The Demon Queen (Otherworld Series #5)

Chapter 19 - Under Siege

Lunia in her Demon female form. ⤴️

I entered the Council room to find Hanes standing in full battle regalia in front of a map of Sohue, Pius pointing out various places beside him.

Catra held a white haired baby in her hands, a tall, lanky werewolf-smelling, white-haired male stood beside her, his arm around Pius' sister Penelope.

Something wet touched my hand. I looked down at the slime on my fist.

"Ewww." I did not say that.

Peter, the litter critter, stood laughing at me from beside his water demon friend, Pisces.

"What do you expect me to do with this goop?" I asked him, huffing as I wiped it on my pantleg.

Peter giggled. The room was filled with choking and gurgling sounds for a moment, and then Peter and Catra laughed together.

I huffed again. "You better not be giving me funny names."

Water demons originate from the West of Dinhae, they were a primitive species of demonkin, I had never seen them in Nikolai's court. They spoke the primitive language of the undersea creatures, that only chosen species could understand. I was a Vampire, so technically I could be able to understand their language but I never really did for some weird reason.

Pisces had been Peter's constant companion when I had been acting as his maid, it looked like they still were close by the way they laughed at me.

I wiped my hand again, the gross slime was still stuck to me.

I looked at Hanes, there was tension in his eyes, but a slight smile on his face as he watched his great grandson laugh at my expense.

Peter ran to his mother, she handed the sleeping baby to the white haired werewolf and carried up her own son.

Pius watched from across the room. "Peter, be careful with Mommy." Peter hid his face in Catra's unbound hair.

I sauntered up to the maps with all the Grace I could muster after being splashed with spit and being called something funny in a water demon's language.

Pius held a thin small dagger in his hand, he was marking the maps with the dagger, creating permanent X marks.

"We're vulnerable here." He created an X over the place named 'Theteyas'. It was the land in Sohue claimed by the elves.

"The elves are not responding to our distress signal. Totally predictable. If there is an attack, they're going to attack here first. The elves are-"

"Wait, what do you mean by if there's going to be an attack? We're under siege?"

Pius nodded, grimly. "Our spies in Illm have reported an attack that was supposed to come this morning. "

I looked at him, confused. Was it the ghouls? The dragons? Oh, gods.

"Who is attacking? Ghouls? Fey? Vegans? Cloud nymphs from the north?" I'm not kidding about the last one. We once went on this vacation to the north to enjoy some snow and came across some particularly vicious cloud nymphs. They hated Vampires. Maybe they had finally collected enough water to rain down on us. Storms for three days perhaps, doors and windows closed at all times.

I wish it had been as simple as that. The next words that were spoken by my father stole my breath away.

"We're being attacked by the Demons. Nikolai is missing...And they suspect you."

----

Hanes left to meet with the Elves after he delivered the news to me. We all sat around the dining table. Our breakfasts cooling before us.

My apetite had taked a solid hit after hearing the grim news. The only person eating was Pisces, the water demon. Even Peter, being as young as he was, had read the tension in the air. The calm before the storm.

Pisces ate with his bare hands he smelled stuff before eating it. And took sips of water after every bite. The cup he was holding had been made out of a non-slip material, specially created for slippery, spit-laced fingers.

I distracted myself by paying attention to the two big teeth poking out the corners of his mouth, trying to picture myself as a mantis with teeth for front legs.

Penelope was holding the white haired baby now, she was coeing at him. Was that her kid? I vaguely remember the maids talking about Penelope getting married.

Pius started speaking before I could as her anything.

"Any news from your old pack, Milo?" He asked.

The white haired werewolf, Milo, as I now knew his name, shook his head.

"The Whitefang pack is pretty old and traditional. They kicked me out for being weak even though I was one of the direct decendents. I don't think the Alpha would allow any relation with the Vampires or the Demons. " He said, picking up a fork to skewer a piece of bacon.

Penelope placed a hand on his shoulder. "If only they saw you now, my love." There I had my answer. Milo took her hand and kissed it.

I looked away. Would Nikolai kiss my hand, ever again? I'm pretty sure that troll, Runeria had something to do with his disappearance. Gods, when had my life turned into a sappy, cliche filled romance book? Where was the romance part anyway, all I got were stupid dreams of my horrid monster cousin, that too was incomplete.

I signed and picked my own fork and on an impulse, plopped it into my orange juice.

Pius sighed , too. Copycat. "The Elves refuse to speak with us. The dominant wolfpack won't side us. The Demons are going to win if they attack."

"Dimitri is smart, he'll surely attack the weak points." I said, adding fuel to the fire he started.

"Hey, we have our own army too, right? And allies, we have many allies, I think. We'll be okay." Catra said, ever the optimist. Pius shook his head, stroking her cheek with one hand while the other tried to feed Peter, who made a gagging face at the piece of egg held in the fork.

"The Demons are our greatest allies. The rest are the Elves, who are really unpredictable and then there are two Were Council pack members. "

"You have allies from the Council of Weres?" Milo asked from across the table, holding his now awake son, who had the words 'Daddy's little man' etched on the front of his onesie.

Pius nodded. "The Thunderfist Pack and the Fury Pack are our allies."

"Thunderfist is a strong pack. Fury is a considerable strong one but I heard the Alpha is new to the Council."

Pius nodded and they got into talks of Werewolf politics.

I looked down at the eggs and bacon in my plate. I separated the egg in two different parts, then I separated the right side into three different parts and placed a small piece of bacon in one part of the three.

The three parts were Sohue, reigned over by the Vampires as a whole. But the Vampires had been generous to the Elves when they let them move to Theteyas after the war had vanqished their land. The Whitefang wolf pack had been a cursed pack from the beginning. When the Civil war among the wolves took place then Whitefang and Blackmane had sworn to be far from each other. Blackmane was in Dinhae and so Whitefang came to Sohue.

I had good relations with Seth Blackmane, if I went and met the Alpha of Whitefang and then to Theteyas....allies, allies, allies.

A slow smile spread upon my face. I stood up.

"I have a brilliant plan."