Hi all,
Below is the first part of the freebie serial. It is ROUGH, unedited, and way overdue! I’ve turned off comments here, but if you want to point out typos, or cannon inconstancies, you can do so at the Faith Hunter Official FaceBook page: https://www.facebook.com/official.faith.hunter
This story starts shortly after FINAL HEIR, and just before book 6 of the Soulwood series, 
The Elopement That Wasn’t (prt 1)
Copyright Faith Hunter 2024
“Queenie darlin, you be still or I’ll pin a hole in you that will bleed over this silk and totally spoil the effect of all this lovely draped and shaped fabric.” Deon spun to the side and pointed at a person who was usually kitchen help in NOLA HQ. “Girl, you put that baby’s breath away. Queenie Janie would look stupid with that. We’ll use catnip with the scentless lilies in the bouquet.”
“No catnip,” I grouched. “My Beast will just get cat-drunk. And how can I draw a weapon with all this cloth in the way?” I grabbed handful of slick fabric and swished it. “Holy crap, it’s a blanket!”
“You will make a lovely drunken bride,” Deon said with a saucy grin, “and your Prince Charming will swoon.” His smile vanished and he raised his eyebrows, fists dropping to his hips. “And most brides do not carry or draw weapons at a wedding.” Deon sniffed. “Though I agree you are not most brides.”
“The blasted dress fit two days ago.”
“And you changed shape two times and lost about ten pounds you cannot afford to lose, Queenie Pie. So I can take up the dress or we can call Madam Melisande in again and she—”
“Never mind,” I interrupted, grumpy and disgusted. I was the freaking queen and yet no one listened to what I wanted. My simple ride-to-a-chapel-and-get-hitched-wedding had been pilfered, purloined, and appropriated by my so-called friends. People who thought they had a say in my life and a right to be at my wedding. Like they were … family. Or something.
The Consort and I were still getting the solo ride along the Dragon’s Tail on our bikes before the wedding, and the camping honeymoon we had planned, and the chapel (a family owned, stone chapel in the mountains called Sunrise Stone Chapel). But the guest list was … big. Ridiculous big. Terrifying big. And I’d be in a dress instead of armor or riding leathers and boots.
“Weapons,” I demanded.
Deon sighed again. He stepped to face me and clasped his hands together in front, at his hips. Very formally, the kind of formal only a born-and-bred person from New Orleans could manage, he said, “My Lady.” The words managed to convey respect for my title, his false patience, and the world weary exhaustion of a put-upon (though well-paid) servant all at once. “You will have faux pockets. I will personally strap your hip rig and your vamp-killer to your hips and thighs before the dress goes on. Or Quint will.”
“Oh no.” Dread spread through me. “Quint will be there?”
Deon sighed—long-suffering and dramatic—shook his head, moved around me, and unzipped the dress.
I caught it before it slid from my shoulders to the floor and left me more naked than I preferred. Sexually speaking, I was a straight-laced, white-bread prude. Deon was … unflappable. And far more sexually adventurous than I wanted to think about.
He tossed me a dressing gown.
When the heck did I get a dressing gown?
And turned his back.
I slipped my arms out of the straight silk sleeves and into the arms of the silk dressing gown. Vamps had a thing for silk and since I was their queen and, though not a fanghead myself, I was surrounded by silk. I stepped from the dress, tied the robe closed around me, and extended the wedding gown. He had to hear it rustle but Deon didn’t turn around.
“I’m sorry I’m … difficult,” I said. Difficult. Right. I was snapping at everyone because I wasn’t getting my way.
His back still to me, he said, as he had a dozen times, “You will be a beautiful bride. And I will be so proud to walk you down the aisle with Koun and Eli and Alex. And stand by you.” But this time he added, “But there are times when I want to give you away for real.”
“This isn’t what I wanted. I wanted to elope—”
“No one cares what you wanted, except you, Bruiser, and me.” When I didn’t reply, because the truth shut me up, he said, more gently, “Did Aggie One Feather call you back about adding in a Cherokee part of the ceremony?”
I cleared my throat, which had gone tight. “A text saying she was out of town.” The words came out too soft, too gravely. “In Natchez. She didn’t ask how she could assist me.” Assisting people was what Cherokee Elders did. Except when they know that the person they are trying to help is an irredeemably dangerous Skinwalker. Like me. She didn’t offer to help me. Not anymore.
