Queen Alpha (NYC Mecca #2)(5)

Right now, Finn, my huge white wolf familiar, and Nix, Kade’s eagle, were off fae hunting, making sure no more of those hideous erchos were hiding in Central Park. Both of them were on high alert, and since familiars were extremely hard to kill, they thought they were the best first line of defense.

It calmed my mind to know I could check in on Finn at any time. Our mental link was strong and thrumming within me. I knew Kade felt the same way about his Nix. It was a bond that could not be replicated.

“How did your father die?” I asked, hoping this wasn’t too painful for him.

Kade had been king for a couple of years, and while this was not a long time in the few hundred years we could live, he already held the respect of his people. He was a just leader, I could tell.

“I remember the queen tolling the bells and informing us that King Roland had fallen and that the bears were vulnerable, but that she would honor the peace accords. It was a hunting accident, right?”

He focused fully on me then, some of the awe from the mecca fading out of his masculine features. The power within us was so much more potent this close to the stone, our connection back in full force. I actually took a step closer to him, unable to stand my ground. Kade was all of my woodcutter fantasies rolled up in one package – dark brown, bordering-on-black hair, tousled, thick, and shiny across his forehead; neatly trimmed beard against his throat and around his full lips, showcasing a slight dimple in his cheek. His height topped out near seven feet, and that package was finished off with broad shoulders and heavy muscles. He was huge, and his bear even bigger.

The gods could have helped me out and made the bear royal line less attractive or something. A girl only had so much restraint.

He was still staring at me, and hadn’t answered my question yet. I was about to apologize for my bluntness when he said, “Hunting accident was the council’s spin so that no one would know we had a traitor in our own house. A king should be able to manage his guard, but he didn’t. My father was killed by his friend and advisor. The traitor thought himself in love with my mother, the queen, and decided that by getting rid of my father he’d have a free run.” Kade’s eyes, normally bronze, were now the color of whiskey, deep and rich, filled with emotion.

“He’d never have bested my father in a normal fight of course, but the ambush was unexpected. My father trusted him above all others. He never even saw the blow coming. Poisoned my father with dinner the night before, then killed his familiar first, to weaken him before finishing him off.”

To the wolves, Kade’s father had been hard and cruel. He’d initiated more than one scuffle with our queen in a bid to gain territory. But when Kade talked of him, there was a sense of softness in the tone.

“And your mother…” I said.

He smiled suddenly, and I had to blink a few times to ground myself. “Still alive. Ordering me around. She’s the real ruler of the bears, I just give the final order. They all adore her.”

He loved his mother too. Of course he did. Was there anything wrong with him?

“So your father married your mother? Like mates?” I couldn’t remember the last time a wolf queen had actually married her wolf mate, and we certainly didn’t refer to those mates as “king.” They were simply the queen’s mate, one step up from a lover.

“Mates … yes. My father met my mother when he was nineteen, at the summer festival on the Island. Declared right then and there in front of everyone that she would be his queen.”

I grinned. Sounded like the man knew what he wanted in life. I could respect that. “What did your mother say?”

Kade suddenly gave a deep rumbling laugh. “My mother replied without an ounce of hesitation that my father wasn’t her type. She would never marry an arrogant, over-confident, pushy man like him.”

Now I was laughing. His mother sounded like my kind of woman.

Kade shrugged. “My father loved a challenge. He fought for her. Every day. Two years later, they wed.”

“That’s a nice story,” I said, feeling soft emotions battering my body. All the feelings.

A sudden pulse of purple light had both of us focusing on the stone again. Kade stepped closer, about five feet from it, and I found myself flashing back to Breanna. The mecca power had been too much for her to handle. This had left her unfit for the throne. I could still see her seizing wolf in my mind’s eye, the memory of carrying her out of here, not knowing if she would make it or not.

I knew Kade wouldn’t have the same issue, but it still made me nervous.

I joined him, both of us crossing to the side of the most powerful stone in existence. It was still a challenge, like wading through very deep sand, each step more effort than the last, but we were able to make it to stand right before the pulsing rock.

“I never knew this existed until the Summit,” I said. “You have to prove your strength with the mecca. When I touched this, there were images, flashes of purple. The council had never seen that happen before, and many of them were here for the last Summit of the Red Queen. My entire body glowed, almost as if I was more mecca than shifter … for a second.”

On occasion I still had nightmares, pulled from sleep with memories of this stone. The power should be feared, even though the shifters had been controlling the mecca for half a millennium. That was how long it had been since fae had ruled this energy, over five hundred years, so why the hell were they coming back now? Why was the mecca energy so out of control?