Shifter Queen Read online

  "Yes," I agreed, smiling back.

  "Would you like to hold it?" he asked politely.

  "Yes," I said immediately.

  His smile widened, a twinkle coming into his eye.

  "Oh," I breathed, taking it in my hands and smoothing them over the glossy finish. "It's gorgeous."

  "I thought so," he agreed, watching me as he slid his hands into his slack pockets. He was wearing a sweater vest over a button down with the shirttail untucked. He somehow looked perfect for this store.

  "What are you asking for it?" I asked, knowing I'd already played my hand by showing how much I wanted it.

  "Well..." he started. And named a figure that was much too low.

  I raised a brow at him. "I'd like to pay market value," I said evenly.

  He pressed his lips together thoughtfully, his eyes on mine.

  "I was trying to get in the good graces of the Dragon Lord's other half," he admitted with a slight smile. "But I also want this bow to go to someone who'd appreciate it."

  "I'm just Mia," I said. "And I have no control over the Dragon Lord," I added.

  "Hmm," he said neutrally. "And I am just Micah," he said. And gave a fairer price.

  "Deal," I said immediately. Normally, I would have haggled more, but in this case I was happy to pay a little more.

  "Can I have this Mia?" Omari asked, thrusting a small globe at me. "Please?"

  I looked at Micah. He didn't try anything again. Gave me another fair price.

  "Deal on that too," I said, much to Omari's glee.

  "I'll wrap them up for you," Micah said, taking the bow and the globe behind the counter.

  "Thank you," I said, as I took the carefully wrapped items after paying for them. "I know I'll be back in the future to look around some more." Omari had a short attention span.

  Micah gave me a warm smile. "And I'll be happy to see you." He glanced down at Omari. "Both of you."

  Both of us were happy as we walked out of there. I was in a good enough mood that I took Omari straight to the candy store next, even though he probably should have had actual food before eating any candy. The girl behind the counter—Fiona, her name tag said—looked a little startled to see us. Her smile was strained as she greeted us. I kept things easy, trying not to pressure her. She slowly relaxed as we wandered the brightly colored store, rows upon rows of teeth-rotting sugar on display.

  "You're just precious," the teenage girl cooed over Omari as he handed her the candy he'd chosen.

  He soaked up the praise, batting his eyes at her. The little ham.

  "He's going to be a heartbreaker," the girl said with a grin.

  "Definitely," I agreed, already dreading having to deal with that time in his life. Best not to think about it. I still had plenty of time. Right?

  Next stop was the playground, so Omari could get rid of all of that sugar-induced energy. Then some window-shopping.

  I felt a little less...separated from Ashur's people. I even felt like I may have won a few people over, with Omari's help. He was irresistible, and I was not above using that to my advantage.

  We were just about to turn back around when someone called out my name, the tone urgent. I turned around, scanning the street until my eye fell on Hathai hurrying towards us, her face tense.

  "What is it?" I asked, my stomach immediately sinking. "Is Ashur okay?"

  "Yes, he's fine," she reassured me. "But we have a problem."

  "What?" I asked, feeling my anxiety rising.

  "More trespassers," she said quietly, keeping her voice down and glancing at the people watching us curiously. I'd gotten looks all day though they'd started to become less intense as we didn't do anything very interesting. Maybe they were getting used to us. But this tableau was drawing the attention back. "Ashur wants you back."

  Well, shit.

  Chapter Eleven

  We followed Hathai back to Ashur's building. I knelt down to have a quick word with Omari.

  "I have to go take care of something Omari. Hathai is going to go take you to get some food in the meantime, all right?"

  His face looked worried. "Why are people trespassing?" Omari asked. "Don't they know they're not allowed here?"

  If only things were so simple.

  "Well, I'm going to go see why they came," I hedged. "Maybe they have a good reason," I added.

  "Okay," Omari agreed, still not sounded convinced. "Be careful."

