The Shadowed Princes

The Rose Room was small – by the standards of the manor – decorated in deep shades of rose and mauve. Regina lowered Darmyk to the floor and he scampered to join his mother sitting on the sofa. She crossed to the south wall and admired the mural of lycans at a picnic in the middle of a rose garden; the males in hybrid form and the females in human while true wolves romped around them. The wall hangings were all of pastoral scenes. Sofas and chairs formed half circles around three low tables, upholstered in matching rose brocades. A woven reed basket, containing knitting, occupied the corner of a sofa.

"Yours?" Regina asked, lifting a square of pale blue knitting from the basket.

Merissa shook her head. "My mother's." Fresh tears leaked from her eyes. "My mother died in this room. Kissie found her on the floor over there."

Regina followed Merissa's pointing finger to a sofa with a pale mauve and butter-cream yellow brocade covering it. "I'm sorry. I didn't know that."

"I don't mind. I like it here." Merissa rubbed her eyes. "I feel like she's watching me. I loved her. She was the only person I could always talk to. I dream of her."

"Sometimes those who have passed on communicate in dreams. What does she say?"

Merissa averted her eyes, her fingers tracing a pattern on the sofa. There was so much that Aisha said to her in those dreams. Some of it frightened Merissa, while other things that Aisha said comforted her. The coercions in her mind were so strong that Merissa could not speak of her husband in a negative manner, and so she could not tell Regina that Aisha spoke of a curse upon Malthus. "She says that the cubs will be born lycan. That our liege-god, Tala, has promised her a boon. She was a devout bitch."

"Then let us hope that it is a true dream."

A tiny knock came at the door.

"I swear," Regina muttered, "If one of those whores has followed us…"

She stalked to the door, chanting 'whore' under her breath, and jerked it open.

Emma flinched at Regina's glare and spoke in a tiny voice with a hopeful smile flickering uncertainly on her lips. "Can I join you?"

"Come sit with me," said Merissa, extending a kindly hand toward her.

"Merissa…" Regina cast a dubious glance at Merissa.

"She never joins the gossiping, Reggie."

Emma sucked in a breath, looking close to tears as she edged past Regina and joined Merissa on the sofa. She took her basket of embroidery from her arm and placed it beside her. "I don't like them."

Regina's ire melted away at the neediness in Emma's manner. She pulled a chair close and settled into it. "Which thane do you belong to?"

"Fletcher Matheson, Thane of Ottercreek. I didn't want him. I was going to marry my Jamie. He was saving up for the brideprice my Da wanted. Only Fletcher saw me…"

"Damnedable bloody thanes and their appetites." Regina moved to the sofa and held Emma while the young bitch sobbed. She wondered how long Emma had been holding it in before the argument in the solar had brought it all to the surface. "How old are you, Emma?"

"Just turned fourteen."

Regina burst into a long string of curses.

GODWAR CENTRAL

The Shadowed Princes