The Shadowed Princes

Regina's mouth curled around the word 'whore' and she mouthed it at them several times without quite saying it.

Merissa laid her head on Regina's comforting shoulder and wept freely. The rest of the bitches withdrew to the other side of the room, whispering and throwing baleful looks at Regina.

"It's always okay to cry, Merissa. I've done a fair bit of that myself lately."

"Johfrit?"

"And my son Gadhra. They butchered him in front me." Regina's lips tightened for an instant. "Those who did it have been sent to hell."

"I'm so sorry about your husband and son."

Regina hugged her. "Then we'll be sorry together."

Darmyk Redhand eyed the gathered bitches distrustfully as he trotted into the room with his cat, Kerry, clutched to his chest and something wiggling in his other hand. He headed straight for Merissa. "Mama?"

Jocelyn gave a high-pitched laugh of disdain. "Speaking of bastards, Merissa. Here's yours. At least mine are not sa'necari."

Regina bristled. "Just because you're not happy to see me, Jocelyn, don't take it out on the cub."

Merissa went pale and averted her eyes. They would never have dared talk to her like that when her father was alive. Her first love had been sa'necari, the last Dark Brother of the Light, Isranon who now called himself Dawnreturning. He had left her to rejoin his prince fighting a war he could not hope to win. Custom had the force of law, and under a less enlightened ruler than her father Merissa would have been stoned to death for bearing the child of a sa'necari.

She clutched her three-year-old son to her. Darmyk had developed swiftly, in those intermittent rushes to maturity that came of having a lycan mother. Despite his small size, he moved and spoke on a par with a seven-year-old human.

"Mama, Kerry caught a rat. I don't want him to eat it, Mama." Darmyk looked up at his mother solemn eyed and released the squirming rat on her lap. Darmyk was a wilderkin, with a talent for talking to animals and understanding them. The rat jumped down and made a beeline for Jocelyn.

The cluster of bitches sprang to their feet screeching. Lillian snatched up a chair and tried to beat the rat with it, but the chair was too large and the creature too small. It leaped onto Jocelyn and swarmed up her shoulder before springing onto a cabinet and disappearing.

"Your filthy little blood-drinker is a beast," snarled Jocelyn.

Darmyk's lips trembled. "I don't want to drink blood."

"Well, you will and you'll like it once you get your fangs. Filthy sa'necari bastard." Lillian joined Jocelyn, glaring at Darmyk. "They should have stoned your mother for bearing you."

Darmyk burst into sobs.

"Let him alone. He's only a child." Regina lifted Darmyk onto her hip and held him. "Come on, Merissa. Let's go sit in the Rose Room. I hear it is a nice place."

Merissa gave Regina a grateful look and rose to her feet. "My mother always loved it. It was her special place."

GODWAR CENTRAL

The Shadowed Princes