“Ah.”
Yeah. That had hurt. And yeah, that was one of many reasons why I was being so difficult. “So who planned this extravagant ceremony I didn’t want?”
“Me,” he said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear him. “And there is no reason to be catty, Queenie.”
I had a big stupid mouth and had hurt his feelings, yet he’d still made a joke, which I honored. “Catty—haha.” Holding my dressing gown closed over my front, I leaned in and kissed the top of his head. “I’m sorry. I know the ceremony will be tastefully done, and that no one will add something stupid.”
“Like a wedding cake shaped like bloody severed head?” he asked. “Alex suggested that. I nixed it.”
“Holy crap. He—” I stopped. Tied my robe. Thought. Gathered up the dress, all that mega-yards of silk, V-necked fancy, with pointed sleeves to my fingertips, and glittery stuff on it. Yeah, my wedding could have been much worse. Deon had saved me that. “Thank God I have you in my life.”
“Then stop being so impossible, and making everyone’s lives miserable.” He turned around and hugged me. Hard. Grabbed the dress from my hand and left the room.
I was an ass.
***
There are a dozen reasons to get married. Maybe hundreds. It’s supposed to be a big deal, people getting hitched, living together, facing all life throws at them. But my Sweet Cheeks and I have been doing all that for years, and we had survived everything the supernat world had thrown at us. Everything from witches, to vamps, to wars in Europe. Deaths of people we loved. That was the hardest. I freaking hated to have lost people. Deep in my shapeshifting little catty heart I believed to the depths of my soul that my one goal in life was keep my people safe, alive, healthy, and happy. Failure tore me to shreds.
I had planned to run away for this private, solo elopement wedding. That had been stolen by the people I had saved, people who had become family and replaced with a party. Not a political party. Not a coronation. Not a blood-drinking reception for the world’s fangy-powerful. Just family. Just for them. And where in all that was holy had I gotten so many people who were family?
I left the fitting room in vamp central and let my security team fall in behind me, escorting me to the line of armored SUVs and the away-security team waiting for me there. NOLA was dangerous these days. Two human gangs who had been terrorizing the local cattle (what vamps called the people in their city) had been drank down to anemia, outright killed, or had been run out of town by vamps on the hunt, but things were still not easy in the Party City of the nation. The homeless problem, the departing tax base, and the poorly run and managed city services were driving people away. So all that unrest and crime meant I got to do no solo riding back and forth to work anymore. Bitsa, my bastard Harley, was languishing on the side veranda at the freebie house.
And I was not happy about my wedding day plans, a day that was supposed to be the epitome of all my dreams come true. Crap.
Still feeling sour, I climbed in the vehicle and sat. In the back seat. Like some little old lady. The other door opened and a woman slid in.
“Hey, Aunt Jane.”
Shiloh. Shiloh Everhart Stone. She wasn’t my godchild. She wasn’t my niece. Her mother had hated me and never let me spend time with her, unlike EJ, Angie Baby, and Cassey, Molly’s kids. When Shiloh reappeared as a witch vamp, turned against her will then set lose upon the world, Shiloh herself hadn’t been overly interested in hanging around, other than accepting a place in my vampire blood clan to keep herself and her blood family safe. Maybe the distance between us also had something to do with the fact that I’d killed Shiloh’s mother when the stupid witch summoned a demon and started killing people. I remembered, even after nearly two hundred years, what losing a parent felt like.
I strapped in. The vehicle pulled away from the porte cochère and into the street.
I thought about Shiloh. Sitting beside me. Silent. Staring straight ahead. Unblinking. Unbreathing as a statue. She had called me Aunt Jane. Not my queen. Not my lady. Not my mistress. In any of those contexts I’d have to give her leave to speak, which was stupid but all kinds of political and royal protocol was being put in place to create a layer of safety between me and the urgent, desperate demands of petitioners, the violent and deranged, and the average drunken Joe in town hoping to get selfies with NOLA’s Dark Queen. Personal conversations were supposed to be easier.
Shiloh … Shiloh was playing a waiting game. She wanted me to ask, “What do you want?” I closed my eyes, stretched out my legs, dropped my head back, and sighed softly. I’m a cat. The soul of a puma concolor lives inside me, well twined with mine. Cats are excellent at playing waiting games.
