Discovery of a Queen: Chapter 14

When I come to, it takes me a minute to realize I’m in my bedroom. The last thing I remember is standing over Sean’s body. Everything else is a blur. Why the hell does my head hurt so much?

I gently run my fingers over my head, trying to determine if I’ve sustained some sort of injury. My vision is a little blurry, and I’m having trouble focusing on anything in my room because of the pain.

My dragon sounds as pained as I feel. I am all for getting my memories back, but couldn’t they come back in a way that doesn’t knock me out cold? What if this happens during a battle? There’s a knock on my door seconds before it’s opened and Kelly pokes her head in, breaking me out of my thoughts.

“Oh, good! You’re awake!” She beams as she rushes into my room. She’s carrying a mug of what I very much hope is coffee. “I magically blocked your bonds for you for a bit, so your head didn’t explode. And I brought you some chamomile tea!”

She places the mug on my nightstand, and I stare at it like a child who was told their pizza was made out of cauliflower. Why wouldn’t she bring me the nectar of the gods? My very lifeblood? My reason for being? Is this a declaration of war? Is she challenging me? Does she hate me?

“Cool your thoughts there, my friend. Based on your face alone, I can see you’re having some sort of breakdown over the tea. But it’ll help, Ayla, it really will. I’ve also put a potion in there that will ease the pain a bit so you can process whatever happened. What did happen? You freaked everyone out, especially Caleb.” Kelly smirks. “He was a disaster as he carried you to the portals. There was a lot of yelling, cursing, and orders flung around like rice at a wedding. There was a moment there I thought he might have a stroke.”

We both chuckle. I slowly, petulantly, reach my hand out for the mug of tea. If it’s got something to help get rid of this pain, I’ll choke it down. I’d probably sell my firstborn at this rate to alleviate the pain. As my hand wraps around the mug, I let the heat seep into my bones. I hadn’t realized just how cold I was before now. I flick my hand at the fireplace and start a roaring fire before placing both hands around my mug with a sigh. Dragons aren’t meant to be cold; it makes us cranky and sulky. I take a sip of the tea and shudder as it makes its way into my stomach, and then I down the rest as quickly as possible.

“That’s one way to do it.” Kelly chuckles and takes the mug back. “Now tell me what happened.”

“It’s a very long story, and I’m going to need to tell it to everyone from the beginning. Can you get Olivia, Dante, Patrick, Connor, Malcolm, and Caleb in here? I don’t want to move, and I only want to tell this once.” Kelly nods and goes still, communicating through the bond.

“Done! Everyone will be here soon.” She places her hands on either side of my head, and I feel a gentle, comforting warmth start to spread out from my temples. My eyes droop as my muscles relax.

“Thank you. I feel so much better.”

“You know I gotchu.” Kelly winks and flicks her hand to open the door for everyone.

Caleb instantly moves to the side of my bed and sits down next to me, picking up my hand and pressing it to his lips.

Everyone else stands around my bed, each of them with concerned expressions. Wow. I must have gone down hard. I feel bad for causing them distress like this, but there isn’t much I can do about it now aside from being honest with them about what’s going on.

“I thought my mother killed Malick,” I start. “I’ve spent the last four hundred years assuming he was dead. There had been this massive battle the night I went into hiding. My mother and father were killed.” I take a deep breath. “I’m jumbling everything up. Let me try again.

“Four hundred years ago, my mother erased some of my memories. I’m not sure how many or which ones specifically. She also spelled me to run. Malick attacked our community, but by that time the vampires and the witches were all gone, it was just a small number of shifters left. My father held him off while my mother did whatever she felt she had to do with me. Then she joined the battle to give me enough cover and time to get away. It took me a while, but I was able to piece together most of what happened that night. My parents fell, but, at least according to most of the information I gathered, so had Malick.”

“Where did you get your information?” Caleb inquires.

“I wasn’t so morally opposed to diving into minds back then. And I was starving for information about my family. I waited a week and then returned to the area.” Caleb scoffs. “I know, foolish, stupid, and insanely rash. But I needed to know. Only a handful of shifters survived the battle. From their memories, my mother and Malick went down together and the demons vanished as soon as it happened. Both of my parents’ bodies disappeared with the demons, but a few of the memories I had been able to dive into vividly saw their broken bodies and lifeless eyes.” I pause as my own eyes fill with tears.

