Queen

By Holly S. Roberts

In a world where monsters rule, it’s a game of cat and mouse among those with the biggest teeth and claws. When the post-apocalyptic dust settles, it’s time to draw lines and chose your friends wisely.

After concluding the alpha title is hers whether she wants it or not, Marinah faces her biggest challenge after finding a traitor among her people. The Federation’s determination to increase their evil pressure, doesn’t help.

King’s focus is his mate. He’ll protect Marinah with his life and possibly the lives of every man and women on the island. He’ll also give as good as he gets when her Doc Martin boots grow too small for her big bad Nova feet and she gives him attitude.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Holly S. Roberts
• Release date: Jun 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463098905

Holly S. Roberts

Holly S Roberts is a retired homicide detective and the USA TODAY Bestselling Author of Play and Ruck (Completion Sports series). She is excited to announce a new crime thriller series published by Bookouture Hachette releasing 1/13/2023. For Holly's spicier side, you'll love her anti-hero bad boys who will curl your toes (Hotter Than Hell series) and a lighter (not so spicy) humorous paranormal series with shifters and Hellhounds (Marinah and King). She also writes cozy mysteries under the pen name Suzie Ivy. She lives with her two spoiled dogs high in the mountains. Holly is a self-defense instructor and owned a martial arts gym where she taught women to kick butt. Visit wickedstorytelling.com for more info.

Book preview

1

Main U.S. Outpost, Marinah

King’s hand slides across my shoulder causing me to turn. Comfort and strength show in his striking blue eyes. He’s dressed in military fatigues in place of his usual tear you apart Shadow Warrior gear. The fatigue shirt stretches at the seams trying to cover his broad chest and shoulders. I prefer his leather chest straps for their practicality, and to be perfectly honest, they show his muscles to their best advantage. Today we’re dressed in outpost military attire and covered from ankle to shoulder. If we shift to our Warrior forms, the material will shred and our Beasts won’t care if we’re nude. I spent too many years thinking I was human to want to show my naked bits and pieces to the people at the outpost. We’ll deal with that problem if shifting becomes a necessity.

The outpost has grown to three times the size it was during our last visit. Not in the least pretty, it’s a ragtag mess that somehow manages to appear organized. Humans slapped together houses, huts, and cabins with whatever material available or used trailers and semitrucks as living quarters. Designated spaces much like campgrounds before the apocalypse give each family a small area of their own. A cordoned-off square, in the center of town, has trade good stands with people gathered around, looking through wares and bargaining with their own products. Paper money is good for nothing but wiping your bum in the new world. This town and others that have popped up in the outskirts of demolished cities are the future of the U.S.

Are you ready? King asks, his warm breath floating over my ear.

No, I say truthfully. The pressure on my shoulder intensifies for a second, letting me know he has my back no matter what I discover inside.

We keep walking. Human eyes follow us with uncertainty. It’s still sad that we aren’t trusted by many of the new people showing up at the settlement. With a mental shrug, I realize it’s not the day to solve all our problems. I have enough on my plate.

The woman I’m about to meet has information on my grandmother. The same grandmother who gave birth to my mother, who in turn gave birth to me, a Nova Warrior, a super alien from another planet.

Just saying the words to myself sounds weird. I never knew I was anything other than a scared human woman with a limited number of days left on Earth. I’m still trying to accept myself as leader of the Shadow Warriors. My Nova Warrior status made me the leader by default even though I didn’t want the title. I still don’t want it. My hope is this woman will have information that will help me figure out what the heck I’m doing.

Our enemy, The U.S. Federation, isn’t going away anytime soon, and neither are the hellhounds that have ravaged and annihilated so much of Earth and its people.

I straighten my shoulders and lift my head high. I’ve got this. King’s hand slides from my back, and I instantly miss the contact. With a firm mental shake, I take the lead and continue heading to the front door of the small cabin we were directed to upon our arrival.

