Dark Queen Read online

  “That’s his job, Jane,” Eli said, watching me from lazy eyes, his hands behind his head and feet crossed. “If you had known, the first thing you would have wanted to do was fly out and look around. You’re busy. You have to delegate, but you suck at that. So I did the look-see. Alex oversaw the security. Now, tonight, you need to know. Not before.”

  Very softly, I asked, “Is there anything else I need to know that I wasn’t told?”

  Eli sat up from his sprawl. “You’re really pissed. Why?”

  Ayatas is my brother. Not said. I wanted to hit something. Hard. I felt Beast leap to the forefront of my brain and glow golden through my eyes. The look I sent him had Eli standing, his body angled to fight me, ready for me to hit him. He took a step back, clearing the space between us, giving himself room to block and plan, his eyes lit with delight. Eli always enjoyed giving me a chance to blow off steam, and he gave me a little “come on” wave as if urging me to hit him for real, the way he did when we sparred. “That’s our job, Jane,” he said, moving around me for a better attack angle. “To evaluate a site and put a plan together. Your job, especially at this particular time, isn’t the nuts and bolts. It’s following the leads back to Leo’s enemies. So you aren’t mad about the islands. What are you really mad about, Janie?”

  I frowned, not taking the hint to let out some aggression sparring. I was feeling . . . helpless. Yeah. Helpless. And I hated that feeling. “Crap.” I dropped my stance and let my shoulders droop. “Sorry. Did you find the SUV that took Dominique away from HQ?” I asked Alex.

  Alex ducked his head over his tablet.

  “Alex? Kid, what’s up?”

  Quietly he said, “Rona Hogg and her sister Mazie.”

  I vaguely remembered Rona. She was one of the Atlanta recruits, training for a possible security position in the new Atlanta clan. In Katie’s new clan. Weird. “Okay.”

  “Her sister’s a gamer. I sorta . . . know Mazie.”

  Eli and I went still as hunting cats. “Know in the casual sense or the biblical sense?” Eli said.

  “Not sure what that means, bro. But we got to second base on gamer night a few weeks back. She had questions. I gave her answers. Lots of answers. She’s trying to get on as part of the security team too, so . . . I thought it was okay.”

  “She made you feel important,” Eli said.

  “She made goo-goo eyes at you, let you feel her boobs, and you caved,” I said.

  “Sorta,” Alex mumbled, his dark-skinned face going red. “Rona and Mazie Hogg helped Dominique get in and out the first time. I got a good still shot from a street cam. They were in the car with her, Rona driving.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “They ditched the SUV off I-10. I lost them.”

  I said something my housemother might have slapped my face for. Alex’s eyes went wide.

  “You need to see Aggie One Feather,” Eli said, not unkindly.

  “I’m busy,” I said, my voice reverberating.

  “And you need to take Ayatas with you.”

  The last statement was like being slapped across the face for real. “What?” I said. My shoulders dropped, my face wrinkled up, and I took another step back, further widening the space between us.

  Eli hadn’t relaxed his stance. “A man claiming to be your brother appeared out of nowhere, alleging things that were confusing and frightening. He appeared when it was convenient to him, instead of making a ceremonial visit that would have shown you he cared. Leo just confirmed Ayatas is really your brother. You’re not acting like yourself. You’re acting like a pissed-off cat, all claws and attitude. Too much aggression and not enough thinking. Too much cat.”

  Beast reared up in me, my eyes glowing. I growled softly.

  “Yeah. See?” Alex said. “Growly and catty.”

  “I’m not going to see Aggie. I don’t have time for a sweat.”

  “Fine,” Eli said, sitting down on the edge of the couch. His action seemed purposeful, as if to deescalate the tension in the room. “But I called Ayatas and told him Leo confirmed your relationship. You can talk to Ayatas with or without the tribal Elder. Either way, Ayatas is here. You want answers. He wants answers. Aggie is an Elder and she can give them to you.”

  “And she’s waiting,” Alex said. “Eli called her too.”

  Four knocks sounded on the front door. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Ayatas’s knock.

