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I paused at the lip of the turf-maze that rested at the very edge of the property, raising my furry snout upward to inhale the frigid atmosphere. The moon shone brightly that night, offering me more light to observe movement through my astute peripheral vision, but it was still my nose that guided me best.
Come out, you coward,I called to him silently.Come fight me.
I honed my ears, the black fur rising to listen closely to every whisper in the wind, every rustling feather in the nearby bushes.
“Alpha!” one of the guards panted from behind me.
I whipped my head around to glower at him, and he immediately fell back, understanding my displeasure. He held back the other flock of guards, signaling them to spread out as I padded forward through the labyrinth.
I smelled the fear now, the initial sweat that had guided me all this way diminishing to sheer, unadulterated terror. It guided me the rest of the way through the intricate curves and pathways of the maze and directly before the cowering, trembling fae who no longer resembled my father in the least.
He had locked himself in the maze with nowhere to turn, my form blocking his exhausted body from taking a step in any direction. He had shifted back into his own body, a skinny, trembling mass of bones and shockingly dark hair, his haunted blue eyes stricken.
I had never laid eyes on him before, his face unfamiliar to me, even in passing. The realization baffled me completely. Why had he targeted me if I didn’t know him? What would provoke a stranger to do something so reckless and stupid?
Baring my teeth, I moved to pounce and end him, but his words stopped me before I could take a step.
“Please, Alpha!” he begged. “Spare my life! This wasn’t my idea!”
Intrigued, I sat, cocking my head to the side pensively.Oh. Do go on.
Shaking violently, he slid his naked form into a ball, tears streaming down his cheeks as he looked behind me. My head turned slightly to see what he was staring at, and the idiot took the opportunity to try to run through the bushes, not accounting for the thickness. I had half-anticipated his hare-brained move, and before he could scratch up his entire body with twigs, I seized his neck in the razors of my mouth, his screams echoing through the night and bringing even more guards to our location.
My hold loosened as I shifted back into my fae body, a solid hand overtaking his throat instead as I turned to one of the guards for his coat. Without hesitation, one was tossed at me, and I slipped into it, only shifting hands on the shapeshifter’s neck to adjust my arms.
“You were saying?” I asked in a conversational tone.
He could barely speak now, his words fumbling and incoherent. “I d-d-didn’t want t-to,” he sputtered. “B-b-but?—”
I released him onto the ground, where he collapsed in a blubbering pile. “Collect yourself,” I ordered him. “And say what you have to say.”
Turning back to the guards, I gestured toward the castle with my chin. “Do a search on him. Run facial recognition and find out everything you can about him—including who his family is.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“No!” the shapeshifter squealed. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know! Please, don’t hurt my family!”
I stalked closer to him, gritting my teeth as I towered over him. “Why not?” I hissed. “You tried to hurt mine.”
More tears poured down his cheeks. “It was supposed to be a simple gig! No one was supposed to get hurt!”
“You admit that you almost killed my mate?” I growled, my face inches from his now, spittle flying from my mouth.
“NO! No… I… the fires weren’t… I didn’t… no!” He wailed low, guttural and pitiful, but I slapped him with an open palm, silencing him. Shock colored his face.
“Get it together,” I spat. “You’re not working alone, are you?”
He shook his head.
“Are there more shapeshifters?” I demanded.
He shook his head again, the red of my handprint appearing on his face. I reached down to pull him up by the throat. “So far, you’re giving me very little reason to keep you or your pathetic bloodline alive,” I said flatly.
“I was paid!” he cried out. “I was told that it would be easy, that I just needed to come in and act like the king.”
“And you thought you could do that?” I scoffed. “You? You’re nothing like my father.”
“I see now that it was a mistake,” he squeaked. “But she made it sound so easy. She said she had it all planned out, that you wouldn’t be a problem. Oh, gods, please, Alpha, I’m sorry!”