Landan, the mayor and one of our good friends, greets us at my knock and steps back so we can enter. My vision quickly adjusts as I check the four corners of the small cabin. A young woman wearing a loose cotton dress walks from the bedroom and freezes. So does my gaze.

She’s not what I expected. She’s tall like me and also possibly as young as me, but the resemblance ends there. Her hair is auburn, eyes blue when green would go more with her hair color and freckled skin tone. Her jawline is pointed, cheekbones high.

She dips her head, not meeting my eyes, which means she has a passing knowledge of Shadow Warrior protocol. My grandmother is the reason for her visit so this makes sense. I can handle eye contact if you so choose.

Her head snaps up, and our eyes meet. What happens next is unexpected. Energy, unlike anything I’ve encountered, flows from her to me. It slides over my skin and weaves with Ms. Beast’s energy in a kaleidoscope of swirling power. The woman takes a step in my direction, and I hold my hand out, stopping her. What did you just do? I demand, somehow keeping my voice even. The fact her zap of energy didn’t activate the Kedorine 5 known as K-5, the chemical that turns us into our mammoth beast size, is disconcerting.

The woman’s eyes jump to King. She remains silent and lowers her gaze.

Without conscious thought, I wave my hand, Leave us.

King’s Beast energy rolls over me in stabbing waves nothing like the woman did to me a moment before. He’s letting me know he isn’t happy with my command. Regardless, within seconds, both he and Landan are gone and I’m alone with the woman. I focus my attention squarely on her. My eyes form small pinpoints of flashing irritation. I do not like repeating myself, I say in precise English. What is happening or what happened a moment ago when you looked at me? As soon as her gaze left mine and she focused on King, the energy fell away, and I was able to breathe normally.

Her voice is distinct yet soft. You have never made contact with a female Shadow Warrior. She shrugs. It is expected you would not understand.

This startles me. You’re Shadow Warrior? I feel the energy of male Warriors like there’s an invisible band attached from them to me. Once my Nova manifested, the strange connection grew stronger. I don’t know this woman. What she was able to do was much different. Her energy felt like an internal part of me that’s always been there. It felt…right.

She nods, her red hair bobbing with the motion. I am merely Shadow, and do not alter form.

Her eyes are on me again, their soft orbs assessing. The energy wraps around me in a soothing wave of power. It’s amazing. I don’t like it. What is happening? I ask between gritted teeth, trying to mentally shake away the buzz along my skin and somehow keep it from invading everything I am.

Her mouth softens and a delicate smile forms on her lips, making her even more beautiful than I first realized. Her voice invades my mind in sing-song waves of sound.

Women of our species are uniquely gifted. We hide much of our capabilities from the males. The energy you feel comes from that which makes us special and also separates us from their violent ways. It’s our Shadow essence. The male Warriors do not experience the blending of energy that feeds our feminine power. This is sacred knowledge and is not shared with them.

Slowly, I adjust to the hold this woman has on me, and I stabilize myself by pulling tightly on my own power. I’m actually more surprised that Ms. Beast accepts what’s happening. When I check on her internally, she’s rolling around much like a dog whose found a dead carcass to play in. It’s instinctual for animals of prey to cover themselves in the odor of a plant eating animal. It disrupts their scent and enables better hunting. Why Ms. Beast is doing this is beyond me.

It also strikes me as amusing that there’s a part to being Shadow Warriors the big boys don’t know about. Whenever something strange happens in my Beast form, the men side-eye me like I’m out of my mind when I ask about it. There’s a learning curve to being Shadow Warrior, and I’ve been behind the curve since the day I was born. Why not share? I ask, paying closer attention to how the vibrations flow as she talks or turns her gaze away.

She glances at the table in the corner and the energy vanishes. Direct eye contact must enable her to pinpoint it.

May we sit? she asks tentatively.

I hear the hesitance in the words, and ire rises inside me. It has nothing to do with Ms. Beast. This woman’s tentative voice reminds me of the person I was before: Poor Marinah, the girl who stayed alive because her father protected her with his position.

