Page 25 of Unwilling Queen (Kingdoms #1)
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Hunter
I stare with no small amount of shock as Brodie strokes one of the heads of the downed hydra. Holy crap, a six-headed hydra. I don’t think there has ever been a hydra shifter in the past. Dad and Lucas are huddled together, whispering aggressively, but the rest of us ignore it.
A sorrowful yowl that is complex in its musical depths comes from all six heads. You can almost hear the embarrassment from the poor creature.
It was nearly comical how uncoordinated she was, and I know exactly how that feels. My first step as a dragon sent me tumbling to the ground, shaking everything in the nearby area. Thankfully the magic in this room stops that from happening. I can’t refrain from reaching out to one of the other heads, stroking it gently over its eyebrow ridges much like she had done to my dragon earlier. When I look up, both Liam and Gem are doing the same thing. It’s like we are all drawn to her and can’t resist trying to comfort her.
Fuck! I snatch my hand away, knowing getting too close to her is just going to lead to heartbreak. No one may have presented themselves with her marks yet, but it’s only a matter of time. We need to present a united and neutral party, here to protect her but not influence any of her decisions. It will be hard enough for her to pick a mate with her human instincts still riding her hard. Her new shifter instincts should point her in the right direction though.
Stop stroking the new queen. Have some respect , I snap telepathically to my bond mates.
Liam is quick to listen, scowling at the hydra like she lured him in, but Brodie glares at me. Gem doesn’t listen one little bit, but I see flames surrounding his hand, so I’m assuming he’s healing her somehow, and I don’t berate him.
“Has there ever been a hydra shifter before?” I ask as the queens and Mom approach us carefully. Colbie doesn’t move. It’s like she’s exhausted. Her eyelids on all six heads barely flutter. I’m not sure why, but maybe Gem can get to the bottom of it.
“None recently,” my mother answers. She is one of the shifter knowledge keepers and has a wealth of information about the past. “I can’t think of any since the war, to be honest. They were one of the first shifters targeted by the humans. They took out a lot of the mythical families because they figured they were the most dangerous.” She’s staring at our new queen with awe on her face. My mother is basically shockproof, because raising three dragon children fortifies a person against most disasters, so to see her ruffled is slightly amusing.
“What are the hydra’s powers?” Queen Layla asks my mother as Gem steps back, removing his hand from the hydra’s head.
He is standing at the far one, so he makes his way back over to us. We’ve all gathered in a little group off to the side. I kind of feel bad talking about Colbie like she’s not even here, but I don’t think she even notices.
“Is she okay?” King Lucas asks before my mother can answer the queen.
“Colbie is fine. I get the feeling she’s embarrassed, and she got a little battered and bruised when she fell. That’s a lot of body weight, but she’s also exhausted. Don’t you remember how draining that first shift is? It’s not fair to ask her to shift back just yet. Give her a moment to rest and recharge,” he says, his attention on the hydra. He has a contemplative look on his face.
What is it? I ask him telepathically, but instead of answering, he just gives me a small shake of his head. Okay, he doesn’t want to talk about it here.
“A hydra’s powers are quite impressive. They are virtually unkillable in this form” —Mom waves a hand at Colbie— “which is why the humans targeted them in their two-legged form. To start with, her claws and blood are poisonous, and then there is the ability to breathe acid, which has no neutralizing agent. It can eat through any substance, including metal and armor. Then there’s the regeneration, which makes them virtually immortal. On top of all that, there are her fangs. She can bite someone and transfer her venom, which will give them the ability to regenerate, even from death.”
“Holy fuck.” Dad looks at the new queen with respect.
“There is also one last ability that was a secret only shared amongst other hydras. I’ve searched everywhere to find what it is, but as far as I know, it died with the last one. It was never written down.” Mom sounds frustrated. She always says that no mystery remains unsolved as long as you try hard enough to solve it.
“I think I might know what it is,” Gem says, drawing his attention back to the group.
“Did you see something when you were healing her?” Mia pushes impatiently.
“Kind of. Didn’t really see something, but I brushed across something inside her psyche—something I don’t think she even realizes is there. It was a ball of magic that isn’t like any other I’ve felt before.”
The king huffs, and the queens wear expressions of disappointment. “It’s probably just the royal power your feeling,” Layla reminds him gently, and he shakes his head vehemently.
