His Patty… always worried about everyone else but herself. Did he tell her that it felt as if there was a rabid animal currently pacing inside his mind, waiting to rip and tear the ones responsible for her harm? That he would seek retribution unto the end of time for not only the terrible injustice done to her for simply existing, but for the attack on a Queen who has only ever served her people and their best interests to the best of her ability, and for Dhenea, who befriends all, and tries to be kind whenever possible. Or should he tell her he was fine?
He watched her face, looking for a sign when her eyebrow raised. Ah, she could taste his emotions. Sometimes he forgot about that. Fine would not do, as he did not want to lie to her, and she would know if he did anyways.
“I want to kill them. Preferably painfully slow.”
Her approving grin made his stomach flop and a blush rise to heat his cheeks.
“You may well have that opportunity, Rema. But for now, let's play a little game,” Immainthe said, coming to her feet as the doors were opened by a disgruntled looking Sira, followed by her two daughters who darted nervous looks at the bodies just inside the door.
A tall figure stepped up behind the three females, imposing, but still less so than her elder sister. She was also not nearly as tall, and her lower set of wings were diminished, instead of full sized as her sisters were. She was pale ice to her sister's fire. Her wings were not the brilliant red of her older kin, but rather a sickly pink, as if all the color had been washed out, and the long expanse of her loose curls were brown, instead of the striking black of Imma’s. Her form was strong, though. She had a warrior's build, lean and ready for a fight.
Her face was not as severe as Imma’s, and her six eyes were more of a pale apricot. Her painted black lips were set in a fierce scowl as she surveyed the room.
He hadn’t seen Lady Sythia in many, many years. Not since the rejection of her daughters that resulted in the entire court turning against him, Imma and Dhenea the only exceptions. Lady Sythia had been incensed, bursting towards him in a flurry of feathers, intent on harming him until Imma intervened. Looking at the irritation written all over her face at only a summons, not much had changed for the female.
“Why have you summoned me, sister?”
He noted that she did not ask what had happened, or even if her kin was unharmed.
Immainthe gestured to the empty seats at the other side of the table. “Sit.”
Her tone brook no arguments.
Sythia swept into the room, ignoring the bodies and the blood, no matter that it stained the hem of her cream colored gown and the delicate fabric of her slippers, and took her seat at the end of the table. His aunt followed suit, her chin in the air and sat to Sythia’s left, with her daughters shuffling behind her, their eyes locked on the floor as they took seats next to their mother. Leaving them dangerously close to Dhenea, who watched them all with cool disdain. How she masked her emotions so well he’d never learned. His always seemed to parade across his face like a holovid, much to Patty’s amusement.
Patty was even now, watching him, her eyebrow raised and a teasing smile on her face. He could only shake his head at her. That she had lived such a life as to still smile after being attacked by someone sent to kill her was unacceptable to him. So, he glared down at her, earning a wider smile for his efforts.
“Why are we here?” Sira asked, interrupting his and Patty’s silent flirting.
Immainthe held up a single clawed finger from one of her primary hands in a quelling gesture. Her face blanked for a moment and then servants entered, carrying silver trays heavy with food. He was pleased to see that the dishes that he’d instructed not be served were absent from the presentation. Patty shouldn’t have to suffer through a meal with things she found distasteful, no matter how amusing her reaction was to some of the dishes.
Once the trays were dispensed on the table and the servants dismissed, Imma’s gaze turned cold and hard, much like the jewels her eyes resembled. “Pick up the plates,” she ordered.
Sythia stiffened. “What?”
Imma gestured her hand at the mess of plates and eating utensils scattered on the floor from Dhenea’s fight with the assassins, her thin black eyebrow raised. “Pick them up. We can’t very well eat off the bare table, now can we?”
His cousins, Kiltil and Eltith, rose from their seats with uncertainty, their eyes shifting from Immainthe to their mother as if waiting for further instructions on who to listen to. He felt a twinge of pity for them. They hadn’t had much of a choice growing up, stuck under the iron fisted control of their mother… and his. Neither of the Matriarchs in his House were kind, nor were they forgiving. His cousins had learned to be cruel, petty creatures from those who raised them. Still, what pity he felt for them was tempered by the fact that he too was raised by the same females… and he hadn’t let them turn him into what the humans called a dick.
“Pick. Them. Up,” the Queen growled through her clenched teeth, the muscles in her jaw jumping.
Kiltil and Eltith started, and then scurried around the table to start picking up the fallen utensils, while their mother and Sythia looked on.
“All of you will pick up, or I will break your fingers one by one until you lose the use of your hands, since you don’t want to use them.”
Sythia bared her teeth, rising slowly from her chair. “Very well,” she said, her voice a hiss of affronted anger.
Sira followed her, ever the puppet, and as a group they gathered the fallen plates, cups and silverware, setting each place correctly in front of them until the table was put to rights. Some of the cups were broken, or cracked, and most of everything was covered in blood. But we pretended not to notice as the Queen rose from her seat and began serving each of them in a methodical slowness.
Her sister did not meet her eyes again until Immainthe took her seat.
“Eat.”
Patty sighed in relief, not hesitating a moment to begin eating. Using mostly her hands to pick apart the meat on her plate,she ate with gusto, closing her eyes every few moments as she enjoyed each new flavor.
He’d been served a variety of plant-based foods, each dish prepared beautifully, but he wasn’t as keen to eat on plates covered in blood, so he watched the others. Dhenea and Imma were eating as if this was a normal dinner, while the group at the end of the table were staring at the blood as if it would come alive and devour them.
Which… judging by the slow way Imma was moving, like a predator biding its time, perhaps they were right to feel that way. He certainly felt like a caged animal sitting in a room with its prey, and told to sit still by a handler. His skin prickled, too tight for his bones, and his heart was beating faster than normal, generating heat that wicked off of him, dampening his clothes with the suppressed need to move.
