Miles away Lorred D'Kay smiled, bathing in the glory of his progeny enjoying the death she wrought. He'd been torturing several of his salesmen in a "national conference" which promised to make them more successful. They came ready and willing for the most painful tortures - trust games.

The seal on his prison chipped away and he felt his own powers swell. It was more than half gone now, and he could begin to do some real damage. He looked out on the full house in the conference room before him.

"Excuse me," he said to his enraptured crowd, and he walked outside.

One of his salesmen had stepped outside to have something called a "cigarette." It was an ingenious device for delivering death. Slow and addictive. He felt respect for whoever came up with it - decidedly in service of The Dark Lord. He sized up the salesman and asked for one.

The man happily shared and offered him a light. Lorred D'Kay waved him off and snapped his fingers. The cigarette lit on his command as warmth spread across his back. The convention hall which was hosting his conference had also lit. It filled with flames and screams.

"Oh my Lord!" The salesman beside him exclaimed. "What do we do?" he asked, turning to Lorred for guidance.

"Watch and wait?" he suggested with a grin. "All of the emergency exits have been sealed against escape. Lucky thing you were out here."

"Uhhhh..." said the man, who looked from him to the convention hall, and back once more. He dropped his half-smoked cigarette and ran, shedding his OMEGA SHAVE shirt as went.

Lorred shrugged, picked up the cigarette, and turned to watch the carnage at the exit doors. Several people were crushed to death against them, and even more had been trampled within. Several salesmen banged on the doors for help. Lorred took a drag from both cigarettes at once, tilting his head to watch once reasonable men turn into vicious monsters, taking each other's lives in a bid for their own freedom.

He took a last drag of the cigarettes and surveyed them. Such a small thing to deliver such a deadly product, and without any hint of danger until long after the addiction took hold, completely ingenious. Fire trucks raced past him with sirens screaming and he chuckled - several of the firemen were wearing OMEGA SHAVE shirts underneath their uniforms.

***

Gerald watched Rose and Arien walk in front of him and a hint of a smile briefly twitched his lips. After the incident at the adoption agency, their previous tension seemed to have melted away, and they walked side-by-side in effortless conversation, robes flapping in the wind. Rose glanced back at him. It was nice to have a purpose. He'd done his best to get as far away from his fate as possible, but now realized perhaps accepting it wasn't so bad after all.

He'd performed a nice bit of magic at the agency to get rid of all the bodies. It was wonderful to perform magic out in the open again rather than having to always be hiding. In his early days in this future time, he'd made several blunders which cost him fines (which he couldn't pay) and censure (which he greatly objected to) from the, now secret, Mage Society. It once nearly cost him his life early on, when a village accused him of being a witch (which in this time was a generic term and didn't have a specific sex associated with it) and tried to burn him.

Rose let out a snort at something Arien said and pushed him. What was meant to have been a gentle push hurtled Arien off into the brush in a magnificent fashion. Gerald wondered for a third time whether Rose was growing physically stronger since she used her powers. She seemed unchanged from the night before, but he was fairly certain she couldn't throw a grown (for all intents and purposes) man off the road with one arm last night. Anxiety grew in him and he found himself unintentionally wringing his hands, a nervous habit he thought he'd cured years ago.

Rose turned back again to look at him and his breath caught. There was something different about her aura. It always had darkness around it (what else did one expect from the daughter of The Dark Lord?) but it had previously been contained by a crown of light. To him, she looked continuously like she had a very elaborate up-do with a tiara. It didn't fit her personality one bit. Today that up-do looked bedraggled and the crown was tarnished. Small wisps of darkness escaped in vine-like tendrils, reaching out into the air around her.

She smiled.

And he didn't cringe.

That was almost definitely a bad sign.

Rose bent down and picked up a rock as Arien climbed back up onto the road covered in scrapes from yet another tangle with a briar patch. Gerald could hear geese honking nearby.

Rose threw the rock and before Gerald knew what was happening a huge goose tumbled out of the sky onto the road in front of them.

"What did you do?" shouted Gerald.

Rose gave him an inquisitive, and mildly condescending look.

"I got us lunch," she said surveying the animal, "and dinner too, I think."

"Oh good!" said Arien, "I was really getting hungry. Do you know how to cook it?"

Rose shook her head, she had been raised on mostly mutton, "You?" Arien shook his head. They both looked at Gerald expectantly, who's stomach joined the conversation audibly.

"I don't...I mean, I do know how, but that's not...I mean...We should talk about..." His face was becoming red with the effort of being both appalled and angry, but also impressed and hungry.

"Great!" Arien exclaimed, "Gerald can do the honors. I don't think kings are supposed to get their hands dirty*."

Gerald sighed, picked up the bird, and followed them into the forest where he did a little magic, to get a fire going, pluck the goose's feathers, and set it to roasting.

