Winter's Dawn (48 page)

Max felt nineteen again, drinking directly after the running when his anxiety should be low. He was taking tranquilizers too and despite having gone over it a hundred times before, he sat there counting the days on his calendar.

Somehow it had escaped his notice that the Autumn Equinox was almost exactly nine months from the Winter Solstice. One mistake in five years. When his mate was sad and hormonal, making the demand when she was so sensitive about the topic had seemed completely inconsiderate. There was no way the Gods would punish him for it, but he was starting to fear they had.

“Your Majesty?”

Max looked up from her calendar and growled. “What?”

Carl held up his hands. “Sorry. I forget we’re getting close to the running. I’ll tell the Egyptian President to call back.”

Max grunted in agreement. “Yes, do that.”

“Perhaps a visit to the queen,” Carl suggested tentatively. “I noticed you haven’t been to see her much this cycle.”

Max nodded in a daze and downed then rest of his whiskey. He winced over the burn and said, “Perhaps that would be best.”

Max stood up, still dazed as he looked back at Carl. “How far is it until the running?”

“Two days.”

Max wavered and put a hand to his head when the world started to grow fuzzy around the edges.

“Two days?” he repeated, amazed he didn’t know that. Of course, he usually kept track of the coming running by the surge of his hormones and he hadn’t felt even an inkling of desire for almost a month. “Are you certain?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Carl nodded. “Are you okay?”

“Um,” Max paused, knowing he was anything but okay. “I need to go see the queen.”

“I’ll cancel the rest of your appointments for the day.”

“Yes, thank you,” Max said as he walked past Carl without looking back.

They’d just been busy with the new werewolf schooling program. The needs of their jobs had simply pushed their desires aside this cycle. That had to be it, because if it wasn’t, Max’s world was about to change drastically and he was almost certain he wasn’t ready for it.

Max made it across the palace in record time and walked into Susie’s office without announcing his presence. He closed her office door and leaned back against it, using the wood to keep him on his feet.

“Shouldn’t you be working, Maxwell?” Susie asked without looking up. She was going over the spring budget Max had drawn up with a frown on her face. “I thought you had a meeting with the Egyptian President at two.”

“What do you think about when you look at me?” Max asked her desperately, hoping he wasn’t the only one who had somehow lost all desire for sex. “Really, Susie Bee, open your eyes and look at me.”

Susie lifted her head with a huff. She opened her eyes wide as he requested and stared at him. “I see a wolf whose acting a bit peculiar and considering your track record, Maxwell, that could be cause for concern. What can I do for you? Some of us work.”

“That’s all you see?” he asked with a low groan. “You don’t see a big, sexy wolf you want to take advantage of? I’m yours until the running. You can do whatever you want with me.”

“Oh Gods.” Susie rolled her eyes and looked back down at her work. “Maybe tonight.”

“Really?” Max asked hopefully. “You want to commit to being with me tonight?”

Susie paused, as if considering it and then looked back up at him. She cringed in apology. “I’m not really feeling it yet.”

“When do you think you’re going to start feeling it?”

“Closer to the running.”

“Susie Bee,” Max whispered as his breathing became low in fear. “The running is in two days. You should be crawling all over me right now.”

“That can’t be right.” Susie scowled and pulled her calendar out from under her other files. She looked at it for one long moment before she lifted her gaze back to his. “What do you think about when you look at me?”

He shook his head and swallowed hard. “Nothing.”

“Oh Gods.” Susie flipped at her calendar, counting through the pages and then running her finger over the month she stopped on. She let out a gasp. “The Autumn Equinox.”

“Holy Shit.” Max placed both hands over his eyes and let out a low wolf growl. “This can not be happening to us, Sue. One time in five years. This is all Kat and John’s fault. I am going to strangle them myself. I don’t care if they’re breeding again.”

Susie let out a sob. “I think the Gods have blessed us.”

“Yeah, I think they have.” Max had to reluctantly nod in misery as he dropped his hands and looked to Susie. “We have to call the doctors. I want them to look at you.”

“Okay.” Susie reached for her phone with a shaking hand and picked it up. “Sara, can you send the doctors to the palace?”

“Are you well?” Max heard Sara ask from the other room.

“I think—” Susie paused and cupped a hand to her mouth. “Um, I think the Gods have blessed us.”

Sara screamed and Max winced from the sound. Then he was stumbling back when Susie’s assistant rushed into the office. He had never felt more invisible in his life as the two of them embraced. They were both crying when Susie pulled away and pointed at her calendar. “Look at the date.”

“Autumn, of course.” Sara let out a broken laugh full of tears. “They should be first. It’s such a powerful season, and spring will come right after and return love to our people. I’m certain of it. Our palace will soon be filled with little queens and kings.”

“I need more to drink,” Max mumbled.

“Oh, congratulations, Your Majesty,” Sara said as she finally noticed he was in the room. “You must be thrilled.”

“I’ll give you two a moment,” Max said rather than lie. “I’ll have Carl get the doctors to the palace.”

“Yes, good,” Susie said and then turned back to her assistant. “I’ll have to start thinking of names. An Autumn King needs a powerful name.”

“Perhaps something classic?” Sara suggested. “From one of the kings of the past.”

“No.” Susie shook her head. “This is a new era, full of new hope and promise. I want his name to be his own.”

Neither of them noticed Max leave, which was fine. He walked numbly back to this office, feeling like he was caught in a nightmare, which he was. This was the making of every nightmare he had since he was three years old and he was fully responsible for causing it.

“Your Majesty?” Carl asked when he walked past his desk. “I thought you were spending time with your queen.”

