Someone had placed a purple paper heart on his chest.
BE MINEwas painted on the wall above him in dripping red letters. They'd used his blood as paint.
My nervous system shattered. It was as if a thousand glass butterflies had taken flight within me.
The two guards flanked him in death as they had in life.
Both had been gutted with their intestines spilled across the polished floor in wet, glistening ropes. Paper hearts had been tucked into their chest cavities.
Blood sprayed the walls in arterial arcs.
BE MINE.
Now those two words were everywhere—painted on the walls, on the floor, on the bodies themselves.
Valentine's Day in hell.
I gagged and stumbled back.
So much blood. The smell hit me—copper, bile, and the sweet-sick stench of death.
And underneath it, still, Rook's scent.
Pine, smoke, and musk, threading through the carnage.
Even through the gore, my body responded. Heat pooled. My nipples ached.
A shriek echoed from behind me. "THERE'S THE QUEEN!!"
I spun.
Three massive Gammas of the Broken Court rushed my way with wild eyes and their hands dripping in blood.
I ran.
"Don't hurt her!" one screamed. "She's for the Trickster only!"
Pure, animal instinct drove my legs forward, pushing me through the strobing red lights, past cells with open doors, past inmates wrecking the halls and screaming at me.
"The Queen!"
"Bless me!"
"Touch me, please!"
"ALL HAIL!"
Their voices blurred into a wall of sound. The alarms. The music. My own ragged breath tearing through my lungs.
My heart hammered so hard I could feel it in my throat, my wrists, between my legs—that swollen bundle of nerves throbbing with every pulse, reminding me that my body didn't care about survival.
My body wanted to stop running and go back to Rook.
Shut up!
A hand closed around my arm.
I screamed and spun, and there was a man—huge, bald, Diamond brand on his cheek—and his grip was iron, and he was grinning. "Got you, little Que—"