Minutes went by in silence as the three vehicle motorcade merged into the crawl of traffic.
I couldn’t see her, but I could smell her frustration, feel her tension through the seat cushions, a minuscule vibration. Horns honked and the driver slammed on brakes. Shiloh hadn’t strapped in and if she hadn’t had vamp reflexes, she’d have broken her nose on the driver’s seat. I let a tiny smile on my face as the seatbelt clicked into place.
“I have a favor to ask of …” She stopped.
I let my smile widen. My Beast was enjoying this game.
She blew out a breath that she didn’t need. “You aren’t making this easy.”
I didn’t reply.
“What are we to each other?”
Pedantically, I said, “You are my scion in Clan Yellowrock, my scion as your queen. And you are the cousin of my godchildren. Beyond that, you never wanted more from me.”
Irritation threaded through her tone when she said, “So if I wanted to ask a personal favor, who do I ask?”
My smile widened. “As long as you don’t want me to kill someone for you, you can just ask me as the cousin of my godchildren.”
She sucked in a small sound of shock. She was a young vamp and often gave herself away.
Emergency sirens sounded in the distance. Ice peppered across the windshield, rare this far south, even in winter.
In a horrified voice she asked, “Do people do that? Ask you to kill people?”
“I made a good living killing people who had fangs long before I ever became queen.”
A shocked giggle came from her and I slid my eyes that way. The girl looked fifteen and sometimes still acted it. Most of her teen years had been spent in a scion lair, metaphorically chained to the wall, as she went through the devoveo.
In a stronger voice, she said, “Good. I want the gig.”
“What gig?” I asked.
“The gig tracking and killing werewolf who bit a woman in the Appalachian mountains. The gig worth fifty thousand dollars. I want it. But as your scion I can’t go after it without your permission.”
Her tone was sour and I barked a single note of amusement.
I had been informed about the incident. A lone werewolf had bitten a human woman. With the curse that tainted werewolves probably lifted or modified when the angel Hayyel did his thing, the packs could rebuild with females who didn’t go insane. Theoretically. But said females had to agree to be turned. This one hadn’t and was in lockdown in case she went furry on the next full moon. As part of my duties as Dark Queen, I had ordered a bounty on the werewolf who bit her, but for my people to go after it, they had to have my leave. Which was stupid but that was royalty for you.
“Go for it. But stay alive. If you get yourself deader, your Aunt Molly will skin me and my Beast and hang my pretty pelt on her garage door.”
“Deader,” Shiloh repeated. “Haha.” She met my gaze straight on, a softness around her eyes, but not on her mouth. “I don’t know how to act around you. It’s confusing.”
I blinked. I hadn’t been expecting that. I said, “You ain’t telling me nothing I don’t know.”
She laughed aloud, a rare and joyful sound from the girl. Shiloh opened the door, and swung out into the street before landing on a car hood and pushing off. Vamp-fast, she leaped high, to vanish into the darkness. Like some kind of Olympian/Wonder Woman with fangs.
Horns blew, tires squealed. Wrassler, driving, swerved, cussed, and apologized. I unbelted and got the door shut. That girl was going to be trouble. And entertaining. We pulled over and Bruiser slid smoothly into the limo.
He was wearing a fancy suit, the kind that made me want to take it off him. He smiled without looking my way, as if he knew what I was thinking. He did that thing guys do when they pull on their shirt cuffs to straighten the sleeves beneath a well-tailored jacket. Then he extended his arm and brushed my cheek with the back of his fingers. “Hello, love. Let’s pack for our wedding. And commit the sin of unwed passion one more time.”
“Only once?”
He laughed so fast it came out his nose.
I liked the fact that that I had the ability to make him abandon his carefully bred manners and snort like a yard hand.
***
A day later: The bikes were loaded into a box truck, strapped down for transport, with luggage and camping gear and luggage and wedding stuff and yet more luggage. A six car motorcade and twelve motorcycle outriders pulled out of HQ, the five black SUVs—and one truck and one limo—motorcade in a single line, the motorcycles maneuvering through traffic ahead, behind, and to the blocks to either side, weapons hidden, not drawing attention, keeping watch, relaying traffic info to Wrassler and Jodi in the front seat.
