Лори Девоти - Amazon Queen

Mel leaned forward, her face grim. "It's a he, Zery. A son of a son and a high council member. The rest of the council doesn't want to save him, they want to kill him. I know. I've talked to his mother. I've seen the child."

And like that, my world crashed around me. I don't know how I knew she was speaking the truth. . No, that wasn't right, I knew because it was Mel, because despite all of our fallouts I trusted her.

I took a step back. Thea. . the knife. . the slit in my thumb. . the blade had been sharp enough to cut it. I'd missed it, somehow, but it made sense. Thea had known this council's plan and hadn't told me. She'd been using me to find the child so she could do as the council asked. . so she could kill him.

I wasn't a queen; I was a tool.

The realization was like a physical blow, and I couldn't stand next to Mel now, couldn't look at her.

A piece of me was dying and the only thing I could do was run.

I left Bern at Mel's. I needed to be alone and I didn't know what waited for her back at camp. I didn't know what waited for either of us, but this felt like my fight.

After being forced to see the truth, I'd walked from the room in a fog. I knew from the outside I'd appeared to be under control. I always appeared under control, but inside, my knees were buckling and my heart was thrashing around inside my chest.

I'd walked through those damn babies without looking down. If I'd thought they were watching me when I entered, when I'd left, the feeling had been one hundred times worse. They weren't just watching, they were judging.

And I came up lacking, severely lacking.

The Jeep's engine roared as I barreled down the highway. I zipped past two semis and a car full of teenagers before thinking to glance down at the speedometer-eighty-five. I tapped on the brake.

Amazons didn't speed. Speeding invited troopers to stop you, which led to questions. We avoided questions.

When the vehicle was back under sixty-five, I shoved my back against the seat and tried to think.

But I couldn't-or I was thinking too much. Images from my life as queen and my life as Mel's friend swirled through my head. Images of Bern and Lao: Thea asking Bern to give up her givnomai, Lao telling the girls to put down the bowl.

All of them part of the tribe.

None of them completely seeing things the same way.

When did that happen? When did we stop all agreeing?

Then I thought of Bubbe. Before my birth, she had fought the high council, gone against the old ways and stopped Amazons from killing and maiming their sons. After that we had simply deserted them, left them for humans to find and adopt.

But since then the high council had grown, not in size but power. They had fought every change since all the harder until there had been no change, no independent thought at all.

My job as queen had always been to follow blindly, like a sheep.

I slammed my fist into the steering wheel.

Like a sheep.

Damn the wolverine son for seeing that when I couldn't.

Angry with myself and my tribe, I pulled off at a rest stop just past the Illinois border. I parked in the area for semis. I wasn't in the mood to deal with mothers and toddlers or old people walking their dogs. Truckers tended to mind their own business; I liked that.

Actually, there was only one semi in the lot. I parked as far away from it as I could and got out to do my business and walk a bit.

My mind was a swirl. Thea had talked with someone from the council. I believed that. What I didn't know for sure was if she knew that someone wanted the child killed. I suspected she did-suspected she'd taken the child to the woods to do the job herself.

But the council. . they were still out there. Mel had said the council had split. That didn't mean the council was gone. . it meant there were two now.

Which meant I had a choice of which one to listen to or, as Mel had suggested, the choice to listen to no one at all, to think for myself.

It was strange to realize I hadn't been doing that all along.

So which was it? After the shock of realizing I'd been manipulated wore off, did I understand why some of the council might want the child dead? He was the son of a son and a high council member. The potential power in that combination was unsettling.

But he was also just that. . potential. He was an infant; he had done nothing good or bad. Who were we to condemn him?

The choice was mine. I could return to Madison and go hang around Mel. I could wait for Peter outside her shop and follow him wherever he went. Then I could force him to tell me what he knew.

I could find the baby if I really wanted to. I knew that.

But did I?

A car pulled into the lot behind me, but I ignored it, choosing instead to change direction and walk toward the empty playground that stood about sixty feet from the rest area building.

It was windy and warm. A swing moved in the breeze and a bit of dirt made its way into my eye. I was rubbing it out when I got struck from behind.

"Ready to leave the flock?" A rough male voice whispered in my ear as I hit the ground.

I flung back one elbow and was rewarded with a pain-filled grunt. I pressed my advantage by slamming my head backward, into, I hoped, my assailant's nose.

The grip on me loosened and I sprang to my feet.

My fairy godfather rose to his feet, blood streaming from his nose. "The sheep kicks," he commented.

"Baa," I replied, then circled to the left.

I needed this fight. I was even willing to risk human notice to have it.

He grinned and circled too. "Have a nice day in Madison?" he asked.

"Lovely," I replied.

"Heard you stopped by an old friend's."

I rushed forward, pivoting as I kicked. My foot hit him in the chest. He let out an umph of air and staggered backward.

"Nice," he murmured. He moved in quickly, swinging with his left fist. I ducked, but not fast enough. His closed hand made contact with my cheek. I could feel the flesh begin to swell.

He jumped back. "Oops. I hit a girl."

"Good thing this girl"-I spun again, this time dropping low, going for the backs of his knees with my extended leg; he tumbled backward onto his ass-"hits back." I finished, moving in to kick him again, this time in the head.

He grabbed me by the ankle and twisted. Pain shot through my recently reinjured back. I fell onto the ground beside him and he rolled over on top of me.

"You know, fun as it is, I didn't come here to fight." He was breathing hard; blood and sweat streamed down his face. Pea gravel that had been poured onto the playground to protect toddlers who tumbled off the slide bit into my backside.

"Really, why did you come?" I locked one arm around his, shoved the other into his chin, and rotated my body, flipping us over as I did. On top, I knee-kicked him in the groin, then pulled back my fist to sock him again in the nose.

"What? Whoa!" A new voice boomed over us. "He bothering you, lady? Someone call the cops!" A trucker approximately six feet tall and almost as wide leaned over us. "Heard some noise. Thought it was some kids scrapping. . Don't you worry. I'll hold him till the cops can get here." He grabbed me and the son and hauled both of us to our feet.

Adrenaline raced through me and my breath came in quick puffs. Across the trucker's wide body the son stared at me, his dark eyes almost glowing. Neither of us had been ready for the fight to end, but unless we wanted to take out the trucker, we had no choice.

Of course, I also didn't want to stick around and talk to the cops.

Apparently the son didn't either. After one last dark glance at me, he jerked his arm free of the trucker's grasp and sprinted for the parking lot.

"Hey, you. Someone stop him!" the trucker yelled and lumbered after him.