  "I will."

  I gave him a tight hug. Figuring that was the best I could do right now, I waved goodbye and headed back over to the building that Sven had been kept in when he first showed up.

  I worried if I'd be able to find everyone easily, but I shouldn't have. As soon as I walked into the place, I found them. Enzi, Fuera, Ashur, and maybe ten more of Ashur's people that I knew by face but not by name were there, along with four other strangers that Sven was hovering around. I was guessing these were the trespassers, and also that they were phoenixes by how familiar Sven seemed with them. Phoenixes he knew.

  Ashur came over to me as soon as he saw me, his face tense.

  "What's going on?" I asked.

  Sven was the one who answered.

  "These are my people from Emberich's palace," he explained in a tight voice. "Or what's left of them," he added, the expression in his eyes haunted.

  What was left of them? I looked over at Ashur, meeting his eyes.

  "Apparently, their group numbered twenty originally," he said grimly.

  Twenty? I looked back at the four people in front of us. The disparity was jarring.

  "What happened to the rest?" I asked, dreading the answer. Knowing the answer but needing to hear it.

  "Gone," Sven answered bitterly. "Emberich had them executed. Publicly. And now he's going after the flocks those people came from, trying to make an example of them as well."

  "An example of them how?"

  "By killing them," the young woman with rich dark skin said, her voice sounding dead as she looked over at me, her eyes bloodshot. "By brutally attacking and killing them openly so everyone can see what happens to traitors." Her voice was bitter.

  I couldn't imagine...

  "And Emberich is not going to be happy that we got away," a man in his forties with thinning blond hair added, the lines around his mouth deep with worry. "We know he's already attacked five different flocks. And we also know ours are next," he added grimly.

  "How did you guys get out?" I asked.

  I had to remind myself that I didn't know if they were telling the truth. They looked shell-shocked enough, their faces drawn, but it would be foolish of us to take anything at face value alone. I almost hoped they were lying. If not...

  Emberich had just killed a number of his own people. And was planning on killing even more.

  "Zara sent us a warning message right before they got to her," a man in his early thirties said, his short dark hair cut close to his skull. "We had an emergency escape exit ready to go," he explained, shaking his head. "It seems almost naive now."

  "We never thought we would need it. Or that so few of us would be able to get out if we did," another man added quietly, his dark gaze pained. The medium brown of his skin, and his slightly curved nose, hinted at a Middle Eastern heritage.

  "That's..." I trailed off, not knowing how to react.

  "Politically foolhardy," Sven finished for me, anger harsh in his voice. "It would be one thing for him to simply take us out. We were conspiring against him," he conceded. "But taking it to the conspirator's flocks? Trying to make an example of them?" He shook his head. "He is going to instigate a civil war, the idiot. All simply to make a point about how powerful and in control he is," he bit out.

  Civil war. My mind immediately turned to the implications of that. Because as much as dragons and humans wanted to stay out of phoenix matters and vice-versa, we were all very interconnected. A civil war among the phoenixes would affect everybody, dragons and humans alike.

  The phoenixes were built to travel
long distances and were able to carry a lot of essentials from dome to dome, including things for businesses that dragons were involved in. Food, water, refuse, you named it, phoenixes had a hand in transporting it. They hadn't completely cornered the market on all long-distance transport, but man, they were a large portion of them. They were essentially the present-day shipping lines outside the domes. Not to mention a thriving market for goods created by both humans and dragons.

  If they got into a civil war, everyone would feel the effects immediately, there was no doubt about it. And civil wars had a way of dragging on and on. It could throw everything into chaos. I met Ashur's eyes again and saw the same conclusion working behind them.

  "This isn't good," I murmured. "This is way bigger then me and Omari now. Or even Emberich."

  Ashur nodded, his face grim.

