When she became the Maiden, he’d felt it in his bones. He assumed it was the same for every firstborn. That was how the legend went, after all. Once he’d felt it, he expected to have this irresistible urge to find her and mate with her. Wasn’t that what the animal inside of him wanted? To spread his seed, so to speak?
The urge didn’t come.
Once the Maiden had arrived in Silver Spruce, he knew it was time to put his plan in motion. He expected to spend every day stopping himself from taking off. That didn’t happen. His life continued with very little interruption.
Then he saw her, and it all changed.
Since the moment he’d seen her, every fiber of his being screamed at him to take her, protect her, love her, and all that other sappy stuff. He wasn’t a sappy person until he met Holly.
Still, he managed his desire. He still did what he needed to do. Even when she was trapped in a cage thirty feet from his sleeping quarters, he still did what he had to do to make sure his plan went the way it needed to. As long as he didn’t get too close to Holly, everything was great.
Then, of course, he’d gotten close to Holly.
Now eighty percent of his brain function was dedicated to thinking about her, missing her, worrying about her, and fantasizing about her. His productivity tanked.
Logically, he knew being in Golden Oak was the best thing he could do for her. She needed someone on the inside if she was ever going to make it out of this alive. Yet, here he was, sitting at the bar and shirking his duties.
She’d be so disappointed in him if she could see him now. He smiled as he imagined all the ways she’d tell him off if she could.
“Trevor!” Beryl shouted.
“What? Sorry. What?” he sputtered.
“I’m cutting you off.”
“But I’m not even drunk. Hell, I’m not even buzzed.”
“Yet you’re acting like a moron. I’m not in the business of turning morons into bigger morons. Go attend your secret bear cub meeting or whatever. Come back tomorrow, and I might let you have a glass of water.”
“Bear cub meeting?” he scoffed. “What a weird thing to say.”
“Not really.” Beryl shrugged. “Baby bears are called cubs. You’re a bear, and you’re being a baby.”
“Did you just call me a bear?”
“Do I look like I was born yesterday?” Beryl rolled her eyes. “Look at my face and tell me it isn’t the face of a woman who’s seen some shit.”
It was, in fact, the face of a woman who’d seen some shit.
“You think I wouldn’t notice a bunch of people running into the woods turning into bears, wolves, and all sorts of crap?”
“I—”
“Oh, shut up.” Beryl waved him off. “You’re just going to deny it for your own peace of mind.”
He was, in fact, going to deny it for his own peace of mind.
“If it helps, I’m not going to tell anyone. Who am I going to tell? My dead family? My husband, who left twenty years ago?”
“Point taken. I’m going to go now.”
“Whatever. Pay your tab.”
Trevor slowly set a wad of cash on the bar.
“You’re looking at me as if I’m going to bite off your hand.” Beryl chuckled. “Shouldn’t I be the one worried about that?”
He forced an unconvincing laugh before hurrying out of the bar.
The sky looked like an abstract painting of orange, purple, and white. He hadn’t seen a sunset like that in a while. Out of habit, he looked down the main road toward the park. It was too early in the evening for a vampire to be out, but Trevor looked anyway.
He walked across the street to the diner, where the other local shifters gathered every night to eat their dinners.
As soon as Trevor walked in, everyone let out a groan.
“Just one meal, please?” A man in a trucker cap grumbled over his steak.
“You can have a meal in peace when you bring me useful information,” Trevor snapped. “What have you learned about the other shifters?”
“We can’t find a trace of them,” another diner said. “It’s like they never existed.”
“Why don’t you go out looking if you’re so concerned?”
“You know why, jackass,” Trevor hissed.
“We could always bring the Maiden back here,” someone suggested. “We know where she lives.”
“Leave her be,” Trevor said. “She’s already carrying my child. I have no use for her until the baby is born.”
“The other firstborns are still going to try to stop you. They have a better chance of doing that if the Maiden is with them.”
“If they want to try to stop me, they can.” Trevor shrugged. “It’ll be a moot point once they realize she’s with child. We’ve already beaten them at their game. Now, we need to take them down for good.”
“Their forces were decimated in the battle at the silver mines. Why not just go in there at night and slit all of their throats?”
Trevor wrinkled his nose. “I will not take my crown like some thief in the night. Besides, you’re not thinking far enough into the future. The four firstborns are not a threat, not a real one. When they’re dead, we will still need sizable forces to take the other towns.”
“Won’t do much good if you’re cursed,” the man in the trucker cap muttered.
“No wonder the battle at the silver mine went so poorly,” Trevor muttered. “You’re all a bunch of morons. It’s amazing that so many of you survived.”
“Many of us didn’t.”
“At least it weeded out the weak,” Trevor spat.
Whenever he needed to
