Page 78 of The Ruthless Fae King
I looked to Kailani, whose eyes were wide, and knew that she too had never seen a wolven.
“They’re so big,” I exclaimed, as Arwen lowered us to the ground.
The hulking mass of fur and muscle was a sight to behold.
They were larger than a cougarin and almost as big as a bearin! I suddenly felt nervous about the task ahead of us. Were they civil in their animal form? Or only as humans? I knew the moon affected them, and I’d heard them howling once when I visited a border town in Archmere. The wolves knew we were here, and craned their heads skyward as we descended over them.
Kailani reached down and clutched the tin box tightly as Arwen landed among the pack of two dozen or so wolves.
They circled us, surrounding Arwen on all sides as Kailani and I stepped out of the basket and approached one of the wolves.
The wolven was looking us right in the eyes, and had cocked their head to the side, so I could see the intelligence there.
“My name is Queen Madelynn of Thorngate,” I told them.
Kailani bowed slightly beside me and I kicked myself for not doing the same. “I am Queen Kailani of Archmere, and that is Queen Arwen of Embergate. We seek an audience with your king.”
I watched the wolven who’d cocked her head as her face began to change. It looked like it was… melting. The sound of bones cracking filled the space as her fur retreated and gave way to smooth skin. It was horrifying and fascinating at the same time and I could not look away, even when the creature was reduced to a naked female who crouched in the dirt staring up at us.
I swallowed hard as she stood and tipped her chin high, meeting my gaze and never dropping it. She didn’t say a word, she just held my gaze. I started to wonder if maybe they didn’t speak Avalierian and had a mother tongue we didn’t know, when she grinned.
“You are an alpha among your people?” she asked. Her long dark hair cascaded over one shoulder, but her breasts were exposed as well as the rest of her, and yet she made no effort to cover herself.
I had to remind myself that these were cultural customs that might be normal to them and so I tried to act like it didn’t bother me. “I am,” I told her. Alpha and queen were similar. We were both leaders of our people.
“Can you take us to King Moon?” Kailani asked.
The wolven woman pointed to the mountain range in the distance, where a small stream of fire curled towards the sky.
“Our king lives on Death Mountain. You will find him there,” she said.
Death Mountain. That didn’t sound too cozy.
“Thank you.” I bowed my head and she hissed.
Walking over, she reached out and grasped my chin, tipping my head up. “Don’tbow unless you are submissive. If you are an alpha, a queen, you keep your chin up, maintain eye contact. If the king thinks you are weak, he will kill you.”
My eyes bugged at that moment. Kill me? I was a queen of a neighboring territory. Surely she didn’t mean it?
Kailani and I shared a worried look, then the woman stared at Arwen’s dragon form. “She is a threat to the king. She cannot go to Death Mountain in dragon form or she’ll be shot from the sky without question. She stays here or walks there as a human.”
Okay, clearly there were some rules here we hadn’t known about. I started to panic, unsure now what to do. But before I could even think of a solution, Arwen shifted back into her human body.
More cracking bones, dragon scales turned to soft pink skin, and now I was standing beforetwonaked women.
Good grief.
Trying to maintain eye contact when a woman’s breasts were exposed was harder than I realized. I was trying to conceal my blush but knew I must be failing.
“They’re not going anywhere without me,” Arwen told the woman, holding her eye contact, chin held high like the wolven had suggested.
The dark-haired woman grinned. “Two alphas,” she said through her smile.
Kailani scoffed. “Threealphas. I’m an alpha too.”
The woman shook her head. “No. You’re second-in-command. Maybe. More like mid-pack.”
Kailani frowned at that and crossed her arms over her chest. It seemed the custom here was to size up a person and immediately rank them based on dominance. Little did she know Kailani was a powerful warrior.
