FULL NOVELXO Queens and Monsters: Chapter 36
They set up the empty barn to hold everyone. Each House came with at least a handful of representatives—well everyone except the Heida—and some came with many more.
“Do you know everyone?” I asked Dray. We stood in the shadows watching them mingle.
“Most. We’re not like humans. We live longer and we only have a few children. Our population remains small.”
“Except your parents.”
He pulled me against him and stroked my hair. “Except my parents.”
Would we one day have nine boisterous kids running around this land? It was hard to imagine when I barely knew who I was, when so much of the future seemed to be in danger. I hoped that one day we’d get to find out.
“How will this work?”
“I’ll explain the situation even though everyone should already know. I think it’s best to start with everyone on an even playing field. Then we’ll discuss options and make a decision.”
“But there’s really only two options, right? Let the House of Axl take control of all the Houses or force them to back down?”
He stroked my hair some more. “Antyne’s thirst for power is unquenchable.”
“He thinks he’s doing the right thing.” I snuggled deeper into his sweater.
“That’s what they always think. They know best. They have some sort of secret knowledge of destiny, and that power has been thrust upon them and only them.”
“Who is they?” I peered up at him. The shadows made it so I could only see half his face. Mostly his eyes and lips.
“Bad guys. Adolf Hitler. That purple guy in the Avengers movies.”
I laughed. “That purple guy? You are old.”
“Shut up.” He hugged me tighter. “It’s true though, isn’t it? He decided what the fate of everyone in the universe should be.”
“True. But the good guys defeated him.”
He fingered one of my curls. “And we’re the good guys.”
Leena walked by with the three giants in tow. I learned that their names were Atsila, Klah, and Kuruk. “Why do they follow her around like that?”
Dray dropped my curl and sighed. “The Heida don’t exactly get out much. Being around this many of us is overwhelming. Even back home I’ve heard they tend to be fairly solitary.”
“What’s their, you know, thing?” Would I ever not stumble over samhain words?
“They’re shifters like us, but they all shift into the same animal. Bears.”
Made sense given how huge these guys were.
“They’re powerful, emotional samhain. Very driven by their instincts. Brilliant fighters, from what I’ve been told. And they respond completely to their women.”
Interesting. I tried to picture an over-the-top-man’s man chopping wood and ripping the heads off deer, tamed by the women in their lives. “So…Leena is their woman?”
Dray stiffened. “Not like that. She’s been entrusted to help them while they’re here. Like a tour guide, so to speak. They respect her authority.”
So this wasn’t a sex thing. “She looks super uncomfortable.” They found seats across the room from where we stood. She sat stiffly with one on each side of her and one behind. Aside from the fact that they made her look like a doll, I think it was the attention that threw her for a loop. The one behind and the other to her right were silent and aloof, studying the crowd at all times, but the one to her left couldn’t stop staring at her, never seemed to stop talking either.
“Yeah well, no one’s been up to Heida territory in a long damn time. It had to have been hard to get them to talk to her, let alone to agree in sending three of their own with her.”
I felt Dray beginning to change. He stood a little taller, his breathing became more even. He was getting ready to start the meeting.
“Hey, what about Lou? Anything?”
He shook his head. “No contact still.”
I tugged on his sweater. “I can zip over there and find out what’s going on anytime. It would be helpful to have inside information before you do anything. Please?”
He sighed, his eyes tired but also, I had to admit, scared. “I don’t want you to go. Not ever. But I am trying to be reasonable and keep it under consideration. You are our inside woman and, if it comes to it, I might be willing to think about it.”
Well that was an improvement, so I took it. “All right. Go be in charge. I’m going to hide over here and watch.” I had more than enough of the spotlight with my grandfather.
Dray stood in front, waiting patiently for the conversations to die down and attention to turn to him, which it did with a quickness. “Thank you all for coming. As you know, Antyne Axl’s granddaughter was Awakened recently. I was there when it happened and put her under my protection as part of our alliance with the House of Nala. While at the House of Axl, Rhysa was poisoned by Antyne’s mistress and sister-in-law, with the hopes of killing her. But Rhysa is strong. Maybe the strongest of us all. She was able to break free of their magic and escape to Nala.”
He went on to fully explain the current state of the Dreg army and Antyne’s belief that the samhain should come out of hiding and force humans to live under us instead.
“Shouldn’t we at least consider he’s right?” a member of the House of Volci—the werewolves—asked.
“Okay,” Dray waved around the room, “let’s discuss it.”
The same man stood up and turned to face the room. “Humans cannot compete with our powers. They’ll have no choice to but to accept our authority.”
Saoirse stood up. “How long will that take? How many years of war? How many deaths? You think humans will simply accept samhain rule? No, they will not. They will fight us long and hard.”
“And they will lose,” he said with a nod.
Saoirse sighed. “After great destruction for both sides. That is not who we are. As beings sensitive to the Plane, we all know how delicate and necessary the balance is between life and death, nature and the nether, good and evil.”
A member of the House of Gatlin—those gifted with Sight—also stood. “I agree. This is not who we are. They are no threat to us or our existence. We have everything we need.”
A woman from the House of Sato stood. “I also agree. The House of Axl is selfish. They have never done anything but bring us problems with their greed. We’ve already seen what will happen, we do not need to debate it.”
I assumed they were referring to the times they turned Dregs against their will and brought the human world dangerously close to discovering our existence, but there could be more history there.
Atsila, the giant behind Leena stood slowly, unfolding his massive frame until he towered over everyone. “We have no interest in the human world. We will not agree to this.”
“Nor will we,” Dray said. “Unless you have another argument for us to consider, Ender?”
Ender of the House of Volci twitched a little and then shook his head. “I’m fine with remaining hidden, however I would like us to consider this again in the future. Perhaps at regular intervals. The human world is volatile and continuously changing. We should be careful of how it affects us.”
“Agreed wholeheartedly,” Dray said with a nod. “And it should only be done in consultation with the Houses we left behind. A revelation of this magnitude would affect every Samhain in the world. Now onto the matter of Rhysa’s poisoning. I am biased, but I believe there should be retaliation at the least, but what I really want is to end this battle with the House of Axl once and for all. It’s ridiculous that they’ve created an unnecessary split between our houses.”
“This is why we have come,” Atsila said from behind Leena. “We wish to be alone, but we also wish for harmony in our species. For this, we will fight alongside you.”
The sentiment moved around the room quickly. It was clear that every member of the Alliance Houses was done with the House of Axl and their partners.
“We’re still outnumbered,” Ender pointed out.
“True,” Dray said, “but we’re more skilled. We have more Houses. If you take the Dregs out of the equation, the power dynamic shifts to us. By a lot.” There was lots of murmuring through the crowd before Dray waved his arm, bringing attention back to him. “We agreed we wouldn’t act until the numbers were more in our favor, but with their ability to turn the human dead, will we ever reach that goal? Do we wait another hundred years to stand up for ourselves? Or do we fight today and end this once and for all?”
The crowd cheered. With the exception of a few wary faces, everyone appeared to be excited for action. The wait, the anticipation was finally over. The war was no longer coming.
War was finally here.