Jodi was driving, Wrassler riding shotgun, literally. There had been threats ever since I informed the stupid political machinery of New Orleans that I’d be moving my Clan Home and my Dark Queen residence to the Asheville area because I was freaking tired of putting up with the local politicos using me and mine to gain followers and votes. People had died. Their own constituents. And to them, votes counted more than the lives lost. I was done with New Orleans, or would be once I convinced one of my loyal scions to accept the screwed up city as master of New Orleans. I was pushing Tex. So far, the former old west criminal and gunfighter had refused.
Beside me, on the limo seat, Bruiser opened a bottle of champaign and poured me a glass, I accepted and sipped. It was the good stuff. I didn’t much care for champaign but I’d learned about it, and about other wines, from my Honey Bunch because it made him happy to teach me. And he’d learned some dance moves from me, from my belly dance days, and together we had incorporated them into our dance routine for the wedding. The wedding.
Holy crap. We were getting married. I had butterflies in my belly, and I was pretty sure my butterflies had butterflies. I’d rather track and fight a rabid female werewolf and her pack of nutso mates (as Shiloh was right now) than do all the stuff that Deon had planned. Little dude had turned into a drill sergeant and handed out duties, responsibilities, and lists of orders to every person in the wedding party.
Everyone had their ideas of what my wedding should be. Deon had taste. I didn’t. I’d let him take over completely. He had ordered me a four tier cake, each tier a different flavor. And he had ordered catering. He’d promised me I’d love the food. I trusted him. Mostly. Though I knew he’d toss in something fancy like pheasant under glass with white asparagus and truffles or some such extravagant nonsense he would also order a ton of meat to satisfy my Beast.
I pressed hand to my belly in trepidation.
Bruiser placed a fingertip under my chin and turned my face to his. He as smiling, a little half smile. “What?”
“We don’t have enough weapons,” I blurted.
Bruiser burst out laughing. He’d been laughing a lot lately. He set his own glass in the wood holder and raised the upholstered back of the bench car seat behind us. From the hidden space in the back of the seat, he pulled out four nine millimeters, fully loaded, extra mags, four vamp-killers, and two sets of longswords and short swords. “There are also flashbangs, null sticks, and a few amulets provided by the Everharts.”
The tension left my body in a whoosh of relieved breath. My Sweet Cheeks replaced the weapons, closed the storage compartment, and took up his glass. This time I clinked glasses with him and leaned into him. I took a breath and let it out. “Thank you. But how did you know I needed to see weapons?”
“If you had been in your Beast form, you would have been shredding the upholstery with your claws while snarling at me.”
I hiccupped on the bubbles in the champaign. Weird, senseless tears gathered in my eyes. “I love you,” I blurted out again, still surprised each time the emotion welled up in me.
“And I adore you. Come here.” He held out his arm and I snuggled close, sipping my glass of bubbles.
And things got more … physical. I had always loved this limo, and somehow things got heated when we two were alone in it.
The traffic thinned our motorcade made its way out of the city.
***
I was redressed and braiding my hair when Bruiser said. “Oh! I have something for us.”
“Us? Tickets to anywhere on the first flight out of Asheville?”
Bruiser chuckled, dug in his pocket, and pulled out a ring box.
I stared at it. Frozen in place. Not daring to breathe.
“You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to. But I wanted us to have them.”
I stared at the box. Black velvet. Simple. Elegant. Not boxed and wrapped.
When I didn’t speak, he opened the box and pulled out a wide band, a man’s ring. The gold band was etched with things. Three overlapping circles. I took it and turned the ring, studying the circles. Realized they weren’t just circles, but were part of my crest. The circles were laurel leaf crowns. The crown of the Dark Queen. And beside the crowns on one side was a miniscule puma concolor, a representation of my Beast. On the other side of the crowns was a blade. A vamp-killer.
My blood dropped through me, leaving me shocked and chilly in the limo. “This is perfect,” I whispered.
He took the man’s band back and placed a slightly thinner version in my fingers. “This is yours.”
On mine was an oval, faceted, golden diamond. It looked a lot like The Glob, my best weapon. To either side of the diamond was an image, my Beast on one side, one crown on the other, and on the inside was a heart and a feather. I blinked back tears.
“My ring is saying I’m married to all the parts of you. Your ring says all of you married me, and you carry my heart with you always, because once given, I am yours forever.”
