Queen of the Beasts *Sample*

Chapter 14

I had believed Thorn's theory for years. It was the only truth I could comprehend. It was a thought process that alleviated some of the horrendous pain that had whirled within me after I had lost everything. It allowed blame to be placed on someone. It made a species accountable for the tragedy that I had suffered.

Humanity was bad. Humanity was the reason that my mother left, my brother had perished, and my former pack had gone up in flames. It was the single similar participant in all of the events. My father's unreliable sense of humanity seemed to play a part in everything that had caused my world to change and led me to a very different life from the one I expected to live as a child.

But my perspective was altering now.

I loved Thorn. He had led me through some of my darkest nights, kept me warm and dry when the sky opened up with wild rains, and he would silently hold me when I sobbed with loneliness. He had been an amazing leader and the one I needed the most. Or, at least I thought he had been before I had been thrown into that awful dungeon.

Griffin hadn't been anticipated. I never considered what consequences would come from being mated to the prince, the man I had lived against for seven years, because it didn't seem like a possible outcome. If anything it seemed like a joke that was too cruel to be played. But it had become a factual part of my life very quickly and though I couldn't fully understand why it had already begun changing my views.

Griffin was entirely human. There was not denying it. And he carried all of the traits that came with the title with pride and honesty. He was kind and compassionate. He was thoughtful and articulate. His limited amount of instincts meant that he ran off of what he deemed to be rationale instead of animalistic impulses. He was considerate in situations that would cause werewolves to take violent action. But I didn't truly think that his soft and thoughtful ways were necessarily toxic. Unlike what I was used to, absolutely, but not destructive like Thorn claimed.

I now knew that Thorn would never see Griffin the way I saw him, he would never give my mate a chance. And it was only reasonable to think that Griffin would never be fond of someone who was still striving to bring down his family, the entire royal bloodline. I briefly wondered what Griffin would think if he knew how much I loved the werewolves who had such brash accusations against him. It wasn't a beautiful train of thought and I immediately decided that if it was within my power I would never let Griffin found out. in addition to this I had to make sure that he and Thorn never crossed paths.

For now, my mind was a mess and my purpose was unclear. Yet, I remained in human form just as Thorn had demanded. A couple of evenings had passed since he had taken me back to my old packlands and broke my heart all over again. He no longer touched me and I was deeply thankful for that as I presumed it meant that he was- at least temporarily- respecting the fact that I was mated to someone else. But everything was still very tense. I wanted to confront him about his actions, tell him that it didn't change my reality of being mated to the prince that he so despised. I held my tongue because now was not the time for such altercations.

There was a heavy weight over the small, makeshift pack. Though no one voiced it I knew that all the new members resented me slightly. They were all united with Thorn on the common belief that the royals should not be human. That werewolves should be ruling over the werewolf realm. And I had returned with wonderful leverage and mis-matched views. I had come back, but not to help, to hinder, their plans. My lack of conformity spurred their hardened leader to instruct a midnight excursion that had been both exhausting and painful. It only seemed fair that they were merely tolerating me for the time being.

The only person who wasn't acting like I was a leper was Hunter and he was too timid and too terrified to voice his supporting thoughts.

While I didn't know where the future would take me I knew that I wouldn't survive long on my own which meant I had to make sure that the other wolves wanted to keep me around. Thorn seemed to know that this would be my next logical approach and decided to ruin my plan by ordering the pack to focus on their wolf- based skills.