YOU WERE MINE FIRST

Blue Flowers

CHAPTER 10: Blue Flowers

The courtyard went dead when the black doors opened.

Not winter dead. Wolf dead. The kind where every wolf holds his breath.

Three northern Alphas knelt in fresh snow. Their honor guards behind them, foreheads almost kissing white. Blood dripped from Alpha Magnus's broken jaw and steamed in the cold. Alpha Jor's nose was broken sideways, his white beard red. Alpha Kade was youngest, maybe thirty. No blood, only snow on his knees where Cain must have shoved him down.

All three wore heavy furs, frost on their shoulders. Their eyes were locked on the top of the black stone stairs. And apart from them, near the outer gate where wind cut hardest, stood a boy in white.

Jaxon Cole.

He looked smaller than I remembered. Or maybe Blackthorn makes everything small. He wore the ceremonial white furs of Blood Stone, the kind Alphas only wear for mating and funerals. Too clean for the mud on his boots. His gold hair was dull and tangled like he hadn't slept since my rejection. His gold eyes that used to cut through me in the kitchen were fixed on the doors, frantic and red.

In his hands, crushed from holding too tight, were blue flowers. Little star-shaped wild ones that grow where snow melts at the foot of Black Mountain. The kind kitchen girls pick because they are free. The kind I once put on his soup plate when we were twelve. He threw them away then. He said, don't put weeds on an Alpha's food, defect. He held them now like a prayer.

His wolf Fenric was riding him hard. I could feel it even from the top, that sick howl. _MINE SHE IS HERE SHE SMELLS LIKE QUEEN AND SHE IS OURS._

Then the wind hit and his eyes found me and his whole body jerked. Because I was not Elara the defect anymore. I was being carried.

Rhazien carried me down the black stone stairs like I was glass and war at the same time. One huge arm under my thighs, my legs wrapped around his waist under his huge black King's cloak that swallowed me whole. Other arm around my back, pressing me to his bare chest. He wore only black pants and boots, cloak open, scarred chest bare in freezing air, steam rising off skin, long black hair whipping.

His mark on his throat glowed silver white. Mine glowed gold white where the cloak slipped, exposing the huge bite that covered my jaw to shoulder, raised and pulsing. My white hair fell wild. My white ears tipped forward. My tail, huge and white, curled around his waist under the cloak, visible to everyone, lashing once.

My eyes were white. Fully white, silver rings pulsing. Lyra was forward with me. _Let them look, little wolf. Let them see what a White Queen looks like after she is claimed by a King who worships her._

Every wolf smelled it at once. Snow and white flowers and Queen, and under it black smoke and blood and King. Rhazien's scent all over me. Twenty Lycan guards lining the walls dropped to one knee, armor clanking, fists to chests. "My Queen," they breathed as one.

The three northern Alphas flinched like whipped. Their wolves slammed to bellies inside them, whining. Magnus stared at my glowing throat, at Rhazien's glowing throat, and his eyes rolled back and he pressed his forehead to snow. Full submission. An Alpha bowing to another Alpha's Luna. Jor and Kade followed, foreheads to snow.

Jaxon didn't kneel. Gold eyes locked on me, on white eyes that used to be brown, on white ears that used to be hidden, on my throat that used to be bare begging for his bite and now wore another male's bite.

"Elara?" he whispered, voice raw like he'd been screaming my name up the mountain. "Is that you?"

Rhazien stopped three steps above the courtyard so we looked down on them all. So I looked down on Jaxon who always made me look up. A purr started under my ear, low and dangerous, vibrating through his chest into mine, hand splaying over my thigh under the cloak, claws pricking lightly, possessive.

Jaxon flinched at the hand on my leg, at my tail curling tighter around Rhazien. "Elara no," he said louder, stepping forward, holding out blue flowers, hands shaking so hard petals fell. "It's me it's Jaxon your fated mate I came to take you home. I made a mistake. I didn't know you had a wolf, I didn't know you were _this_ I thought Tanya lied."

He was babbling. The golden boy who rejected me with a clear cold voice was babbling in snow holding weeds. Lyra laughed inside. _He thought we were wolfless. Now he sees white and thinks we will forgive because he brought flowers he threw away when we were twelve._

I didn't answer him. I looked at the three Alphas first because that is what a Queen does. I lifted my chin, mark catching sun, and spoke, voice layered, mine and Lyra's.