“Crap on crackers with toe jam. They’re prefect!” I threw my arms around him.
“You’ll have to wear it on the chain around your neck so if you shift, you won’t lose it.”
I mumbled into his collar, “I don’t deserve you, Sweet Cheeks.”
“Nor I you.”
The limo came to an abrupt halt, so hard and fast we tumbled against the side door and our champaign sloshed in the wood holders. Gunshots sounded.
Bruiser pulled me down into the floorboards and opened the weapons storage, passing me a vamp-killer and a nine mil. The scream of crotch rockets and the lower pitch of heavier bikes roared toward the stopped limo. More gunshots sounded. The windows of the limo were impacted, leaving starburst shapes in the bullet resistant glass.
I raised up a hair, catching a flash of Koun, wearing armor but no protective headgear, leaping into the air. Heard him land atop our vehicle, firing a shotgun. Quint raced by, firing single shots with a nine mil at selected targets. Eli, fully armored and helmeted, was behind the SUV at an angle from us. He tossed things into the shadows. There were no explosions and I figured magic grenades that knocked enemies asleep, or made them puke, or made them crap in their pants. The Everharts had gotten creative with nonlethal offensive weapons amulets.
More gunshots sounded against the windows and the body of the limo.
“Sounds like nine millimeter round impacts,” Bruiser said casually. “If they wanted you dead, they’d have used a rocket.”
“Diversion?” I asked.
“Possible. Or a local gang.” He synched his cell to the limo and called the state police. A succinct convo followed as Bruiser explained our situation and suggested no one dispatch local cops or highway patrol to this twenty, but to pay attention to any other incoming 911 calls. He got no argument from the police. Humans had few defenses against vamps.
Koun landed on the street and popped into the dark. Quint rushed away on the other side. Eli faded into the shadows. Distant gunshots came through the night.
The intercom made a soft noise, and I tapped the button to speak to Wrassler, the administrator of security, and my current driver. “All safe back here,” I said. “You two okay?”
The privacy window between us came down, revealing Wrassler and the passenger. “The windows and windshield will all have to be replaced,” Wrassler said, “but no other damage. We have three on the ground injured, non-life-threatening, and have been loaded into an SUV. They’ll meet the helo and will be flown to blood feedings or to the hospital as required.”
“Who?” I asked, feeling slightly queasy at the thought of more people injured because they were attached to me.
“Abelard Dupris, Jamie Hilton, and AliceAnn Jones.”
“Bonuses for everyone on detail,” I said. “Bigger bonuses for those three.”
“Consider it done, my queen. Consort, three of our able bodied are gathering the enemy BDs into a pile. No IDs on them. All so far are vampires. Suggest they be transported to the lab for ID and info.” The lab was in Texas, but it was good idea and not one Bruiser or I had worked around to yet.
Bruiser said, “Thank you, Wrassler. Please arrange pickup and transport to the lab.”
From the passenger seat, Jodi said, “If you’re concerned about my legal input, I slept through the whole thing and saw nothing.”
Jodi was a cop in the woowoo department of NOPD. She was also Wrassler’s fiancée and my friend.
She gave a sham yawn. “What’d I miss? Lab? What lab?” she asked, sounding like a bad actress.
I grinned at her. “I’m happy you don’t have to stay here and liaise or fill out paperwork.”
“God no. It might be winter but I bet the mosquitoes here are the size of flying drones.”
“We have three tires to change and are down two vehicles,” Wrassler said, “which decreases your protective detail. I don’t want to leave you on the this stretch of open road, so my suggestion is to move on with vehicles that can still roll. Consort? Your orders?”
Bruiser looked to me though I didn’t know why. They’d do what they thought best, so being included was more politesse than actually caring about my approval or not. I shrugged a reply and Bruiser said, “Let’s move.”
“Yes, sir. Quint. You’re with the queen and consort.”
“Sir,” she said, and opened the door. She climbed into the limo and sat on the seat facing us, on top of the guns.
Crap in a bucket. We have a chaperone.
Bruiser didn’t argue and within moments, the vehicles still able to roll pulled away from the attack site. I hated to leave my people exposed and injured to any more attacks, but it’s likely they were safer than with me. And we were safer with Quint. Which sucked.
Temporary End of: The Elopement That Wasn’t (prt 1)
Copyright Faith Hunter 2024