  The urge to hit something swept me up, taking me over for maybe a half dozen too-rapid heartbeats. I clenched my fists to keep the claws retracted and swallowed down my own emotions. Breathed. Forced the rage down. Down, away, and back. Eli was right. I was angry for all the wrong reasons. I needed to get the information about my supposed brother. I needed to settle this personal thing so I could deal with the Sangre Duello. When the fury had passed I asked, “What does Leo get if Ayatas is my brother? Why drop this on me now, before the Sangre Duello?”

  Eli frowned. So did Alex.

  “Right. Leo shared info without a quid pro quo. He gets something out of this deal. Leo always gets something out of any deal. If Ayatas and I become chummy, then Leo has another talon hooked into PsyLED. And Leo said something about how having PsyLED at the blood duel might keep the Navy and Coast Guard from dropping bombs on us if Leo loses.”

  Eli gave his battle-face frown. “Bombardment isn’t likely, but I’m keeping my ear to the ground.”

  “And if Ayatas is your brother and Leo was just being nice?” Alex asked.

  “Really?” I moved to the front door, my back to them, but speaking over my shoulder. “Leo? Nice?”

  “Good point,” Alex said, sounding vaguely surprised. “Huh. Follow the money and the political power.” He was already banging away on his tablets and his laptop.

  I opened the front door, half-cat and spitting mad, to see the topic of the conversation on my front porch. I blocked his entrance with my body, watched the shock on his face as he took me in and almost went for his weapon. I gave him a cat smile, all fangs and fur. “Hiya, baby brother, if that’s who you really are. Get back in your car. We’re going to sweat.” And I slammed the door in his surprised face. Whirling to Eli, I grabbed a gobag and said, “You’re driving.”

  * * *

  • • •

  It took the entire ride to Aggie’s, while strapped into the backseat, to shift into full-human form. It was slow, a bone-breaking, tendon-snapping process, and I whined and moaned the whole way. It hurt.

  After telling me to “man up,” Eli put on music so he didn’t have to listen. Man up? Really? Evil man.

  When I looked like me again—like Jane again—I let myself out of the seat belt and changed into warm, baggy sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt, crawled up front, and slumped in the passenger seat. Eli was listening to a Joe Bonamassa album, playing “You Left Me Nothin’ but the Bill and the Blues.” Music I liked.

  I tied my hair in a knot and let it hang down my back and leaned my head against the seat, giving my muscles time to stop quivering and aching. When Joe was finished playing “Drive,” I clicked the music off. Silence filled the car and I could smell my own pain and disquiet. “Are you mad at me?” I snapped my mouth shut. I sounded like a twelve-year-old girl whining to her besties.

  Eli said, “Babe,” in that tone that told me everything was okay between us, and shook his head. “No. I’m not mad at you, Janie. I’m worried. You have a lot going on right now, personally and professionally. You have Ayatas. You have all the magical trinkets in the closet. You’re still getting over being struck by lightning. There’s the construction. The new clan master position. In a couple days we’ll be on an island in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, an island with questionable GPS coordinates and no secure landing field. On an island with no backup and no way off except an unarmed and unarmored helicopter or two, and Uncle Sam’s Navy in the nearest port.”

&nbs
p; “Officially,” I conceded.

  “Officially what?”

  “Well. Bruiser has a boat.”

  Eli glanced away from the road. “Does he, now?”

  “I was on it. It has a cabin and a teapot and everything.”

  “And it’ll be moored nearby?”

  I looked away from Eli, out the window at the night. It was cloudy, the kind of clouds that portended a harder rain than the heavy mist. “It’s Bruiser. What do you think?”

  Eli might have relaxed a hair. “Good to know. Maybe I’ll text him and ask for a sitrep.”

  Leo had said to let my people do their jobs. “I’m micromanaging everything, aren’t I?”

  “Yep. Trying to.”

  Eli was on the job. Alex was ahead of the job. Bruiser was always on the job and tended to plan in advance like a vamp. I wasn’t alone anymore, but I was still acting as if I was. I’d been flying by the seat of my pants so long I was surprised my undies didn’t have wings. We made the rest of the trip to Aggie’s, the quiet settling between us like a lazy cat, and tiny, misty raindrops settling onto the windshield. It would have been pleasant except that I was always aware of the headlights behind us, the car driven by Ayatas FireWind. Who might truly be my brother.

