draw out the Dreg Army just as Dray realizes he has an opportunity thanks to Leena’s mind games. Then we shift into the mansion and get the information we need. Confirm Lou is alive and get her out if necessary. We shift back to Bo, give him anything we learned that will help us win, all before anyone in either of our Houses knows we’re gone.” She waved her hands with a flourish.
It was a pretty plan. The kind that made for exciting mystery novels. But I had serious doubts it would work out in real life.
What choice did I have, though? I either stood back, ensconced in the safety of the rearguard, hoping the Dreg Army wasn’t as fierce as everyone claimed, risking the lives of everyone I loved. Or I took a chance and brought back information that could change the tide in our favor.
I rolled my shoulders and took a deep, cleansing breath. The doubts were gone and in their place was a sense of peace. I was ready to fight now. To the death if necessary.
“Then let’s do this.”