  "We're all going to feel it," he acknowledged. "And it isn't exactly a great look for either us or the phoenixes in front of the humans. Not with the way they already picture us in the historic context, as ravening beasts who don't know how to control ourselves. And all of us have our fingers in the human pie." He shook his head. "That isn't a market that we can lose. And that's what will happen if they decide that we're too volatile to do business with. It'll hurt them too to cut ties with us, but they could conceivably go back to the hardcore isolationist policies they'd implemented directly after the Phoenix and Dragon Wars."

  I wanted to think the humans wouldn't do something so extreme and lump the dragons in with the phoenixes, but I'd lived too long among humans and overheard their biased views for too long to think that that wasn't a very distinct possibility.

  I looked back over at the worn-down group of phoenix insurgents that had essentially come to us for sanctuary.

  They were dressed in the spare sweats that were kept here in every corner, telling me they'd most likely flown in their phoenix forms. They'd just lost everything. Their positions and the power that came with them. The lives they'd built over the years. Their friends. And potentially their entire flocks. Not only that, this would only be the tip of the iceberg if Emberich kept throwing his weight around and showing all the phoenixes who was boss.

  He'd likely just instigated his own war by going a step too far in his insatiable urge to safeguard his power. I didn't know if we could stay out of it any more even if we wanted to.

  Emberich may have just shot himself in the foot.

  Chapter Twelve

  "We need to contact Cinira."

  "Yes," Ashur agreed grimly. "This changes things."

  We left the trespassers with guards to watch them and headed back over to Ashur's building.

  This whole thing had just blown up in a way I hadn't at all been expecting.

  Cinira had called it, hadn't she? She'd said that Emberich was simply giving the conspirators enough rope to hang themselves with. And that was exactly what had happened. She just hadn't predicted that he'd use that rope to go after their flocks as well, whether or not they'd been directly involved. She'd underestimated Emberich's brutal nature. Just like the rest of us had.

  We went up to Ashur's office to send a message over to Cinira saying that we needed to have another meeting. We didn't bother hiding that there were issues happening with Emberich's phoenixes. We could conceivably have found that out from our own sources rather than from Sven. We didn't think Emberich knew where the chickens who'd flown the coop had come to roost and we wanted to keep it that way. It might give us an advantage we might sorely need.

  Even us we hit send on that message, Enzi burst into the room, slightly out of breath. Ashur got his feet.

  "What is it?" he asked sharply.

  "There are reports coming in from other skeins," he said, frowning. "Reports of phoenix refugees asking for asylum."

  Shit. Ashur and I looked at each other. Cinira responded back right then, the ding of the incoming message drawing our attention.

  Things moved fast after that.

  This time, Ashur held the meeting here in his territory. No one was going to say no now that the problem had literally arrived on our doorsteps. Though I had no idea how the actual meeting was going to go. Was it going to be another bust? After the last one...

  When everyone arrived, they were immediately escorted to a meeting room in Ashur's building. None of us had dressed up for the occasion, coming as we were. It made a lot more sense to me, though some of the other Dragon Lords still took the time to dress in more formal clothing, including Cinira. I was just happy not to have to worry about a dress while worrying about actual problems too.

  As soon as everyone was seated, we got right down to business.

  "I have about twenty-five people who showed up earlier this morning," a young Asian man with perfect, pale skin said. "What am I supposed to do with them?"

  "We're already at eighty," the young Indian woman who'd spoke up about Sven in the last meeting interjected. "And there might be more coming."

  "Refuse them entry," a hard-faced man with dark hair and a matching goatee said. "They wouldn't help us if we needed it," he said harshly. "Don't let them into your territory, and there is no problem here."

  "That's easy for you to say," a large man with long blond hair retorted. "You're not faced with women or children or the elderly who are coming to you for aid because they literally have no one else to turn to." He looked around the table, his eyes sad. "Those people look like they've been through hell."

  "If you're getting soft in your old age, that's your problem, Ragma," the goateed man said, not moving an inch.