It was at this point when they began to notice a smell.

"Ugh! Gerald, what did you do to that duck?" (Arien)

"Duck?" (Rose)

"Goose." (Gerald)

"Oh, are we playing duck, duck, goose?" Asked Arien, "Seems like we should have more people, but I'm game."

"No, you idiot, it's not a duck, it's a goose. And no, I didn't do anything to it except for putting it on the spit while you sat there doing nothing helpful whatsoever," growled Gerald.

"Stop growling!" Rose said.

"I'm not growling," growled Gerald.

"Not you, it!" Exclaimed Rose.

Gerald and Arien both turned to see what Rose was talking about and froze as the largest wolves they'd ever seen (actually the only wolves they'd ever seen) slunk out of the forest, teeth bared, growling deep in their bellies.

Rose stood up, "I said, stop growling!" She yelled angrily.

They didn't.

"I don't know what's going on," Rose complained, "I'm usually very good with animals. They generally obey me." This was true, but her experience was limited to sheep, and these were anything but sheep.

"Oh...these aren't animals," Gerald said warily, very cautiously getting up from his seat, "They're werewolves."

"What are werewolves?" Arien asked.

"I thought werewolves only changed at the full moon, or only changed at night?" Rose said. Her aunties loved a good werewolf story, especially the ones where they changed into sexy men who never wore shirts. Rose never understood how they could go from having so much hair when wolves, to so little when men.

"Actually, that's just old wives tales. It's the other way around, they're only men on full moons," said Gerald in a very condescending manner.

Rose muttered about her aunties not being "old wives"- they really weren't wives at all.

"No-oo et's not," a voice said.

The three of them turned, having momentarily forgotten what initially sparked their argument. Instead of facing a pack of wolves, they were now facing a pack of people who were dressed in fur, and who were very hairy themselves. Rose felt vindicated, and given the look of them, thought her aunties' stories missed the mark by several miles.

"Tha's reelly not et at all," someone called from the back of the pack, "We can change wen-ever we want."

Their accents were heavily south-Wales, and it made them a bit hard to understand.

"Eah, we're not limited te lunar cycles, why du pea-pole always think tha'?" Someone else whined.

"An only be-in pea-pole on the full moo-en? Tha' seems counter intu-tive."

This led to an intense debate on the nature of werewolves and their particular abilities, in which the pack got extremely annoyed that anyone should try to tell them who they were and what they could and couldn't do. One of them exclaimed that they finally understood sexism and the term "mansplaining" in a way they hadn't before, and began effusively apologizing to the female pack members.

In the end Gerald grumbled that it's what he was taught in magic school. The werewolf who appeared to be the oldest - which was hard to tell because most of them had a good bit of grey streaking their generally rust-colored hair - inquired what time he was from because there hadn't been a magic school in centuries. Gerald told him and the man exclaimed that his own father had been born just after the destruction of the monarchy, and they had a nice banter about how much things had changed for the worse, and how they missed the good old days. This earned both of them a lot of eye rolls, and led to a lengthy explanation about werewolf life spans.**

"So, why are you here?" Rose asked, cutting to the point.

"Dydw i ddim yn gwybod," said one of the pack.

"I'm sorry what was that?"

"Don't speak with your mouth full, Dyfan," said the largest, hairiest man Rose had ever seen.

"My name es Blaidd, an we're lookin' for the heir," he said.

The rest of them were introduced as Berwyn, Cadoc, Dafydd, Bedivere, Caradoc, Dyfan, Rhodri, Aeron, Amser, Cafell, Eira, Fflur, and Bog. They were almost impossible to tell apart, even the men from the women and Rose could not for the life of her remember their names. Neither could Gerald. Arien, however, got them on the first try and within moments had memorized who was whom, and what their favorite colors were, and was getting a very detailed history of the pack.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," Rose said, "but we're really on a deadline here."

"Literally" chimed Gerald, who chuckled to himself then became annoyed when his joke didn't get more laughs.

"Which heir are you here to find, and what are you finding them for, and who told you where we were?" Rose continued.

The pack looked at each other - there were multiple heirs? - that was going to be confusing.

"Well, fate told us the last heir to the throne could be found in the woods of Bwich Nant yr Aryan Forest. Which is where you are right now. Sadly the woods aren't as big as they used to be - developers keep clearcutting them to build ugly boxes they call "multi-family" housing. But I digress. It's quite complicated and goes into a lot of astrology, but we've been watching the celestial signs for a while now and they all pointed to here," said Blaidd.

Arien was ecstatic that the woods were apparently named after him. They weren't, but Aryan and Arien pretty much sound the same, and he wasn't well versed on the history of the Aryan Elves, nor their silver trade with the Kingdom. These woods had been named after the "silver stream" which was a trade route that went through the woods centuries ago.

