“No problem,” I said, drawing the thinner vines away from the assassin's helmet.
“Remove it, or I will do it for you,” Rema demanded, voice cold.
The assassin wasn’t stupid, his helmet liquified and pooled away from his head to disappear into the torque around his neck. He was for sure male, with blocky features set into a reptilian face. Hard, rounded ridges covered most of his head in place of hair, and his slit nostrils flared in alarm as he watched us with wary yellow eyes.
“Who sent you?”
The assassin blinked with nictitating membranes, and his thin lipped mouth parted, showing several rows of small, sharp teeth. “I do not know. It was an anonymous contract,” he said in a high, raspy voice.
“How unfortunate for you.”
I turned at the dual tones and found Imma standing behind me. She’d appeared without a freaking sound. Creepy. So, so creepy.
The assassin's eyes bulged at the sight of the Queen, his fear saturating the air around me with pungent rot. Up until that moment, his emotions had been controlled, but one look at the red winged, six eyed figure of the Queen and his discipline crumbled like a dry biscuit. Impressive. I really needed to know how she did it. Jack sort of had that effect, but she had to be showing teeth. How was someone like me going to accomplish that? Petite wasn’t very scary.
“Please, I don’t know who contacted me!”
The Queen moved forward, one clawed hand coming to tilt the assassin's head to the side. “Ah, but you took it anyway, knowingit was within my palace. It must have been a hefty bounty. I know of only two Houses who could afford a fee to tempt one such as you to breach my walls. Thank you, that will be all.”
She snapped his neck with as much effort as someone would tearing a piece of paper.
“You are one scary bitch, Imma. Seriously. I have chills, look!” I said, holding my sleeveless arm out to show my goosebumps off.
The Queen smiled at me with a tilt of her head, before her gaze sharpened on Rema. “It was either your House, or my sister’s. No one else could have come up with enough money to push an assassin of this particular skill set past his misgivings. Or perhaps they are working together. I will find out. Come, we have a dinner to eat, and I’ll not let an attempted murder ruin my cooks hard work.”
Chapter 14
Rema
Hot, churning rage boiledin his stomach. Someone in his House had ordered his Patty dead. They had come for what washis.She was precious to him, worthy of admiration and worship, and they had set to snuff out her life as if she was nothing. Before this week was done, Sira would be dead at Patty’s feet, her daughters with her. How dare they! How dare they harm her. For every drop of blood that she'd lost, they would pay it back tenfold.
“You okay there, big guy? Your emotions are tasting a little hot. And by hot, I mean like melting metal.”
Concerned, he looked down at her as they followed behind the Queen, who led them down the hall towards her personal chambers. They’d had to fly several stories up, and even holding Patty in his arms did little to calm his raging emotions. Even now, looking at her pinched face as she struggled with the tide of taste coming from him, he found it difficult to curb his anger.
“I am sorry, Patty. I am trying to calm myself.” He took several deep breaths, breathing in through his mouth and out his nose, counting as he did so to try and spare her the burden.
Her small hand touched his primary arm. “Hey, it’s okay, Rema. I’m fine. We’ll get them later.”
He covered her hand with his, moving it to the crook of his elbow to hold it there. “It is not okay, Patty. We have chosen each other, and they mean to harm you because you are different, and they disagree with our choice. If it is in fact my House, I’m sure they hope that with your death, I will choose someone they deem more suitable, as if I would just go along with their plans. The delusion runs deep, it would seem.” He bared his teeth at the air in front of him. “And if it is the Queen’s sister, this is merely revenge for rejecting her daughters’ courtships. A means to hurt me for the slight. Both are a petty, horrible reason to take someone's life. And I mean to punish them for it.”
Immainthe huffed over her shoulder at us.
“You will do no such thing. I will handle it. Now, enough of this. We are here to enjoy our dinner and each other’s company,” Imma said, pushing open a tall, narrow door.
When she stopped dead in her tracks, he almost ran into the closed expanse of her wings, barely managing not to step on any feathers.
“What—,” he started to ask, moving around her to get a look at what had brought her up short.
He too froze in shock while his mind struggled to register what he was seeing.
There were four dead bodies in the room. Two under the long peach colored dining table, as if they’d crawled there to die, intestines spilled out before them where they’d tried to scoop them back inside their bodies. Another body was splayed out on top, a knife still buried in their chest. And the last was being held aloft by Lyees, who stood at the head of the table, blood spatter marring her otherwise pristine white dress. The male she held gave a few last kicks in his death throes before falling limp in the air. Her clawed fingers were sunk into his neck under his jaw, letting all his life's blood drain down the front of his body onto the floor.
Dhenea turned her head to look at us. “They sent assassins to kill you, Imma.” She threw the body to the floor with force before stomping over to stand in front of her mate. “They dared! They came into our quarters— where ourchildrencould have been— with the sole purpose of taking you from me! Who was it? Their Houses are forfeit!”
She was screaming by the last words, her face twisted in fury. He’d never seen Dhenea as anything other than the sweet tempered mate to the Queen.
“Be calm, my love. I am well, and so are you. We will deal with this transgression when the time is right, I promise you,” Imma told her, gathering the vibrating Dhenea into her arms like she would explode at any minute.
