Chapter 72: Long Live the Queen

CREATORS' THOUGHTS

AimeeLynn

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CHAPTER 1: What the Ever-Loving Hell?

Elreth was late. If her father, the King, noticed, he would have her hide.

He was already on the stage when she arrived, the long, sleeveless vest that was practically his uniform swinging around his knees. Its heavy fur collar framed his face like the mane of the Lion within him. He always stood proud in these moments, his massive shoulders back, no shirt beneath the vest so they could see the rippled muscles that still slicked his torso, despite his increasing age. At almost fifty, he was still shameless. She teased him about it constantly.

He growled something and his voice echoed across the amphitheater, but she ignored it, grimacing as she slunk through the crowd, twisting between the people, whispering apologies, until she made it to Aaryn, her best friend. He saw her coming and edged aside so she could fit between him and Gwyn on his right. Gwyn smiled, but her lips were tight. Elreth smiled, then turned back to Aaryn, rolling her eyes. Gwyn’s very obvious yearning for Aaryn was getting old. Elreth hoped she’d move onto someone else soon.

Aaryn glanced at her from the side, his strong jaw tight and his ice-blue eyes piercing behind the strands of silver-white hair that always seemed to need a cut.

“What’s going on?” she signed to him in the finger language they’d developed when she was ten, after her father roared at them for talking during training.

“Nice to see you, too,” he signed back, but the jab wasn’t accompanied by his usual smile, or the hooked finger that meant it was a joke.

Elreth frowned and signed again. “Sorry. Hi. What’s going on?”

“There was a fight yesterday. Snakes and horses. Must have been bad. He’s really upset,” he signed, using the clawed fingers they used to symbolize a predator Anima’s bared teeth. “Almost as bad as you when you’re pissy.”

She drew a quick cross at the apex of her thighs—a rude gesture she’d created specifically to imply he had no balls—but even when he snorted, she didn’t smile back. Something icy was sliding down her spine.

The Tribes were fighting?

Elreth turned to the stage. She’d assumed this was just another of her father’s dramatic addresses, something he always did when he needed to bring the people on his side of whatever Kingly decision he’d made. But Aaryn was right, the man on the stage was not her patient, good-natured father, who liked to laugh and tease, and steal kisses from her mother.

The man on that stage was the King. The angry King. The Lion. He stalked the space, shoulders back and chin down, eyes fierce and teeth bared. He was Reth, the King of Anima, and as Elreth paid attention to his booming voice echoing across the morning air, her uneasiness grew.