Novels by Big Queen

Xander never pretended comfort with words, but the council chamber had become his arena all the same. He stood at the head of the battered conference table, shoulders squared, hands braced on the scarred wood, as three envoys from rival packs lolled in borrowed chairs. The oldest leaned in, nostrils flared as she regarded Carolina, who stood beside Xander as if she’d planned it—her presence a silent snarl that, after everything, this was her house.“Our offer is simple,” said the envoy from the river pack, her voice gravelly with disuse. “We divide the city along the old lines; no more raids, no more blood for territory. Any breach, we settle it at council, not with teeth.”Xander’s mouth twitched. “The last treaty? Got us two weeks of peace, then a pack of your boys poisoned our reservoir. Tell me why we trust this time.”The envoy bared her teeth, but the threat was thin, brittle. “You’re running the new grid. You blackout the rest, everyone starves. If we break faith, you let us fr

The construction started the day after the last blackout. Riss, true to her word, had cobbled together a crew of greasers and ex-military with the kind of knowhow that survived in blue-edged memories instead of text. She even wrangled a pair of solar roofers from the outskirts, their gear so clean it looked stolen from a museum. Carolina had expected resistance: turf squabbles, sabotage, even a mutiny. But the pack surprised her, maybe because they wanted a place to last.First, the roof: patched with triple-lap membranes, then armored with photovoltaic sheeting that shivered with new power as soon as the clouds thinned. At night, the school glowed, a signal fire to every refugee and opportunist in the hurricane districts. Carolina oversaw the operation from the nest above the gym, watching the lines snake out and the panels go up. It made her dizzy to think of how fragile the place had been, how easily one storm could’ve drowned them in the dark.Second came the windows—stormproof, b

It was raining at the perimeter, where the dead rails met the tangled scrub and the wolves marked their shifting claim with tooth and ink. Carolina had never liked the border patrols, but as self-appointed alpha of a pack that wouldn’t admit to hierarchy, she had to, on occasion, suit up and look the part. She slopped through the ankle-deep slurry, poncho sticking to bare arms, and rehearsed the speech she’d give to the morning work crew about the necessity of using latrines when they were provided. Good habits for a new world.She found Lyra at the checkpoint, propped on a cinderblock, head bowed against the drizzle. Her hair was mud-streaked, and her hands fiddled endlessly with the broken-tab lighter she’d been carrying since forever. The night shift’s smuggled bacon still hung faintly on the air.The pair of them could have passed for sisters, if you didn’t know their history: same fatalistic eyebrows, same impatience with comfort. Lyra flicked the lighter in a steady rhythm as Ca

Briony was the last one awake. She’d traded her overalls for a mismatched suit—coat two sizes too big, sleeves rolled and stained—and sat on the roof picking at a tin of beans. She didn’t notice Carolina at first, or maybe she was just pretending not to, chewing slowly, eyes on the mist-shrouded towers. From this angle, the city could have been anything: a graveyard, a cathedral, an ugly diamond.“Can’t sleep?” Carolina offered, settling down beside her.Briony shifted, considered her. “I can sleep anywhere. Just don’t like to.” She scooped a spoonful of cold beans. “You’re not drinking. Kind of obvious what that means.”Carolina let the accusation hang, testing how it fit her skin. “I’m not making it a thing.”Briony shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Only question is: you gonna stay put, or you gonna run?”“I’m not running,” Carolina said, and even she was surprised that it came out true.Briony risked a smile, lips quirking. “So what’s it like?”Carolina thought about the ball of cells ins

What passed for morning in the city now was a slow unpeeling of fog, a brightness that slid in sideways and made the whole world look half-dreamed. Carolina and Lyra lingered at the windowsill, watching as the light caught on broken glass and haphazard scaffolding. On a distant roof, a shirtless man stretched his arms to the sun. From below, you could hear the clatter of vendors setting up, hammering together their meager wares with the stubborn optimism only desperate people could muster.Carolina lied to herself and said she’d grown used to it: the constant performance of command, the way her name traveled faster than her body, the ache in her jaw from grinding her teeth through every decision. She was supposed to be building something. Some days she thought she could see the shape of it; other days she just saw herself, monstrous and enormous, shadowing every corner with her wants.She went to find Xander at the only place she knew he’d be: the half-disguised clinic down by the riv

The new city woke hungry and unpredictable, more wild animal than civilization—a fact underlined by the way it swelled and mutated every day. Carolina, who had never before craved steadiness, now found herself flinching from each new electric outburst, each mini-riot, each fevered celebration. She chalked it up to lack of sleep, the recent gunshot, maybe Lyme exposure. But the ache behind her eyes grew by the hour, and a sour lurch pulled at her belly most mornings until past noon, as if she’d swallowed something malignant.The first time she woke up retching, Lyra glowered at her from the blanketless mattress and announced, “You’re falling apart, boss.”“I’ll survive,” Carolina growled, flushing the stained water down the market-house drain. But after the third straight morning, Marcus—who had not forgotten his place as armchair medic—left a battered first-aid kit by her cot. Inside, alongside the standard pills and battered scissors, was a brightly colored box scavenged from somewhe