  * * *

  • • •

  I knocked on Aggie’s door as the sun grayed the sky and the stars began to vanish. The front porch light was on and the windows were lit with a pale glow. I smelled cedarwood smoke and coffee. Aggie and her mother were up and moving around, which might have been part of the younger Younger brother’s call or part of Aggie’s early-to-rise lifestyle. Eli pulled out of the drive and headed back up the road. Ayatas parked on what was technically a cul-de-sac and dimmed his headlights. The car door opened and closed.

  Aggie opened the door.

  “Egini Agayvlge i,” I said, speaking her name in Tsalagi, “Elder of The People. I seek your counsel.”

  “Dalonige’ i Digadoli,” Aggie said. Then she looked at the man walking up the steps behind me. “You must be Ayatas Nvgitsvle, the one who claims kinship with Jane, according to the Elders of the Eastern Tsalagi and the brothers who have adopted her as sister, brothers who stand at her side in battle.”

  I sorta thought that put Ayatas in his place and I felt a little of the stiffness in my shoulders ease. Ayatas didn’t answer.

  Aggie went on, “Do you seek counsel as well, One Who Dreams of Fire Wind?”

  “I do, Uni Lisi.”

  “Lisi will do. Are you both fasting?”

  I nodded. I assumed Ayatas did too.

  “Go. Wash. Dress. Wait for me in the sweat house.”

  I started to ask for separate waiting areas, but Aggie closed the door in my face, pretty much the way I had done to Ayatas but with less ire in it. Great. I didn’t want to be alone with Ayatas, which was probably why Aggie made it happen. Elders were sneaky.

  I looked back at Ayatas and jutted my chin to the sweat house. “Hope you like cold showers.”

  Ayatas sighed. “I’d rather have the coffee I smell.”

  “I’m a tea kinda gal, but yeah. Coffee would work.”

  Coffee. Common grounds? Ha-ha?

  Side by side, our weapons left behind, we trudged to the sweat house, a wood hut with a metal roof, located at the back of the property, in the winter-bare limbs of trees. In the rear of the building, I pointed to the spigots and Ayatas dipped his head in a half bow. He said, “You first, my sister. I’ll wait until you’re inside.” He stepped back to the front of the building. His words were careful, as was his body language. There was something there in his manner and words if I could only figure out what. I stripped, hung my clothes on the empty hook, and turned the water on. And managed not to curse as the icy water drenched me.

  Not bothering to dry off, I pulled on the undyed cotton shift hanging on the nail, braiding my hair out of the way. The shifts were better than the undyed lengths of cloth tied above my boobs I had used on other sweats, especially with a man in the room. I stopped. I had never been to sweat with anyone other than Aggie and her mother. I wasn’t sure how this was supposed to work. I didn’t like not knowing what to expect. I tied off the tip of my braid with a bit of string pulled from the inside seam of the shift, my fingers suddenly and unexpectedly clumsy.

  I opened the low door and stepped inside. The sweat house was already warm and I shivered at the change in temperature, though the winter air outside was warmer than anything I had been accustomed to in the Appalachian Mountains.

  So maybe it wasn’t the cold that made me quiver.

  I heard the water come on and Ayatas’s inhale, shocked at the cold.

  I sat in my usual place on the clay floor, crossed my knees, adjusted the shift to cover everything important, and leaned back against the split log seat behind me. The seat was hand-carved for the Elders or the injured to use when floor seating wasn’t practical.

  The coals in the pit before me threw back heat, glowing red and cracking apart, and the rocks lining it in a circle were hot to the touch. I had been here often enough that I slipped easily into a meditative state. A memory came back to me, warm and soothing, of Aggie’s soft voice speaking about circles. At some point in a previous ceremony, when I was relaxed on one of her concoctions and in a deeply meditative state, Aggie had told me the purpose of the rock and fire. In my memory, I heard her say, “Rocks in a circle are ceremonial, part of the Four Directions, the Cords of Life, and the Universal Circle. The fire center leads Tsalagi into accord with the Great One, into harmony with Nature, and into harmony of relationships with each other. It also leads to healing of self, mentally, physically, and spiritually.”