"Alpha Magnus. Alpha Jor. Alpha Kade." All three pressed harder to snow. "You came to my mountain. You called me a painted servant. You laughed at my King."

Magnus gurgled through broken jaw, "N-no My Queen I didn't know."

"I know what you said," I cut him off. "Cain punched you for it. Good. Do you know what I am?"

"White Queen," Kade whispered into snow. "We thought you were a myth."

"Look at me," I said, soft now, but soft was worse than cold. They looked up, bleeding, kneeling, staring at white eyes, at tail, at bite pulsing gold white.

"I was rejected," I told them, human Elara cracking through for a second because this part was still mine. "On my eighteenth birthday. On the altar. In front of the whole pack. My fated mate said I, Alpha Jaxon Cole, reject you, Elara Finch, wolfless defect. And everyone laughed. And my father traded my debt to the Beast King because he thought I was worthless."

Rhazien's arms locked like iron, forehead to my ear, purr turning to snarl aimed at Jaxon. Jaxon made a choked sound, "Elara please." I didn't look at him.

"The Beast King claimed my debt," I said louder, voice carrying across silent snow where every wolf listened. "In gold. He brought me here. He locked me in his castle, in his bed, in his arms. He said I am his obsession. And then my wolf woke up. She is white. She is Queen. She wanted his blood. So I took it. She wanted his soul. So he gave it."

I touched Rhazien's throat, the silver white mark I gave him, and he shuddered violently, eyes rolling back, low growl of worship tearing out in front of Alphas. "And he gave me his," I whispered, touching my own throat.

Silence. Then Magnus slammed fist to chest, forehead to snow, and howled, "HAIL THE WHITE QUEEN! HAIL LUNA OF BLACKTHORN! FORGIVE US! FROST FANG KNEELS!" Jor and Kade howled with him, "HAIL THE WHITE QUEEN! WE KNEEL!" Honor guards howled behind them, twenty northern wolves howling for white light returned after three hundred years.

Jaxon stood alone in the middle, white furs dirty, blue flowers crushed dead, gold eyes streaming tears, staring up at me glowing in another male's arms, marked, claimed, crowned by Alphas who outranked him.

And finally he knelt. Not like an Alpha. Like a boy. Knees hit snow hard, head bowed, blue flowers falling into red stained snow.

"Elara," he sobbed, voice broken. "Please I reject Tanya I don't want her I want you I was wrong Fenric is killing me I can't breathe without you please take me back I brought your flowers I remember."

"Stop." One word. Layered. White Queen voice. It cut his sobs like a knife. He froze, looking up with wet gold eyes, hopeful.

I slid down from Rhazien's arms, bare feet hitting cold snow, black cloak swallowing me, only feet and glowing throat and white ears showing. Rhazien stayed right behind me, wall of heat and murder, hands hovering near my waist, gold eyes black with warning at Jaxon.

I walked three steps, barefoot, light melting snow where I stepped. Stopped one foot away from Jaxon kneeling in snow, from the boy who called me defect. He looked up, hand reaching for my ankle.

"Don't," I whispered and he froze. I crouched, white glowing eyes inches from gold ones, so close he could smell Rhazien all over me, in my skin, in my mouth.

"You rejected what you could never deserve," I told him, soft, so soft only he and Rhazien could hear, voice breaking with eighteen years of kitchen floors. "And he claimed what was always his."

Jaxon's face crumpled. Behind me Rhazien's purr started again, victorious, huge hand resting on my white head, stroking my ear.

I stood, turned my back on Jaxon Cole kneeling with dead blue flowers, walked back to my King and jumped into his arms, legs around his waist, face burying in his throat, tail wrapping tight.

Rhazien caught me like he'd waited his whole life, arms crushing me, mouth finding my ear, growling loud enough for the courtyard to hear, for Jaxon to hear, "Mine. My Queen. My Luna. My debt that will never be repaid. My wife."

And Jaxon Cole screamed into snow as rejection backlash he never felt before slammed into him like a silver knife, making gold eyes bleed, making his wolf howl in agony.

Too late. Far above on the highest tower, a shadow raven watched with red eyes then took flight south toward the Sanguine Court, toward a crystal coffin now empty, carrying my layered voice it stole from wind: _I live. And I am claimed._