I stood frozen, afraid to move or think or speak, but my chest panted heavily, revealing my fear.
“Answer me,” he seethed, squeezing his fingers tighter around my neck.
“Who-whose existence?” My words came out garbled and choked.
“My son’s,” he spat.
“Liam?” I coughed out the question.
His fingers squeezed tighter.
My hands naturally flew up to his wrists, trying to stop him from strangling me. I slapped his arms and wrists, but he continued to compress his fingers until black spots floated through my vision and tears streamed down my cheeks, trickling over his hands.
“I can smell it on you, how you feel about him,” he growled.
I couldn’t deny anything—I couldn’t speak—couldn’t breathe. I struggled desperately in vain, clawing at his flesh trying to break his grasp. My head swam, filling with white noise, the pressure on my throat sending me into a panic. I didn’t want to die like this. I didn’t want to feel the terror of it, the finality of it. The tension building and building, crushing, compressing his steely grip on my skin. I slammed at his chest, ripping away at his clothes, his skin, his chain-like armor. Kicking out, my feet collided with stone and metal. My eyes strained, my face flamed hot on the verge of a fiery explosion, and my clawing and flailing became weaker and weaker until my balled-up fists just stopped fighting and lay defeated against his skin.
I felt him in my head—his emptiness, his darkness, fogging my mind with nothing but panic and endless sorrow.
“You and he are made of the same soul, he wasn’t lying.” His words sounded a million miles away, somewhere below me in another place and time. “Your souls will never reconcile, I will never allow it.”
My vision was a smear of gray, my eyes unable to focus. Around me a polar darkness spread, an unseen blackness I could only feel deep in my bones. I thought that I would continue to struggle and scream until my chest exploded with fear, but I was suddenly calm. Lost in the emptiness. It felt like time froze and stood still, watching a god crush the life out of a little mortal, waiting to see how the story would end.
My hands and arms, too weak to fight, reached up and slid under his collar. At first I hardly felt him, my fingers were too numb, trembling too much. It took a moment to feel it, the pull under my skin and the heat rushing through my arms. His grip on my neck lessened the stronger the energy surged over us—lessened until I was back on my feet and his hands were cupping my neck instead of throttling it.
I have to make him believe Mathias is too valuable to destroy. “Mathiasisthe other half of my soul. I need him to be this powerful, you understand that, right? Why wouldn’t I want him near me?” I kept my voice steady, not wanting the depth of my desperation heard.
His eyes darted back and forth between mine. They were as blue as the sky from my touch—no more milky-white death stares. “You lie.”
“Lie? Do you want to chance it? Go ahead then, destroy him and you’ll see.” I smiled up at him, pressing warmth and fire into his chest. “You’ll be robbed of this feeling, right here. Right now.”
“You know what I want to feel, Queen?” He pulled me closer, pressing his lips against the corner of my lips. “What it’s like to be inside you.”
Inside me?
“Guards!” He shoved me back and a dozen leather-clad hands caught me, stopping me from falling, stopping me from running.
“Take the queen into her rooms and ready her for our consummation.”
Chapter 18
They dragged me through a hidden passageway, blades at my throat. My feet lifted off the ground once inside the secret tunnel, and the guards carried me like pallbearers to my own funeral through the darkness. I could see nothing but the ceiling and its blackened stone and earth. I wanted to reach up and touch it, ask Ravenswood for help, but my arms and legs were restrained too tightly by the monsters that carried me.
I lost count of their steps and twists and turns. I tried desperately to keep count, but what was the use? How would I get away? And if I did, wouldn’t I just be running back into the place I just left, where the king was?
He wanted to consummate—the king and I—to sleep together. I wondered how quickly I could run up to the music room and fling myself off the window ledge. I could probably squeeze through it, my head and shoulders fit through last time. I was sure the stones of Ravenswood would open up a little to get my ass through. The question was: Would I die? And if I did, where would I end up?
The only answer I came up with was that it didn’t matter, as long as there was no consummation of any sort with any asshole dead king.
Somewhere in front of me I heard a lock click and shift open. Then the creaky sounds of rusty hinges from an opening door and a bitter breeze hit me. My body was lurched forward, and suddenly my feet hit the floor and I was able to stand on my own. When the guards stepped back, I realized I was in my room again and there, sitting on my bed, eyes raw with tears, was my mother.This day was just getting better and better.
“Mom?” I whispered. I choked back more words, not knowing what to say.
The guards slipped out silently, locking the door behind them, imprisoning us inside. I didn’t care. I would wait for the dead to fade and the locks to rust and fall open like every other night here. Then I would climb to the topmost part of this world and throw myself off the highest tip.Maybe this was a good time to say my final goodbye to the woman who never cared for me.
My mother was dressed in a silk gown that billowed with black netting and lace. Her collar sparkled with jewels the color of blood that matched the long droplets that snaked down from her ears. Her hair was pinned up in a twist, black as night, not the lifeless bleak gray I saw on her last. She looked the part of a queen to a dead city. I wished I could give her that role, I sure as shit didn’t want it.
“I was sent to prepare you.” Her eyes glared at me with fury as she wiped away her tears. She lifted her chin and slid her hands over her skirts, brushing off invisible dirt and dust. It was a look one would give to an inferior creature, like I was somehow beneath her and a burden to speak to. “I knew he was what you were after.”