Max sighed. “No, we have no hormones, at least none that would require private time with my queen. We won’t be attending the Italian running. Cancel our flight.”

Carl looked up at him with wide eyes. “But, that would mean—”

“In fact, cancel all business trips for the two of us. We’re staying at the palace for the foreseeable future.” Max walked to his office door and put a hand on the handle before he turned back to Carl. “Call the doctors. I want them to get here immediately.”

“Your Majesty?” Carl’s voice was tense with uncertainty.

“Apparently the Gods have blessed us,” Max said in answer to his unspoken question.

“They could be beta wolves,” Carl suggested, making it obvious he read Max’s concern where others hadn’t.

Max shook his head. “It looks to be autumn. You may as well get ready to make the announcement. The equinox is almost exactly nine months to the date of the solstice running. He’ll be slightly early, but it makes no difference. Susie was early too. It’s the Autumn King. I’m certain of it.”

“Gods’ blessings.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Max walked into his office and closed the door. He looked at it for a long moment before he went in search of more whiskey.

****

Susie went to sleep peacefully that night. Even in rest a contented smile tugged at her lips. The same soft smile that had been in place since the doctors confirmed what Max had already known.

She was pregnant.

He sat up in bed and brushed the fine hairs that had escaped her braids off her forehead, studying her serene features and for the first time in his life wondering if they really did share a soul. How could two halves of the same spiritual being have such opposing feelings on something?

On the outside he had managed to contain the wild, desperate fear that was swirling inside him like an untamed tempest. It was only his unbending loyalty to Susie that had kept the lid on it. He looked to the windows, which were shaking from the winds that started battering the palace. He took a deep breath, trying to keep it from forming into a deadly nor’easter. It wasn’t the humans fault Max had created this situation. The way he felt right now, he could easily level the east coast.

He hadn’t even realized he could create a storm like that, but he could feel it now, welling inside him. The lights flickered and he leapt out of the bed, knowing he needed some kind of outlet before he became deadly. He went to the balcony doors naked. He used care to close them softly despite the wind that wanted to push them out of his fingers and slam them shut. Then he stood in the swirling snow, feeling it hit his skin as the winds stung his face.

For a moment, he simply felt the storm, letting it swell around him. Then he tilted his head back, seeing that the stars were hidden. The moon was nowhere in sight. He would be blind in the darkness if he were a human, the flurry of snow clouded the last of the dim lights from the few palace rooms still illuminated at such a late hour.

He changed forms and jumped over the balcony before Susie found him standing in there letting his fear flow out of him through nature. He ran into the woods as fast as his speed would allow him. He made sure he got far enough into the hidden sea of the frozen trees that even an alpha wolf wouldn’t be able to hear him when he changed forms again and fell into the snow naked.

Then he screamed at the top of his lungs.

The entire forest shook under the wave of terror that flowed out of him. Ice cracked, breaking off the limbs to land in the snowdrifts. He kneeled there, shaking and crying, remembering the day the Gods gifted Susie to him and knowing without a doubt he wasn’t nearly the wolf his father was. There was no way he was willing to make that kind of sacrifice for his people.

He couldn’t watch Susie die for his mistake.

But there was nothing he could do about it now. The deed was already done, so he jumped to his feet and attacked the nearest tree. He hit it with both hands hard enough to force it to uproot. It teetered for one long moment before Max shoved it again and then jumped back to watch it topple, making a resound crash when it landed.

Rather than mourn the loss of a tree that had been healthy and sleeping through winter moments before, Max simply launched himself at the next unfortunate victim of his wrath.

He ripped that section of the forest apart while the storm grew into something unfathomable. He came out here to spare the humans, but like the trees who had chosen poorly to grow up near the King of Winter, they became sufferers to his protective instincts and fear for his mate.

It was over an hour before he stopped and fell exhausted into the snow with wild, wolf-like pants of desperation. He was covered in dirt and blood. He had countless splinters that became imbedded in his skin when it healed over the cuts caused from branches ripping into his arms and legs as they fell.

Defeated, he sat there, covering his face with his hands as he cried, feeling alone for the first time in his memory. Susie could never know about this. He would take it to his grave and then explain his actions to his other half when they walked together to the other side.

Somehow he was going to have to find a way to hide the irrational fear. Susie was an alpha wolf. She was supposed to have pairs. The old ones did it easily. They flourished for thousands of years.

But then, the old ones also died off, something their people thought was an impossible feat for such a powerful royal line. The beginning of the end had been a massive, organized rogue attack during a running. It happened during a time when the monarchy was sparse, with only four ruling pairs and a small collection of princes and princesses waiting to take over their season when they came of age. Older, retired alphas had died off in the years prior for reasons history forgot. The rogues killed all the prince and princesses in the palace that day. Young alpha puppies who were unable to defend themselves against hundreds of enemies while their parents were in the woods and slaves to their hormones. Two of the young pairs to pass over had been the blooms of spring.

The Queen and King of Spring had died within weeks of loosing their youngest puppies. Spring was the most cherished season and it was revered as such. They held domain over all the most precious things in life—love, beauty, and abundance.

Yet, it was the most vulnerable season. Beauty always was.

When Spring died, Autumn had simply walked into death for reasons Max had never understood. Autumn was such a strange season, filled with dark mysteries Max couldn’t begin to comprehend. They were only siblings to the ruling spring pair, why would they surrender so easily? Yet they had. They were found in bed the day after spring had wilted and died. Hand in hand, they had smiles on their faces as if death had been their friend rather than their enemy.