*Rafe*
My horse whinnies, and I pat his neck to steady him. He’s not a fan of wolf shifters. I can’t say that I blame him. It’s not like he’s been around a lot of them, and even though these folks are all in human form, not wolf, it still makes him uneasy to be around savage predatorial beasts.
Gazing through the trees, I see malnourished, dirty young people and almost laugh at myself for ever thinking to describe them that way. They are not a threat to my horse or me.
The urge to go closer, to further inspect them, is overwhelming, but I fight it. I’d just as soon stay in the shadows and let my advisors and guards handle this business. They’ve all arrived here in plenty of time to prepare for the culling tonight the best they can. My understanding from talking to King Axel is that I just need to make sure that every village sent at least twenty people and that no one runs away before this thing begins. I have guards stationed everywhere throughout the forest and around the transport vehicles. Even if one of these scrawny young people is somehow strong enough to shift, I don’t think they’ll outrun my guards.
Which is one of the reasons why most of these people won’t escape. They’ll be loaded back up on those same transport vehicles tonight as they are captured and taken to the castle.
It’s a senseless ritual, really. If they actually had a chance to go back home, I could see going through with it, but if their chances are slim to none, why not just call it a lottery and take them all?
I don’t like it, and I spent several hours talking to Axel about it yesterday. He shrugged my concerns off and said if I want to look like a failure, he doesn’t care. I reminded him that it’s all in how we present it. If we tell the villages we are making it more fair so that those chosen to compete in the culling will have a better chance to earn their way back home, then the villages won’t see it as weakness from us but respect for them. He told me to do whatever I wished, he didn’t give a fuck.
So I’d drafted a notice to the mayors to let them know they could expect several of these people to come back. And if Jerim manages to determine what is killing off the feeders, we may have less cullings. But so far, he can’t get to the bottom of it. I’d spoken with him again, as well as his assistant, Bertha, and went over their data. It is a puzzling situation.
“You look deep in thought.”
Zeke’s voice from my right has me spinning my head in that direction, looking down at him as he steps from between the trees. I don’t like being caught off guard, but the more entrenched I become in this transfer of power, the more I’ve begun to realize why Axel is always a million miles away mentally. There’s just so much to think about.
“I was going over the culling,” I tell him. Swinging my leg over the saddle, I get down so that we’re closer to being eye-to-eye, though Zeke is still a couple of inches taller than me. “Everything going as planned?”
He nods, but he has a grim look on his face. I feel my stomach twist in a knot as I fear he’s about to tell me the one piece of news I don’t want to hear. I have no problem with any of this happening so long as the girl isn’t here. I don’t want her torn away from her family. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been thinking about her and wanting to see her in person, but I don’t want her to have any part of this.
Yet, Zeke’s message is what I’ve feared most. “Just checked on Beotown. She’s here.”
I absorb that for a moment before I ask a stupid question. “Who?”
My best friend snickers at me. “All right then. If you wanna play dumb, that’s fine with me.”
I shrug. “Are you talking about that girl who accosted me over the bread?”
“Yep. Cute little redhead with the fiery spirit. That would be the girl I’m talking about. I’m sure that the Blacks sent her here to get rid of her,” he continues.
Now, he has my attention. “Why? Over the bread. Why would they? They made good money on our purchases that day. Why would they care if it’s us buying it or someone else?”
Zeke’s sigh this time is of exasperation, and it makes me feel like I am actually stupid. What am I missing? “Firstly, they think that she embarrassed them with the way she acted when she yelled at us. Secondly, they need to get rid of her for other reasons. Rafe, I’ve been trying to tell you this since we were on the carriage ride home, but every time I open my mouth to do so, someone interrupts.”
A guard is walking toward me, and Zeke sees him and curses. I put up a finger to keep the man at bay. “Tell me what?” I brace myself for whatever he’s about to reveal to me because it seems significant, and it has to do with her.
“She told you her last name when we were on the street. Do you remember?”
“I remember she said something I didn’t quite understand. Blevel or Blieve or something.” I’ve been lost in that conversation for days, but I never quite knew what she’d said. I’d thought it might be some sort of curse in the ancient wolf shifter tongue.
“Bleiz,” he says. “Her stepfather’s last name is Gray, that’s where Kris got that name, but she’s a Bleiz. Her father was Howard Bleiz.” Zeke lowers his voice to tell me this in case anyone is listening. Only the guard who wanted to tell me something is nearby.
While I’m pondering why I should know who Howard Bleiz is—was—I turn to the guard. “What is it?”
“Advisor Kris wanted me to tell you all of the carriages have arrived, and they are feeding the participants as you commanded, sir.” He salutes and knocks the heels of his boots together.
“Thank you.” I give him a dismissive wave, and he turns to go. Then, I give up pretending that the name Howard Bleiz means something to me and ask Zeke to tell me what he’s talking about. “Who is Howard Bleiz?”
“You remember I told you that the Alpha King of Longclaw had a son?” I nod, and Zeke continues. “Well, that would be Howard Bleiz’s father. So… firecracker over there is the great-granddaughter of the Alpha King.”
“Which makes her—”
“A Luna.” Zeke folds his arms across his chest. “I’m pretty sure the Blacks purposely got rid of Howard before he had a chance to come into his own as an Alpha. Not sure what happened with his dad because he’d been in hiding before Howard resurfaced about thirty years ago. Anyway, the Blacks have to know what they’re dealing with.”
I take a few steps backward and lean against the trunk of a tree, trying to make sense of all of this.
Ainslee is a Luna.
Of course, she is. The fire within her, the strength, the intelligence.
The beauty.
I shake my head and brush a hand through my hair. “Thank you for letting me know.”
Zeke isn’t done, though. He rests a hand on my arm for a minute. “You can’t let her go back there. They’ll kill her.’
I turn to look at him. He’s voiced what I already know to be true. I figured that out the moment he explained who she is. “I can’t make a Luna Queen into a feeder either, Zeke. I have some respect for the peoples we’ve conquered after all.”
“I know you do. I’m just saying, we need to figure something else out. Listen, I heard them talking, and she was making plans to head to the church. Their whole group wants to hide there until the sun comes up.”
“Hide in the church? Is that a strategy others have used that’s been successful?” I wish I’d had more time to investigate the intricacies of how this event usually goes down before I was put in charge of it.
“Occasionally. Most of them don’t ever make it that far. You’re giving the wolves a bigger head start this year, right?” he asks me.
I nod. “That’s right. Two hours didn’t seem like enough time considering how run down most of them are. I mean, really, what is the point?”
“I don’t disagree. I just feel like there’s a chance some of them could make it to the church in three hours’ time. So there’s a good chance that strategy might work. I know you’re comfortable sending a chunk of these people home, but I don’t think she can be one of them.” Zeke scratches his chin, trying to think of what to do.
“I’ll handle it,” I tell him, already formulating a strategy to make sure Ainslee is neither captured by one of my terrifying guards or allowed to hide in the church and make her way to safety.
I feel sorry for her in more ways than one. Right now, like the others, she’s thinking through what she’ll do to get out of here, how she’ll make her way back to her family, those types of things. But she has no idea that there’s absolutely nothing she can do to regain her freedom. It seems mean when I think of it that way, but it’s for her own good.
And I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe.
Because she’s a Luna Queen. That’s why.
That’s the only reason why.
At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.