Damien. Jacquelyn Frank
is untenable, Syreena. This is not how you were raised.”
“I know how I was raised,” she barked back, spitting once more before wiping the back of her hand across her lips. “I am no longer beholden to The Pride, Silas, and I have not been for fifteen years. If you recall, you are the ones who rejected me, who threw me out and into the Lycanthrope court so I could serve my sister.”
“You were not rejected, Syreena. You were reassigned. Monks of The Pride serve dual relationships all of the time in the world. Why must it be one or the other with you? You are a Monk and you are the Queen’s advisor.”
“And I am a Princess,” she reminded them. “A member of the royal family. Though my sister defers to your wisdom and protocols on occasion, she still holds reign over you as she does any member of the Lycanthrope race. That power is also mine now. You told me it was time to take up my mantle of royalty, and now you punish me for doing so!”
“We punish you,” the figure on the left retorted, “because you attacked one of your brothers without cause.”
“That pompous jackass dared question my sister’s survival when she was on the edge of death. She was poisoned so badly by the sun, gasping as if every breath were her last, and he insults her, belittles her efforts toward a peace she was willing to sacrifice her life for! I would, and I will do it again if anyone—”
“No one puts their hands on a member of The Pride!” Silas barked at her, showing the first ruffle in his exterior calm since the entire incident between them had begun.
“Oh, you mean like you did not just lay hands on me?” she countered. “Do as I say, and not as I do? That may have worked when I was a child, but I am an adult now. A well-seasoned adult—I thank you, your training has done me well. I warn you, Silas, if you raise your hand to me one more time, you will learn what it is I have held in check through my teachings all of these years, just as Konini and Hendor did when they disrespectfully disparaged my family. You got your lick in. Be satisfied with it and move on. You will not drag me to heel this time. You never will again. Those days are past.”
The Princess was not making an idle threat. Silas was well aware of what she was capable of, and just as aware of what he did not know she was capable of. No one would ever know that but Syreena herself, no matter that she had spent the past century under the tutelage of the best minds and members of The Pride.
Syreena was a Lycanthropic anomaly. The cure to a childhood illness had left her dramatically mutated. Once she had hit puberty, she had developed into a Lycanthrope without equal.
Every Lycanthrope could exist in three forms of themselves. The human aspect, the aspect of whatever animal it was that ran through their blood, and a human-shaped combination of the two called the Wereform.
Syreena had been given an additional two aspects, a split that took on the form and Wereform of an additional animal. This gave her a position of precedence. No one truly knew where her abilities ended. No one but herself. While it intrigued everyone, even tempted them, none were all that willing to challenge her to her limits.
So even though The Three were the most feared and most powerful Monks of The Pride, Syreena was not surprised when they relented. It came in the form of Silas turning on his heel in displeased silence and marching out of the discipline room, the remaining two following silently in his wake.
Syreena exhaled in frustrated anger. She was not known for her temper, but it did not mean that she did not have one. In fact, she had been bred from temperamental stock. It was only her teachings and meditations that had allowed her to escape the infamy of the royal warlike tendencies. To be fair, her sister had escaped them as well. Siena was even renowned as a peacekeeper. Understandably, there was a distinct difference between Siena’s politics and her personality. That was evident in the fact that she had chosen a diehard warrior for her husband.
Syreena remained in the dungeon room of the monastery, pacing the floor in an effort to spend some of her unburned emotional energy. To be honest, this attempt at reining her in had not been at all unexpected. After she had nearly strangled the two Monks who had dared to gainsay her and her sister’s wishes, it was very much a given. Anyone who threatened a member of The Pride, even Siena herself, would face censure.
It did not follow that Siena would accept or allow the censure. She certainly would not have allowed Silas to strike her, had he been insane enough to do so. But Syreena was merely a younger Princess to them, heir to the throne only until Siena produced her first child. So, though it galled her until her stomach roiled with bile, they did not hold her in the same regard or esteem.
It did not even seem to matter to them that she had the potential to become one of The Three herself one day.
Though she never showed it outwardly, that really ticked her off.
She muttered a native curse, tossing her hair over so that only the brown side showed. She shook her head and body in a quick little shiver, sending the strands in a quick coating of her skin. Hair turned to feathers in a heartbeat, clothing dropping forgotten to the ground as a peregrine falcon took flight out of them.
Syreena flew through the closed caverns of the monastery dungeon quickly until she gained ground level. Then she winged quickly out of an entrance, leaving the cavern of The Pride behind her in a matter of minutes.
Siena turned her head when the sound of beating wings reached her ears. She watched from the corners of her eyes as the familiar falcon swooped into the chamber she used for prayer, transforming on the spot so that the Princess landed at a slight run of feet instead of talons. The Queen of the Lycanthropes rose from her meditative position on her knees, pausing briefly to shake the thin gown she wore into proper place.
Syreena stood in her nude human form, regarding her sister, whose long golden curls of hair hid the features of her luxuriant body far better than the sheer scrap of cloth she was using for a dress. Nudity meant nothing to either of them, nor any of their genus for that matter. A Lycanthrope could not change form in restrictive clothing, so they wore little to none of it. What they did wear was easily discarded either just before or during the change.
“How did it go?”
Syreena had not told Siena that The Pride had beckoned her, but neither was she surprised that her sister had found out. She was Queen, after all.
“Let’s just say I won’t be invited to tea anytime soon,” Syreena responded glibly, giving her sister a half grin that Siena could very much appreciate.
The sisters were as opposite as they could possibly be, at least in outward appearance. Where Siena was tall and carved out like a voluptuous Amazon, Syreena was petite, slim, and often referred to as willowy. Where Siena was golden-haired, golden-skinned, and a seductive beauty, Syreena looked more like a cunning calico cat with her bi-colored hair and opposite-set harlequin eyes. Siena had grown up in the thick of court intrigues and the freedom to mesh with the other Nightwalker races. Syreena had grown up in the monastery, secluded and sealed up from the real world from the moment everyone realized how different she was.
It was not that she had been shunned or outcast. Quite the opposite. She had been overtreasured. Lycanthropes loved a good mutation, especially a powerful one like hers. She had been sent to The Pride not only for training and education, but to protect her from those who would use her as a weapon to gain power. More specifically, to gain the throne her father had held until only fifteen years earlier that, upon his death, Siena had ascended to. Siena had demanded Syreena’s return that very same day, extracting her from her sheltered existence in order for her to take her place as heir and to use her learning skills as a diplomat and chief advisor for Siena.
They had been veritable strangers the day the Princess had come home, in spite of the constant exchange of letters between them over their century apart. Though Syreena had initially felt like an outsider, Siena had seemed to merely flip a mental switch that made her an immediately loving and doting elder sister.
Syreena had found it easy to love her, a fact that continued to baffle her to this day. Though the Monks had guided and cared for her, they were not known for their