Vengeance of a Queen: The Resurrection of Queens, Book 2
Vengeance of a Queen: Chapter 18

My body jackknifes into a sitting position, and I suck in a gasping breath. My heart pounds and my head rings.

“Easy, kitten.” Malcolm places his hands on my back, and I instantly calm. “Coming out of that sort of meditative sleep can be disorienting.”

“You couldn’t have mentioned that before I went under?” I glare at him over my shoulder. He chuckles and presses a light kiss to my spine. “I think I got some information that can help us. It can wait until the morning though.”

“So you were able to connect with Brigid?” I nod. “Good. That’s good. Now come snuggle. I promise to keep things strictly PG-13.”

That makes me laugh as I settle against him. “I didn’t know you were capable of that.”

He gasps in mock outrage. “Excuse you, madam, but you are the insatiable sexual deviant in this relationship.”

An inelegant snort pops out of me. We both know that’s a lie.

“Tell me something,” I murmur as I snuggle closer to him, wrapping a leg around his hip. “After all of this is over, do you want to stay here or go back to the UK?”

“I honestly haven’t even thought about it, but I don’t particularly care so long as you’re happy.” My heart tumbles slowly in my chest and I can feel a dopey smile forming on my lips. “I do have one demand though.”

“A demand, huh?” I arch my brow.

“We need to have at least a dozen babies that all look like you.” My eyes water, and I lean in to kiss him.

“I’m surprisingly okay with that.” He chuckles against my mouth.

Our kiss quickly becomes heated, and our hands aren’t keeping things PG-13 anymore. Malcolm’s fingers are just starting to inch under my shirt when I rip away from him, a shocked gasp forcing its way from my lips. “Babies!”

Malcolm slowly pulls away from me, a confused look plastered across his face. “Babies?” He sounds mildly worried.

“Babies!” I yell with excitement and scramble off the bed. I run out of the room and dart to Ayla’s, pounding on the door. Babies!

An exceptionally grumpy-looking Caleb answers the door. “What’s wrong?”

“Is that Liv?” I can hear Ayla farther in the room, so I push my way past Caleb. “What is it?”

I plant myself firmly beside the bed and jab a finger at her. “You’re pregnant!”

Her eyes go wide and dart over to Caleb. I can hear Malcolm’s shocked inhale. He must have followed me. Ayla’s eyes focus back on me before a grin breaks out on her face.

“I didn’t want to tell anyone yet. It’s still early, and with everything going on—” My squeal of delight cuts her off as I pounce onto the bed, careful not to land on her before I wrap her in my arms.

“I knew there was something going on!” I start peppering kisses on her cheeks as she laughs and hugs me back. I pull away from Ayla slightly to look at Caleb. “How are you not going full dragon on all our asses?”

He chuckles and crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s not easy, trust me, but Ayla puts me in my place…often.” He shoots at glare at his mate. “I know I can’t keep her from any of this, and frankly, it’s driving me insane, but I trust that Ayla will keep herself and our baby safe.”

That warms my heart. I know how far Caleb has had to travel to get to this spot. It wasn’t easy for either of them—but having a baby! My eyes well with tears and I start sniffling. Malcolm looks at me in panic.

“What’s going on?” His voice has a slightly higher pitch to it than normal. “Why is she crying?”

“I’m just so happy.” I hug Ayla again.

“Thank you,” she says quietly. “I’m worried I won’t be able to carry it to term, but I’m going to try. If we haven’t finished what we need to before the baby comes, the plan is to keep it here with the community. We know there are a lot of risks” —she shrugs— “but this little one could potentially be a new queen.”

I squeeze her one last time before I climb off her bed. My arms wrap around Caleb next. He seems surprised for a moment before he hugs me back.

“We’ll do everything we can to keep that little nugget safe. This is the best thing to fight for.” I smile over at Malcolm as I untangle myself from Caleb and make my way back to my mate. “We promise we won’t say anything.”

“Thanks.” Caleb ushers us out the door. “Get some rest. We’ll touch base again in the morning.”

We both nod before heading back down the hall to our room.

“You’re not going to cry again, are you?” Malcolm sounds like that’s the worst thing he can imagine.

“No.” I laugh. “But those were happy tears.”

“I’m not equipped to handle tears of any variety. It’s unsettling.” I roll my eyes at him. “It is!”

“Are you sure I’m not the first woman you’ve been with?” I study him closely as we close the door to our room. “Because if you have any experience with women, you know we cry when we’re sad, happy, or angry. Sad is sort of self-explanatory. Happy, well, we usually can’t really help that, it just sort of bursts out of us…”

“And angry tears?” He’s got this weird look on his face as though he isn’t sure if he should sit down or run.

“When we cry when we’re angry, it’s because murder is illegal,” I deadpan. “We usually visualize killing men in different manners, and we get extremely upset that we can’t actually enact any of those scenarios.”

“Good to know…” Malcolm drawls slowly. “Have you, uh, thought about killing me?”

“Almost daily,” I chirp happily.

After breakfast the next morning, we all remain sitting around the table. Everyone seems eager to hear about whether the tea worked. I’m slightly worried I didn’t get enough information before I woke up.

“It worked,” I start. “I was able to meet with Brigid and Coatlicue.” I relay all of the information I was able to gain. I try to break the news about Ayla being “tainted” as gently as possible, but she still flinches like I slapped her.

“Hey!” My voice is sharp. “None of that. You know none of us here think anything like that.”