“No, I don’t think it is. Remember when Gryffin sliced Lucas open during that sparring match and I had to heal him? He has also been hit on the head and had a slight concussion,” Gem reminds us. We were fighting as a bond group against Lucas and Dad. It was our assessment to join the night watch. “I felt Lucas’s royal magic then, and this is not like that at all.”
“Okay, so something new. What do you think it is? Was it similar to anyone else’s magic you’ve felt before?” Mom sounds excited.
“Yes and no.” Gem’s eyes shift to look at me, Brodie, and Liam, and he frowns before returning his attention to our parents. “I think that maybe Colbie is a dual shifter. I think I can feel another creature inside her.”
The gasps and exclamations of surprise echo through the room. “A dual shifter? That hasn’t happened since before the war either.” My mom rubs her hands together with glee. “This is wonderful.”
One of the hydra’s heads lifts, like she was listening the whole time. She uses her front legs, which are very much like my dragon’s, to push herself upright, gathering her back ones underneath her and lifting her huge body so she towers above us. With her long, elegant necks, she is easily taller than my or my dad’s dragons, but her body is more streamlined and not as large as ours.
One of the heads drops down and nudges Gem in the belly, and he stumbles backward and laughs. “She asks that we all move out of the way in case this goes wrong. She’s going to try to shift again.”
“How is she talking to you telepathically?” Liam scowls. “That only happens between bond mates.”
“And us. Kings and queens can talk telepathically to all shifters,” he reminds my grumpy bond mate, and that seems to settle him slightly, but he’s still eyeing Colbie suspiciously. “Is she going to shift into something new?” Lucas asks as we all move backward again and stand behind the viewing area with my brother and sister, Violet, and the two princesses. Archie has been chatting excitedly this whole time, and the five of them have been distracting him so we could all talk.
“My future wife… sidepiece, is beautiful,” he announces to no one in particular. He claps his hands and bounces up and down on his mother’s lap. He’s right. She is gorgeous. Her whole body isn’t covered in scales like mine is, but they do cover her long necks, the sensitive areas behind each of her legs, and beneath her belly. The rest of her looks smooth and shiny, like an aquatic creature, and she glimmers under the lights.
One of her heads dips down, and she licks Archie’s cheek. Gracelin pales with worry, but Archie squeals with delight and pushes her away.
“Eww, Colbie, sidepieces don’t lick each other.”
Brodies snorts and mutters, “Want to make a bet?” Liam slaps him upside the head.
“It’s okay, Gracelin, they have to consciously spit their acid. Colbie won’t hurt Archie,” Mom assures the princess. Fuck, I would be worried about the same thing, but my mom’s words seem to ease Gracelin’s concern.
Magic seems to permeate the air as Colbie prepares to shift again. It should be instinctual after the first time, and it feels very much like what other shifters feel like before they shift, just way more powerful. My breath gets caught in my lungs, and everyone around me is also having trouble breathing.
She’s using too much power! Liam shouts inside our minds. My body shakes as I try to hold off my own shift. Everyone around me trembles as their animals try to push forward. Poor Archie has no chance of resisting. His body reshapes, and a small orange and black tiger cub curls up on Gracelin’s lap, whimpering.
Suddenly, the hydra form folds in on herself—there one moment and gone the next. Violet screams, and my brother wraps an arm around her, pulling her into his chest and shielding her eyes. Instead of blood and gore and bits of Colbie spread across the room when the magic clears, there’s a large, jet-black wolf curled in on itself, watching us with lavender eyes.
“Holy shit, that looked nothing like our shifts,” Brodie mutters and takes an unconscious step forward. I bet his wolf is riding him hard at the sight of another one, but does he want to assert his dominance or submit to her?
“She is a dual shifter,” Mom says with reverence in her voice.
“Well, this is certainly going to make challenge day interesting,” Mia says with a smirk of satisfaction.
Colbie isn’t done. Her body shifts again, and this time when the magic clears, she throws around a magnificent mane while stomping a hoof, her large, gorgeous wings stretching out wide.
“A pegasus!” my sister shouts with excitement.
“Wow, not one, but two mythical animals and three different forms.” I can’t help but hear the worry in Layla’s voice. “Poor girl, it’s going to take some hard work to get a handle on all those shifts.”
