Page 26

King

Marinah’s avoidance didn’t bother me. She needed time to think through her new responsibilities. What she didn’t understand was that she was a leader, and she was strong enough to command the Shadow Warriors. I remembered my own doubts in the beginning. They ate me alive. The difference was that Marinah had me at her side. I wouldn’t let her flounder.

Labyrinth began testing the whistles after I passed along Marinah’s orders. I informed my guard that Marinah didn’t have any meetings or training planned for the day.

“You told her who she is?” Beck asked.

“She took it as well as expected.”

“That bad?”

“It could have been worse.” Then again, so could the earthquake that took down San Francisco in 1906 but I kept that piece of wisdom to myself.

“You want us twiddling our thumbs?” Labyrinth asked.

The man was a lummox, and I doubted thumb-twiddling was even in his skill set. “Until we have our orders, go for it.”

He nodded, lifted his massive hands, and twiddled those monstrous thumbs. That’s when Marinah walked into the conference room. The men immediately came to attention, and it hit me. I needed to stop calling them my guard. These men belonged to Marinah now.

She gave the men a little finger wave and walked to her usual seat, which was not at the head of the table. She shot the empty chair a scowl for good measure, and thankfully, no one snickered.

“Is this an official meeting?” I asked sincerely, keeping my voice as even as possible.

She ground her teeth hard enough to break them before answering. “Do cows fly? Of course, this is an official meeting. Everyone’s here.”

Someone’s workout might not have gone too well. There was no way I would point out that Axel was missing.

We took out our knives and jammed them into the wood. She gave us an evil glare, then sat. We followed her example. I didn’t take the head seat either. If Marinah wasn’t sitting there, it would remain empty. She glared at me, then finally placed her arms on the table, lifted her hands, and sank her head into them.

“I can’t do this,” she said, her voice muffled. Then she looked up at the men, her frustration etched into every word. “I mean, I. Can’t. Do. This.”

They remained silent.

She met each man’s eyes. Beast didn’t make a peep, which meant the three weeks alone with Marinah had helped calm the mating rage. It couldn’t have come soon enough.

“You can’t seriously think I’d make a better leader than King?”

Silence.

“Argh. Someone say something, anything,” she demanded.

Beck lifted a finger. “If I may?”

The question only irritated her more. “Whatever it is, just say it.”

Unlike the usual Beck, his voice was soft when he spoke. This was new. He usually managed to inflect a sneer in his tone, particularly when dealing with me, specifically when I was being difficult, though I was sure he’d have a better word for my volatile behavior.

“Greystone trained King to take over as leader when the time came,” Beck began, his gaze flicking briefly to me before looking away. “From reading our history, this can be a very volatile time for Shadow Warriors. King’s transition was seamless. The biggest reason was that our Beasts accepted him as the true leader. No internal quibbles, no desire to challenge, just absolute acceptance. When you morphed to Nova, it happened just as quickly. My Beast knew. King’s Beast knew.”

Marinah stayed silent for all of two seconds. “And that’s supposed to make this easier?”

I stepped in to help her out. “He’s telling you this so you understand. You are our leader. Our queen.”

“Don’t call me that again,” she snapped.

“Yes, your highness,” I said, my tone just enough to provoke.

Her glare practically shot flames, and I watched as she fought for control, struggling internally with Ms. Beast. It went on for several minutes. The men looked everywhere but at Marinah. Meeting her eyes would be difficult for them now. They’d avoided looking at her out of deference to the mating rage, but now, she was alpha. Soon, even she would feel the effects.

I wasn’t planning on mentioning it. She’d figure it out on her own.

She slowly inhaled, then exhaled. And again. Her fingertips started tapping the table, and she finally blew out a huff of air that sent hair flying off her forehead. “I don’t even know where to begin. What exactly am I supposed to tell you to do?”

Now the men started shifting uncomfortably. They needed a decisive leader, not someone trying to get their bearings. But that wasn’t Marinah. She was the type to jump into a pit of snakes, okay, maybe not snakes after her last adventure with one, but she handled whatever was thrown at her and moved on to the next target. She’d adjust.

“Say something. You can’t just throw me out here and expect me to swim. I need help.” She turned her eyes to me, full of frustration. “Help!”

I opened my hands in a calming gesture. “We need to debrief what happened in the U.S., go over what went right, what went wrong, and where we can improve.”

She blew her hair off her forehead again, this time in relief. “Perfect. We’ll go around the table.” She looked at the men expectantly.

This was a disaster. The men shifted awkwardly, avoiding eye contact. She turned to me in desperation. “You go first.”

Finally, an order. Maybe not an intentional one, but it was a start.

I laid everything out, beginning with our preparations before leaving, which had gone smoothly, and leading up to finding the soldiers in the city and our confrontation there.

“Our departure from the island went smoothly, but I think it could be better,” Beck added when it was his turn. “We need a metal building at the airport to store supplies. It would make it easier than transporting them when we need to leave quickly.” He shot a quick glance at Marinah, then lowered his eyes.

It took her a second to respond, maybe because we’d caught her daydreaming. “Good. Great,” she finally said. “You’re in charge of getting the building set up. You’ll need to assign someone to maintain the supplies.”

She turned her attention to Labyrinth. He wasn’t someone who usually had much to say, but when he did, it was to convey something he felt strongly about.

Labyrinth blinked slowly. We always wondered if his brain was like his muscles; massive and requiring extra effort to activate. “The decision to remain in the city after our confrontation with the Federation was wrong. It placed more lives in danger, and we were fortunate Nokita found us when he did, or another outpost might have been destroyed.”

Marinah nodded, not agreeing or disagreeing. “So, you vote we let those weaker than us die.”

He nodded. “With all due respect, Garret knew what he was getting into when he came with us.”

Her fingers splayed on the table, likely to keep from forming fists. I held back a smile, enjoying the rare sight of someone else handling this kind of crap. “If we do it your way, we might as well kill all the humans and take over the fucking world. Wait. If we did that, we’d have no one left to control.” She added an exaggerated eye roll for effect, then turned to Nokita. “Next.”

Nokita looked at me and winked. Marinah was doing exactly what she claimed she couldn’t, and she didn’t even realize it.

“There are two hundred Warriors at the outposts,” he said. “We need to make plans to switch them monthly.”

“Good.” Marinah smiled, looking like she was getting the hang of things. I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. “You’re in charge of that,” she added.

She took another deep breath and glanced around the table. “Where’s Axel?”

“He’s testing something with the whistles,” Beck grunted. “He says as soon as he has more information, you’ll be the first to know.”

The queen didn’t like that, and her eyes became small pinpoints of fire. “He will be at tomorrow’s meeting. Eight sharp. He will give me an update then. See to it because I thought the whistles were Labyrinth’s duty.” She shot an evil look at the man in question then stretched her arms above her head like we’d been in a meeting for hours instead of thirty minutes. “Is there anything else we need to cover?” she asked with a yawn.

Four sets of eyes stared back at her in silence.

“Alrighty then. Meeting over.” She jumped up like her seat was on fire and flew out of the room.

“This will take a bit of getting used to,” Beck said after the door closed.

I stared at the door. “She’ll get the hang of it. She’s fighting it now. I had rage on my side when I took over, which made it easier.”

Beck grinned. “Oh, she’s got plenty of rage. We’re just glad you’ll be the one getting the brunt of it.”