I’d done a good job of suppressing all of those true histories I hadn’t asked to know. But now they all come racing back to me.
“Where are we going?” I ask again, my throat tight for reasons beyond the collar around my neck.
This time Damianos doesn’t even bother to answer. He turns his hooded gaze to the window. Like I’m a gnat that somehow found its way inside his car.
He looks even more Greek statue-like in profile. Long, sharp nose, eyes intelligent and hooded like a really hot Oscar winner doing a take on Julius Caesar. I can easily imagine him in any era. The finest man in every room and the best dressed.
My wolf sniffs at him, curious and afraid at the same time.
Okay, stop, girl, just stop! I know my wolf and me weren’t exactly on the same page about Akwasi, but her response to Damianos is crazy. You shouldn’t be eyeing up our family’s mortal enemy like he’s all that and a bag of chips.
My wolf licks her lips only seeming to hear the part about a delicious bag of chips…also, why am I using my mom’s outdated slang all of a sudden? Kill me now.
Actually, I decide, glancing across at my fathers’ mortal enemy. Don’t kill me now.
Okay, I’ve got to flip this queen switch. Think, think, think…
Without my biosystem online, I can only assume he’s planning to put me on a drone and take me somewhere super clandestine and remote. Like that Greek Island fortress of his that doesn’t show up on any maps, or even worse. Someplace, totally off the human or wolf grid that even my incredibly royal and powerful family would never know to look. Someplace they’d never find me.
Which I absolutely can’t allow.
A basic plan develops crystal and clear. Do whatever I have to do not to get put on that drone. It’s the only chance I have of being found before he hurts me…or worse.
The car turns left up a service road. It’s too dark to see, even with wolf vision, but I think we’re on some kind of mountain or hill. The car tilts upwards as its tires snap and crackle over dead leaves and twigs. A thick tree line blocks out everything beyond the narrow road.
I can’t help but be impressed. A mountain meadow is a perfect place to hide a private drone if you want to get in and out of the state undetected.
The car rolls to a stop, and I resist the urge to pull on the old-fashioned door handle. Better to wait for the human driver to come around and let me out. I’ll act all docile, then make my move—wait a minute is that…
My mouth drops open at the sight in front of me.
There is a meadow with a drone gleaming under the moonlight in the far distance. But right in front of us sits a two-story French chalet log cabin with charming cedar gables and front walls made of glass. It features three bedrooms, two of which have ensuite bathrooms, and a large, warmly-lit two-story living room that could easily host a party for fifty or more guests. It also has smart walls in every room.
I know all of this because last winter, I got in a huge fight with my uncles about authorizing the formerly small cabin’s over-the-top renovations.
“Is this part of some ‘get your rednecks subjects to like you’ plan?” I’d asked them when I saw how much building an official gatehouse on Yellow Mountain would cost the kingdom. “Because we don’t owe those punk bitches shit.”
“I don’t need them to like me,” Uncle Kyle had answered. “But I do want to keep them busy and comfortable building the new gatehouse. Most of them live below the poverty line, and angry, underfed wolves with nothing to do cause way more trouble than opinionated assholes with jobs. And remember you’re the one who refused to let Rafes black box us. We could have just left the old gatehouse a historic relic without running water or electricity if we weren’t required to post a round-the-clock sentry as part of our opt-out agreement.”
Kyle had a point. But I still hadn’t liked the idea of funding the gatehouse project.
Thanks to us, those fools had a gatehouse so grand, it could be used as a meeting place by the YMWs. As part of our agreement with Rafes, we’d even hired Kirk to live here year round. Like back in the day when security wasn’t just a matter of sticking camera buttons onto a bunch of trees and watching the feed from the security room at the kingdom house. And we gave the rest of the able-bodied YMWs enough well-paid construction work to pay the Wi-Fi bill and maybe even order themselves up a bride from some struggling underdeveloped country.