Gerald, of course, thought they meant Fate with a capital F, not just generic fate - which is what the werewolves were actually talking about, so he said something nasty about her turning tricks. This insult was understood by the werewolves as insinuating they were prostitutes, which was a very old stereotype - long forgotten by anyone except them - and it was some time later, after which Gerald had been pummeled about, several fur coats had been singed, and Rose had nearly killed the everyone that they were sitting by the fire with two rabbits added to the goose and a raw piece of meat over Gerald's black eye.

In the end, it was clear they were looking for Arien, who was very excited to have people looking for him, especially since he'd felt very underwhelmed by the apathetic response of his family to his disappearance. Apparently, there were signs in the stars which foretold his coming, and he sat there with his chest out as far as it could go, looking like a rooster attempting to become a peacock.

The pack had never heard of Rose, though they had heard of the lost heir of the Dingleburg fortune because they roamed near the ruins of that large estate. They gave their condolences to her, as well as praised the amount of sheep she owned (many of which they had eaten over the years), and suggested she not clearcut her estate as so many others were doing, because they were rapidly losing habitat elsewhere and really didn't want to have to move to town. Rose was non-committal about everything and carefully refrained from telling them whose heir she also was in case there was something in the stars about her appearance which might make matters unpleasant.

After a thankfully uneventful lunch, the pack offered to carry them the rest of the way to the castle and so they found themselves riding on the back of wolves. At the edge of the forest, which strangely had recently been cleared back further from the town than it had been when they'd left five days earlier, the werewolves changed back to human form. Strangely the whole town seemed deserted. It usually bustled with everyday life, but they were shocked to see literal tumbleweeds rolling down the streets (especially since tumbleweed plants were not native to the area).

"Where is everyone?" Arien wondered aloud, as they made their way toward the town square.

There looked to be something newly erected in the square two blocks in front of them, and they hoped whatever it was would give them a clue to where everyone was.

As they got closer they realized where all the trees from the forest had gone. There were hundreds of trees set up to look like Ts all over the town square. As they moved around them their hearts (and stomachs) sank, for on every one someone, they were bound like a wilted scarecrow. They were dead.

"Ffew!" Said Aeron, "I was affrraid they were bel-den' moore block houzen' when I saw the trees gone."

"Because this is better?" Gerald asked.

They traversed the square, checking to see if anyone was left alive. None were. At the very front of the square, across from the town hall steps, bound to the largest cross, was Oren. Rose looked up at him. Of all of the people she knew, he was the only one she hoped to find. Well...maybe auntie Janette too, if we're being totally honest. She felt a strange sort of satisfaction from seeing his corpse dangling like rotting straw stuffed in clothes.

"Guess you get an eternity of canned beets after all," she said to him.

"Happy birthday, Rose." She whirled around, startled.

"I've been waiting a lifetime to meet you - several in fact," said a man sitting on the Town Hall steps.

The rest of their group turned to see who was talking. Only Gerald recognized him. He hardly knew the man at all, yet what little he did know was far more than he ever wished.

"I'm so glad you've come to join me at last," said Lorred D'Kay,

_______________________________

Next Time on The Dark Heir...
A reckoning is had by all...

_______________________________

*
Kings of the past actually very much preferred to "get their hands dirty." Pridefulness aside, King Victor the Vain really did as much work as he could to help his people. He was much more of a, "With great power comes great responsibility," kind of King, rather than an, "Ask not what your kingdom can do for you, but what you can do for your kingdom," kind of King.
In the name of "progress" over the centuries, the later ideal became more popular - mostly pushed by the wealthy - along with the ideas of the kingdom being a "land of opportunity" and a meritocracy. This was preferable to those at the top, who relied on everyone else blinding themselves to the fact that the rich and powerful were really no more deserving than anyone else, and in fact, most of the time, a great deal less so.

**
Welsh Werewolves, contrary to popular belief, do not change by the lunar cycle but are governed by the planet (YES, PLANET - in this story it gets to be a planet) Pluto. It makes no sense, but then nothing about Welsh Werewolves makes sense. Once a revolution (248 earth years) werewolves "turn" and have the chance to create new members through biting. Otherwise, their bites are as harmless...er...harmful?...as regular wolf bites. It's also one reason why their lifespans are so long. They live an average of 248 years, and most of their pack is created through typical old sexy-time.
They, unlike too many humans, are sticklers about sex education less their children go around accidentally creating half-breeds - it's not a fun mix...trust me. Originally, they were the personal guard of the Monarchy, but King Richard the Dickish didn't like that they shed so much, and kicked them out of the castle. They've been waiting centuries for the rise of the future Monarchy, which heralds their reinstating as the Royal Guard.
Don't ask, none of it makes sense, and that's why it's in this book. Just move along now...