  I didn’t understand what any of that meant, but this fire had burned a long time. I figured Aggie had taken someone to sweat during the night. I didn’t like it when she took two sessions back-to-back, especially since some sessions—unlike my own—lasted days. Aggie looked and acted young, but deadly dehydration was a real possibility in a woman her age. If I said that, she’d likely thunk me over the head with something.

  Ayatas opened the low sweat house door and, like me, he had to duck his head to enter. He moved like a cat in the dark of the windowless space. Ayatas wasn’t wearing a shift. He was wearing a loincloth, one that was clearly his own.

  Memories hit me fast.

  Edoda, Tsaligi for my father, wearing a loincloth, his legs, hips, and outer buttocks bare in the traditional Cherokee style, his loincloth damp, his body muscled, long, and lean. Striding catlike through the cold water of a splashing stream, his feet in moccasins, his calves wrapped in tall cloth and deer hide sleeves to his knees as protection from sharp rocks. He had been bending and lifting stone, building a rock weir to trap fish.

  I remembered.

  Edoda in his loincloth, as he pulled in a net full of fish, looking back at me and laughing, white teeth shining. Edoda cleaning fish with the steel knife he had traded for with the yunega. Edoda dipping a bucket into the stream to gather water. Edoda. My father. A vigorous man.

  And then my last memory of Edoda, dead on the floor of the cabin. His blood cooling, congealing in the weave of the cloth of his shirt, as I dipped my hand into it. The slick swipe of blood as I wiped it across my face, giving his killer a blood vow of vengeance, staring into the man’s blue eyes. That single moment of promise had set my entire life into motion, every decision since, every thought, every drop of blood spilled, every death. I had been five years old. A child full of hate and anger and willing to die so long as I took my enemies with me.

  The visions were intense, vivid, shocking as the cold water of the spigot.

  The loincloth Edoda wore when working in the creek water had been a brightly colored, woven belt tied high on his waist and passed through his legs, covering the center part of his buttocks, with a small square skirt hanging from the belt in front.

 
So much like the one Ayatas wore. The same colors in the belt. The red and yellow and blue woven into a long narrow length, wrapped and tied just so, that left the body bare and unencumbered for work or sweat.

  But Aya’s skirt was fringed and tasseled, and a similar small skirt hung in back. Not as traditional as Edoda’s. Why the difference?

  Ayatas sat a third of the circle away, his eyes on the fire pit. Like me, he had braided his long hair and it hung over his shoulder, wet and dripping on the clay of the floor. His chest was still dripping from the shower, water beaded and reflecting the fire. A leather medicine bag hung around his neck on a leather thong, black on one side, green on the other, stuffed full of his spirit guide items. The bag was so similar to the one I wore in my visions of my soul home that I looked away. I had no medicine bag, nothing marked the herbs and stones and bones of my passage through life. I had no medicine bag because I had no family. No history with The People. Jealousy spiked through me, so strong that my chest ached and my breath came fast.

  Jane and Beast are family. She sent me a vision of kits almost two years old, hunting together in a small pack. Not pack hunters. Family, she insisted.

  Tears filled my eyes. Yeah. I guess we are.

  Ayatas and I didn’t speak.

  A pile of split cedar logs were to the far side near where Aggie usually sat. A basket filled with bundles of fresh and dried herbs was nearby. A pitcher of water sat among the heated rocks, the clay formed, worked, dried, and fire-cooked, in the ancient Cherokee tradition. A water bucket with a ladle sat in the shadows near a roll of cloth strips and a shallow clay bowl. A narrow lap drum with a small, hide-covered drumstick were next to Aggie’s old boom box.

  Outside, the water came on and went off again. Aggie entered and walked to the east wall, where she lifted a five-foot-long pole and used the tip to open a small wooden slot door, up high in the small gable. I realized that there were a series of tiny slot doors there and I had never seen them. She sat across from us, crossing her knees as I had. Moving slowly, she added a single split log to the coals and the fire flared up for a moment as the flames teased across the dry wood. Light and shadows danced on the wood walls. Cedar scent filled the sweat house, and thin smoke hung near the ceiling. The heat built as we sat in silence and sweated. Time passed, but it had little meaning here in this place. Sweat slid and pooled and dripped. The fire burned lower, hotter. Aggie added split oak. Much later, another. My mind moved deeper into the slow, meditative state of ceremony, my eyes heavy.