“Is it possible those memories, the ones of the shifters who had been part of the battle, were tampered with at all? We know Malick is still alive.” Caleb’s got a valid point, and I’m curious about that as well.

“Honestly, I’m not sure. None of the memories specifically saw him die, I had just assumed. It’s possible that in my grief, I misunderstood the memories. He might have been wounded and then carted off by his lackeys. I’m not sure.”

“Why would your mother tamper with your memories?” Olivia muses, bracing her hands on the foot of my bed. “What purpose does that serve?”

“I’m not sure. I first started getting memories back right after you two came to talk to me about the missing female shifters.” I can feel the others’ interest rise. “I’ll get to that in a minute. I didn’t realize what was happening at the time, but things felt…off, I guess. I knew something was missing or wrong, but I couldn’t tell exactly why. And then the night Caleb had called to let me know that the Council was coming, more memories resurfaced, specifically about my mother’s community.”

I pause, pressing my fingers against my eyes. I feel as though I’ve missed so many clues. What else could have been locked away? Why the bloody hell had my mother done this to me? I’m so woefully ill-prepared to face everything that’s happening now because of this. I run a frustrated hand through my hair before continuing.

“I realized that when I was young, my mother had vampires, witches, and shifters all living together in harmony. Lots of them. But from my memory of the night my mother died, the community had drastically dwindled. I’ve been trying to think of reasons why, but I’m coming up empty right now. Let me step back just a little.” I pause. “Six months ago, Kelly and Olivia came to me because, as we came to find out, Morgan had been selling dominant shifter females. Morgan pointed the finger at the witches in the hopes of slaughtering them in an all-out race war, but Olivia, who had been working alongside the witches to help modernize their records, knew they couldn’t have been responsible. So they came to me to have me investigate.

“I believed them right away. One of my gifts is to tell if someone is lying. They weren’t. I did what I do best, became invisible. I watched Morgan for weeks, following him and his inner circle. They had close dealings with a human drug lord, so he and I had a little chat. He knew about an illegal shifter fighting ring, and I went to check it out. I caught Morgan’s scent while I was there but couldn’t find him. I did, however, find Sasha, the wolf who was helping you, Connor. She was drugged out of her mind and being led off by this guy. He said she had already been ‘paid for ’ I can show everyone my records but based on what I’d already witnessed and what happened that night, I knew Morgan was selling the females.

“I realized something while I was fighting Morgan. He appeared fuzzy, almost as though he was a smudged photograph of himself. The drug lord had been like that to a smaller extent, but so had the fighters at the ring. I hadn’t realized exactly what it meant, but it’s the way I see someone who’s been tainted by an alliance with a demon. It’s how all queens see someone who’s been tainted. My mother had stripped that information from my mind four hundred years ago too, and I had done such a damn good job of avoiding people like the plague, I hadn’t seen anyone with that smudge in the interim.”

Stunned silence meets my next long inhale. Yeah, I know, right? This shit is fucked up.

“Ayla,” Caleb murmurs. “What about two nights ago? You said you saw Malick.”

Was it really two nights ago? Damn. I’d been out for quite a while.

“Right. Well, during the fight with Malick, he transformed an innocent-looking rock into a deadly weapon and stabbed me with it. As an aside,” I explain, and slide my eyes to Caleb’s, “we need to spar and train together because what happened on that summit was extremely embarrassing, and I refuse to go through that again.” His lips quirk up. “Later that day, when I went to sleep, I had some strange dreams. And at one point I ended up in a room with Malick. He said I was inside his mind. I couldn’t access my dragon again, but I could still control my magic. He said that he had left part of himself inside of me.”

Five pairs of stunned eyes stare at me as the silence in the room screams in the space between us. Not awkward at all.

“So, uh, when we went into Sean’s house earlier today, and we found that talisman, it happened again.” More stunned silence rings in my ears. “He said he wants me, and I’d best prepare myself because he’ll have me soon.” Caleb’s rage blasts through our still shaky and tentative bond, causing my eyes to snap to his.