I stomp over, pull out a chair, turn it around, and straddle it. The woman’s eyebrows go up when I remain silent, waiting for her to take a chair. She asked for this, didn’t she? After a few seconds, she glides over, pulls out her preferred seat, and takes it daintily. This really ruffles my perplexed feathers and still Ms. Beast doesn’t react. It’s disheartening because I’ve been working overtime on absolute control over her. The only place I’m failing is in Nova form. It’s the if/when scenario that’s holding me back. Nova won’t come out on command, and when she does decide to grace me with her presence, Ms. Beast disappears and I fight tooth and nail to keep Nova in line. When she takes a hike, Ms. Beast roars to the forefront. For the next hour, controlling her exhausts me. So far, up until my last transformation to Nova, I managed not to hurt anyone; Beck gets on my nerves, but I swear I feel bad about his shredded forearm.

Your Beast is strong, the woman whispers. Is that reverence I hear in her voice? I can’t be sure. What I’m completely sure of is that I don’t trust her. I can’t let her know how strong I actually am.

Our eyes meet again. A wave of energy floats through me, but I refuse to acknowledge how good it feels. I’m discovering a small trick of basking in the energy and at the same time hiding how it affects me. Why don’t male Warriors have this knowledge? I ask abruptly as a way to prove I’m the one in control. Sadly, I don’t think I’m controlling anyone including Ms. Beast. She’s still trying to grind the energy into her fur or something like that because she looks like a wiggling idiot. Thank God I’m the only one who can see her.

The woman’s gaze drops to the table at my abrupt question. I’ve been dealing with too many men. The only thing that works with them is short, uncomplicated words with a grunt or two thrown in. I now prefer it that way.

When the women on the island seek me out, they want me to solve every domestic problem on the planet, and they talk entirely too much. I change how I deal with them because shooting out commands puts them in tears or worse, makes them angry. You do not want to eat food made by an angry cook. King and I found this out the hard way.

This female is different. Now that I’ve had a few minutes to assess her energy, I feel the Shadow Warrior essence though it’s slightly different than the males, softer somehow, which makes sense, but also more powerful in its overall capacity. Interesting.

She’s watching me closely like she knows my thoughts. Her slight smile drives me crazy, and I almost growl. Male Shadow Warriors have one thought and one plan of action: death, she says in her quiet voice that sinks into my bones. Females balance the need to protect with the need to nurture. Her palm goes flat on the table, and she leans back in her chair a bit. Male Shadow Warriors destroyed our home planet through war and terror. We warned them for centuries, but they would not listen. If it breathed, it needed to die. To prove themselves as men, they killed by the thousands. They destroyed small villages and large towns, killing everyone as spoils of war. They murdered children and celebrated it by rubbing babies’ blood on their bodies.

I hear no anger in her words. This history happened long before she was born, or even her grandparents for that matter, but the thought of men performing these atrocities and killing an entire planet should be upsetting.

She continues as I study her every nuance. Female Warriors are different. The energy you feel keeps us in check with each other by sharing the life essence of every female Warrior around us when our eyes meet. A female Warrior has never killed another female Warrior, even the ones who alter form such as you.

Part of me finds this impossible. I’ve read the one female history text that King possesses, and Nalista never mentioned sharing energy between female Warriors. Females not killing each other was also mysteriously kept out of the book. I’ve seen human women kill each other effortlessly. Yes, men are more aggressive for the most part, but a woman can be just as deadly.

Are there other females who alter form? I ask carefully.

Her large eyes blink slowly, giving nothing away, and her voice is almost too calm. Not for more than one hundred years. After we left the men, the need to shift to Beast form disappeared for the most part from those who morphed. We were glad the ways of killing left us and did nothing to stir that which is buried deep inside.

You say ‘we’ like you were alive hundreds of years ago.

Her shoulders rise in a small shrug. I was not alive, but I am now Keeper of the Past, and this knowledge has filled my brain for more than ten years.

She must be older than she