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“She hit another warehouse,” Malachai informed us at an updated meeting. He was a noble of Bahati’s court who had personally thanked me several times for freeing him. He was in charge of all the warehouses we were getting together in each settlement location. And planning the ones we would put into place so everything wasn’t sprawled all over an area.
Dozens of us groaned. I threw my pen down, totally done with this shit but with no good way to handle it. It had been just over two weeks since the champion of Erebus, Keres, had made her first annoying attack by burning less than a tenth of a wheat field.
One of our many wheat fields. Less than ten percent of it.
Yeah, super scary big threat, bitch.
But she kept hitting us. It was always something every day or every other day. And the cunt got lucky on the second attack by hitting one warehouse next that had some of the toilet paper reserves we were stocking.
So the whole thing burned fast with that much fucking kindling. It was just on fire and then gone.
“But there wasn’t much damage,” he kept going, focused on me. “You were right to put someone older with good senses there. He never felt her, but he immediately sensed the fire and got it out before it even was enough to take down that wall much less the chocolate inside.”
My eyes went wide. “The cunt went after our fucking candy? Seriously, this bitch needs to die.”
I felt everyone slowly look at me before several burst out laughing. Kristof was holding his stomach as he bent over to laugh so hard.
Hell, even Tian chuckled.
“I’m not the only chocolate and sweets fiend in this group,” I reminded them. I glanced at Jaxon and felt better when he nodded. “Okay, then the plan is to get people guarding the warehouses.”
I had already been working on ideas to counter Keres, so all of the visiting nobles of the fourteen princesses I had alliances and deals with were invited to this meeting. Jaxon’s job was to work with them, and he’d already been talking to them to feel them out.
And they were nervous. He’d bounced around ideas and a few weren’t favorable to their covens, but we were coming to the end of the deals. Those cities we’d been focused on around Fort Knox that we’d needed to be cleared out quickly were done.
The surrounding suburbs too.
Seattle was done.
Salt Lake City too.
Texas and everything we took out from under the idiots left of that settlement there.
“You have all been honorable in the deals we made,” I told them firmly. “I’m honored to be aligned with your princesses. A few of us got off to a rocky start, but I think we’ve come a long way, and there is a mutual respect and path we all agreed we want to be on.”
“We have been honored to be on it with you, Princess Inez,” the noble from Princess Marta’s court said, dipping his head to me. “My coven, my family is in such a better place that we cannot put into words what—no one is hungry anymore. We were all so hungry and had given up hope. Your kindness and goodwill saved us. My princess feels this.”
“Marta’s a good woman who cares,” I accepted, glad when several of the nobles agreed. “I want you to take the new deal I offer to your princesses. If they have questions, they’re welcome to visit. If they want to see the areas with their own eyes to know the value of what I offer is there, I’m fine with that. I am. None of this is easy and I won’t be upset.”
“We were hoping to keep the deals as they were and move onto more areas,” Sebastian hedged.
“No.” I smirked at him when he flinched. “Don’t get upset, Da.” I felt better when his lips twitched. My Irish accent was shit, but he liked when I called him “Da.”
He liked me. Jaxon had admitted how upset his parents had been at him with how he’d acted. His mom had even slapped him, and I knew getting that reaction from Nora took a lot.
I glanced around the room again before nodding to Jaxon. He pulled up a large map of Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio on the screen for reference. The area the humans had there starting at Fort Knox and Louisville was circled.
Looking down at my notes, I read off what I had prepared. “Illinois had over twelve and a half million people, but over half were from Chicago and that’s gone. Ohio was almost twelve million and not bombed. Tennessee was seven and not hit. Indiana was almost seven, Missouri the same, and Kentucky was four and a half. No bombs.
“You all saw the biggest city those states had—besides Illinois.” I glanced out at the room. “But that leaves a lot. Of Tennessee’s seven million, I have that 1.3 million lived where you raided. That’s a lot left. And probably bigger scores because the large cities had a lot of corporate offices and businesses that we all have too much of.”
“Most of us have checked the surrounding areas to report to our princesses what was there so they could make offers on continuing the raiding,” a different noble told me.
I saw the vast majority of the nobles handling the raiding and deals all nod. I knew from Jaxon that they’d been checking out more than where they were assigned, but I wanted them to hear the numbers.
“I want to continue the deals with new terms, but there is one thing I want specifically that might be the holdup. As you all took vows to Aether, I want an alliance between the fifteen covens. It was Marta, I believe, who said we should be like the European Union almost. I want that level of commitment to no more bullshit between us fifteen.