  "Be careful who you call soft, Heavener," Ragma said quietly, eyes narrowed.

  "That's enough," Ashur spoke up, interrupting the beginning of a fight. "We're trying to find a solution to this problem, not bicker about it," he said harshly. "Try to keep that in mind."

  "Yes," Tanar agreed. "My skein has taken in phoenix refugees as well," he continued. "We cannot simply turn people away in their time of need. I will not turn children away," he said quietly. "It is not who I am, and it is not who we should be."

  "Respectfully, I must disagree. I think everyone should think long and hard before taking anyone in," the older black man who had been very vocal about what he thought about phoenixes spoke up. "Emberich is threatening any skein who takes his people in with retaliation. That is not to be taken lightly."

  This was news to me.

  "Bruno is correct," Cinira said, speaking up. "I received just such a message a few minutes ago from Emberich himself," she confirmed. "But are we the type of people to bow down to a bully like Emberich? Especially when he's out there butchering people? We have a duty to fight back, to use the power we have and stand firm."

  "It is very easy to be self-righteous before you've felt the actual repercussions," Heavener interjected, murmurs of agreement following his statement. "I, for one, am not willing to risk my people for phoenixes, no matter what the reason. It is simply not going to happen."

  He looked around for agreement and got a significant amount of it, though it wasn't the majority. That gave me some hope.

  "It is also very easy to look the other way when you do not have refugees upon your doorstep," a woman in her sixties with a bright cap of white hair returned, her sharply featured face set off with sharp, intelligent eyes.

  "I believe Heavener is correct," a man of some type of mixed heritage said, his bland face neither young nor old. "I have turned away people," he said, meeting eyes as he looked around the table. "Being on the edge of phoenix territory, we have had more than a few skirmishes with them. We have sustained losses in those skirmishes," he added, his jaw tight and his gaze far away, as if remembering those losses. "If they want help now, they're not going to find it with my skein," he said. "And nobody can tell me or my people any differently."

  That was a difficult position to be in. I could even sympathize with where he was coming from, even though I thought it was wrong to turn people away in this context. Though I also didn't know what he'd been throu
gh with those phoenixes near him.

  The arguments continued to go back and forth, with both sides progressively becoming more heated about what the right thing to do actually was.

  "This isn't just going to affect the phoenixes," Ashur said in a frustrated voice. "Even if you just want to think about us, or just your own particular skeins. You know that a civil war among the phoenixes, especially a long-drawn-out one, will affect both dragons and humans. We are all interdependent as much as we play at being separated."

  Heavener stood up, his chair scraping against the floor with a grating sound.

  "I don't care how interdependent we are. We were able to survive without either the phoenixes or humans before, and we will be able to survive without them afterwards. These are not good or convincing arguments for getting involved in a messy civil war that has nothing to do with us. A war in which we would likely lose people, many people. I am not willing to put my people at risk for the possibility of perhaps reducing the length of a civil war that has not even begun yet. That just does not make any kind of reasonable sense." Murmurs of agreement followed that statement. "And I do not care one way or another whether your girlfriend sits on the phoenix throne." He looked over at me, sneering. "How do you even know what side she's on? Her blood is tainted by both phoenixes and humans." He spit on the floor. Lovely. "She's a mutt with no real allegiance."

  Ashur slammed his hands down on the table, the sound loud enough and sudden enough that it startled everybody.

  "That is enough," he growled, his eyes locking with Heavener's. "If you cannot see past your own prejudice to the heart of this issue, you are being willfully blind. This affects us whether you want it to or not, whether it's convenient or not. And that has nothing to do with Mia." He looked like he was genuinely holding himself back from doing more. "Do not bring her into this."

  "I am not bringing her into this. You and Cinira are," Heavener countered. "I do not know why you think that is wise. And it no longer matters. Because I am done with this discussion. If you would like to embroil yourself in an unwinnable war, that is your business. But you're not dragging my skein down with you."