Queen's Rise Novels & Stories

Broken in ways I couldn’t understand. “You came back sooner than expected,” she said calmly. My heart slammed against my ribs. “This isn’t real.” A faint smile touched her lips. “It’s more real than the life you’re clinging to.” I backed away instinctively. “What are you?” The Queen rose slowly from the throne. Power rolled through the room instantly, heavy enough to crush mountains. “I am what you become.” “No.” “You already know it’s true.” “I’m not you.” She stepped closer. “No,” she agreed softly. “You’re worse.”

“What did I do that made you come after everything I built?” His eyes darkened. “You tried to rise above me. Above the Grigs empire, with your popularity. You went from being a nothing to thinking you’re a queen. Giving ladies like you hope that they can be greater than men. That’s enough to wake the sleeping lion, Juliet.”

I wouldn’t be toyed around with by a lowborn girl I had bought. I lifted myself somehow from the throne chair, not paying any attention to whatever the two men were now saying. The sound of their voice was muffled under the growing sound of my own breathing, along with the fading sound of her voice. I walked past them and thundered towards the hallway. I could hear the men’s footsteps behind me, and so I stopped and waved a hand to them. “I want to be left alone this morning.” “As you wish, Alpha,” I heard Curtis answer behind, still sounding like there was something he was trying so hard to conceal in his voice.

Queen recovered first. “It is just kits, Davis,” Queen said, her voice rising in a frantic, defensive register. She moved into his line of sight, her hands fluttering as she searched for an excuse to anchor them both. “You should know how desperate these girls can be. She’s looking for an excuse to find her way back into your orbit. It’s a classic play.” "You don't get it, mum. If she had wanted that, she would have told me about it. Why wouldn't she tell me?”

Adelaide had not inherited anything. She had not risen through bloodline, nor through ritual succession. She had been chosen by him. Raised into sovereignty through will and power, not through ancestral flame. What awakened in her had not been Emberflame reborn through lineage. It had been something singular. Something unbound to the old covenant. Emberflame had required descent. She was ascension. Not inheritance. Not repetition. There had been no second queen since the fall of the last.

"Your center of gravity's up in your shoulders. That's the first thing anyone bigger than you is going to use." "Everyone's bigger than me." "Then it's the first thing everyone's going to use." I step around her, adjust her stance with two fingers at her hip, nothing more than that. "Lower." She drops an inch. It's not enough, but it's something, and I've learned in two weeks that with Piper you take the inch and you don't say more about it than the inch deserves. She's seventeen and jumps at doors closing. Praise sits on her wrong, like a coat that doesn't fit — too much of it and she shrinks instead of standing taller.

But seeing him stared down at me that way, broke every inch of my soul. Five months ago after the death of King Alpha Lev, the man who murdered my parents and put me in his harem, Troy became the new Alpha king and he destroyed the harem and I and the rest of the women were set free. Despite knowing I was an abomination, Troy treated me nicely and we made love several times. But when I finally mated with him and the Elders protested; how dare a Lyge—a wolf from a generation of humans turned wolf—become Queen Luna. I was surprised when he sided with them.

Their eyes scrutinized me, curious, calculating, or weighing the strength of the Lunaris Pack. I wore a gown that marked me as the heiress. Even with my mother absent, I handled each greeting with grace. After all, if I was going to inherit the Lunaris Pack, I had to be able to navigate the delicate politics of the powerful on my own. Halfway through the banquet, I assumed everyone who was coming had arrived. I relaxed slightly, thinking about stepping aside to rest for a moment. Then, a subtle commotion erupted near the entrance. The once-bustling hall fell noticeably quieter.

“A body was found this morning.” My stomach twists. “And?” “It was another rogue wolf.” “That’s not unusual lately,” I say. “No,” he replies. “But this one had something carved into her chest.” My pulse speeds up. “What message?” He hesitates. Then says quietly, “The Queen is rising.” I freeze. My heart skips a beat. Queen? “What does that have to do with me?” I ask slowly. Hall’s voice is careful. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” My throat feels dry.

She held my arm. “I mean it when I say you’re better than all the other previous Queens— including me. Want to know why?” I nodded slowly. “Well, other Queens had their Kings beside them— they had their husbands make them Queens.” She said. “But you, on the other hand, are the first woman in the History of the Reignile Monarchical Succession pattern to sit on that Black and Scarlet Throne and lead the people without having a King beside her. And that’s what makes you better than the others.”