Kicked.
Screamed until my throat was sore.
"Shhhh." A man's voice hit my ear. "Don't fight, Queen. You'll hurt yourself."
"Let me GO!"
"The Trickster wants you unharmed." He tightened his grip, and I could barely breathe or move. "We would never damage what belongs to him."
His scent was on them. All of them. Rook's pine and smoke clinging to their skin like a brand.
My body softened against my will. My inner walls clenched around nothing, desperate and aching, even as my mind screamed to fight.
No. Not now. Not with them watching.
But biology didn't care about dignity, and the words wouldn't come. My throat had closed. Terror, arousal, and exhaustion crashed together, and all I could do was shake.
Another figure approached. A thin Beta woman with kind eyes and steady hands.
She was holding a syringe. “Good job catching the Queen.”
"No." I tried to pull away, but the arms around me were iron. "Don’t stick me with that. Please don't—"
"It's just to help you sleep, Queen." She smiled like a nurse preparing a vaccination. "When you wake up, everything will make sense."
"Nothing about this makes sense!"
She got next to me and the needle’s end slid into my arm.
Cold.
Then warm.
Then nothing.
Oh. . .no. . .
The world went soft at the edges. The chanting faded to a distant hum.
The red lights blurred into smears of color, and my legs stopped working, and the arms around me were the only thing keeping me upright.
"All hail the Queen. . ." The words echoed, stretched, distorted.
And then, cutting through the fog, through the darkness, through everything was Rook's laughter. It poured from the speakers.
Rich.
Warm.
And utterly delighted.
What’s going to happen to me?
And then there was nothing at all.
Chapter four
The Game of Flesh, Blood, & Forgetting