He’s seething. Behind all the fury is a desperate urge to protect. I grip his hand and squeeze it reassuringly. I have no intention of going with Malick, and I appreciate that Caleb would fight to keep me out of his grasp.

, my dragon purrs, I want to groan and roll my eyes, but I stop myself since she only spoke to me.

“There is no way I’ll let you go.” Caleb’s tone is guttural and strained, and it feels as if he’s struggling not to shift.

“I know,” I soothe. “I know you’ll protect me. Which is why I want to train. It’ll be easier if I’m in top fighting shape. As much as you’d like to just hide me away, you know that won’t stop him. He’ll just go through everyone else until he finds me. We have to rip the head off the snake, à la Neville Longbottom.”

“Technically, he cut the head off the snake.” Everything inside me stills. Caleb knows ? My heart rate accelerates and excitement flares hot in my veins. Caleb knows ! He’s a nerd!

“Please tell me you didn’t just watch the movies.” Suspicion creeps into my voice.

“I’ve actually never seen the movies.” That can be overlooked. The man has read and can keep up with any references I make. If he would just leave the Council, he would be perfect. That thought sobers me up.

“I hate to break up your fan-girling, Ayla,” Olivia interjects. “But we need to make a game plan here. You’re going to need security, both physically and psychically. We also need to create a training schedule for everyone, not just you. We all need to make sure that we can defend ourselves and our people when the demons come.”

“Olivia is right,” Dante chimes in, nodding his head. “I can assist with the training schedules. I can also help screen candidates for your physical security.”

“I’ll tackle the security for your dreams,” Kelly adds.

“We’ll help.” Connor nudges Malcolm’s side, and he nods his agreement.

“I want a Council security officer with her at all times when I can’t be.” Caleb’s tone leaves no room for negotiation.

“Dante,” I say before they can all leave to get things ready. “When is the rest of your nest getting here?”

“In about two days. I heard from Xin right before you woke up. The nest is very excited.” Dante grins at me. “They’ll be even more excited once they realize we’re training to take down an old archdemon and his legion.”

I snort. “I have no doubt about that. Olivia, before you go off and organize everything, can you make sure houses are ready for the nest when they get here? We have plenty of space, but I want to ensure the houses aren’t all gross.”

“I’m on it. The rest of you start planning and scheduling. Dante, come with me, I want to make sure the homes we select are appropriate.” Olivia and Dante leave the room, talking about preferences and how many younger vampires they have that still need extra protection from the sun.

“Can someone bring me Patrick? I still need to weed through the Rocky Mountain Pack to determine if there are any more members involved with demons.” Everyone just blinks at me. “What?”

“You aren’t serious, are you?” Connor exclaims.

Kelly grins at Connor’s question. Clearly, the man doesn’t know who I am. “You’ve been out cold and have just regained some of your memories. That’s not important right now.”

“It important right now. Do you think Malick is sitting back, sipping tea, and relaxing? No. He’s getting ready to attack, and we can’t allow a spy to tell him the best way to do it. Now get me Patrick.” I loosen my hold on my dominance, and Connor, Malcolm, and Kelly all leave the room to do their specific tasks.

And once again, I’m alone with Caleb.

“You really shouldn’t be bossing my men around.”

“Well, if your men had any brain cells still operating, I wouldn’t need to.” Caleb chuckles and nods.

“Fair enough. They should know who they’re dealing with. But you can’t blame them for wanting to make sure that you don’t push yourself too far.” He pauses to look me over. “Do you need some time to adjust? If getting your memories back caused your body to go through that much strain, maybe you should take it easy for at least a few more hours.”

“It was just the number of memories. My brain needed me to shut down for a bit in order to process. I’ve processed.” Well, mostly “It’ll probably take me some time to sort through everything, but that shouldn’t stop me from guaranteeing the safety of this community.”

“Speaking of, I’m going to put in a call for reinforcements from the remaining councilmen and employees. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

“As much as I hate to admit this, that’s not a bad idea. We should still have enough room once the nest is settled.” I sigh, feeling tired again, but I’m determined not to let it show.

“You’re still planning to stay?” Caleb has a look of pure frustrated male written all over his face. We apparently don’t like it when our new toy won’t do as it’s told. Oh, boo-hoo.

“Why would you expect me to give up my people if you’re not willing to give up your own?”