“I know, but the transition has been difficult. I’m a bit more bloodthirsty than I was before.” Caleb leans over to wrap an arm around her. “Sometimes I’m a lot angrier than I should be.” She sighs and runs her fingers through her hair.

“We’re all here for you,” Darcy soothes. “Without you, none of this would be possible. You’re our center. We won’t let you stray.”

I can feel Ayla’s happiness warm and bright through the bond.

Connor stands. “I think I have a few locations we can try. Let me double-check.” He rushes off.

“We should get ready. Who knows how long this will actually take.” Caleb gets to his feet. “I think it’s best if we all go this time. We’ll leave competent people in charge while we’re away, but we might need all hands on deck for this.”

We nod. It hits me then that in less than a year, my life has gone from living under a sketchy as fuck alpha with other shifters to a world that is so much bigger and far more complex than I ever imagined possible. I have powers I’m only just beginning to understand, a mate who has very little problem banging my brains out in front of other people, and I’ve met two goddesses.

Life has gotten weird.

“You ready to get packing?” Malcolm leans in to press a kiss to my temple. I smile at him and nod.

I don’t need to take much, regardless of how long we are gone. Magic is certainly a perk when it comes to cleaning clothes and doing general housework, but Connor didn’t exactly give us any idea of where we need to trek off to, so I want to be semi-prepared for different climates. Thankfully, I’m able to keep everything to a single backpack.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen another female able to pack as light as that,” Malcolm comments, sounding impressed. I raise my brow with a huff. “What? Most women pack about a year’s worth of stuff for a weekend away. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You aren’t,” I concede. “But most women don’t have magic.”

“Even the ones who do.”

I roll my eyes at him, pendejo. “Let’s just get out front.”

“After you, kitten.” He holds the door open, letting me lead us down the hall to the front door.

Unlike our trip to Ireland, it looks like just our core group is heading off to hunt down these sin slaying weapons. Which, frankly, is probably a good thing. We don’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves, and if someone is watching us, having a large group will do just that.

Ripley and Xin are here to see us off. I’m mildly surprised at how fast the young witch has integrated herself into our inner circle, but that’s not a bad thing. We need more people to step up when our core can’t be around. Ayla is talking animatedly with them, so I make my way over.

“Is everything all set?” I glance between Ayla and the others.

“All good! I was just seeing how things were going with the blood bank. I had Xin make the announcement since we’re not off on an epic side quest.” Epic side quest indeed.

“Everything is going smoothly, and I can handle getting donations set up,” Ripley says with a bright smile. How is she able to be so damn perky?

“Dante and Darcy were given some of the supernatural supply we were already able to collect.” Xin bows his head in the direction of the other two vampires. “I am sure they will need it.”

“Thank you for thinking of that.” I’m mildly miffed that I didn’t.

“Let’s get this show on the road!” Darcy’s shout has all of us turning in her direction. Kelly already has a portal set up to the coordinates Connor gave her, and it looks as though they’re just waiting on us to head out. “If I could die of old age, I would have by now!”

I snort. So dramatic.

With a wave, Ayla and I head toward the group as they all start to file through the portal. I’m uneasy about not knowing where exactly we’re going, but I trust Connor.

We step out of the portal onto what looks like an old lava field. Taking a deep inhale to pull in the local scents, I allow the fresh, nearly unspoiled air to inflate my lungs. Wherever we are, there’s certainly not as much pollution as there is back home.

“Welcome to Iceland,” Connor announces with his arms spread wide.

Summer in Iceland means the sun isn’t ever going to set below the horizon. I’ve never been, but I’ve heard so many good things about this still slightly untamed country. I make a note to ensure Malcolm and I come back. This place just feels…right.

“Okay, Captain, where the hell in Iceland are we?” Malcolm looks around, taking in the lava fields and the mountains in the distance. “And where do we need to end up?”

“We’re on the Holuhraun lava field,” Connor explains. “It’s the closest I could get us to our final destination. Portaling onto a glacier isn’t advised. We need to make it to the Vatnajökull ice cap.”

“I’m not even going to try to say what you just said,” I mumble. “Okay, so we need to get to the ice cap?”

“Well, technically we need to get beneath the ice cap.” Connor rubs the back of his neck when we all whirl to face him. “There are several volcanoes beneath the ice cap. Typically, ice caves form in the winter due to the melts in the spring and summer.”

“I realize I may be a bit slow here, but how the hell are we getting beneath all that ice. Into a volcano?” Malcolm runs his fingers through his hair and adjusts his glasses, looking very frazzled and delicious. Deliciously frazzled.

“Well, that’s going to be the hard part,” Connor admits. “I think we should talk while we’re hiking. Even though the sun doesn’t set this time of year, we’re still going to have to camp out on the glacier for at least one night before we replace the right spot.”

“And how do you know when we’ve found the right spot?” I ask as we all start trudging along the lava field, dutifully following behind Connor.

“That’s the hard part.” My mind stutters a bit. That is going to be the hard part? What the hell had Connor gotten us into? “The texts weren’t entirely clear on that aspect, but I was able to replace a reference to the Fates and the weapons, so I think Ayla should be able to feel it once we get close.”

I blink.

We’re hiking across lava fields and over and through an ice cap on the hopes that Ayla will feel something when we get close? Insert Lego Batman once again. Let’s also throw in a solid Yzma from the Emperor’s New Groove here too. Why me?

This is going to be great. I can just feel it.