The magic activates again, and we all hold our breaths, waiting to see what will happen next. This time, her small, curvy body is lying in the middle of the floor. She appears to be unconscious, and Gem hurries toward her and scoops her up, releasing his healing magic.
“Just even more exhausted. I’m not surprised. I’ll take her up to her room, but I recommend we up her intake of food over the next few weeks while she practices. She’s going to need all the energy she can get,” he says after assessing her body.
“And the sooner she bonds to her mates, the sooner she can take energy from them. Hopefully they start arriving tomorrow, and it’s an easy pick like it was for us,” Mia says to Lucas, who is watching the new queen with the same kind of worry he has for his own children.
Brodie scowls at her words, but we don’t have any right to say anything, and thankfully, he keeps quiet.
“I think she should wear that pendant that suppresses her animals and stops her from shifting. Control is going to be hard to learn, and we don’t need her shifting into her hydra inside the palace and bringing it down around our heads,” Adam says as he watches his wife stroke a reassuring hand over their son’s body.
“Yes, that’s a great idea.” Gracelin holds out the pouch the pendant is in, and Evie reaches in and pulls it out.
She wrinkles her nose. “Wow, that is powerful. It suppressed my animal by just holding it.” She places it over Colbie’s head then pulls her hair out, and the tension seems to drain out of the unconscious girl.
“Come on, let’s let her rest again. Poor thing has been through so much.” Gem follows the queens and my mother out of the test room, followed by our siblings and Violet, leaving my bond group, Dad, and Lucas behind.
“Whoa, so not what I thought was going to happen,” Lucas admits, nervously running his hand through his hair. “A hydra. Who would have thought?”
“At least no one is going to want to fuck with that,” Dad points out.
“Damn, how is she going to find any mates who aren’t absolutely terrified of her?” Liam smirks meanly. “Let alone six of them.”
Brodie glares at him. “Shut the hell up, man. That isn’t helpful.”
“No, but he’s not wrong,” I agree reluctantly. “Male shifters are notoriously arrogant. It will be a blow to their ego that their mate is so much more powerful than them.”
“Aramis wouldn’t choose partners for her who would be resentful. Trust me, whoever she ends up mated to will be the perfect fit,” Lucas argues, the voice of experience.
“I think Lucas is right. I can think of half a dozen very powerful shifters in my army who aren’t in bond groups, and those are just the ones I know of. Remember, the call goes out across the shifter lands. You’ll see, everything will work out like it’s meant to.” My dad is quick to agree with his friend. “Now, you guys should head off to bed. You have your work cut out for you to get her up to speed with all her abilities. Hunter, talk to your mother, she may be able to find some books with more in-depth information about hydra shifters, not to mention the pegasus abilities. You’re going to need to know those too, so you can work with her on them.”
I don’t have the first clue about pegasus powers, so any help I can get will be appreciated. “Yeah, I’ll do that first thing tomorrow morning,” I tell him. With that, we all take our leave.
“Oh, and boys, find out where the hell my son is, and when you do, let him know I want to speak to him.” Lucas’s tone is deadly. The man is usually so easygoing, but I would not like to be in Gryffin’s shoes right now.
“He’s following up on an anonymous tip about the shifter kids that are still missing. He promised to be back tomorrow. I’ll let him know you need to speak to him,” Liam says, flat-out lying to the king, and Brodie and I gape at him. It’s not like Liam to cover for one of us. He likes to stir shit up and is happy to watch the fallout.
“A tip?” Bryson scowls. “Why did I not know about this?”
“We think it’s a wild goose chase, which is why he went on his own. The village he’s going to sits at the base of the Aramis Rift. It’s unlikely to be true because it’s so inhospitable there, but we didn’t want to ignore it just in case.”
Well, he’s not lying about that. The village he is going to is exactly where Liam said, but the reason is wrong. It softens Lucas’s anger, though, so Gryff better kiss Liam’s ass when he finally returns.
“He better be. We’re having a formal dinner to introduce Colbie to the rest of shifter society tomorrow. It will be broadcast to all of them. It will look like sour grapes if the son of the former king is not in attendance, so make sure he’s there.” He growls the last bit, his tiger pushing forward.
We assure him we will before the three of us take our leave.
“Fuck, he better be back,” Liam growls as we head toward our suite, “or I’ll kick his ass myself.”